I know it's a bit odd to see a post about Warhammer on this page but must comment immediately!
After all the rumors, buzz, hype and hubbub has finally climaxed with the release of the Age of Sigmar we can now definitely see what's up.
First off I'll tell you exactly what they did, they gave everyone exactly what they wanted, what they have been saying for years that they wanted and what their buying dollars have been saying for years they wanted.
Number 1 skirmisher game
If you look at games workshop sales Warhammer 40k has been outstripping Fantasy battle for years. People like skirmish games more these days. Loose units and formations and measuring range from the miniature not the base.
The biggest competitors of Fantasy battles went this way a while back so...
Cool, here's a fantasy version of 40K. It's a skirmisher game.
Even the miniatures are more like the popular marines etc of 40k. People like that look more, fine here you go.
Number 2 all those books
People have been complaining ever since 4th edition about the army books. Too many books, new books every addition, too many rules, to many rulebooks. Separate books for Magic too?
New edition to balance all those new army books, new army books to balance those rules?
Need to rebuy miniatures every time there's a new army book or rules update?
Cool, free rules are now online. And all the armies and figures rules too. Have stuff from old armies, cool, we've got rules for those too. All free just like you wanted.
Number 3 too many miniatures required to play warhammer, too much cost
Old versions of Warhammer required you to buy large amounts of rank and file troops to field and army. People loved the armies but didn't like paying for all the models.
Cool, well people who still like rank and file can use those but you other guys can field either way less models or only buy the cool hero guys. Hey look the rules are written to allow you guys to play together and you can all still take part in tournament play.
Games workshop did exactly what you wanted
If you don't like the way warhammer changed then look no further to place blame than the fans of warhammer. Not Games Workshop.
Those people who loved the world and stuck with it because the background world is still awesome. The way they played and they way they bough led to this.
For all of those who like the old warhammer (that's me) we still have our mouldering 3rd edition books and we can gather and play our Oldhammer games.
For those who are totally down with the new game (that's me) I'm going to go print off those new rules and play this new game. I've already got minis, just need to print of 10 pieces of paper to play this awesome new game. For free.
Spend your money on minis
If you want to continue to see warhammer thrive then revel in the fact you can spend money on miniatures instead of rules. Games workshop is a miniature company now and when you get right down to it they are awesome miniatures, look great, assemble great, paint great. And now no big buy in for rules to play.
~Ripley
For me, Age of Sigmar is the nail in the coffin of new GW stuff. I'm done. Like you, I'm a WHFB 3e guy and felt like GW walked away from the true path a long time ago when they stripped out creativity, individuality and player agency from the game. Really, Age of Sigmar looks like Yet Another Skirmish game, one that I don't expect GW to keep around for a long time. If they wanted a solid skirmish game, why not bring back Mordheim? That's an existing IP they already owned and they wouldn't have to start kicking out all these shitty-looking new models (sorry peeps, but those things are atrocious, at least the ones I've seen so far) but could keep their existing design aesthetics. Nope, kick that shit out.
ReplyDeleteMe, I'm looking forward to Frostgrave; it couldn't be coming at a better time for disenfranchised WH refugees.
For me age of Sigmar is not warhammer, at all. It will be a good way forward for games workshop but warhammer was long dead to me already so I don't mourn it's passing and think that age of sigmar it could be it's own cool thing. Like when I used to throw down heroscape now and then with the kids, it wasn't warhammer but it scratched the itch and people would play it.
Deleteagreed on 3rd edition for sure, I actually used to play 2nd edition before getting ahold of 3rd and man it was like the world opened up.
As for mordheim I literally just, as of this morning, started scouring the net for remaining files (I miss you speacialist games) to tack it onto another long gone gem Mighty empires.
I always thought the two were a match made in heaven since it meant you could actually field quick battles to resolve the mighty empires battles.
Years ago I even made up a mordheim version of the tiles to create a mighty empires version of mordheim. Game play was basiclally the same as mighty empires with a bunch of mordheim flavour tacked on.
Found the tiles last weekend and thought I would start working on the project again..
Funnily enough Frostgrave (from the five seconds I just looked at it now) seems to be a nice mordheim replacement but without all the spooky darkness. I will dutifully ignore it for now since the Sorcery issue must come out at some point and I don't need another distraction (must...resist...cool looking...skirmish game)