RuneBrush

Just to steal the jam out of your doughnut on this line of thinking. We've had it confirmed that the AoS studio has absolutely no knowledge on what's being created by the Specialist Games studio. Now it is possible this has changed, but (at least initially), the plan wasn't to have cross-compatibility between game systems. The scale isn't quite the same. Classic WHFB was 25mm and AoS is Heroic 28mm. Some ranges (e.g. Cities, Seraphon) would still work - i.e. the armies that haven't had a range refresh, but others could look a bit off.

A warmaster game would have been amazing! I half thought that's what they might do at once point. One important thing to remember is that The Old World is being talked about as being similar to how Age of Darkness is to 40k. So, basically a historical game that will cover the many engagements and time periods that existed prior to the End Times. I believe we'll get a core rule book on how to play the game and then we'll have the equivalent of the Black Books - so a thick volume covering a specific time frame, memorable engagements and battles with rules for the main protagonists. I personally don't think we're going to get compendium books - if your army doesn't feature in the time frame of the first book you'll need to wait until the next book appears, in the same way as Space Wolves players had to wait until black book 6. It also wouldn't surprise me to see people's classic WHFB armies not fit into the new organisations in the way they used to either. What I do think though is that we may see some armies get interwoven into books that we might not expect - maybe one of the three emperors used Ogre mercenaries for example.

Personally, I'd not get your hopes up. Ignoring the base shape complication, I think The Old World may well stick with a more traditional 25mm scale and AoS is Heroic 28mm. Some armies may look fine in AoS (Cities of Sigmar), but others could look a little out.

I'm 99% positive GW recycle internally. HIPS plastic basically can just be shredded and go back into the plastics hopper - might need a wash first as I think they use release agent. Any mis-casts and left over sprues will likely get fed back into production like this - we've seen GW have big wheelie bins dotted around the company specifically for sprues in one of their videos which backs this up a bit. What GW likely won't have is the capacity to do recycling on an industrial scale.

I did hear a rumour that Cursed City may be getting a re-release next year - could well be nonsense though, so take it with a pinch of salt! The impression I think we all got was that there were expansions ready to go, so I'm not sure GW would want to shelve them if they could avoid it. I agree that the 2 Vykros characters look like they should be bosses, though somebody on here pointed out that they're not push fit, which would make it unusual to see them in an expansion. Who knows though 😁

They used to be in an S3 bucket, but that means you can't record the number of downloads of a file. Can't recall when but GW shifted it over to their store - it may be a simple forwarding mechanism and the files physically on S3 (it's how I handle invoices and ensuring you have to be authorised to download), but it costs for the bandwidth.

In basic terms it will be more costly. There's options that can be done to reduce that cost, as you say shoving them off onto WarCom with a nofollow link would be the simplest answer and likely the one I'd employ if I were making the decision. It wouldn't fix the potential bounce issue so some other solution might have to be put in place to mitigate that.

Going to give you my "professional" view here - for context I'm a web dev and responsible for a largeish ecommerce website. When it comes to ecommerce platforms, there's only one statistic that actually bears any weight - the conversion rate. This value represents the number of people who have come to the website and purchased something. Generally most sites achieve something between 1% and 5% conversion. Increasing the amount of traffic an ecommerce store has will actually decrease the conversion rate if they don't purchase anything. The underlying infrastructure of an ecommerce website is very costly, it needs fairly pokey database servers, fast http servers and various other supporting elements. By comparison a blog or forum doesn't need the same level of performance - if a reader has to wait an extra half a second for something it makes little difference, conversely a half a second delay on every page may cause a customer to give up and you've lost a sale. TL:DR Over time we've seen GW move things away from the main ecommerce platform - FAQs, legal bits, etc because they have a negative impact on the actual store. It doesn't surprise me to see Warscrolls go for these reasons. However from a personal perspective, moving them over to WarCom would have been the solution I would have gone for. As I've said previously, I think they do more good than harm because they provide a great way to look at units for potential purchases, helping people out etc.

+++ MOD HAT +++ Come on folks, it was only the last page I reminded you this is an AoS forum and not 40k... Like many hobbyists I'm a multi-systemer, but can we let up on the 40k pictures and discussion please and stick to the Mortal Realms?

+++ MOD HAT +++ Just a reminder please that we do have a no leaked picture policy on TGA and that we're AoS focused rather than 40k. We try to be fairly relaxed about most things, but there's nothing worse than having a surprise spoiled by somebody posting up a potato quality photo of something when you were really looking forward to the official reveal.

Feels like a long time since an update - well that's because it has been a long time! Life has been somewhat manic and found I've only really had a few hours hobby time each week to properly crack into things. I am happy to say though that on Thursday I managed to finish off most of my skeletons! Watch Captain Halgrim still needs the stone pillar painted and his hair, but I've not worked out how to do the stone pillar yet 🙄 Here's a potato photo - I will at some point get some better pictures!

The short answer to this is no. The competitive part of AoS is likely smaller than the other parts - what it does have is the most screen time and some of the loudest voices. There are a huge number of games played by people in the privacy of their homes that we never hear about. I think one of the biggest issues that the 3 ways to play actually causes is when people view the ways as immutable. Over the past 20 years gamers have become less inventive with the rules and more focused on the "right and wrong" way to play. I can remember "playing" 40k with a mate when I was in my teens - we got most of the rules wrong, only had a dozen models a piece and the terrain was a bedroom carpet with books and socks. It was some of the best gaming ever because we'd discuss how things should work and make up stuff because it felt "right". Little bit of A, little bit of B 😊 I think broadly speaking we need to raise the profile of narrative gaming. That includes things like streamed coverage at narrative events and showing that running a narrative game doesn't really require any more effort than a matched play game - just giving your heroes names is normally enough to give that attachment to your army.

+++ MOD HAT +++ Just a reminder, this thread is about highlighting our own unpopular opinions on AoS, it's not an opportunity to attack each other if we disagree. Not impressed. Also as a polite "suggestion", let's drop the double turn discussion. It's a hugely polarising topic and we all need to accept that its a subject not everyone will agree with. It doesn't need another justification on why your view is the right one.

I don't like named characters in normal sized games

To clarify - raking it in isn't the same as making a few quid for your efforts and I wasn't suggesting organisers should be running events and be out of pocket for it. The reason I made the comment is because there have been examples in the past where TO's have basically run an event as a purely money making exercise to line their own pockets - that's normally been accompanied with minimal effort with poor scenery combined with the event not being that well run. In short they were focused on cash rather than delivering an event - and that type of organiser will actually do more harm to events in the long run. As I pointed out I'm more than happy to pay £60/65 for an event - the vast majority of events I've been to would have easily been worth that, probably even more. I'd also be more than happy for the TO to have had that in their pocket.

Think my views are similar to a few others. Within an army, for me the level of detail on a miniature reflects the "level" of that miniature within my army. A green, rank and file scrub should have a fairly basic appearance - largely uniform with the people in their unit. As I get to more elite units, I'd expect a bit more personalisation and detail to reflect that they're more experienced and more valued, right up to my general who should have loads of details, horns and bling on. It's a bit like in a computer game you'll start off in a cloth shirt and threadbare trousers, but at endgame have a really ornate set of armour, covered in filigree. That's not to say an undetailed miniature should be bland, but they shouldn't be covered in intricate bits and bobs. My ideal balance would be a unit of ten basic troops should take as long to paint as a character.

I did type out a long and waffly post, which didn't really contribute much. As a consumer I'd happily pay £60/65 for an event. I wouldn't expect a TO to make a loss - but also wouldn't expect them to make a massive profit (making money to invest in future events isn't profit). For that money I'd like to think that I'll get a decent venue (i.e. bright and airy rather than dark and dingy), some kind of "shop" where I can purchase bottled water at a sensible price, some kind of food either in the venue or just outside. Ideally there would be some kind of "freebie" too - movement gauge, dice etc - basically an event memento so that you come away with "something" that only attendees would get. I'd also happily pay an additional £15/20 to add a lunch into the equation for two days. What I will say (and this is controversial) is that running an event isn't a job - albeit it is a massive amount of work. As with many similar items across hobbies it's an unpaid and often thankless task that is undertaken as a contribution to the overall community. It'll consume huge chunks of the organisers life and often require an upfront cash investment, that's without mentioning that significant others will often step in and help out. What I do feel is that the players do need to recognise this commitment and take every opportunity to make the organiser's life as straightforward as possible. Events are put on for the participants enjoyment and not for the TO to rake in the cash.

Arrrrr

+++ MOD HAT +++ Not impressed with the tone this thread has taken, please pull it back on track and stop arguing with each other.

Not sure your comparison is quite right here although I think the message you're conveying has some truth to it. The basic concept of Torghast in WoW was great on paper, but wasn't really finished, it was then used as the only mechanism of gaining a specific "currency" which every end level character needed to gain specific gear. Some of the issues were that it provided a different level of challenge for different character types and was highly random - generally a run takes 30~45 minutes but for some characters would take double that time (and less for others). In short it was a tedious bore. Torghast has been changed though and now has a score board that tells you how well you did each level (plus reduced the number of levels by 1), this adds some incentive to run it again. So why am I saying this - quite simply because half of the reason it was boring was because you were doing it on your own, from the instance that a friend and I started doing runs together (you both get full rewards at the end), the enjoyment factor went through the roof and even more so now that there's a score board - you get a bit of competition between you plus that co-op experience. The key point is turning that by turning the experience into a social one we made the experience significantly more enjoyable. So, bringing this back to AoS. Path to Glory is a great system, it's a lovely way of allowing a general to add some real character to their army, layering in loads of flavour and personalisation. It provides a reason for playing beyond just having a laugh with some friends. It's also entirely optional - it's been cleverly created so that you can play a non PtG game against an opponent and the outcome will still influence your PtG army! I completely agree that forcing a group to play Path to Glory isn't the way to engage them, but this is why the system is basically an optional layer you can (or not) use. Encourage people to do it and you'll increase the variety of games on offer - it won't be everybody's cup of tea, but that's fine. As an aside, I personally would suggest not to fix games at specific points sizes (or play styles). If somebody appears at a club and goes "here's my army" and it translates into 450 points worth of models, it simplicity itself to pick 450 points out of a larger existing army and play three of four quick games - there are loads of battle plans that are much more enjoyable at smaller point sizes. Don't be tempted to borrow models to boost that person's army to 1k because it basically says "your army isn't good enough", equally don't turn the person away or make them face a 1k force. In fact I'd even go so far as to say, that the best way to learn the rules is playing smaller point sized games, I've seen numerous people appear at a club with a brand new massive 2k army and basically struggle to remember the core rules let alone the plethora of additional rules that comes with that number of units. Those are the people who are likely to go "nah, not for me" because they get half a game in an afternoon and didn't really enjoy the experience. As with anything the more you practice the more you learn - you learn more quickly playing 3 small quick games than one long drawn out one. The TL:DR is that the key is getting people rolling dice and enjoying the experience. Leagues, tournaments (and competitive matched play), etc should be looked at as "end game" content, they're a goal to aim for - if that's what they want to do. Building a gaming community is primarily about laying a foundation where people feel comfortable to appear and play games.

My comment was only referring to signing an NDA for free toys. The subject of unethical contracts with employers and employment law in general is a much bigger subject and probably not something that any of us are qualified to talk about (and debatably should occur outside the context of a hobby forum). I can only speak for myself, but if I were presented with an NDA to sign in exchange for let's say a load of Chaos Dwarf pre-release models or a new Undead faction's battletome, I'd be contacting a solicitor to give it a once over before I signed it and explain to me any legal implications that could affect me. Not discounting everything that's been said on this thread or the opinions of some experts who have looked at it - but I'd rather enlist my own expert as my circumstances may well be different to others.

As a random aside - after washing, if you give your resin models a coat of clear sealer (I use Plastikote), this cuts through any release agent and also inhibits any hydrophobic properties of the resin itself. You can then undercoat like normal.

Completely this. Regardless of if it's this NDA or a different one, you're being asked to sign a document to receive some early release models/books. It's completely voluntary, you can choose to go "no thank you" if you don't wish to agree to the terms.

Think this could be a really interesting topic. Like you say, art is pretty subjective so it's always interesting to see what miniatures make other people excited and why! The appeal of GW miniatures for me is multifold in truth. A big portion of the reason I stick to Citadel is I know what I'm going to get - I understand how the plastic behaves, what I need to do in order to hide joins, tidy mold lines and so on. I've quite often found when I've gone to other manufacturers, there's part of me that's been disappointed in some way - the sculpt isn't quite as crisp as I'd like, the model looks amazing but is fragile and in some cases the plastic is that weird soft rubbery stuff that you can't sand/file. From the perspective of "world best", it varies. I don't think you can beat some third party manufacturers for one off pieces like busts. The quality is superb and often need very little effort to tidy up - they are expensive though, you can happily sink £30~40 for a 55mm Scale75 bust. For a coherent plastic army, I do think GW constantly performs at the front of the pack. There's a lot of cross over between painters and sculptors that other manufactures don't have, which means models are enjoyable to paint as well as looking good. Now I do feel that other manufacturers are starting to catch up, but they're not there for things like ease of assembly and army wide aesthetics. Ask me again in 5 years on the 3d printing question. Although there's some stunning sculpts being created and printers are constantly improving, I think there is also a huge amount of dross out there. I'm also not sure that the quality is quite there at the scale we want either.

+++ MOD HAT +++ One for aosfaq@gwplc.com I feel 😉