Greybeard86

I seem to remember the case of a possible playtester selling chorfs right before they were axed in AoS 2 (?). But maybe I am misremembering. They might indeed provide a lead

And this is precisely what GW is using to charge you so much. For GW corporate, the lore is simply product differentiation that enables higher margins. Until someone realizes that there are a ton of not-teclis elf mages that look at least as good (oftentimes better, though looks are subjective) at a fraction of the price. So, you could play Teclis, based on the lore, with a different sculpt and thus have your cake and eat it (and not look like the other 30k teclins clones on the tabletop). That is, until some genius starts attempting to enforce WYSIWYG because "you must be able to identify minis in a nanosecond by looks" in a game that takes hours long with no physicial / dexterity component. Of course GW has an interest in keepings things this way. At this point some people are falling for the illusion over reality. Snap out of it. Not-Teclis can be as cool as Teclis, the lore is not the miniatures, but the imagination. If GW wants to keep selling all those Teclis, they should be competing in value with others (either prices or quality) not in legal prowess (how many companies I can prevent from being to close to teclis and its aelves or orruks or duardin). The same could be said about the rules. You do NOT need GW pricier-than-gold rulebooks that get outdated constantly to play in GW universes.

On GW’s control over prices: They have market power, there is zero doubt about it. Market power is bad not because they “make more money” but because prices are above the competitive level and that drives consumers out. Those are consumers that would be able to participate in a competitive market that won’t because the company is using their market power to play with prices. This is just textbook IO economics. The ability GW has to raise prices is related to the price elasticity of demand, which in turn is connected to the low competitive pressure they face. Higher prices may result in consumers switching to other producers, but GW stands a giant compared to smaller companies. It has been debated to death and we find examples of this in the comments (buying other games/minis feeling like a waste due to fewer players). It affects everyone, including people who paint and presumably want an audience to like their instagram posts or buy their painted minis. What can we do as consumers? On our own, practice impulse control (no pile of shame) and little else. It is hard to introduce new games in a local community and not everyone wants to make that effort. It is precisely as a community that we can do better. Organizing our on your tournaments (instead of letting stores and GW run the scene) and allowing for better representation of 3rd party minis (a la kings of war) would go a long way. Sharing schemes for rule books. Or even adopting 3rd party rules while still playing warhammer universes (e.g one page rules). All of the above would erode the market power GW has, curve its worse impulses, and make for a larger hobby community. Some people think that a strong GW is needed for a strong hobby. Nothing furthest from reality. An excessively dominant GW is bad for the hobby in the same way that it’s been shown for almost every other market.

Possibly a corsair. But I would love for wanderer + kurnothi to develop into an animal based sylvaneth army, worshipping Kurnoth.

This was very interesting to read, thank you for taking the time. However, I think that lack of specialization is bigger than modular v. linear design. Yes, that is a problem in AoS, given that many armies encourage you to go the linear route. That said, at the end of the day if one unit can fit too many roles, then both modular and linear based designs result in spam. Because while modular would give you flexibility, you won't use it because you will take whatever is best, given that it is "universally" good. The more a unit is good or close to "best" at "many things", the more limited army composition will be. Add to this the very prevalent linear design in AoS and you get these monocromatic armies. Ultimately, this is a design choice. As someone has said around here, GW truly thinks this is what players want. Since I do not, I ignore their rules and paint whatever I want for my "display" armies (variety and ressemblance to my idea of lore). However, they lost me as a "player" and whatever money I might have spent to that end.

Much like others have said, dragons are the symptom of a bigger problem in AoS. There simply isn't enough diversity in roles across AoS units. Whether this is because of the suppression of S/T, spill over damage, or other reasons is still up for debate. Given this, whenever a unit stands out in efficiency, it gets spammed without consequence. Rule of 3 approaches would only be a bandaid. The game would be more fun if there was a reason to bring armies with more variety. My impression is that at some point some GW decision makers said: "wouldn't it be awesome to have an all slayers / dragons / giants / whatever army?". Probably inspired by strongly thematic armies that were put together by enthusiastic players. Then they forgot that those armies where cool because they were a deviation from a more varied norm, and that oftentimes they weren't very competitive. As a result, now we have, for AoS, contant releases of new armies with narrow ranges and strong rule support for spammy compositions. That is not my cup of tea and I have mostly abandoned AoS as a gaming system (I just paint the miniatures). I wonder how many people are put off my all dragons or all eels and similar things. That doesn't make for a good wargame, IMO.

My impression is that some people ignore those, to an extent; sometimes due to not playing that competitively (i.e. not recognizing the importance of some of the strategic elements you cite). Army books seem to have more weight in changing perceptions.

My hopes disappointments for 2022. Now that Whitefang has shattered my dreams...

Indeed. I think that how hard they are to paint does determine support. As a starter faction, something one could dry-brush (hence armor), collect quickly (elite smaller armies), and have broad appeal (big stronk "good enough" heroes) makes the most sense (see space marines). That said, the extent to which one pushes that faction over others is more controversial. Personally, I think both 40k and AoS have suffered from excessive concentration. I feel that, setting the discussion on what went wrong more generally aside, WHFB was better in that regard, with several "popular" factions (dwarves, empire, orcs). My hopes for 2022: Big monsters for IDK (crabs, kraken). Kurnothi (centaurs, satyrs). New "traditional" dwarves (within soup or not). Some cross-compatibility with TOW.

I think everyone agrees on the principles (internal and external balance, fluffy and fun), but we may disagree on the relative importance and on whether the extent to which they are met with current battletomes. Personally, I think that both internal and external balance are pretty bad at the moment; some books are worse than others in that regard. I think GW uses a "rotating spotlight" approach to balance, which I personally dislike. The idea, very much present in video games, that we need "metas" for things not to become to stale and thus lose interest. Thus, we have purposely good units and armies that keep changing over time. I also believe that GW uses a "system mastery" approach to design, whereby there need to be "mediocre choices" so that informed players pick "good ones". Magic has a more open policy in that regard, and I think that many of the design principles they have apply to GW's games. Both the "rotating spotlight" and "system mastery" philosophies push us towards tomes with bad internal balance. External balance suffers relatively more from "rotating spotlight".

I feel that current release schedules and army variety are a reflection of distinct eras of business planning. As has been said before around here, I believe that initially they planned to release one shot and done small armies (like war bands) and simply keep adding new armies with some limited rule support (at least for a while, then maybe legends) for early armies. current armies like lumineth break that approach. I believe that’s because they no longer want to go the planned obsolescence route. However, this leaves a lot of awkward armies with no planned development. As we know product development cycles take years, this means that those armies dont really have a a spot in the cycle to get an expansion. At least not without distorting development plans that might span 5+ years. all that to say that unless buyers push hard on GW (e.g. not gobbling down new armies) it seems unlikely that some of the older armies will get much love.

Alternatively, is it possible to show posts per month? Cumulative is nice but as the poster above me says it reflects also lifespan. there is the question of what exactly are we trying to measure, too. Suppose a new wave of models is released (e.g. lumineth) and posts boom. After a while, people have painted and poster their collections and typically expansions of their armies (and thus posts) will come slowly. Is an army popular if many people have it in the closet or if many new purchases are happening? from a marketing/sales standpoint, both are interesting, but again it depends on what you want to measure. as players, I think that the better measure is current posts per day/month. It gives a sense of the current level of excitement over an army.

Pretty much. Honestly, the box is full of meh. It would be more exciting if at least it included existing beasties such as the magmas and any of the idoneth monsters. As is, it is just infantry and two very marginal foot heroes. I was planning on buying it to beef up those collections (granted, provided that it had exciting minis) but now I won't.

But why? What would be the goal of adding S/T?

I am hoping for two heroes and then two additional "cavalry" options: crabs and something fire something.

Pretty much this. While in principle it would be possible to distinguish unit roles enough so that spam wouldn't be desirable just with the current stats, in practice it isn't the case. Again, there are many ways to represent this without adding S/T, but somehow GW doesn't seem to know how to do it properly. Which leads to a less nuanced gameplay, for my taste. S/T makes it far easier to create unit roles (anti-horde, anti-heavy as a parallel to AP/AT), so that's why many (myself included) advocate for it. However, beyond the specific way in which it is added, the key question is whether one wants such unit differentiation or not. To draw an analogy to video games: do we want to be able to shoot the tank down with rifles (command and conquer), or do we want to require (close combat series) specialized AT (bullets bounce off tanks)? Once this fundamental question is answered, then we can look into how that can be achieved (how many stats do we need in the spreadsheet, game mechanics).

Pretty much this, it was so refreshing but widely inconsistent with recent narratives. I imagine some of the newer recent players must be astonished, given the recent heroic portrayals of the whole empire thing. no bit of information whatsoever about kurnothi?

WH30k is a very ambitious project with what, at least from outside perspective, looks like no true backing. It was marketed a bit like the "wargame" version of 40k, for "adults", with "more realistic rules", yet a bigger focus on "thehobby and lore". Also, more expensive than 40k and based (mostly) on resin. While some elements of WH30k appeal to me, I am not sure I'd want TOW to follow it too much. The resin and prices get old fast, as do the lack updates.

Or just give high rend to magic attacks, and potentially add a "magic" ward save for certain creatures if need be. Why exactly are "mortals" needed?

I apologize since I couldn't summarize what others were saying. I agree 100%. What made warhammer so iconic was, IMO, the fact that it was: satire of sci/fantasy a bit more grounded on history (as opposed to fantasy, which gave it a more solid foundation) had elements of political satire still "serious" enough to engage in "deep" word building Others have described this as "punk nerd" or something similar, which I really like. It all had a bit of an ironic flavor, as if the narrator had an ironical smile while telling you the story. I think this unique combination is what gave it the "edge" over other settings, as it has something beyond the stereotypical "paladin lvl 200 with dragonkiller sword" that is ridiculed so often. I apologize if I haven't read enough about them, but stormcast seem like warcraft paladins to me; cartoony gaming inspired archetypes designed to be easily painted (drybrush armor). And I don't mean this as an attack on those who like them! Right now, I am missing bits of most of these 4 elements. It seems that, like others said, it takes the fantasy both too seriously (as in straight up I should not laugh and what I am being told) and too lightly, in a way I don't like. When I read about Roboute Guilliman as the saviour of the empire, which is a flawed but ultimately noble thing, I can't help but be surprised. The empire had never been touted as a good thing, there weren't "good" and "bad" things in 40k, it was pretty awful all around. And too lightly, because by losing its "historical" core, it is now much harder to ground. As others have said, it seems to me that before warhammer was looking outwards for inspiration AND commentary, and now it just looks inwards. The parody (also been said here), if it still exists, is at most of warhammer itself.

Kragnos is truly a Kurnothi who is just a bit confused.

I actually do like Lauka Vai, enough that I bought her. It is horrifying, the stuff of nightmares, and I think that having some elements of that kind of horror in the faction is fine. 100% in agreement. And I strongly dislike dragon princes 😜 To me, those kind of designs are immersion breaking, like elves in the lord of the ring movies (are elves automatons?), or those anime zodiac knights. Black knights are golden in my eyes, as they do look like old knights re-awakened, for the most part. I would love for vampires knights to follow this a bit more, except that they wouldn't have rusty armors, but rather decayed but very fancy armors (and maybe some dark magic element here and there). Vampire knights (aka blood knights) should be old knights who are turned and continue their quest for martial proficiency. See for example: "The Knights of Irrana were a mortal order of Estalian knights until their grand master concluded that the techniques of Abhorash far outstripped those of Myrmidia and brought his whole unit into the darkness to join him". That is why I bought a ton of black knights that I wanted to convert with old bretonnia sculpts (though metal ones are notoriously difficult to work with, in that regard, and I wanted to use errant knights). When bretonnia gets its release, I might buy some plastic kits to do this project. Again, I understand mind is an unpopular opinion, but happy to have a thread for them

Yes to African inspired factions, but from a place of pride and respect; we all know what went wrong the first time. Also, please allow for some cross compatibility with AoS. There are multiple Minos that could have a home in both systems. Related, approach basing more like KoW and less like greedy Scrooges. Enough of cramming a million figures without space to sell more minis: 1 to 1 is a terrible representation, units should feel like a dynamic abstraction regiments. If this is a battles game, take that seriously and don’t try to monetize that aspect to the point of what we saw in 8th edition. I said this is related to AoS cross compatibility because a known problem is ranking AoS figures with dynamic poses.

I don’t see the point of discussing whether some subreddit is mean to this or this other group. If someone crosses a line here, report and move on. It is not like moderators aren’t active around here. I am starting to get the impression that some want to fight some proxy war using some outside strawmen. No need for passive aggressiveness, go be aggressive aggressive in the multiple echo chambers that allow for that to go unmoderated. Unpopular opinion: The soulblight release is a mixed bag. Some miniatures are really good (new skellies, hybrid vampire lord, wolves, bats), but others suffer from excessive “gamefication”. The worse are, IMO obviously, blood knights. I think that having a more grounded look spiked with fantasy elements lends credibility to the miniatures, whereas going full on crazy just makes it look more like a toy than a representation of something. Another example of this is the vampire lord with the crazy hair.

AoS has abused the otherwise interesting concept of thematic armies. Oftentimes lists don’t look like armies and are just very spammy (3x units of whatever is meta), including the very odd multiple centerpieces and 2 units of chaff lists. Fyreslayers could have been find within a dwarf roster but alone suffer from overuse of excessively samey design schemes. AoS was set up as a skirmish game and has morphed into army level clashes, yet rules remain distinctively skirmish. Too many different factions have been released and some are now sort of unsupported. I could go on