Attention Sports Fans!

[Mr Mystery]

All pictures artfully filched from Lil Legend Studios (http://loserstudio.blogspot.co.uk) Facebook page.

[Erik Setzer]

Was literally coming to post that from Facebook.

They knew where to start, at least. It's the one game so popular the local manager ran an "after hours" campaign (which then became an "all hours" campaign that he smartly used to get people to buy boxes of WFB figures to convert). Only a couple of mock figures so far, and they look like early designs (not covered in enough "detail" for modern GW... though I'd prefer they stayed away from that route). But at least there's some concepts being bandied about. Heck, it's not like they couldn't just temporarily release the old stuff and make money while making new models.

*Sigh.* No, I suppose they couldn't, because the current "leadership" still thinks what they're doing is super-serial and they have to have "works of art" for every game piece... sorry, "fantasy miniature." So while we the fans would buy up the existing models like no one's business, instead we'll have to wait for new models so the Board don't have to hide their faces in shame because they release such low quality stuff.

Bother... I'm getting depressed and upset again.

(And if they apply those freaking stupid AoS racial names, rather than the proper WFB/BB names, I will buy a plane ticket, stomach the ride, and join an angry mob in burning Nottingham to the group. Sorry, residents, I mean the whole town, not just the GW HQ. That's how you do a proper riot.)

Meantime, I've got a set of converted Orcs (with coach!) sitting in a drawer waiting to be painted. Maybe I'll remember to paint them before the release date. I should probably do a write-up on the conversions so other people might be able to get ideas.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

Wonder if they'll do stormcast eternals for this...

[grimmas]

Yeah burning Nottingham to the ground would literally cause thousands of pounds of improvements.

I'd hope they don't use the AoS background I love the Pratchet esque Bloodbowl Warhammer world. The only problem I can foresee is that there are companies who have been making and selling complete ranges of Bloodbowl miniatures ever since GW dropped the ball (haha). I think we can take heart in the knowledge that Bloodbowl just wouldn't work in the AoS background. Fingers crossed.

Still those minis look sweet. A definite improvement on the ones that came with the last game. 😏

[Mr Mystery]

I'm looking forward to the Undead for Blood Bowl. The last round of players was pretty awful if you ask me.

[grimmas]

Due to the small size of the range I'd say we've got something to look forward to they've got the opportunity to go to town on the minis. Especially when you consider now nice the new AoS stuff has been.

[Wolfshade]

I am excite

[Mr Mystery]

It's also an interesting indication as to the quality we might expect for the rest of Specialist Games, not to mention it appears to be a ground up re-release, and not just dusting off the old range.

That to me is an interesting approach. Firing up production of the old stuff would have been a near instant win. The games we're looking at getting back are old favourites (though I suck horribly at Blood Bowl), so most would have been happy enough with that approach.

But getting spangly new? That's just as welcome, but far more cost intensive for GW to do, at least in the short to mid-term.

Strikes me that they're pretty confident these games are going to sell like fried gold.

Me? I cannot wait to see the board. Current favourite remains the old Astrogranite one - the cardboard replacement just didn't do it for me!

[Wolfshade]

The part that concerns me is going to be the box set price.
Hopefully it will be expansive and not just Orks vs Humans as a standalone box.

[Mr Mystery]

We'll just have to wait and see.

On the one hand, an 'all-in' boxed set could be cool and attract lots of would-be players.

But on the other, it severely limits your sales potential - that one box has to do all the work. Downside there is that if someone wants to play say, Stick Pixies, they're in for the boxed set and a team set, which could put some off.

Though of course, Age of Sigmar has shown GW are now happy to put the rules out for free. Even with the additional odds and sods that BB entails (board, dug outs, score tracker, counters and cards) free rules are still possible. Just needs a PDF of the stuff you'd otherwise get printed all spangly and nice in the boxed set, and a guide to the proper dimensions and lay out of the pitch.

Definitely interesting things afoot. The GW of this time last year isn't the same beast as the GW of now.

Still totally psyched for the Specialist Games range. Smaller, less daunting games I can use to get my non-gaming mates round the board.

[Erik Setzer]

Though of course, Age of Sigmar has shown GW are now happy to put the rules out for free.

Actually, the old Specialist Games set a mark for that. Then they stopped down that (even though Mordheim could have helped selling the Warhammer range).

AoS might have had free rules, but it was kind of a necessity given that they needed to try to salvage the Warhammer line (and, assuming it was in bad shape before, the fact that they've seen a revenues dip means it's still in bad shape, because they didn't learn the biggest lesson).

But then we see BaC, which has the rules in the box, not free. And the announcement for this new stuff used BaC as a reason for why they assume it'll all be successful. It does indeed sound like they're going for core stand-alone stuff... but that'll lead to issues with people who don't want the core game stuff.

We already have that issue, though, with 40K. Sure, you can skip on the starter box, but then you still have to pay $85 for a rulebook and $10-$15 for templates before you can start playing. Oh, and a codex, but that was always something you'd need. But GW thinks that's not really an issue for attracting players, despite the $150 or so price tag before you can even buy models to play with.

Thinking on this, though, why is this such an issue? The old Blood Bowl boxes had two teams and everything else you need to play, and no one saw an issue with that, even if you wanted to play, say, Dwarfs. Is it because we're pretty certain they'll stick a high price tag on the game, and resin team kits will be even more expensive? If so, that's more a failure of GW's pricing scheme than the box method. Necromunda, Mordheim, Adeptus Titanicus, Space Marine, Titan Legions... All of these games came with two forces in the box that you could build on or replace. It wasn't an issue back then. But GW didn't charge $125 for a board game, and $150 if that board game has more depth to it, back then. Makes you wonder what a proper core starter game will cost. If they want $125 for the core game and $75 for a team, then it's going to have trouble drawing people's attention, especially when they can already get nice Blood Bowl teams elsewhere.