So no one's posted anything here for a week?

[Cutter]

Encouraging.

[Mr Mystery]

Your point being?

[Cutter]

Your point being?

I'm encouraged.

Yours?

[Mr Mystery]

Just a whiff of confirmation bias is all.

There's activity on the existing threads after all. And prior to End Times, this part of the forum was D.E.D.

[Caitsidhe]

Just a whiff of confirmation bias is all.

There's activity on the existing threads after all. And prior to End Times, this part of the forum was D.E.D.

I read once that a cadaver will pass gas now and then too. You must have a finer view of this place Mr. Mystery because it looks about the same amount of dead to me as it looked prior to the End Times. We could go and count posts. I'm willing to bet there isn't a significant change between the number of average posts prior to the brief End Times spike and now. :D

It would also be interesting to do a pie chart of the people involved in what few posts that do exist in this section. I think that would be rather illuminating too. :D

[Mr Mystery]

There'd be a fair count of people who said they wouldn't enjoy it before it was released saying they don't enjoy it, and suggesting those who enjoy it for it is are somehow shills and stooges, and not people with their own opinion and that.

I'd put money on that.

[Caitsidhe]

There'd be a fair count of people who said they wouldn't enjoy it before it was released saying they don't enjoy it, and suggesting those who enjoy it for it is are somehow shills and stooges, and not people with their own opinion and that.

I'd put money on that.

Perhaps but it still seems to just be you and me doing most of the talking. :D This entire little exercise has been Games Workshop remaking the film, "Weekend At Bernies". They took something dead and made a big deal about taking it out of the building to convince people it was still alive. Ostensibly this was to try and divert attention so nobody would think THEY killed it. Then they dressed the same dead thing up in all new clothes and walked it around for awhile to keep up the pretense. In the film, they even had an ex-girlfriend come in for some necrophilia and unknowingly say "he was never better". Lo and behold we have had a few people say that in the remake also. :D

The problem is you can only pretend someone/something isn't dead for so long before people figure it out and you have to come clean.

[Morgrim]

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but the entire forum has been quiet for the last few days. I'm not sure if this means there is some big seasonal thing on overseas, or just a natural lull. It happens. Give it a week or two longer before you start crowing.

[nsc]

I would say the lack of posts here is reflection on the community, not the game. I'm more worried about how many games are played at my store than how many posts these threads get.

40k had one game, Age of Sigmar had well over 20, and that was Saturday alone.

You can monger about which game is better, which game is dead, whether WHFB ending was bad or not, but all I care about are whether I can play games and have fun. Maybe my store is dramatically and radically different from all the rest, but I don't care. I've got awesome fantasy models, great opponents, and amazing games.

We're humans, we're hobbyists, there's no military oaths binding us to games, play what you like, but don't attack me for playing what I like, after all I can just as easily return to my historicals and ignore 28mm all together.

I don't feel the need to create threads here as there a number of people who wander into the sigmar forums for no purpose other than to insult the game, there are between 50 and 250 posts a day to the age of sigmar facebook group, which is very aggressively moderated. Another place I follow has over 400 sigmar posts a day. One of my private clubs has about 20-40 sigmar posts a day. This one place, has a lull in posts for the week.

Is it because the game isn't popular? Or is it because a selection of caustic personalities infest the site?

[Auticus]

Most of the people that I know that are playing AoS with us in our campaigns don't ever post on internet forums because they got tired of being trolled every day for being shills. Heck we even got someone sending us an email wishing cancer on us for supporting GW and planning an AoS campaign because it sends GW the message that people do enjoy the product which we shouldn't do for some reason.

As NSC posted above, I'm in a few FB groups as well that have a lot of traffic. I'm not surprised forums don't get much AoS traffic because the feeling is that on any general wargaming forum there are a few people ready to pounce on anyone that has anything positive to say so largely don't bother going to forums anymore.

Over the weekend we had 12 people in our GW store prepping for our AoS campaign and we have 25 signed up for the event, had an active hobby day where one person was putting an entire chaos fortress together, and in general it was a fun time - so thats really also all that I care about.

[Caitsidhe]

Most of the people that I know that are playing AoS with us in our campaigns don't ever post on internet forums because they got tired of being trolled every day for being shills. Heck we even got someone sending us an email wishing cancer on us for supporting GW and planning an AoS campaign because it sends GW the message that people do enjoy the product which we shouldn't do for some reason.

As NSC posted above, I'm in a few FB groups as well that have a lot of traffic. I'm not surprised forums don't get much AoS traffic because the feeling is that on any general wargaming forum there are a few people ready to pounce on anyone that has anything positive to say so largely don't bother going to forums anymore.

Over the weekend we had 12 people in our GW store prepping for our AoS campaign and we have 25 signed up for the event, had an active hobby day where one person was putting an entire chaos fortress together, and in general it was a fun time - so thats really also all that I care about.

Sending you hate email is just downright silly. :D The only AOS games I play are the ones testing out your rules Auticus. They help a great deal. It isn't entirely enough though. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. You have managed to make a very functional purse out of it though.

What I've noticed is people using their old Games Workshop armies in other games. I've seen a great deal of that. Running neck in neck have been people making up their own rules and playing games mixing and matching different models. AOS and 40K have taken heavy hits in our area. The old models are being used but there is some serious experimentation going on in other systems.

[40kGamer]

Sigmar seems to still be doing better than WFB locally so that's something I guess. More concerning for me is that while 40k is still doing better than any one game, it is no longer doing better than all the other games combined... which is actually a big drop off for 40k.

[Auticus]

Sending you hate email is just downright silly. :D The only AOS games I play are the ones testing out your rules Auticus. They help a great deal. It isn't entirely enough though. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. You have managed to make a very functional purse out of it though.

What I've noticed is people using their old Games Workshop armies in other games. I've seen a great deal of that. Running neck in neck have been people making up their own rules and playing games mixing and matching different models. AOS and 40K have taken heavy hits in our area. The old models are being used but there is some serious experimentation going on in other systems.

Thanks :) I've got my own wargame rules I want to push but waiting for a good way to do so. Without a proper "company" it would be dead in the water. Working on a PC game to fix that :)

[Erik Setzer]

Personal anecdotes, yay! Locally the fantasy scene's looking at other games and the poor GW store is in bad shape because 40K has been wearing people down like WFB did, and AoS was given a chance and found extremely lacking, so now there's just a small number of people, who mostly seem to be doing multiplayer battles that never get finished.

There are also some of us who have valid opinions disagreeing with various things about AoS, who get assaulted by the pro-AoS crowd who are just as much "trolls" as the more vehement anti-GW crowd, and that scares off a lot of valid dissenting opinions. (Personally, I just don't care if someone on the Internet wants to call me horrible names, question my lineage, insult my family, all that. I'm mainly upset because the quality of such insults on the Internet has seriously degraded over the years, and it's not even amusing any more.)

It's a fair point to say, "Oh, hey, this place is dead," as a point against AoS. Is it really accurate? Nah, not really. But someone tried it with Star Wars Armada, and this is much more of a GW forum than an FFG forum, so if low post count for Armada is somehow an indicator that Armada is doing poorly, then surely a lack of AoS posts must mean it's doing horribly, right? I don't really believe that logic, just pointing out how inane some people's comments about other games are.

I do just find it so ironic that the "pro-AoS" crowd does just as much to bash anyone who disagrees, and similarly has this odd fascination with insisting people agree with their idea of what games are fun or good.

Personally, I'm looking into more non-GW games, out of necessity. The GW store's traffic has died down (I really do feel bad for the new manager, who seems like a friendly chap but probably won't be able to resuscitate it), one FLGS has stopped ordering much of anything from GW (and isn't even bothering with the AoS stuff any more), another FLGS gets in some of the AoS stuff to make sure they're up on the latest stuff, but AoS isn't selling, and even 40K is dying down. Meanwhile, X-Wing and Armada are getting love, Warmachine is getting more players, Infinity has a group going, Halo Fleet Battles just came out, there's some RPGs, the fantasy players are looking at Frostgrave. The good news is that I can get into all of those very easily, since I'm used to spending ridiculous amounts on the hobby already.

But hey, if AoS is doing okay in your area? Good for you. Glad you have something you can enjoy. Just, like the other side, remember your experiences are not universal, and for some of us, AoS even killed the GW fantasy crowd, so we might not have the warmest opinion of it.

[nsc]

Still waiting to get those huge warmachine crowds that the internet believes exist and are killing everything GW... yep... any day now the sky will fall :)

One thing that seems consistent is that wargamers are diversifying which is weakening individual store communities as people try different games. If you fear change and diversity then the best bet is to champion your game as positively as possible, like how Auticus is organizing campaigns with defined rulings. At my local store we're prepping to run a Realms of Chaos style warband escalation, so good things ahead :)

[Auticus]

At my local store we're prepping to run a Realms of Chaos style warband escalation, so good things ahead

Sweet - what rules are you using, the old chaos warband rules that came out in 6th?

[nsc]

Sweet - what rules are you using, the old chaos warband rules that came out in 6th?

Well, the manager is leaving and he was the one who suggested it, but one guy decided that he wanted to run it because it sounded fun.

When I asked him what he was going to use he didn't realize there were any existing warband rules lol! So I informed him about Realms of Chaos, the 6th Warband rules and I know a cheeky brit who's converting Realms of Chaos to AoS.

So I'll be sharing all these rules with the guys and helping them work the rules into AoS :) We haven't decided yet which we want as the base, it might become a mash up of a bunch of things.

[Auticus]

Sounds awesome - post some results when they come if you would I love reading about other campaigns.

[silashand]

No idea if it's any indicator of anything or not. Still have yet to see a AoS game played at any of my local stores personally. Doesn't mean it's not being played, just that I have not seen it. Personally I moved over to KoW and am pretty happy with it so far. To each their own obviously.

[daboarder]

I read once that a cadaver will pass gas now and then too. You must have a finer view of this place Mr. Mystery because it looks about the same amount of dead to me as it looked prior to the End Times. We could go and count posts. I'm willing to bet there isn't a significant change between the number of average posts prior to the brief End Times spike and now. :D

It would also be interesting to do a pie chart of the people involved in what few posts that do exist in this section. I think that would be rather illuminating too. :D

I must say, his ilk got what they always wanted, the Forum where no one posts anymore unless its to praise GW......looks like a wasteland these days

[daboarder]

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but the entire forum has been quiet for the last few days. I'm not sure if this means there is some big seasonal thing on overseas, or just a natural lull. It happens. Give it a week or two longer before you start crowing.

just people tired I'd say

[Anthrax ion pusscabe]

I just haven't had any ideas worth sharing

[Ray Rivers]

Too busy painting my Stormcast Host.

[nsc]

No idea if it's any indicator of anything or not. Still have yet to see a AoS game played at any of my local stores personally. Doesn't mean it's not being played, just that I have not seen it. Personally I moved over to KoW and am pretty happy with it so far. To each their own obviously.

If you like KoW checkout DBA and the fantasy variant Hordes of The Things. Also Impetus, and Pz8 Fantasy.

I find that most people who liked WHFB hate jumping into KoW and by extension Historical wargaming, but if you're enjoying the jump then there's a lot of ocean to check out :)

[Auticus]

DBA was my very first wargame. Memories.

[silashand]

I have been into historicals for many, many years :). Not a fan of DBA/DBM though. I prefer Hail Caesar, Black Powder, Bolt Action, Flames of War, Force on Force, Napoleon at War and a few others personally. Used to like WAB, but again GW just likes to kill off products where it can't force players to pay through the nose for the privilege of playing.

[Just Tony]

I have decided to go back to Classichammer (6th WFB and 3rd/4th 40K) so I don't have a lot to add to any threads here. I have another forum which, while lacking in numbers since just recently being started, is geared specificially towards older versions of the games not covered by Oldhammer or apparently getting any conversations on this site. Hell, there isn't even a subforum to discuss older versions of the game. THAT is why I'm not posting more often.

Also:

www.classichammer.com

This is where I get that fix, but we're small enough that convos are sporatic even if good.

[Cutter]

I have decided to go back to Classichammer (6th WFB and 3rd/4th 40K) so I don't have a lot to add to any threads here. I have another forum which, while lacking in numbers since just recently being started, is geared specificially towards older versions of the games not covered by Oldhammer or apparently getting any conversations on this site. Hell, there isn't even a subforum to discuss older versions of the game. THAT is why I'm not posting more often.

Also:

www.classichammer.com

This is where I get that fix, but we're small enough that convos are sporatic even if good.

Good luck with that JT, I would visit it, but my company's firewall prevents me visiting game related websites.

[Psychosplodge]

Good luck with that JT, I would visit it, but my company's firewall prevents me visiting game related websites.

:rolleyes: Really? :D

[nsc]

My big problem is how immature the oldhammer/classichammer/whateveryouwanttocallit community has become. It's incredibly fragmented with everyone having their own belief as to what old-warhammer should mean. Nobody can agree on what edition is "the best" (most will answer third or sixth, but there's no overwhelming majority) and many of them are exceedingly hostile about what toy soldiers you use.

I used to think the "oldhammer movement" was what I was looking for, but then I realized they're mostly a group of angry, elitist, rude people who I much rather never play a game with. It seems that if I want to run a D&D styled battle where people lead squads and discover hidden monsters and treasure during gameplay, well I have to convince my friends to play because if I try and find someone who is into old hammer they'll get mad at literally everything :(

A shame really, because I don't have anything against old versions of rules, but since it's impossible for old hammerers to agree on what they like it just ends up being a headache and I'm better off ignoring them. I also have to mention that such a hostile mindset only serves to drive most people away which results in a diminishing niche community.

However for age of sigmar, I'm going to be buying some bloodletters soon, in november I'll buy a bloodthirster or skarbrand or a celestant prime, I'm not sure which yet :), and I'm quite excited to see what they'll be releasing next!

[Path Walker]

Oldhammer as a return to the causal, relaxed narrative driven story telling Warhammer as a wargame with some rpg elements is a great concept.

What happened in reality was that people camped up in what they decided was the golden age of Warhammer (almost always what was current when they were between 12-18 years of age) and then people taking the opportunity to belittle each other about what is and isn't "Oldhammer".

As a group, its now just a gang of bitter nerds complaining about modern games workshop, pretty much the same as every other hobby community. Interestingly, Age of Sigmar has many of the qualities of the 3rd edition of Warhammer that is popular in the Oldhammer groups, yet rather than looking at what was good about it, decided to moan and ***** like everyone else.

[Cutter]

:rolleyes: Really? :D

Yep, pretty much any site with 'Game' in the meta gets this,

15892

So obviously sites like

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/

and

http://www.games-workshop.com

are perfectly accessible.

No 'Games' there.

Just the world's finest miniatures...

[Psychosplodge]

That sounds about right.

[Cutter]

That sounds about right.

So it's not that I want to hangout here you understand, it's just that they leave me no choice :p

Damn them.

[Psychosplodge]

Well you are in possession of honesty so I'll believe you.

[Erik Setzer]

:rolleyes: Really? :D

Strangely, my company's firewall blocks the BoLS main site, but not the forum. Blocks a lot of other forums, plenty of gaming sites, but not GW's main site. (Actually, it gets weird there... I can visit GW's main site and careers site, but not the investor site.)

Similarly, Yahoo!'s fantasy basketball is blocked, but not the fantasy football... though the IT team is really into fantasy football, so that might explain that.

[Just Tony]

My big problem is how immature the oldhammer/classichammer/whateveryouwanttocallit community has become. It's incredibly fragmented with everyone having their own belief as to what old-warhammer should mean. Nobody can agree on what edition is "the best" (most will answer third or sixth, but there's no overwhelming majority) and many of them are exceedingly hostile about what toy soldiers you use.

I used to think the "oldhammer movement" was what I was looking for, but then I realized they're mostly a group of angry, elitist, rude people who I much rather never play a game with. It seems that if I want to run a D&D styled battle where people lead squads and discover hidden monsters and treasure during gameplay, well I have to convince my friends to play because if I try and find someone who is into old hammer they'll get mad at literally everything :(

A shame really, because I don't have anything against old versions of rules, but since it's impossible for old hammerers to agree on what they like it just ends up being a headache and I'm better off ignoring them. I also have to mention that such a hostile mindset only serves to drive most people away which results in a diminishing niche community.

However for age of sigmar, I'm going to be buying some bloodletters soon, in november I'll buy a bloodthirster or skarbrand or a celestant prime, I'm not sure which yet :), and I'm quite excited to see what they'll be releasing next!

Then you haven't dipped into the Classichammer site at all. Nobody there is elitist, and we're pretty democratic about what should or shouldn't be considered standard/comped/houseruled/whatever. Not all fossil nerd enclaves are created equal...

[Erik Setzer]

Also, I think it's bad to label those players as such, because the AoS community is part of what's turned me off on that game. So to each their own, right?

[Auticus]

Its hard to speak for an entire community regardless of the community. I know a few guys that only play older versions of warhammer and they are fine, as are their groups. There are a few people in there that are douche rockets yes but that is true of any group of people.

[Xaric]

I think its growing quite on the forum this is because well people who enjoy age of sigmar like myself have grown tired of those people who invoke negativity to the game and lets just put it this way were proving to be the mature one and just ignoring those negative types so we can get on enjoying our hobby also this thread seems really pointless as to carry on a closed thread during all the negative posts.

[Mr Mystery]

Though oddly, this thread has been remarkably civilised, all things considered.

Time to come out of the shadows, my AoS appreciating friends. I suspect many of those who simply troll threads are on their last warning round these parts - they've been awfully, awfully well behaved of late :)

[Erik Setzer]

I figure this is as good a place as any to note this... One of the reasons I'm not fond on AoS is that it seems to have not just killed GW fantasy gaming in this town, but even 40K has dropped off significantly. Since AoS's release, the local GW stores sales have plummeted badly, and it's gone from being a great store with lots of sales and excited people to having hardly anyone show up on the weekends, and the sales seem to have slumped so bad I'm worried the store might close up.

For fantasy, people are turning to other games. Right now, Frostgrave is being talked about a lot. Kings of War would probably have more traction if the rules were more readily available (the new printing should help). But 40K isn't really even being played much. Not really anyone at the GW store, I've only seen a couple people playing each time I'm in one of the local FLGS's (one actually named "FLGS"), and the only time I've actually multiple people playing was this past weekend at another FLGS where a couple of tables had two-vs-two games going, likely in preparation for an upcoming team tournament.

The 40K scene might pick back up when new 40K releases show up, but it seems AoS was a "last straw" of sorts. The pricing was getting too much, the rules were being wrecked to throw balance out the window in favor of more sales of certain models (and direct sales), and then they topped it off with a series of expensive books that were then closely followed by blowing up and wiping out the entire 30-year-old game that those books were part of, replacing it with something that is, to be honest, akin to slapping green army men on a table, moving them around, and arguing about who's really killing who. No balance, no real way to know if it's a fair game, none of that. I think if the game had some kind kind of points system, that wasn't abused for sales, it could have gained traction locally and kept it. Instead, most of the games seem to involve things like an equal number of Ogres against any other army (ends poorly for the other armies), multiple Bloodthirsters, and all kinds of madness, and even the people who were excited just got sick of that.

For now, I'm enjoying spending my hobby dollars on other stuff. Got a Scum squadron for X-Wing and starting on Rebels (there's a growing X-Wing scene locally). Got the rulebook and a sourcebook for Edge of the Empire RPG, going to start playing a weekend session of that this weekend. Looking at Bolt Action, and my friend just picked up Halo Fleet Battles so I'm also going to grab a copy and maybe get that going in the area. And there's also computer games.

In the meantime, I'll still have my modeling projects that I had on deck (need to get some green stuff to properly finish this fyreslayer, for example), and I might but a Battlewagon for an idea I had, but since no one's playing the games, I just don't have a need to buy anything.

I'll still chat about it, though. Even if people would like to sew my mouth shut.

[Morgrim]

Personally I'm wondering if AoS is stalled because so much focus is on the Sigmarites. Yes, yes, they're the shiny new toy. And Khrone has gotten a lot of love too. Nurgle and pure-treant focused armies were mentioned in a book!

...too bad for anyone that doesn't play Chaos (but only highly specific bits of it), Wood Elves (but only a tiny fragment of it) or Sigmarines. So basically the mono-Khorne players and the players of new army. Everyone else has been left in limbo. Sure, they have rules, but that's it. There's no engagement, no focus, no 'what the heck is my army fighting for?', and no idea if your stuff shouldn't actually have rules but has been sort of grandfathered in and will never receive support again.

Maybe when they pull back and give a little time to the other races the players of those races will return. I know my lizardmen are staying shelved until I have a clue what else I should be doing with them.

[Caitsidhe]

It is stalled (and there isn't much talk about it) because....

1. Not many people are playing it.
2. A significant number of people are unimpressed with it and unlikely to play it beyond trying it once or twice.
3. There isn't much to talk about as the game is almost mindlessly simple.

What is there to talk about? About the only thing to discuss is what the models look like. Whether you like them or not, that only covers about five minutes of conversation.

[Path Walker]

It is stalled (and there isn't much talk about it) because....

1. Not many people are playing it.
2. A significant number of people are unimpressed with it and unlikely to play it beyond trying it once or twice.
3. There isn't much to talk about as the game is almost mindlessly simple.

What is there to talk about? About the only thing to discuss is what the models look like. Whether you like them or not, that only covers about five minutes of conversation.

Depends where you are, in my local area, more people are playing AoS than ever played WFB

There is more to the game than 2 minutes glancing at the rules would let you think. Its not simple, its different, units with different abilities and synergies add complexity instead of rules.

[Caitsidhe]

Depends where you are, in my local area, more people are playing AoS than ever played WFB

There is more to the game than 2 minutes glancing at the rules would let you think. Its not simple, its different, units with different abilities and synergies add complexity instead of rules.

If you say so. :D Good to see you back. You can get the ball rolling on the conversation then. Explain these complexities and synergies to us. Those are the conversations missing, i.e. the tactical game talk. I've stated why I think it is missing. You have a great opportunity to prove me wrong. Show us the depth.

[Mr Mystery]

Rank and flank is great.

But free form units, pre-planning and getting your head round ccw having their own range is also pretty great.

Form up a line, base to base of defensive troops, remembering to place some 'backwash' protection. Follow up 1" behind with nastier troops. Troops which have a 2" range. If X is the former, and Y is the latter, look a little like this....

XXXXXXXXXXX
X YYYYYYYY X
X X

Boost up the X unit with defensive boosting spells, perhaps trigger something to prevent Battleshock. Enemy cannot reach the Y unit, but can still be clobbered by them. Net result? You stand a chance of doing far, far more damage to the enemy, even more so if they don't have any kind of formation and just attack you in a blob.

And if you're expecting a protracted punch up, don't forget unit Z, armed with ranged weapons to either flank, allowing them to shoot up the now pinned down enemy unit.

Foolproof? Of course not. It's tricky to pull off, but puts paid to the nonsense AoS requires neither strategy nor tactics. Easiest way to form it up is at the point of deployment of course, and maintain it through moving in a manner akin to the previous editions. But it can be formed up noon the fly as well. The shape of your units when attacking can also be used to pull enemy units in a chosen direction, potentially opening up the path for a small unit (like a Dragon or whatevs) to penetrate your opponents defence - perhaps to duff up characters, removing their buffs.

And like PW, I've been seeing more games of AoS than I saw Warhammer in its (sadly) dying days, and my local store now has permanent dents in their Warhammer stock, and has seen the Average Transaction Value for them shoot up quite nicely.

And oddly....its not the Stormcast doing that. It's across the range. Not what I'd consider a sign of a fluffed launch, or a game without a player base.

Yes. This is indeed anecdotal evidence. Not aimed at yourself, but there's usually someone quick to point out the bleeding obvious as if it's some kind of trump card.

[Path Walker]

I don't do tactical talk, I play the game but I'm in it for the models, the fluff, painting and spending time with people I like. I have a thread of fluff and rules for a campaign I'm running in case people wanted to see that, its going over very well in the local game shop and players are writing fluff pieces about their armies and smack talking in character ahead of their games. That's what a successful game looks like to me, not whether some guy online whose never played it thinks its too simple.

Reading and writing essays on tactics for a game of soldiers is dull as dishwater for me, so I won't. If you can't read the rules, warscrolls and battleplans and see how there are a lot of tactical decisions that have to be made, then that's fine, others can. Its not my place to write about something I don't care about particularly.

Tell me, how do you feel about Chess? Is that too simple for you? What about Go? No tactics there, right? I mean it only has one unit type and the rules can be explained in about a page of writing.

(also my local GWs ATV is up too, despite me trying to ruin it by buying one pot of paint at a time...)

[grimmas]

Khorne Bloodbound are all about the synergy. Bloodreavers in particular are very impactive when used in conjunction with other units/heroes. It really is quite thematic as well as the way to beat them is to disrupt that synergy. They're powerful as a rampaging horde but are much weaker when disrupted.

[Mr Mystery]

Yup. And the best trick for that is to use smaller, sacrificial units to pull apart said mob, exposing the characters then giving them a damned good shoeing all to themselves!

Or, a Thundertusk's icy blast to the face. That knacks many things!

[Mr Mystery]

Then you have to worry about your order of punching.

In order to win the game, you're gonna have to get crackin' with the knackin' - so combat is the order of the day.

But if you over commit, you risk your best units taking a mauling before they can swing. How best to avoid that, whilst exploiting it against your opponent? It's something I've still not fully figured out, but I'm enjoying the learning curve. I've started to include small units of Gnoblars for sacrificial purposes - use them to pull my opponents line out of joint, allowing my various Ogres the chance to beat up the stuff I really want to beat up.

It's almost as if skirmishes now perform their historical role, isn't it? Charge his flanks, and force the rest of the charged unit to bunch up to engage with as many models as possible, exposing targets behind previously safe from harm.

But definitely no tactics here. Nope. Not a one. All just a mid-board brawl. Definitely.

[Jack Shrapnel]

Attendance and interest is way up for AOS over what we had locally for WHFB (Kingston Ontario). We were able to get a mutually agreed up and developed basic comp structure for tourney play and had one successful tourney thus far with a slow grow campaign culminating in a tourney for some of the newer players (yes we have new players now!) build up their forces.

I for one have totally abandoned several forums just due to the outright negativity that gets thrown every time something positive about this game gets talked about... this is actually one of the last forums I check regularly now.

[Mr Mystery]

Well, we're a friendly bunch here on BoLS, so do stick around :)

Even where there's....animated disagreements, it's nowhere near as toxic as elsewhere. We've got a decent, fair handed Mod team, and we're largely self policing to boot :)

[Caitsidhe]

Well, we're a friendly bunch here on BoLS, so do stick around :)

Even where there's....animated disagreements, it's nowhere near as toxic as elsewhere. We've got a decent, fair handed Mod team, and we're largely self policing to boot :)

What he said. Mr. Mystery and I rarely agree on much but we can keep it civil. Most other people do too.

[Xaric]

1 of the things I enjoy about age of sigmar its now chaos dominates everything in some way and others are pushing it back rather then the typical good tramples all evil goody goody two shoes story this is the fluff that I enjoy, make the ambitions of good work for there victory's rather then giving it to them.

[daboarder]

1 of the things I enjoy about age of sigmar its now chaos dominates everything in some way and others are pushing it back rather then the typical good tramples all evil goody goody two shoes story this is the fluff that I enjoy, make the ambitions of good work for there victory's rather then giving it to them.

I was under the impression that the background clearly stipulates that chaos CANT possibly win this time, that it is no longer a real world ending threat and that it is essentially neutered.

[Mr Mystery]

Quite the opposite.

The Realmgates are a calculated gamble on Sigmar's behalf.

The Chaos forces we see at the moment aren't at their peak. Having all but triumphed, they did what Chaos does and turned on each other in lieu of more worthy foes. This could still all go horribly, and very easily wrong for Sigmar.

[Just Tony]

Khorne Bloodbound are all about the synergy. Bloodreavers in particular are very impactive when used in conjunction with other units/heroes. It really is quite thematic as well as the way to beat them is to disrupt that synergy. They're powerful as a rampaging horde but are much weaker when disrupted.

So essentially M:TG with minis? That's kind of the vibe I got with the new rules. I'm not saying that rule system is better/worse than others, but it is most assuredly not what I'm into.

[Charon]

I was under the impression that the background clearly stipulates that chaos CANT possibly win this time, that it is no longer a real world ending threat and that it is essentially neutered.

Thats basically it. If Chaos gets too strong and you are on the brink of defeat, just close your front door. For some reason they can not get in and just start fighting themselves while you comfortably wait and build an army. When they are weak again pour out of your hiding place and show them!
There is nothing at stake anymore and the maximum the good guys will lose are some random unknown realms which is as interesting as "wow planet Snooze was eaten by tyranids!"
In the end most suff is pretty much dull as not even death matters and you stop caring. It is a bit like the Phoenix Lords, Daemon princes,.. in 40k that get killed in nearly every book just to prove that "we kill special characters too!" while SCs that do not have immortality get out unharmed.

[grimmas]

So essentially M:TG with minis? That's kind of the vibe I got with the new rules. I'm not saying that rule system is better/worse than others, but it is most assuredly not what I'm into.

I've never played Magic so I couldn't deny or confirm that. Magic is very popular in the US as I understand it so that might be deliberate. That is how only one faction operates all the Warscrolls are free have a look there might be something that takes your fancy. If you don't like it you don't like it though but it won't cost you anything to find out

[Mr Mystery]

It kind of is like M:TG, but also nothing like it.

Magic? No points limit. Indeed, no deck limit. Only real restrictions are 20 life, no more than 'four of a kind' in your deck, and when you can't draw (because your library is gone) you lose the game.

AoS? No points limit. Indeed, no army limit. No restrictions except a bit of common sense and mutual respect. Different scenarios may affect what can deploy, and may require some of your force to be held in reserve. When all your dudes are dead, you lose the game.

Both have synergy at their core - it ain't what you got, but what you do with it.

Magic is more simplistic than AoS. There's certain cards combos which, unless your opponent is playing Blue, has some Counters in hand and a bunch of mana to spare spell 'Goodnight Vienna'.

AoS? No such super-synergies. Buffs, debuffs all exist, but your opponent has to aggressively target them to break your synergy. Sometimes, this can be fairly easy. Other times, a canny opponent has two or three different synergies at their disposal, which don't need to interlink, but can be horrific if they do so.

Except said synergies can be spotted from the get go. This creates a very different game to M:tG, where its as much about your cunning as hoping your deck is in a good mood, and doles out the ming and mana in roughly appropriate doses (my well 'ard Dragon deck for instance is 50% mana, including many multi-coloured lands to help ensure I have the right mana at the right time, and still my deck likes to screw me every now and then). In AoS? It's pretty much on the board, so as an opponent I have to set about identifying your game plan, and how I can best scupper it once we're deployed. This in turn informs the sort of force I might pack for a game. I want to ensure I have my own synergies set, but also ways to defend it whilst cracking your own.

See my post above for some stuff the 'I was never going to like this, because reasons' group like to pretend don't exist - tactics. That's a synergy right there. It's kind of basic, but very effective as it allows me to focus the attacks of two units on your one unit, whilst only really risking one of my two. That sort of force multiplier will help to see Battleshock by my friend, and not yours.

And make no bones about it. Battleshock is a killer. It's bloody difficult to tarpit an opponent now, because the chaff units I'd merrily massacre in 8th? There's not Steadfast for them anymore. Likewise, it's much harder to lose the game from a single fluffed Ld roll. I'm pretty sure all Warhammer players have had a perfect game until a certain combat goes a bit awry, and sees a solid unit head for the hills thanks to an 11, then 12 on the re-roll Ld test. Not anymore. There are ways to mitigate this - most armies have some sort of mechanism - and one I'll be doing my damnedest to remove from the equation as soon as possible - because I don't want to get stuck in combat with a Battleshock immune unit. I'll be wanting to charge in, do my damage and then send you packing in your own turn, ta :)

And oddly enough...people complain about Magic in AoS. I'm not sure why. None of it, so far, is all that devastating.

[Path Walker]

Chaos can win, but it has no interest in it right now, because the Mortal Realms are too much fun for them, they're vast, they and slaughter, infect, tempt and beguile for millennia without growing bored. There is more power in the Realms than there was in the Old World, and with Sigmar and the others now being Gods of if not equal then comparable power to those of Chaos, its a very different scenario.

Add in the fact that Slannessh has gone missing after sleeping off a world full of Elf souls, the devisious treachery of the newly raised Horned Rat and Khorne going on full on conqueror rather than working with his siblings, and you have a world where it makes sense that Chaos hasn't "won" yet.

With Sigmar out of hiding and throwing open the doors to his Realm once more though, they have a chance, which is why Archaon is back rallying the forces of Chaos to his banner, he was the unifying force last time and will have to be again. If he can ally the forces of the Gods again and lead them to attack Azyr, then there is the very real risk that Sigmar could be defeated again.

The story told so far, and remember that campaign books and sets will keep coming and drive the story along, has been the opening chapter. The charge out of the forces of Order from their hidden base with a few significant early victories against a more powerful opponent who didn't see it coming. We still have to have our Empire Strikes Back and then the one with all the muppets.

[grimmas]

Actually Chaos did win. They Blew up the Old World. The came bloody close the doing the same to the Realms. The story of AoS is Sigmars only chance to get the Realms back. Apart from his city Chaos was in control. The biggest change is that Chaos can actually lose, as evidenced by Slaanesh taking a kicking, rather than just retreating back to the chaos wastes and than have another go.

[Charon]

Actually Chaos did win. They Blew up the Old World.

Which somehow made all their opponents more powerful.


The came bloody close the doing the same to the Realms.

And what did stop them from doing so? Oh yeah. Sigmar closing his front door. Sitting around, building an army. Without any consequence to his realm.
Guess what he will do the next time Choas comes bloody close doing it again? Right! He closes his door again and laughs his *** off because it has no consequence to him. He can comfortably sit another thousand years. Without Choas doing anything... except for killing each other because that is what they do if they stand before a closed door.


Apart from his city Chaos was in control.

So everything else is destroyed? Nope. Everything is still around.


The biggest change is that Chaos can actually lose, as evidenced by Slaanesh taking a kicking, rather than just retreating back to the chaos wastes and than have another go.

Which was about the most uninspiring thing. Lets go and capture a chaos god and piss on his fans.
They basically reversed the roles as Sigmar is not the one who can just go back and close his door and then have another go just with the difference that choas is still the antagonist and if anything fails, in come the sigmarines.

No sorry. The story is just as uninspiring as the game itself.

[Mr Mystery]

Then please refrain from commenting.

Or, y'know, go give the background a re-read, and some of the stories. See what's actually going, as opposed to what you dearly hope is going in order to knock a game you claim not to play, by a company you have an increasingly bizarre chip on your shoulder about.

Sigmar sealed Azyrheim - and it took a lot of effort to do it. Sigmar, Mallerion, Tyrion and Grungni all working in concert. Chaos started trying to batter it down. Khorne's followers did what Khorne's followers do - started a punch up.

Nice self-defeat their Chaos. True to your nature.

[Path Walker]

Sigmar can't close the gates again, this is his one shot, closing them the first time was difficult enough and Chaos won't fall for it again.

The Realms are huge, each probably has a larger surface area than the Old World, Chaos have taken over all bar Azyr and only because Sigmar cut it off almost completely. With nothing else to keep them busy, they have fallen back in to infighting.

I also don't see how setting up a cool story thread to pick up later is pissing on fans of Slaanesh?

The story needs to advance and changes need to have lasting impact, that was one of the main gripes people had with the setting for Warhammer, that's what they're doing now, they're setting up stories to be told over the next 5-10 years.

[Mr Mystery]

40k - Chaos' ultimate victory - over everyone - is ultimately completely inevitable.

So I guess by that same rationale, 40k has a dull setting yeah?

[Cutter]

40k - Chaos' ultimate victory - over everyone - is ultimately completely inevitable.

So I guess by that same rationale, 40k has a dull setting yeah?

Is it? Sh*t, I must have blinked. I thought the 'nids were going to eat everyone and convert the biomass to more 'nids and then eat each other before picking their teeth with the necrons.

Personally I'd like to see the mushroom men make a screaming comeback, but I blame Fury Road for that.

[Charon]

Don't mind him. I have him on ignore for 6 months now and I do not feel like I missed any contribution.

[nsc]

It's not like Sigmar can just "castle up" again, when he was pushed back to Azyr he had no idea how he was going to stop Chaos from destroying these realms, it was with a bit of madness and desperation that he commissioned the Stormcast and started empowering them. He's using up the last Sigmarite in the realms to make his army, and not all the sigmarines return from battle, so the Sigmarite is dwindling.

A lot of people remark that Chaos is at its strongest, but they're not, they grew complacent with their victories and settled back in to warring with each other as they are wont to do.

The game now is to see how much Sigmar's forces can drive away Chaos before they rally back, and if they do manage to rally back the forces of Order have so much to overcome, but bringing order to Chaos is quite difficult for even the Chaos gods...

Which means I get a lot more of the stories I love, with champions of chaos being selfish and potentially damning the forces of Chaos to defeat or victory for petty reasons, all while larger than life threats battle for supremacy.

Also I want to see what the elves are doing now that they're one big happy dysfunctional family again. It's been a long time for humans, but not nearly as long for the elves and dwarves with their long Tolkien-esque lifespans.

I look forward to fell rituals and heroic gambits, tales which the AoS big books are filled with :D

[Mr Mystery]

Is it? Sh*t, I must have blinked. I thought the 'nids were going to eat everyone and convert the biomass to more 'nids and then eat each other before picking their teeth with the necrons.

Personally I'd like to see the mushroom men make a screaming comeback, but I blame Fury Road for that.

Absolutely. When the 14th Black Crusade breaches the Cadian Gate, you can bet your bippy that they'll be dragging the rift in reality that is the Eye of Terror with them, allowing the Daemon Armies more or less unfettered access to realspace. Those irritating, immortal Daemons. Ain't nothing going to stop that. Especially not when everyone else is still scrapping it out amongst themselves.

But my point? It's not boring at all. 40k is a riveting settings.

Difference? 40k has been around for 26 years. AoS? 6 months. But hey, let's all just write it off because we've got an inexplicable bone to pick with a company which really doesn't care about us as individuals.

[odinsgrandson]

AArg- you've brought up an old wound. I fought in the 13th crusade, and I remember how those guys at the GW store said how it was going to change the fluff (either for or against chaos). They kept saying "The Emperor could die." So disappointed when nothing happened.




Anyway, the chip that so many people have on their shoulders about GW is pretty easy to explain, and it is only partly related to AoS. They use to really LOVE everything from Games Workshop, and they miss that feeling.

Personally, I want GW to rock, and I want them to succeed by being awesome (rather than by cutting costs faster than they lose customers).

I don't like that GW are in decline at a time when the overall market is growing. It makes me think that they're doing something wrong, you know?

I know that Games Workshop's decision makers will not listen (http://www.iii.co.uk/news-opinion/richard-beddard/games-workshop-agm%3A-relentless-profit-machine) and that's disparaging.

[Erik Setzer]

Quite the opposite.

The Realmgates are a calculated gamble on Sigmar's behalf.

The Chaos forces we see at the moment aren't at their peak. Having all but triumphed, they did what Chaos does and turned on each other in lieu of more worthy foes. This could still all go horribly, and very easily wrong for Sigmar.

Except, no. They *can't* win, because GW completely reversed the story they JUST put out earlier this year.

In End Times, Chaos triumphs completely. They don't stop to turn on each other. They destroy the world, completely. Everything's gone.

Then suddenly, Chaos triumphs in AoS, but stops short of destroying everything and turns on each other. And somehow, after centuries of that and hunting the local populace, there's still people left. And Sigmar can and will come and win the day, because he knew he had time.

The two are very different, and being so close to each other is why I'm even more annoyed. Either they weren't paying attention to what they were writing, or they just figured their audience wouldn't pay attention (at which point you have to ask why they keep releasing expensive fluff books, then).

There's no way to create stakes. Stakes don't exist. Chaos won, but couldn't win. So we know it's all moot. Sigmar *will* beat them back eventually, a magic wand will wave and recreate the populations that shouldn't even exist at this point, and that'll be it. It'll take a long time to get there, of course, because the story has to be milked to sell models. But that's the long game. In the very first book they showed us there's nothing worth fighting for but also no way to permanently lose, despite being shown in a book published just scant months earlier that the Chaos Gods *don't* turn on each other and *do* finish destroying things.

They screwed up in their rush to wipe out a universe that's still interesting enough to milk for franchise money and shove out something completely new.

If you like the story, cool. Some people like stories where the good guys will definitely win, and there's not anything to fight over, and what there is to fight for logically shouldn't even exist. I'd probably enjoy it more if I didn't actually think about the story.

- - - Updated - - -


Difference? 40k has been around for 26 years. AoS? 6 months. But hey, let's all just write it off because we've got an inexplicable bone to pick with a company which really doesn't care about us as individuals.

I'm not writing it off because of my VERY EXPLAINABLE issues with the company, but rather because the fluff doesn't make sense, is juvenile in places (more so that the acceptable amount, because hey, juvenile can be fun), and contradicts with what they want to pretend it's a continuation of (rather than a retcon of).

I'm also annoyed with the people who "inexplicably" claim the Warhammer world was boring and uninteresting, while somehow non-GW companies are taking that IP and running with it to make all kinds of games that people are eagerly waiting for, meaning not only was it interesting and exciting, but people actually liked that world.

The world wasn't the problem. The problem was they screwed up the game by removing Skirmish and pushing larger battles while pushing up the price, to where people looked at how much it cost to get into WFB and said, "Yeah, no screw that." And the same is going to eventually happen to 40K, at which point people will start declaring 40K's background to be boring and stale, too, rather than admitting the issue is really with the marketing plan.

[Path Walker]

Imagine writing that many words and yet still managing to miss the point.

[Ray Rivers]

In End Times, Chaos triumphs completely.

Well... according to the AoS Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_Age_of_Sigmar):


Age of Sigmar (AS) is a tabletop wargame released by Games Workshop in 2015. It replaces Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB) as the fantasy wargame in the Warhammer universe. Several supplements released for the eighth edition of WFB centred on the End Times which led to the almost total destruction of the Warhammer world and the death of most of the world's population. This leads into the Age of Sigmar with the return of the long lost founder of the human empire worshipped as a god, Sigmar.

So it appears you are incorrect, however, having not been a fan of the Oldhammer world, I really don't care.

What I do care about is entitled folks who seem to want to save me from GW and in doing so destroy a company who not only makes their minis in the UK but employs tons of people around the world. That in a time of global recession with so many folks already out of work. Just what we need...

[Just Tony]

Well... according to the AoS Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_Age_of_Sigmar):



So it appears you are incorrect, however, having not been a fan of the Oldhammer world, I really don't care.

Since wikipedia isn't written by contributors that aren't vetted as reliable sources, and can't be edited by anyone. Oh, wait...


What I do care about is entitled folks who seem to want to save me from GW and in doing so destroy a company who not only makes their minis in the UK but employs tons of people around the world. That in a time of global recession with so many folks already out of work. Just what we need...

So we should pay excessive prices for minis because there are people working there? Companies fail all the time, GW shouldn't be any different.

[Mr Mystery]

Define excessive.

PP often charge more for fewer options and poses. Yet point it out and it's head in the sand time.

How much profit is a given company entitled to seek? Are they in anyway beholden to anyone but their share holders? If so, why?

If you're not a fan of their approach and direction - then fair enough, to each their own. But please do try to quantify.

[Just Tony]

Define excessive.

PP often charge more for fewer options and poses. Yet point it out and it's head in the sand time.

How much profit is a given company entitled to seek? Are they in anyway beholden to anyone but their share holders? If so, why?

If you're not a fan of their approach and direction - then fair enough, to each their own. But please do try to quantify.

Quantify? Okay, I fail to see how a single plastic model trooper can be reasonably charged more than $1.50 US. And given the current cost of the models, I won't buy them off the shelf without a stellar game to support it. Which brings us to the game rules, which I don't think are good enough to make me want to buy something like Skarbrand. At the price point with the quality of the game, I cannont justify spending money just to keep them working. That was what the poster that I quoted was getting at.

[Mr Mystery]

So they're not allowed to sell stuff at a price that covers design and development, production, packaging and sales, let alone profit?

If $1.50 (roughly £1) a model is your benchmark, how do you justify buying any other model ever, apart from perhaps those green army men, the moulds for which seem to have been around forever?

[Path Walker]

$1.50?

That's ridiculous. Actually insanely stupid thing to say. That would just about cover the material costs of the model and packaging. So, how are they moulded? Designed? Written about? Sold to you? Painted?

$1.50?

GW aren't going broke, they have a model that works for them because they're making profit by selling models at the price they think is best. If you don't want to buy them, then don't, that's as simple as it gets.

[Just Tony]

So they're not allowed to sell stuff at a price that covers design and development, production, packaging and sales, let alone profit?

If $1.50 (roughly £1) a model is your benchmark, how do you justify buying any other model ever, apart from perhaps those green army men, the moulds for which seem to have been around forever?


$1.50?

That's ridiculous. Actually insanely stupid thing to say. That would just about cover the material costs of the model and packaging. So, how are they moulded? Designed? Written about? Sold to you? Painted?

$1.50?

GW aren't going broke, they have a model that works for them because they're making profit by selling models at the price they think is best. If you don't want to buy them, then don't, that's as simple as it gets.

So a plastic kit of 20 soldiers comes out to $30 US in the price range I stated. That is more expensive than when I started this hobby. Needless resculptings and repackagings along with some very necessary sculptings have driven the price to double that on average, with some of the older kits holding at a 50% increase. I sincerely doubt inflation is THAT high on those items, the hikes come because of lost revenue on games that failed being made up for in other games and tool and die costs for redoing plastic models that don't need redone.

And to answer the last post, I DON'T spend that much on my models. GW lost me as a steady customer a while back. $60 for a Vindicator or $35 for a 10 man regiment was absurd.

[Mr Mystery]

So if you're not a customer, they should listen to you because?

If you're not a fan of the game - no problem. There's plenty more out there.

But that doesn't mean everyone should share your opinion on the game nor the price.

Do you understand how inflation works? That it's, y'know, just a random figure, based on non-luxury items, and doesn't include things like rising rents and house prices - something that will affect your employees, requiring you to pay ever higher wages if you don't want a high staff turnover, which can be detrimental to efficiency, and thus push up your production costs?

Can you provide evidence that the lost revenue on 'games that failed' is a driving force of rising prices please?

Can you also please provide a point of delineation between the kits that don't need resculpting, and those you feel do need resculpting?

Do you understand how the design studio works, and how creative minds work?

[Ray Rivers]

Since wikipedia isn't written by contributors that aren't vetted as reliable sources, and can't be edited by anyone. Oh, wait...

The article is succinct and correct and reflects the lore presented in the Age of Sigmar Book.

No... the world was not totally destroyed.


So we should pay excessive prices for minis because there are people working there? Companies fail all the time, GW shouldn't be any different.

True enough, but when folks go out of their way to try to destroy a company, that is quite another thing... really nasty.

Personally, I think the money I have invested in AoS is well spent. I made my third order today and bought the Knight-Venator, Knight-Vexillor, an Exalted Deathbringer and the Dragonfate Dais.

Can't wait to see them in my hands.

[Erik Setzer]

So it appears you are incorrect, however, having not been a fan of the Oldhammer world, I really don't care.

Okay, wow... Well, now I know the level I'm dealing with here...

NO. I am NOT incorrect just because a Wiki uses a certain word. And if you don't care, stop trying to correct me on something you clearly don't know.

The fluff very clearly states that the rift opened across the world, and everything was obliterated. The timeline is left vague, but it's very clear that the entire world died. Everything gone.

The only thing that might have been left is the core of the world, but everyone on it was dead. Every living person, every shred of civilization, all of it. Chaos triumphed completely. They wiped it all out. They destroyed the world.

I don't count a tiny bit of the center of the planet as counting, because that doesn't get around the point that EVERYONE DIED.

You should go read the end of the End Times books. They're very clear on this. If you "don't care," then stop trying to correct someone who actually read the books and has the entire set sitting on a shelf at home.



What I do care about is entitled folks who seem to want to save me from GW and in doing so destroy a company who not only makes their minis in the UK but employs tons of people around the world. That in a time of global recession with so many folks already out of work. Just what we need...

I don't care to "save you from GW." Similarly, I don't care that GW "employs tons of people." They'll find new jobs if it goes under, and if they lose their jobs, it will be because of the management's horribly business practices. I'm not going to give my money to a company who looks down on its customers. You want me to feel for the employees? Okay, I do. Which is why I don't support the management. They're trimming the employees as much as possible just to be able to continue to claim profit, because that's easier than admitting their BS of trying to be a "premium model" company is garbage, and they really are a game company that makes toys, and they're even trying to sell in toy stores, so stop being obnoxious pricks and just sell things in a sensible manner! But no. They want to go uber-niche, which can't support that many employees, and at some point they'll have to lay off more people. They've had to do a salary freeze.

We, the customers, aren't to blame. That's the management. But no. You are so in love with the company that you'll blame the customers for the management's decisions, telling us how bad we are for not choosing to spend ridiculous amounts on toy soldiers, which is frankly ludicrous. That's borderline trolling.

[Erik Setzer]

Define excessive.

PP often charge more for fewer options and poses. Yet point it out and it's head in the sand time.

How much profit is a given company entitled to seek? Are they in anyway beholden to anyone but their share holders? If so, why?

If you're not a fan of their approach and direction - then fair enough, to each their own. But please do try to quantify.

I'm not a fan of PP's upping their pricing to join GW in that mess, either. They can get away with it with some people because you need fewer models, but it's still too much. Heck, I'll only pay what Wrath of Kings models cost (if I chose to play it) because they're larger models. Otherwise, I'm largely moving to Mantic and Warlord and recommending other people do the same.

Profit is fine, but there comes a point when the "premium pricing" model costs you more customers than it's worth, and GW's crossed that line. Their money is going down as the prices go up, and they're only staying in profit because they're cutting things and freezing salaries (which isn't going to keep employees happy). "Excessive" is when you're charging enough that people are looking at your products and saying, "No thanks, I'll go buy this other stuff that's cheaper."

Yeah, PP's in that same category right now, and that's going to start causing WM/H to collapse. They might be able to justify it some because they use more expensive materials, but frankly, I don't care, because they *could* make the change, and they aren't. But heck, Warlord sells some metal models, and they're not obnoxiously priced. Warlord also sells plastic models that are something like 32 guys for $40. If they can do that and profit, how is it that GW must price their models at so much more than that? People like to bring up other costs of doing business, but these other companies have similar costs, and GW's been doing everything possible to reduce the cost of production.

So yeah, I'm skipping out on GW and PP. I'm looking at Kings of War, Warpath, Bolt Action, Beyond the Gates of Antares, even Frostgrave. (I don't include stuff like X-Wing because it's an apples and oranges kind of comparison.)

If GW releases something at a reasonable price that I like, I'll get it. But I doubt that's happening any time soon.

Heck, my friend was interested in getting more Tau to build a Tau army (rather than just allies) with the new book, and just bought a couple of squads in the last couple weeks. Then he saw the prices for the new suits and was completely turned off on bothering to continue down that path.

Maybe some people are cool with the prices, whatever. Go ahead and pay that money. Lots of folks aren't, and the number's growing. Revenue is dwindling for GW while prices rise. I don't think that's coincidence.

- - - Updated - - -


The article is succinct and correct and reflects the lore presented in the Age of Sigmar Book.

No... the world was not totally destroyed.

The article is incorrect and does not reflect the lore presented in any books.

If you're trying to latch onto the core of a world still being there because Chaos felt like destroying EVERY LIVING THING and even the crust of the world and everything but the glowing center, then you're just desperate to try to claim you're right and missing the point.

Chaos killed everything. It was quite clear.

Here, let me quote it:

"And so the mortal world fell away into oblivion.
The gnawing rift at the heart of mankind’s domain devoured reality.
Slow it spreads at first, but then with the hunger of ravening wildfire.
Invigorated, great polar rifts slipped their ancient bounds and joined their younger siblings in its feast,
The peoples of the world beheld their doom, and screamed in despair.
No two watchers beheld the same vision. Some saw skies riven with fire, some looked upon an ice-cold maelstrom of stars, some saw colossal tentacles and fanged maws that drooled the molten stuff of chaos. Perhaps the Dark Gods raised their champions to daemonhood from the battles that raged amongst the flames. It matters little, for the truths of those hopeless wars are lost.
The Oak of Ages was swallowed last of all. Mournful dryad-song echoed under livid skies as Athel Loren perished. With its destruction, the Weave that bound time and space together thinned and stretched.
Twisted by unnatural energies, it dissolved entirely into nothingness.
That terrible act of uncreation might have taken the blink of an eye, or unfolded across millennia The Dark Gods were not fettered by the flow of time, and let it pass unmarked. Already tired of their victory, they turned away from the ruin they had wrought and began the Great Game anew in other worlds and other creation. In doing so, they paid no heed to the tiny speck of light tumbling in the infinite darkness – the glowing essence of what had once been a man.
Through the storm of nothingness he fell, adrift for aeons upon unseen tides.
Then came a glimmering orb, a fiery world-heart grown cold as the abyss.
Desperate, the figure seized upon the sphere with a grip that could shatter mountains.
He stared into the void, and from the darkness, the void stared back.
The figure clung tight, marshalling his faded strength.
He reached forth his hand, and a miracle took shape."

So, yeah, there's a core left. But everything else is gone. The world, its people, even "the Weave that held time and space together," all destroyed.

Chaos grew tired of their "victory." Note the word?

Yeah, Chaos won. They wiped it all out.

So for Chaos to now suddenly be incapable of the very thing they had just done in the last book GW had published in the setting? Nope, doesn't fly.

- - - Updated - - -


So if you're not a customer, they should listen to you because?

A lot of us are people who have bought a lot from GW, and would want to buy more, but can't, because their business practices are insane.

Why should GW listen to people who aren't actively buying? Because we're all potential customers, and why would you bother listening to people who are already buying ("customers") when they're buying your stuff already? The point of a business - since we're all giving lessons today - is to make money by selling as much as possible. GW's moving into a lot of new stores (at least they're trying to) in order to get new business. Those people aren't customers yet. So GW should ignore those people it's wanting to court? How does that make sense?

[Ray Rivers]

The article is incorrect and does not reflect the lore presented in any books.


Sure it does, the book is called The Age of Sigmar.

As I said before, I really don't care about Oldhammer or 40K. I'm not a GW Fan... I am an AoS fan.

In fact, this is the first time I have ever bought any fantasy miniatures. I am, in the main, a historical gamer (see avatar).

I have bought minis from Ral Partha, Historex, Foundry, Redoubt, Empress, Brigade Games, Blue Moon, Xyston Games, Hawk Wargames, Legio Heroica, Spartan Games, GZG, AB, Anvil, Studio McVey, Hinterland, Pulp Figures, Ironclad, Old Glory, Infinity, Raging Heroes, Copplestone, Reaper, em4, Flames of War, and of course my favorite: Perry... to mention a few.

So I have bought a lot of minis from a lot of company's and I'm happy with AoS minitures and their pricing.

What I don't understand is why folks like yourself, who are declaring themselves moving over to Kings of War and Mantic (nice minis) bother with posting here? Shouldn't you be over at the Mantic forums?

[Path Walker]

Sure it does, the book is called The Age of Sigmar.

As I said before, I really don't care about Oldhammer or 40K. I'm not a GW Fan... I am an AoS fan.

In fact, this is the first time I have ever bought any fantasy miniatures. I am, in the main, a historical gamer (see avatar).

I have bought minis from Ral Partha, Historex, Foundry, Redoubt, Empress, Brigade Games, Blue Moon, Xyston Games, Hawk Wargames, Legio Heroica, Spartan Games, GZG, AB, Anvil, Studio McVey, Hinterland, Pulp Figures, Ironclad, Old Glory, Infinity, Raging Heroes, Copplestone, Reaper, em4, Flames of War, and of course my favorite: Perry... to mention a few.

So I have bought a lot of minis from a lot of company's and I'm happy with AoS minitures and their pricing.

What I don't understand is why folks like yourself, who are declaring themselves moving over to Kings of War and Mantic (nice minis) bother with posting here? Shouldn't you be over at the Mantic forums?

Don't mind Erik, he's been ranting about everything Games Workshop do for at least 2 years now.

[grimmas]

The gods of chaos didn't blow up the old world Archaon did. By using a device buried inside the Ulricsburg. The simple answer to why the chaos didn't destroy the worlds of AoS is because no such device exists so they can't. Also who says they want to it was Archaon who wanted to destroy the old world not the chaos gods themselves they just thought it was a jolly gape. The chaos gods have never been about the total destruction of everything they just like playing their endless games. Maybe they are enjoying the state of the AoS world at the moment. They are timeless they might decide to find a way to destroy it later on. Maybe they won't because you know Chaos!!! Also it pretty clearly states that not eveyone died it's right there in black and white.

[Path Walker]

All except Sigmar, they missed him, he survived. So, technically, not total destruction.

[Just Tony]

So if you're not a customer, they should listen to you because?

If you're not a fan of the game - no problem. There's plenty more out there.

But that doesn't mean everyone should share your opinion on the game nor the price.

Do you understand how inflation works? That it's, y'know, just a random figure, based on non-luxury items, and doesn't include things like rising rents and house prices - something that will affect your employees, requiring you to pay ever higher wages if you don't want a high staff turnover, which can be detrimental to efficiency, and thus push up your production costs?

Can you provide evidence that the lost revenue on 'games that failed' is a driving force of rising prices please?

Can you also please provide a point of delineation between the kits that don't need resculpting, and those you feel do need resculpting?

Do you understand how the design studio works, and how creative minds work?

Yes, I do indeed understand such things. I also understand a level of conjecture, and the value of circumstantial evidence. Coincide price hikes starting in, oh, 1998 on with game systems that failed along the way. Also compare the rise in rates compared to other non-essential items using the same materials. Toys, gaming supplies from other companies.

And as far as kits needing redone or not needing redone. Mold degradation is listed as the main reason for resculpts of plastic kits. Are you aware that the little green army men have been in existence since before I was born? The same mold was run off by the millions for four decades. The detail lines are still as crisp as the ones I have left over from my childhood. The only reason they were replaced was to modernize the look with newer gear and weaponry. If a mold can be ran for that long with no problem, what is GW's excuse? Oh yeah, to add two shoulder pads to a Marine sprue. To consolidate the command sprue onto the main sprue. These costs are what drive up your prices unnecessarily, and what makes the bar of entry higher than most average gamers can afford. I work as a machinist and have a fair amount of disposable income, but the price is still prohibitive to me. How is a high school kid or young starting adult going to look at the same prices with less income? My beef with the prices has more to do with the effect on the hobby than my personal spending limits. And as we all know, if sales drop, GW raises the price to make up the difference rather than trying to make the price more accommodating to their target demographic.


The article is succinct and correct and reflects the lore presented in the Age of Sigmar Book.

No... the world was not totally destroyed.



True enough, but when folks go out of their way to try to destroy a company, that is quite another thing... really nasty.

Personally, I think the money I have invested in AoS is well spent. I made my third order today and bought the Knight-Venator, Knight-Vexillor, an Exalted Deathbringer and the Dragonfate Dais.

Can't wait to see them in my hands.

What about all the companies that have closed because GW dominated the market? Isn't it the same?

[Mr Mystery]

Shoulder Pads, Plasma Gun, Gravgun, Grav Pistol, Meltagun, Combi Weapon, Power Axe, Power fist all added, as well as ancillary bits and bobs for the keen modeller to personalise each squad?

Nope. No reason at all to tweak the whole thing....

Greenies having crisp detail? Serial? Srs serial? You may also notice they're cast in a pretty crappy plastic, and are one piece models with horrific mould line issues. Cheaply produced, some might say. Funny that. Though hey, I'm an easy going gamer - if someone wants to use them for their Imperial Guard, I say go for it.

Define most gamers? Because although GW have indisputably taken a hit in the past year or so - it was far less than 50.1%, which would support your claim.

High School Kids and Youngsters in general? The same way I did. Little bit here and there. I had a paper round paying me around £20 a week, and a part time job which barely paid me (sods always found a way out of it). Add in that childhood income has gone up considerably, and your assertion isn't looking all that strong.

Space Marine Assault squad - £25 for 5 plastic models and more bitz than you can shake a stick at....that's the same price as my old metal Assault Marines set me back in 1996....

Devastator Squad? Same price as 1996, but with added weapons options, meaning if I could get clever with magnets (I can't. But some can) you're getting far greater value for money. And the added bonus of them not falling over (looking at you, 3rd Ed hybrid Dev kit....)

[Psychosplodge]

Close Metal assault marines were 5 for £20, I remember cause I spent hours debating buying them when I could have another ten none jump pack marines for the same price. (I got the assault marines) :D

[Erik Setzer]

Sure it does, the book is called The Age of Sigmar.

As I said before, I really don't care about Oldhammer or 40K. I'm not a GW Fan... I am an AoS fan.

No, the Age of Sigmar book doesn't contradict the story in End Times (and if it did, you'd just be pointing out a serious flaw in AoS). While they inexplicably brought back a number of characters with no explanation other than "Hey guys, the old gang's back!" (basically, they needed familiar names, and to be able to keep selling some of the newer expensive releases), the only remnant of "the world that was" is the core. Everything else is GONE. Everyone is DEAD. That's not contradicted. Heck, these races we're getting are all-new races. The Chaos Gods obliterated the world so completely that these races who seem like the old races don't even know what the old races were. Malekith can't remember his own name (not surprising, as his memory was destroyed and everything he was perished when the rift took him).

You claim to be an "AoS fan." That means you're a Warhammer fan. AoS is meant to be a continuation of the Warhammer story. "Oldhammer," as you call it, is still the same story, just what happened leading to AoS. You can't pretend none of it happened. You can't ignore it because it's inconvenient. Your attempts to pretend part of the fluff doesn't exist just so you can ignore a huge issue with the AoS fluff are ridiculous. You're not a Warhammer fan, you're just a player who likes some models and doesn't care about the actual story behind the game.

And yeah, I got both major AoS books on my shelf at home, so I know the bloody story in those books, as well as the prior Warhammer story. So continuing to debate the story with me will just result in you looking sillier and sillier as you stick your fingers in your ears and act like a child saying, "La la la, Warhammer didn't exist before AoS, the Internet is always right, la la la, I can't hear you!"



So I have bought a lot of minis from a lot of company's and I'm happy with AoS minitures and their pricing.

Good for you. That's your opinion, and you're entitled to it. I also have my own opinion.



What I don't understand is why folks like yourself, who are declaring themselves moving over to Kings of War and Mantic (nice minis) bother with posting here? Shouldn't you be over at the Mantic forums?

Because I still have at least two AoS forces, and I have 40K armies, and I still play the games when I can, and I still hope for things to get better.

GAH. I have to remember to explain these things as if talking to petulant children, and it's frustrating, because what I'm about to say is so mind-numbingly simple to understand that you have to be practically a troll to not get this.

A lot of us enjoyed GW games over the years. I have a LOT of years and money invested in GW. You never cared for the old games? Congrats! Some of us did. A lot of us did. We grew up enjoying a multitude of games. 40K, Warhammer, Mordheim, Warmaster, Necromunda, Space Marine, GorkaMorka, Space Hulk, Space Crusade, Battlefleet Gothic, Man'O'War, Heroquest, Warhammer Quest, etc. We fell in love with these universes. We still love the models.

It is not really by choice that we're not playing. It's because GW's attitude has gotten even more anti-customer as the years went on, trying to act like its own history doesn't exist. They're pushing for premium priced models without caring about games to back them, looking down their noses at the idea of games even as they know those games are what sell their models. They're pricing the games into extinction. We look elsewhere because we can't in good conscience afford the insane pricing of GW games, especially as the quality of the games diminishes. And the quality of the games matters, because otherwise, why buy the toy soldier game pieces? If you think they're anything but toy soldier game pieces, you're either deluding yourself, or trying to convince an insurance company to give you something close to retail value to replace them.

If you lived close to me, I'd invite you into my apartment. All of my bookcases in my main room have figures on them, almost exclusively GW figures. My room-sized walk-in "closet" has shelves filled with models, most of them GW. Beside those shelves are various tackle boxes and cases full of models. More models are stacked in boxes on an upper shelf above my clothes. In my bedroom, I have a desk covered with models and paints and tools, cases stacked high with models to work on, another set of shelves covered in models, boxes around those shelves, figure cases lining an entire wall and under the bed. In the storage room on my porch, there's just moor plastic bins stuff with models, old rules and templates. Almost all of it is GW.

If GW dies, pretty much all of that just becomes stuff to put on a shelf and look pretty, which I hate, because game pieces should be used in games. And I'd prefer to keep playing games in the Warhammer and 40K universes. But I can't. I'm a gamer. GW's current management is trying to push out me and my friends, as we are pond scum compared to their preferred customers (who, frankly, don't really exist).

If I just go away and shut up, there's no one saying, "Hey, GW! We'd like you to fix things and bring back the good stuff you used to do!" There's nothing but people saying, "Hey, GW, go on doing what you're doing until your revenue gets so low you can't make any more cuts, and then just charge even more and make basic models collector items and stuff, we'll gladly pay $20 a model for basic infantry, and $300 for a larger plastic model, just keep upping the price to make up for lack of customers until you're dead." I'd prefer GW to come back from the brink, but even mentioning that things aren't good for it gets me bashed by someone like you, who thinks that I should keep my mouth shut.

You might be cool with the current prices, but even paying those silly prices, you still won't beat how much I've spent on GW. So call it a "vested interest."

(And it's not even old stuff. I have all the End Times hardcovers, I have the limited edition AoS, I have the Ghal Maraz book, I have about half of the 40K codices, I have a new Bloodthirster, Nagash, Thanquol, Verminlord, Stormfiends, Morghasts, a Mortarch, a Knight, a Morkanaut, and a bunch of other recent stuff that ain't that cheap, and bought a whole Ogre army earlier this year in anticipation of something that didn't happen. Painted about 8000 points of Undead for an End Times battle. Think I got ya beat on the hobby credentials with GW stuff and have damn well earned my right to voice my opinion.)

[Erik Setzer]

The simple answer to why the chaos didn't destroy the worlds of AoS is because no such device exists so they can't.

Actually, there are no "worlds" in AoS. The "realms" are kind of abstract areas floating in the void. (Pet theory: The realms are chunks of the old world gathered together by the Old Ones who then populated them with what they thought the old inhabitants of the old world were like, including attempting to resurrect some of the heroes from the knowledge that the surviving Lizardmen/Slann had. That explains the oddity of having people who are very much like they used to be but also different, like the Orcs not remembering they're Orcs, or the Dwarfs suddenly calling themselves something else and acting different, or Malekith somehow merging his name with his dragon's. The core of the old world is important for later bringing it all back together as some kind of strange super-weapon against Chaos, and that's why Sigmar's protecting it so much. Hey, it's a pet theory, I can wear my tin foil and make wild guesses.)



Also it pretty clearly states that not eveyone died it's right there in black and white.

Sigmar survived. That's it. Everyone else died. Heck, they broke the Weave that held time and space together. They won so hard they broke the universe. (I wish that was more than a throwaway line, but I don't see anything yet to suggest it. If GW wanted to go hardcore crazy, they could reference that to mash AoS and 40K together.) All that was left was the core. In AoS they talk about that glowing rock that Sigmar built a ring around being the core of "the world that was." When everything except the molten core of a world is gone, how does anyone survive?

All of the bickering over specifics of who survived ignores the main point here, though. In the End Times, Chaos won. They got "tired of their victory." Note that word: VICTORY. There was no bickering that stopped them from getting what they wanted. But now we're told that Sigmar knows they can't achieve what they want because they'll always break down into bickering, which will keep them from completing destruction long enough to let some people live the 600 years or so it takes him to make an army... No. He would know that's not right.

But then, we're also told on one world the water is practically poison, the people don't live past 30 (and are lucky to even reach adulthood), but somehow some of them are still around after hundreds of years. The story throws in some stuff that, if you actually apply thought to it, makes no sense.

AoS isn't really meant to make sense. It's meant to work with people who want big ideas and over the top models of Clonetroopers wearing golden armor. The story is full of inconsistencies and holes and doesn't work, and we haven't even tried to wedge the other races in yet. That can be fine for people, and okay, if you like that, cool. But trying to act like those issues aren't there? Nah. Just admit you're okay with a story that contradicts itself. (And as much as some people want to ignore Warhammer Fantasy Battles, dismissively calling it "Oldhammer," it's still the story of Warhammer, and Age of Sigmar is titled Warhammer: Age of Sigmar because its story is a continuation, meaning what came before *is* important.)

[Path Walker]

Erik hasn't read the fluff it seems, for either the End Times or Age of Sigmar. He's just going from what he's read on other forums. His arguments make no sense in regards to the stories already told and the way the Chaos Gods have been shown to act for decades, if anything, The End Times was a bit out of character with them working together so flawlessly.

Anyway, Sigmar didn't die, the Chaos Gods missed him somehow, he clung to the wreckage of the world and floated through the void. The Incarnates also seem to have survived but been changed and from them, echoes of the old world have sprung up in the mortal races.

At the very least that means you have at least 8 beings from the Old World that were not completely destroyed. Oh and the Lizardmen left the old world and were changed into the Seraphon somehow (which we're yet to see, but Good Daemons who are also Dinosaurs is a cool theme anyway), so yeah, as far as total destruction goes, they missed a bit.

Chaos only won because of Archaon uniting their forces, the gods rewarded him for it. This time, they're enjoying themselves, they're not uniting to destory everything because, with Sigmar in hiding and no knowledge of the Stormcast Eternals until they launched their assault, they think they've won. They can't break the Realms down like they did the World That Was so they're using the mortals as play things and enjoying their victory.

The Age of Chaos is the end of the Mortal Realms as far as the Gods are concerned, they're taking their time, they're in no rush, why not get all they can out of the Realms why they still can?

[grimmas]

Erik hasn't read the fluff it seems, for either the End Times or Age of Sigmar. He's just going from what he's read on other forums. His arguments make no sense in regards to the stories already told and the way the Chaos Gods have been shown to act for decades, if anything, The End Times was a bit out of character with them working together so flawlessly.

Anyway, Sigmar didn't die, the Chaos Gods missed him somehow, he clung to the wreckage of the world and floated through the void. The Incarnates also seem to have survived but been changed and from them, echoes of the old world have sprung up in the mortal races.

At the very least that means you have at least 8 beings from the Old World that were not completely destroyed. Oh and the Lizardmen left the old world and were changed into the Seraphon somehow (which we're yet to see, but Good Daemons who are also Dinosaurs is a cool theme anyway), so yeah, as far as total destruction goes, they missed a bit.

Chaos only won because of Archaon uniting their forces, the gods rewarded him for it. This time, they're enjoying themselves, they're not uniting to destory everything because, with Sigmar in hiding and no knowledge of the Stormcast Eternals until they launched their assault, they think they've won. They can't break the Realms down like they did the World That Was so they're using the mortals as play things and enjoying their victory.

The Age of Chaos is the end of the Mortal Realms as far as the Gods are concerned, they're taking their time, they're in no rush, why not get all they can out of the Realms why they still can?


All this and let not forget the group of Evles sent to the Haven. Yes Isha (or whoever she actually was) couldn't sense them, however they do clearly this exist in AoS (and Tyrion couldn't sense them when he arrived either standing by for the campaign book).

I will give Erik one thing though Worlds isn't the correct term but for some reason my spell check won't allow the other word, damn you apple

[Just Tony]

Shoulder Pads, Plasma Gun, Gravgun, Grav Pistol, Meltagun, Combi Weapon, Power Axe, Power fist all added, as well as ancillary bits and bobs for the keen modeller to personalise each squad?

Nope. No reason at all to tweak the whole thing....

Do you remember the Black Templar sprue? The Space Wolves sprue? A sprue that added ALL the special weapons and power weapons you'd need, plus a few extra to incorporate into other squads? THAT is all that needed redone, not the entirety of the Marine sprue. THAT is what was excessive, and prices show for it. Granted, 40K gets more unnecessary resculpting than WFB, but the price hikes are product-wide so it is relevant.


Greenies having crisp detail? Serial? Srs serial? You may also notice they're cast in a pretty crappy plastic, and are one piece models with horrific mould line issues. Cheaply produced, some might say. Funny that. Though hey, I'm an easy going gamer - if someone wants to use them for their Imperial Guard, I say go for it.

Did you even read my post?


And as far as kits needing redone or not needing redone. Mold degradation is listed as the main reason for resculpts of plastic kits. Are you aware that the little green army men have been in existence since before I was born? The same mold was run off by the millions for four decades. The detail lines are still as crisp as the ones I have left over from my childhood. The only reason they were replaced was to modernize the look with newer gear and weaponry. If a mold can be ran for that long with no problem, what is GW's excuse? Oh yeah, to add two shoulder pads to a Marine sprue. To consolidate the command sprue onto the main sprue. These costs are what drive up your prices unnecessarily, and what makes the bar of entry higher than most average gamers can afford. I work as a machinist and have a fair amount of disposable income, but the price is still prohibitive to me. How is a high school kid or young starting adult going to look at the same prices with less income? My beef with the prices has more to do with the effect on the hobby than my personal spending limits. And as we all know, if sales drop, GW raises the price to make up the difference rather than trying to make the price more accommodating to their target demographic.

The bolded underlined is where you are misreading. I said as crisp as the ones I had as a child. I never implied they were on a detail level with GW models, just that if mold degradation was legitimately a thing, you'd see loss of detail on molds that have been used for decades making millions of copies per year. Board game pieces have the exact same thing going on, you don't see evidence of mold degradation going on there. It's possible that GW simply doesn't know how to care for their molds, I can concede that.


Define most gamers? Because although GW have indisputably taken a hit in the past year or so - it was far less than 50.1%, which would support your claim.

Define as a metric that you won't nitpick to hell and back? Nah, not really. Evidence to support my claim? The existence of AOS in the first place. Sales dropping are what necessitated this severe revamping as they were considering killing it outright. Its existence certainly doesn't refute my claim.


High School Kids and Youngsters in general? The same way I did. Little bit here and there. I had a paper round paying me around £20 a week, and a part time job which barely paid me (sods always found a way out of it). Add in that childhood income has gone up considerably, and your assertion isn't looking all that strong.

Cost of living is also higher, as are prices of everything. When you were a kid, did you focus all your money on GW stuff? Even when I was obsessed with comics, I spent my money on more than just that. Now a kid gets to save up $130 US for Skarbrand. Different times, but childhood income hasn't risen enough to make THAT pill affordable. Now multiply across the hobby.


Space Marine Assault squad - £25 for 5 plastic models and more bitz than you can shake a stick at....that's the same price as my old metal Assault Marines set me back in 1996....

Devastator Squad? Same price as 1996, but with added weapons options, meaning if I could get clever with magnets (I can't. But some can) you're getting far greater value for money. And the added bonus of them not falling over (looking at you, 3rd Ed hybrid Dev kit....)

$20 US for a regiment of Spear Elves when they first came out for 6th. Now they are up to $35 US. 75% increase. Did all plastic products increase 75% since that period? Also, look at the price of the ten man regiments coming out after that. $41 for the Phoenix Guard regiment at 10 man? $50 for the Shadow Warriors?

[Mr Mystery]

And how much were those units when they were metal. Oh. Yeah. Either the same price, or slightly more expensive....

And please, if you're going to make claims about majorities, just provide evidence to support. That's all.

Nobody is saying the hobby is cheap. Nobody in their right mind wouldn't like to see cheaper prices (that's a pretty universal human desire, unless of course you're the sort of buttmunch who buys a drug company and then starts charging $750 a pill on account you have no soul). That doesn't mean the prices are too expensive. GW remain in profit by a healthy margin, and they seem satisfied with their current course. None of that matches up with the claims you're making.

[Ray Rivers]

Nobody is saying the hobby is cheap.

Actually... no hobby is cheap.

Take a look at bicycling for example.

http://www.bicycling.com/gear-product-list/shoes

Check out the price of those shoes.

As I have said, I am cool with the prices for AoS minis. If you are not Tony, go somewhere else. Please.

[Psychosplodge]

Check out Ball jointed dolls...

[Mr Mystery]

Or Snowboarding.

[Path Walker]

I'm a casual Lego fan and yeah, that **** is pricey, pound for pound maybe not but given that there is no painting, or anything once its built, its not the best value for money.

Hobbies are expensive because they're luxuries, no one needs them so they charge what they can to maximize the return on investment. I wouldn't spend more on models if they were cheaper, I already buy more than I can reasonably paint or use, thus why all hobbyists I know have a "Pile of Shame", I'm already at the peak for my spending, so making them cheaper would just mean they make less profit from most of us.Yes there are some kept out of the hobby because of the price but GW (and the other companies, again my FSA or DZC cost a fair bit for a lot less in terms of material and quality) have decided that they won't bring in as much profit as people willing to spend more.

[Psychosplodge]

pile of shame

I like that.

[Mr Mystery]

I don't have a Pile of Shame.

A small mountain perhaps, but certainly not a pile.

[nsc]

I just refer to mine as greygoo which will one day consume all my spare money

Then again a lot of my shame is white metal :P

[Mr Mystery]

Skrewdriver?

[Al Shut]

I'm a casual Lego fan and yeah, that **** is pricey, pound for pound maybe not but given that there is no painting, or anything once its built, its not the best value for money.

The trick is to deconstruct and build it new over and over again.

I'm kind of hesitant to do this with my GW models.

[Psychosplodge]

:eek:

You want to dismantle lego?

:eek:

[Erik Setzer]

:eek:

You want to dismantle lego?

:eek:

That's what I always did with mine when I had them. Haven't had any in a long time, but if I picked up some sets (kind of tempted), they'd maybe be built as what they're supposed to be once, before I pull them apart and then build all kinds of other stuff for fun. To me, that was always the fun of LEGO blocks, using my imagination to build all kinds of random stuff. Same for any of the other construction sets my parents got me as a kid (like the metal ones that also had motors and wheels and stuff).

[Al Shut]

Also if you put all your pieces into one big box you need to search forever to find the right pieces. Even more value for money.

[Path Walker]

You build your kits and then you buy the bricks you want (or spare kits) for MOCs! And never the twain shall meet.

[Arkhan Land]

Skrewdriver?

Skrewdriver is definitely not metal



on the OG Topic:

for the longest time I was telling myself I would break into this and split a box with someone but totally never did, maybe after holidays

[Erik Setzer]

Heck, right now, I'd like for local folks to just be interested in 40K again... It's like AoS took the wind out of all the GW sales.

Not saying it's like that everywhere, just locally things took a serious nosedive on the GW front. The complaints I hear are valid, but I would have expected more people to take the attitude of, "I sank a lot of money into these games, I'm going to keep playing them."

[Just Tony]

Anyone find it odd that there was more action on this board discussing LEGO than there was discussing Warhammer? Well, AOS. I have a feeling that a thread about older WH systems might actually get more convo.

[Caitsidhe]

Anyone find it odd that there was more action on this board discussing LEGO than there was discussing Warhammer? Well, AOS. I have a feeling that a thread about older WH systems might actually get more convo.

I find it very "telling" but not particularly odd or surprising. :D

[Psychosplodge]

Come the Oubliette :D

[Ray Rivers]

Heck, right now, I'd like for local folks to just be interested in 40K again... It's like AoS took the wind out of all the GW sales.

Really?

Over at Dakka Dakka they are falling all over themselves telling everyone how sales have tanked.

BTW... waiting for my third AoS order and planning my fourth. :p

[Mr Mystery]

But then, Dakkadakka is the cesspit of the war gaming inter webs. Full of pointlessly angry neckbeards, proclaiming their hatred of all things GW from the safety of Mother's House.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

But then, Dakkadakka is the cesspit of the war gaming inter webs. Full of pointlessly angry neckbeards, proclaiming their hatred of all things GW from the safety of Mother's House.Graaah. I've got accounts on BoLS, Dakka, B&C and Warseer, and the most significant difference is BoLS's unwarranted superiority complex.

[Mr Mystery]

I've been on Warseer, Dakka and BoLS.

Dakkadakka is toxic. Like a new release, perhaps you've pointed out someone is provably talking bollocks? Prepare for the dogpiling circlespank calling you an apologist white knight stooge.... If you're not cracking one off to your latest senseless conspiracy theory, you're the enemy.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

I clicked on the first discussion of the new Tau releases I saw ("The new tau so far are pretty disappointing"). Some people think the new release looks underpowered, some think it's overpowered, some think we can't form any judgement yet. It's mostly civil, with some dumb ribbing.

If the backdrop was white and blue instead of grey and yellow, I'd assume it was BoLS.

[Alaric]

I clicked on the first discussion of the new Tau releases I saw ("The new tau so far are pretty disappointing"). Some people think the new release looks underpowered, some think it's overpowered, some think we can't form any judgement yet. It's mostly civil, with some dumb ribbing.

If the backdrop was white and blue instead of grey and yellow, I'd assume it was BoLS.

Yeah...nobody wants grey and yellow BalLs

[Psychosplodge]

But then, Dakkadakka is the cesspit of the war gaming inter webs. Full of pointlessly angry neckbeards, proclaiming their hatred of all things GW from the safety of Mother's House.

Worse than warseer?



Graaah. I've got accounts on BoLS, Dakka, B&C and Warseer, and the most significant difference is BoLS's unwarranted superiority complex.

But it's totally warranted due to us being better than them :p

[Mr Mystery]

Much worse. At least when I haunted it's halls.

[Kaptain Badrukk]

I'm with psycho on this one. We are better (hurriedly heads off to make the same claim on the other three with his accounts there..........).

[Psychosplodge]

lols, all with the same name? :rolleyes:

[Morgrim]

The fluff section on Dakkadakka is fine, and the sculpting and painting sections arguably better populated than BoSL. I can't comment on the 'tactical' bits though because I have learnt not to go anywhere REMOTELY near them.

[Psychosplodge]

So it's just like the rules threads?

[Kaptain Badrukk]

It's the same all over.
Haters gonna hate, trolls gonna troll, but great hobby is there if you look.

[nsc]

It's the same all over.
Haters gonna hate, trolls gonna troll, but great hobby is there if you look.

Yeah, I can get behind this. I find that the trolls treat it like a game, the people who are pleasant a hobby.

You're not painting figures for a game, you're painting your toy soldiers. YOUR toy soldiers. It can be very personal and possessive, but too many people just slap on a GW suggested painting scheme and push around nameless guys.

The hobby is a lot more fun when you paint your guys how you like and name them, then you get sweet stories like the ratling weapon team who killed a doomwheel--in melee combat. :D

[Just Tony]

Yeah, I can get behind this. I find that the trolls treat it like a game, the people who are pleasant a hobby.

You're not painting figures for a game, you're painting your toy soldiers. YOUR toy soldiers. It can be very personal and possessive, but too many people just slap on a GW suggested painting scheme and push around nameless guys.

The hobby is a lot more fun when you paint your guys how you like and name them, then you get sweet stories like the ratling weapon team who killed a doomwheel--in melee combat. :D

I don't think these things are mutually exclusive. Every aspect of my army selection right down to the paint scheme comes from the appeal of the hobby aspect. I most assuredly don't want to model something that will not work well in a game, but at the same time, I don't run netlist of the week, nor do I settle for the 4 color "legal" paint job. Every character I have has a name and history, I wrote a very specific message on my HE BSE in Elven runes. I can guarantee you that I wouldn't have bought the models if there wasn't a game tied to them. How many of you can say you WOULD have?

[Erik Setzer]

I don't think these things are mutually exclusive. Every aspect of my army selection right down to the paint scheme comes from the appeal of the hobby aspect. I most assuredly don't want to model something that will not work well in a game, but at the same time, I don't run netlist of the week, nor do I settle for the 4 color "legal" paint job. Every character I have has a name and history, I wrote a very specific message on my HE BSE in Elven runes. I can guarantee you that I wouldn't have bought the models if there wasn't a game tied to them. How many of you can say you WOULD have?

Yeah, I'm a gamer, but I prefer to run painted models, and I run armies with a theme rather than trying for something to just beat in my opponent's face. I name character, I write backstories, I convert and paint, all that jazz.

But I know that these ARE games. Age of Sigmar is a game. You don't have to be a "troll" to know that. And you can disagree with claims that it's not while still being "pleasant." They didn't just wipe out WFB and release a bunch of fluff and say, "This is the Age of Sigmar. Enjoy reading and buying a couple of new factions!" Nope, they released rules and put out PDFs for all the existing armies. They made a game. They know the models don't sell without a game. The army books are called "BATTLEtomes," suggesting use for BATTLE, i.e. in a game, not just fluff. Everything about the game highlights that it's a game.

It's more accurate to say that people who insist it isn't a game in order to bash the people who have problems with the game are the "trolls" who are being "unpleasant." You can't deny reality and then attack people who point out an undeniable fact: Age of Sigmar is a GAME. If there was no game, the sales would tank and GW would drop it in an instant. There'd be no more Age of Sigmar.

If you enjoy the game, fine, keep on enjoying it and have fun. But don't claim it's not a game. Otherwise, you'd have to say every miniatures game on the market is really a "hobby," not a game.

Oh, and can we stop claiming that particular games are a hobby to themselves? They're not. They're part of a larger hobby that includes many games. 40K is not a hobby. AoS is not a hobby. Warmachine is not a hobby. They are all part of the miniatures gaming hobby. (And yes, playing games is a hobby! So why, again, do we have people trying to insist that something can't be a game and part of a hobby?)