Jamopower

I found the Slann always much more survivable in 6/7th when he was not in an unit...

Shieldbearers should be quite obvious as the description in Forces of Fantasy doesn't match either the old king or Thorgrim Grudgebearer as it there are three bearers in the profile. Being that the game is from the same team as Middle-Earth, and there has been practically no releases for it for year or no, there should be some amount of resources dedicated for this release. Would be very surprised if the existing models for the core armies wouldn't be on the shelves quickly. At least all dwarves and beastmen that share models for ToW and AoS are currently out of stock in the GW webstore, which would support that something is happening.

Isn't there a special character model that would fit the bill?

I have also made earlier movement trays that have some models mounted directly on them to convert round models to square based games. Bit of a headache to transport, but looks nice (at least in the beginning of the game). No reforming though, which might be a quite big issue in this game.

I feel that infantry should be much better than it was earlier as all units are sort of semi-stubborn (you only properly break if you roll over your unmodified Ld), that means that the cavalry units usually can't get through an unit in a single round and remain stuck in the battle line to be counter charged to the flank. Also the saves are lower, but also the ap, so in most cases you still get at least some save. In some cases the charged unit can also strike first. This shoud mean that the combats can be much less predictable (= charging is more risky). I have played Swordpoint, which is a historical game based on Warhammer historicals, which has quite similar mechanic for breaking, and you really need to be careful where you charge and also sometimes winning combats can bea bad thing as well if your unit gets dragged out from the battleline when it floows up a retreating unit. Regards of Kislev. One of the first thing they teased for the game few years ago, was concept sketches for the new Kislev units, so it's pretty sure they will come at some point. I would expect the same release strategy to Middle earth (and Horus Heresy) that they publish campaign books that have additional scenarios, armies of infamy, new armies and units. Logical ones would be expansion for the north (Kislev, demons, norse dwarfs, etc.), expansion to east (Ogres, Chaos dwarfs, Cathay). expansion to west (Lizardmen, dark elves, amazons) and "Enemies within" type of expansion with skaven, demonologists and vampires.

~10 mm difference in total unit width is not that different than having lipped movement trays with the right sized square bases. That has never been considered an issue.

I feel that six wide (or even wider) could be a common size for many units as you only get 2 rank bonuses and attacking seems to be a lot more beneficial due to generally lower armour saves and static combat resolution. Then again, going too wide won't be good either as the units are so hard to manouver without pivot.

It's only logical that at some point of re-releasing the old games, they take the most popular of them all for new cycle. The time between is so long and the game so different that it's hard to see it anymore competing too much with AoS and the any new models are likely usable for both anyways. I expect similar product as the new version of LotR SBG. New starter box, some new character models here and there, all army lists in the same book and then campaign expansions.

Isn't the Apocalypse version of AoS called Warhammer Fantasy Battles?

Yes of course that as well, but that's something that doesn't show up in this kind of discussions so often as it's bit more of a personal disaster.

I agree, but would emphasis, that the power creep is not the intended end result, but merely a side effect when the main focus is just to bring out fresh rules. In most cases there is much underpowered content as overpowered, but for obvious reasons the overpowered part is what has a bigger effect on the overall gaming experience.

I find the Middle Earth SBG to be reasonably well balanced for a game like this. I have never felt that I have lost because of my list, but because of my opponent playing better than me, or that I have taken too big risks that have backfired (that some people like to call luck). Of course, I'm not aware of all the fine details from the tournament play as we mainly play it quite casually, but what I've looked at the big tournaments, the winning lists are very varied and "balanced", i.e. there's no spamming of one unit type in most of them. Maybe it has something to do, that the main game designer is one of the best competitive players in the game? In any case, it has very different feeling from playing any sort of Warhammer, where you often know after the deployment who will win. Both games are from the same company, so surely there are things that can be done differently. Of course, in MESBG, big part of the balance comes from pretty simple mechanisms. The game is very dependent on how you use your limited might points, where are your heroes and how you position the models and use your opportunities as the differences in statlines and special rules are quite minor compared to WH.

That's why I said that the other games are not so visible as the scenes are so different. People tend to play historical games at home or clubs and the players are spread so thinly that the brick and mortar stores don't have possibility to stock the models. Of course Games Workshop is so huge compared to anything else in this field, that the player amounts are totally different scales. But that doesn't mean that they don't exist or wouldn't be reasonably popular. It's also seen in how GW has restructured their business few years ago. For example Necromunda and Kill team/Warcry are ways to lure the skirmish players from Infinity, WHU an option for Guildball/X-wing players, Age of Sigmar has a Warmachine feel etc. And I would say that Lord of the Rings is a way to lure "traditional wargame" players. At least in our club, the same people who like to play Saga and the different Warlord games, also tend to play Middle-Earth. I do also believe that there is a difference in culture between Europe and US. But anyways, this is bit of a derailing from the original topic. Sorry about that.

I wouldn't say that. For example Warlord games are doing well with very traditional wargames (over 26 000 likes on their facebook page). The field is very varied at the moment. Warhammer of both varieties is of course the Giant, but in it's feet there are more mice than ever. It might just be hard to see as the scenes are different. I was recently organizing the largest gaming convention in Finland and when it used to be so back in the day, that there were 150 or so players playing in the Warhammer tournament (with FB and 40k alternating each year). We now have the same amount of players in tournaments, but there are 12+ different games.

IMO Morale (and command) should be one of the key attributes in a wargame. It's after all the reason for which the wars and battles are actually won in a real life. The way it was handled in 40k (pre 8th) and WHFB is the worst. Both had extensive rules for psychology, but essentially if your army was subject to them, it was a liability that in the worst case made the army not worth playing at all.

I believe Epic had a detachment based army building, where a detachment (of multiple units) activates at a time (might confuse the details, as it's been a long time I have played it) and the number of detachments is quite limited forcing the both players to have pretty even number of them. (I by the way hope quite eagerly that they would eventually reboot Epic.) But yeah, it would require quite heavy rewriting. I also like the current system as well. It's far better than what was in WHFB and what is in 40k, but maybe some sort of CP based system to break the turn order would be fun and could reduce the downsides. That said, I think one of the main advantages of the Age of Sigmar ruleset is how easy it is to tweak for your tastes (as can also be seen from all the expansions that GW releases themselves for the game). I can't see much problems house ruling the turn sequence to following: Roll of initiative Hero phase in initiative order for both players Activation phase where each player activates one unit at a time and moves, runs, shoots and charges with them (I would perhaps allow only two of the above in a turn and give a +1 to hit shooting if the unit doesn't move). The activation could be random (drawing markers from bag) or there can be passes, or players can be given playing cards for each unit that they put face down on the table and then the units are activated in ascending order by revealing the cards, or whatever the players fancy. Close combat phase as it is now. End step where players roll for battleshock, etc. then a new turn. The major difference on this would be that there are less close combat phases than normally, so maybe a second round of combat should be done to settle the ongoing combats after the first end step. The game would be quite different, don't know if it would be better or worse, but this kind of tricks give the players more "gaming value" out of their models. We played 40k this way for some time and it worked fine.

The player who has less models/units can pass the activation turn by the number of times the difference between the units is. So in case the other has 10 and the other 5, the player with less models can force the one with higher amount of models to activate the first five before he moves. My current favourite game is Saga, where players play the whole turn at a time, but the activation is more "free" in such way that you usually can't activate all of your units, but you might activate some of them for more times, for which they take fatigue, which is usually a bad thing. That way there is the strategic element of "double turn" in there, but it's not as crucial. Also there are reactions that you can do on the opponent's turn, such as cancel the opponent's actions in certain situations or move your own units on the opponent's turn etc. But everything is related to a resource that is fixed to a board situation. Sounds more complicated than it is, but it makes for a really fun and tactical game. I also like Lord of the Rings system, which is similar to AoS, but you can influence the initiative and break the turn order by might points, that are a limited resource. That gives more skill based element to the game by resource management instead of just risk management. I think command points could function in similar way in AoS.

That is the main problem with direct one at a time activation alternating between players. Typically this is avoided by allowing the player with less units to pass the activation. For example in The Batman miniature game, a match where one side has 10+ and the other has 3-5 models to activate works fine with the pass system.

Alternating activation (i.e. units/detachments move one at a time) games, that have some sort of variation such as chance to react to opponent's activation (such as in Infinity), a randomized turn order (such as in Bolt Action), possibility to continue activating units if you succeed in a roll (such as in Epic, Batman or the various Rampant rulesets) or a semi-random, where e.g. you have a set of cards drawn randomly and you can arrange them to influence which units you want to activate first and which last, tend to work pretty well. Still as alternating turns is a fundamental part of "Warhammer experience", I doubt that they will ever change it in their core games. Even when it starts to be quite an archaic way compared to newer games.

I'm not an expert of manufacturing, but I'm a process engineer. Just thinking about the system, if making one sprue takes about 15 to 30 seconds. If you run the machine for say, two hours you'll have already close to five hundred sprues and I believe it is not optimal to swithc the molds too often. Thus in a run you might realistically look at, say, thousand boxes of product. If you sell 200 boxes per year, it takes five years to empty to storage. So I would say that meaningful amount of sales must be in thousands of boxes.

The problem is not that single powerful units would be unbeatable. They are just incredibly boring.

This sounds very interesting. 1000 points is my sweet spot for this game. I agree with the unti sizes. I would even halve the minimum sizes and put the maximum to roughly twice per minimum size (so for example stormcast units would be 3 to 10 models). Having big units that you can "grease" with command abilities and spells make the games pretty boring.

I would be surprised if we don't get at least partly High elf based faction as they have always been popular and would most likely be something that many people want.

After preview of the Khorne book, which already is in the new format, it's pretty certain that all of the "1st edition" books will be re-released with endless whatever. Soulblight looks interesting. Hopefully they'll do some sweet, but not over the top vampires. There is always the potential of them being "Undead marines". The sylvaneth warband is a sure buy for me. I only have five and need eight for a Saga warband.

You used to get units of Halflings, Ogres and dwarfs in an Empire army. They were in the list, not allies.