Times are definitely a'changin'

[Mr Mystery]

The official Age of Sigmar Facebook page just did a little something.

That little something was promoting a non-GW tournament, specifically the South Coast Grand Tournament.

Don't believe me?

Here's a screen grab.

And yep. It does say Games Workshop will be attending, and providing live coverage

[40kGamer]

Interesting.... I hope GW brings the 'hobby fluff feel' back to events and moves things away from the 'Ardboyz mentality of "kill thy neighbor."

[Erik Setzer]

"But tournaments kill the hobby and Age of Sigmar wasn't meant for tournaments and if you do an Age of Sigmar tournament you're doing it wrong and GW hates you!"

Heh. Maybe that'll shut up the idiots who complain about the existence of tournaments. (My tolerance for those comments is past gone, so no nice terms for them.)

Good to see they're putting forth an effort for community engagement.

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Interesting.... I hope GW brings the 'hobby fluff feel' back to events and moves things away from the 'Ardboyz mentality of "kill thy neighbor."

GW's not running the tourney. It's up to the tourney organizers, who I trust more to do that, since GW were the ones who decided 'Ard Boyz was a good idea (and it was a great idea if their intentions were to foster a WAAC environment and sully the reputation of tournaments everywhere).

They could release a new version of the RTT packet, though, that'd be nice for FLGS's. Only, y'know, don't try to charge the stores for it.

[Mr Mystery]

Blimey. They're really turning that cart about! (https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Warhammer?N=102295+4294965182&Nu=product.repositoryId&qty=12&sorting=rec&view=table&categoryId=cat440002a-flat)

They've bundled up the top three armies from the SCGT and put them on their website.

Fairly sure this is unprecedented in the modern day? They did similar waaaaay back when with WD army bundles, but from memory, never Tournament winners?

[odinsgrandson]

Yeah- they're definitely trying new things.

I like that. I wonder how it will pan out for them, but I hope it goes well.

To me, I don't feel a huge catharsis when I see their revinue dwindling during the seventh year of growth for independent hobby retailers. I'd rather they turned it around by becoming the friendlier GW we've always wanted them to be.

[Mr Mystery]

I can't see it doing any damage at all - and the forthcoming Generals Handbook likewise (for my thoughts on those berating them for adding points, see elsewhere).

They're making a definite effort to change tack on community relations. Whilst I'm sure there will remain those determined to put them down at every opportunity, even when such putdowns are clearly contradictory from event to event, they do deserve acknowledgement of their new found efforts.

[Caitsidhe]

I can't see it doing any damage at all - and the forthcoming Generals Handbook likewise (for my thoughts on those berating them for adding points, see elsewhere).

They're making a definite effort to change tack on community relations. Whilst I'm sure there will remain those determined to put them down at every opportunity, even when such putdowns are clearly contradictory from event to event, they do deserve acknowledgement of their new found efforts.

I'll give it proper acknowledgement. It is too little, too late. Moreover, you cannot build a castle on a foundation of sand. The rules are awful. People are doing their best to cope with them, but most others are just finding better rules. They have stretched the rubber band to the breaking point. It didn't break, but it is stretched out and never going back to its original, useful shape. I'm not saying this just to be a doomsayer. I'm just being honest. The writing is on the walls at the local LGS, online, and clearly in their own dwindling numbers.

[Auticus]

We will see.

The new points announcement has our super tournament FLGS having created two tournaments now this summer for it, and both have 12-15 players signed up. That same store had 0 AOS players before the announcement.

[Mr Mystery]

If that's what it takes, that's what it takes.

And once again, without evidence, Caitsidhe likes to speak for 'the majority'.....

[Trojan66]

The fact of the matter is GW scrapped our game. Nothing can change that and undo the bad feeling that generated. I play AOS. But I no longer see it as my main hobby like I used to. I have cabinets full of warhammer armies that are pretty much redundant and I hate the beefed up/40k looking aesthetics and the fact that you can't really mingle new with old.
Every time I think about buying a new release I think...why the hell should I pay a huge amount of cash for second rate figures to play in a game that really doesn't work as well as it should have done.
I really don't think any change they make is going to be enough.

[odinsgrandson]

I don't think they're going to undo the bad feelings they've earned from former WFB players. There are a lot of them.

I know a lot of people who were considering trying out AoS, and then found out that the rules were... incomplete.


I sincerely hope that the rules for point values becomes part of the free rulebook, because I know people who I think would check it out, but aren't going to drop money on AoS unless they like it.

Even if it isn't, a $35 rulebook for the rest of the game's rules isn't terrible.

[Path Walker]

Age of Sigmar has such a nice, positive and encouraging community that I worry that would be ruined by letting the old guard back in. I think part of what they did was a house clearing, they got rid of a lot of the garbage.

[Erik Setzer]

Even if it isn't, a $35 rulebook for the rest of the game's rules isn't terrible.

So far, pretty much every book printed for the game (I say "pretty much" because I don't personally know it's 100%, but it is for all of the books I have - some of the campaign books and all four GA books) has had the rules printed in it for easy reference. I imagine this book will also include them, so it'd be a "complete rulebook." And if you play armies limited to a single mega-faction, you can have this book and the GA book as your full reference. I've heard $25 for this book, but even going with $35, the most expensive GA book would still mean you're dropping $68 total on rules for the game with varying methods of play and rules for a metric butt ton of units. Compared to 40K's $85 rulebook that now wants to tack on $58, before you even get into the codices... Yeah, there's still some lessons to be learned. But anyway, that's not an insane price to pay for having all the rules you'll ever need.

Of course, if you still don't like the way the game plays, that doesn't help you much. (Like my friend who wants to play ranked fantasy combat. Luckily, $40 will get him the KoW rulebook with army lists, so he can use his models there. Or 9th Age for no cost, which he's interested in after hearing a local guy was working on it.)

[grimmas]

Age of Sigmar has such a nice, positive and encouraging community that I worry that would be ruined by letting the old guard back in. I think part of what they did was a house clearing, they got rid of a lot of the garbage.

There might be an element of that. The whole scene was a little bit gunked up and somewhat elitist. I notice the DBAD rule is draconianly enforced. Even in tournaments where it's been mentioned how relaxed they are.

[Erik Setzer]

There might be an element of that. The whole scene was a little bit gunked up and somewhat elitist. I notice the DBAD rule is draconianly enforced. Even in tournaments where it's been mentioned how relaxed they are.

Really an unfounded comment by him (no surprise given the source). The AoS crowd is no nicer or more positive or encouraging than the WFB crowd. The "old guard" are plenty nice fellows, and while some of them can be prone to being negative, so can many AoS community members.

Taking shots at the people who could help keep the game afloat isn't a good thing, and doesn't show off that "nice, positive, and encouraging" attitude, so maybe let's not do that?

[Caitsidhe]

Age of Sigmar has such a nice, positive and encouraging community that I worry that would be ruined by letting the old guard back in. I think part of what they did was a house clearing, they got rid of a lot of the garbage.

Heh. Garbage that was paying their bills apparently.

[odinsgrandson]

There might be an element of that. The whole scene was a little bit gunked up and somewhat elitist. I notice the DBAD rule is draconianly enforced. Even in tournaments where it's been mentioned how relaxed they are.

There's the hitch with the DBAD rule: most of the time, people break it when they enforce it.

[grimmas]

There's the hitch with the DBAD rule: most of the time, people break it when they enforce it.

Possibly

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Really an unfounded comment by him (no surprise given the source). The AoS crowd is no nicer or more positive or encouraging than the WFB crowd. The "old guard" are plenty nice fellows, and while some of them can be prone to being negative, so can many AoS community members.

Taking shots at the people who could help keep the game afloat isn't a good thing, and doesn't show off that "nice, positive, and encouraging" attitude, so maybe let's not do that?

What it's you say Your Millage My Millage. I've seen very little negativity from AoS community members .

[Erik Setzer]

What it's you say Your Millage My Millage. I've seen very little negativity from AoS community members .

Maybe thinking of "YMMV -> "Your Mileage May Vary" (i.e. "your experience may differ"). In the gameplay, I haven't seen any less than I did from people playing WFB. Online, I've seen plenty of AoS community members get salty about any criticism of the game (not talking people who pop up just to complain about the game). There were also all the people who said "You're playing it wrong" if you don't play it like they do.

The shot against the WFB community and the "old guard" is itself a display of negativity. The attitude that people coming into the game and helping support it and keep it around is somehow bad is, itself, negativity.

At the end of the day, they're still gamers, and a lot of the AoS community, if not the majority, is made up of people who were part of the WFB community. So this whole "us vs. them" vibe is kind of weird, a lot of hypocrisy, and just silly because, again, they're all gamers, and gamers can get pretty riled up at times. It's something you see in any passionate group.

[Auticus]

Having written one of the comp systems that was used until the official points announcement, I will say that I had a decent amount of vitriol sent my way from the AOS community for "encouraging people to play AOS the wrong way". I had a guy on facebook track my name down and find my phone number and start text harassing me, and i had quite a few private facebook messages sent from jokers who were sending trolling memes because I pushed for comp and not "officialdom".

I've seen quite a bit of negativity from AOS community members. I'd say equal amounts of it. In the end gamers are gamers and in the end a lot of the AOS community were former WHFB people who were just as prone to negativity and hyperbole as anyone.

That being said - being a part of a group that supports your hobby is vital and keeps interest up and there is also a fair amount of that as well. My point in posting is just to say that the current AOS community is not less hostile than the old whfb community was; I find them to be roughly the same in terms of hostility level.

[grimmas]

Maybe thinking of "YMMV -> "Your Mileage May Vary" (i.e. "your experience may differ"). In the gameplay, I haven't seen any less than I did from people playing WFB. Online, I've seen plenty of AoS community members get salty about any criticism of the game (not talking people who pop up just to complain about the game). There were also all the people who said "You're playing it wrong" if you don't play it like they do.

The shot against the WFB community and the "old guard" is itself a display of negativity. The attitude that people coming into the game and helping support it and keep it around is somehow bad is, itself, negativity.

At the end of the day, they're still gamers, and a lot of the AoS community, if not the majority, is made up of people who were part of the WFB community. So this whole "us vs. them" vibe is kind of weird, a lot of hypocrisy, and just silly because, again, they're all gamers, and gamers can get pretty riled up at times. It's something you see in any passionate group.

Excuse me, the AoS community it negative because when people turn up moaning about it they aren't positive about that? Yeah right that's their faulty not the people turning up to be negative. I wonder what'd happen if I went to an another games forum and started telling everyone how bad it was what'd happen, I bet they'd have a "negative" community pretty quickly. I worry about you sometimes. If you put in negativity you get negativity back bacause your attitude and behaviour to them affects their attitude and behaviour towards you (the Bartaris box theory)

Also I'd be more inclined to your current "we're all just gamers" stance if you hadn't on numerous times since its release refered to a number of posters (including me) as Trolls for daring to claim we like AoS.

Also if you want to argue with Path argue with Path.

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Having written one of the comp systems that was used until the official points announcement, I will say that I had a decent amount of vitriol sent my way from the AOS community for "encouraging people to play AOS the wrong way". I had a guy on facebook track my name down and find my phone number and start text harassing me, and i had quite a few private facebook messages sent from jokers who were sending trolling memes because I pushed for comp and not "officialdom".

I've seen quite a bit of negativity from AOS community members. I'd say equal amounts of it. In the end gamers are gamers and in the end a lot of the AOS community were former WHFB people who were just as prone to negativity and hyperbole as anyone.

That being said - being a part of a group that supports your hobby is vital and keeps interest up and there is also a fair amount of that as well. My point in posting is just to say that the current AOS community is not less hostile than the old whfb community was; I find them to be roughly the same in terms of hostility level.

Well I'm genuinely sorry to hear that. I know you'd left the Facebook group we were both in but in assumed that was over the points announcement. You were rather upset. like I said I've not experienced it but that doesn't mean you haven't. It's a bit disappointing to hear.

[Auticus]

I left that facebook group for a few reasons. The points announcement was upsetting yes because my campaign system was at that moment torpedoed. Why I got off the social media pages though was because there were a lot of super nasty comments made about the comp systems (all of them not just mine) and a few people were sending me nasty PMs and images, and thats not the kind of community I wanted to be a part of.

Granted there were a lot of super cool people on there as well, but I've found my enjoyment of the game in general vastly improved once I was away from the nasty element that also dwelled there.

Basically the celebration dance that all of the comp systems were dead and that people would now play in the one true right way was enough for me to excuse myself from the table.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

It would be cool if they do three distinct tzeentch factions for AoS : daemons of tzeentch, arcanites (mortal humans) and the beastmen.

[odinsgrandson]

Yeah, one of the things that AoS has going for it is the mini factions. They could split them up a lot.

[Mr Mystery]

Bit of a sod to keep up with them for those of us who are completist weirdos :p

Still need to pick up Pestilens.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

I've never felt Chaos has been as diverse as it should be in either game, but with AoS you get more of a chance to do that with the focus on mini-factions. You could probably do a battletome for Tzeentch daemons without any new models (like the ghouls, seraphon and pestilens factions), leaving just the beastmen and mortal humans to make model ranges for. I think it makes sense there would be lots of different cultures even under one god. Besides, I've been bored of the constant focus on khorne (especially) and nurgle so ill be happy if Tzeentch gets a lot of love for a while.

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Bit of a sod to keep up with them for those of us who are completist weirdos :p

Well, you are our resident completist. We need you around to be our living fluff-encyclopedia!

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

Well Games Workshop just revealed the heroes of Silver Tower officially.