8th Ed. THE OLD WORLD - Poll: Which races would you LIKE to see in the TOW Starter Set?

As you chaps may have noticed, Warhammer Fantasy looks set to return in the form of Warhammer: The Old World. Unfortunately it seems like it’ll be quite a wait until we do finally see our favourite game resurface from the depths, but while we wait we can do fun stuff like answering polls about it.

While my esteemed fellow forumite @NIGHTBRINGER has got this ball running, he is not the only one to have had some ideas for said polls. Last night, I had a thought about which two races will likely feature in the starter set for this new edition of Fantasy (given that GW has produced at least one boxed game for every game currently in circulation), which then triggered the thought of ‘wouldn’t it be fun if I asked my fellow Lustrians about this to see what they think about it?’.

Therefore, I have come to you and now ask, which two races would you like to see in the boxed game for Warhammer: The Old World when it eventually arrives? You never know, someone working for GW might be reading this RIGHT NOW, and our votes might decide who will appear in the starter box. Simply choose two races from the list above. While it would make most sense to have one Order race vs one Destruction race in the boxed game, pretty much every race in the Warhammer world has had at least one fight with every other one, so it’s really up to you.

Remember, I am asking you who YOU WANT to be in the boxed game, not necessarily who is THE MOST LIKELY to appear in it, (as that would be a lot simpler to answer), but likelihood can be used to influence your choice, e.g. a race that you like which would also be highly likely.

Anyway, let the voting and discussing begin!

 

Lizardmen and TKs, of course. Or Orcs and Goblins (which have a very different aesthetic from the AoS equivalents now thanks to the Ironjawz and Gloomspite releases and the Greenskinz squatting).
Given the internet nostalgia and the official GeeDub memes Tomb Kings seems very likely tooo.

 

Hopefully new sculpts for both the empire and lizardmen.... Can only dream though

 

Nice poll @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl . This is definitely an intriguing topic and on a side note, I like that you kept the title format in line with the others! I look forward to seeing how the distribution of votes pan out as more people chime in.

In terms of the specific thread question, the two armies that I would personally like to see in a box set are...

• Chaos Dwarfs
• Tomb Kings

Obviously in terms of lore, this isn't the best match up to launch a game with. However, I love me some Tomb Kings, and if GW were ever to sell me a brand new army (as opposed to simply picking up odd units/models for my existing ones) it would be Chaos Dwarfs. That said, I don't expect GW to choose such a small niche faction like Chaos Dwarfs to launch a new game with, but one can dream. Also I'm not sure how they would even go about doing it. Would they add to the existing Forge World offering, expanding it into a fully fledged army or release something that is brand new and stands on its own? Would they go with a legion of Azgorh aesthetic or something more akin to the older style of the big hat Chaos Dwarfs? Maybe a bit of both?

Now if TOW was released under the banner of Forge World, the Chaos Dwarfs would at least some sort of chance of being more prominently featured (though I still doubt they would ever be featured as one of the starter box armies).


I think this poll question ties in nicely with the other TOW poll in which we explored time frame the game should be set in. If GW went with something like the Time of Legends, (which at the time of writing this post is leading in the polls), then the starter set box armies should be based off of whatever specific event they are featuring. Examples: [War of the Beard - Elves and Dwarfs], [First Chaos Invasion - Lizardmen and Daemons of Chaos], [The Sundering - Dark Elves and High Elves], etc. Pigging backing off of a suggestion made in that other thread, if the time frame of TOW was not fixed, but moving from one Time of Legends event to another, then GW could release a starter box for each new event that features the most prominent armies for that specific conflict.


As for what I actually expect to see, my money would be on a classic match up to start the TOW franchise. Something akin to Chaos vs. Empire. A little be boring in my eyes, but it is a classic good vs. evil face off that features prominent/popular factions.

 

I think it would be nice to start at the beginning, so I chose Lizardmen and Daemons. Also I couldn't not choose Lizardmen

If I should go with the factions I find the most likely, I'd go with Tomb Kings, since they'd new a whole new army. Depending on how much they make they could just make a Tomb Kings army and set it against our lizards, that way they'd only need to make one army if they are really lazy with it.

 

I agree with @NIGHTBRINGER that it will probably be some variation of Empire vs. Chaos/Undead/Orcs. I could also see it being Elves vs. Chaos/Undead/Orcs.

But, I would like to see Bretonnians back in the saddle vs. Tomb Kings/Vampires/Orcs. There's nothing like fighting the in the scorching desert while wearing plate on the back of a barded warhorse.

 

I would like to see them scrap the boxed set business model.

 

That’s highly unlikely given that they’ve continued to do it for pretty much every game they have currently in circulation.

 

Why do you dislike it, and what (if anything) would you replace it with?

 

Dislike
A succession of boxed sets (Elf v. Gobbos; Brets v. Lizards; Men v. Orcs; Dwarf v. Gobbo; Rats v. Elfs) was one of the elements that led to the demise of the game.

That habit was so successful they saw fit to blow up their fictional planet and terminate sales of the game.



Replacement
Literally anything else. The point is: do something different than what ultimately failed last time.

Picking two out of the fourteen(?) armies means disappointing 88% of the customer base. (I lost count of the number of fantasy armies, was it 16? 17?)

Do you guys enjoy reading all the online grumbling from whoever’s armies don’t get picked? Every. Time. ...they released a set.

The Old World needs A New Plan.

I wish I was a enough of a genius to say what.

 

How about the 'Great Plan'?

On a more serious note, I think they could just make some start collecting boxes; that way you don't have to buy models from two armies where you'll likely only want one of them. It lends itself better to updating the factions since they'd just have to make a new cardboard box if they want to change what's in them, and they could focus on just one race at a time or multiple.
Also: they might want to make smaller but more frequent updates to armies, so each army won't have to wait several years to get an update. Ideally they'd make the rules for each model free like in AOS, which makes it easier to update, but instead of making a fixed army book, they could make a folder, and each box comes with a page you can put in the folder; allowing players to insert any updated rules. There should probably be some kind of separate book with the lore though, but that usually doesn't change much, and even if they do, it's less of a hassle if they make new ones since you don't have to buy them to play the game.

 

That is an interesting outlook. Personally, I don't think the practice of releasing box sets is what led to the demise of WFB. I feel it was the incompetence of the Tomb Kirby led GW that eventually did the game in. WFB back in the day was extremely poorly supported. Community interaction was non-existent, FAQ's weren't released in a timely fashion and the story was not progressed at all (until the End Times).

That said, other theories I've heard pin the blame on things like...

• GW being unable to copyright the generic names/factions
• rules bloat
• the game requiring too many models
• the game not being well suited for new players.

Ultimately, which is true or in what proportion... who knows? I suppose at the end of the day your guess is as good as mine.

There were 15 "main" armies; 16 if you include the Chaos Dwarfs (Legion of Azgorh).

That is something I never really considered, but it does have merit. Releasing a box set featuring two armies does leave the vast majority of players under served.

 

I like that idea!

They could have a special start collecting box that includes the mini rule book (just as the old Starter boxes used to) and other potential goodies like custom dice.

Or more simplistically, make a combo where if you buy a Start Collecting box, you can pick up the rule book at a discount. Or if you buy a Start collecting box and a rule book at once, you get a package of custom dice for that race for free (even make it exclusive, so that the dice can't be purchased separately).

 

I agree. It was not the sole cause of failure.

The practice was one (among others) intended to see the game succeed. But the game failed. (Or it was judged a failure.) Box sets did not sustain enough interest in the game to offset other problems. Box sets either didn’t help, or did not provide enough help.

Failed plan: box sets. Do something different.


You may well be right about these:

GW needs to figure it out if The Olde Worlde: Take 2 is going to work for them.

It does. It is not necessarily as bad as 88% or 14 out of 16. Many players have (and had) multiple armies. So it was always a (losing) game of trying to pick (guess) the two armies where maybe 60 or 70% of players already had one or the other.

Better ideas are needed. Already you guys are generating some.

 

I personally think it's very unlikely that the boxed game model was a cause of Fantasy's failure at all. GW's other games at the time (Middle Earth and the proper editions of 40K) both used this exact same model, yet they survived and are still around (albeit in a changed form) to this day.

However, I do agree that releasing one boxed game disappoints people who play neither of the two armies in the box. This could be mitigated to a degree if, once TOW has been launched and the initial boxed game revealed, GW then decided to periodically release a battlebox with all the rules and two factions different to the ones in the main starter box, like they've been doing with AoS and 40K.

I like that idea!

A start collecting box still isn't the best saving in the world if you still have to buy the rules separately at full price.

It would be a lot better if, as you say, the Start Collecting boxes contained a mini rulebook and dice (perhaps even a softback copy of the army book), because they should be specifically designed for new players to, well, Start Collecting. GW could also then release modern equivalents of the old Battalion boxes to appeal to existing players who want to get some more units for a discount, as selling the one box for two different audiences as they are doing at the moment is detrimental to both parties - new players would still have to buy their rules separately, while existing players would have to buy the character(s) in the box twice.

These reasons are a lot more likely explanations for Fantasy's execution.

Given that we now have regular FAQs and Warhammer Community, GW have certainly cleared up their act in the support department. TOW will most likely benefit from this like AoS and 40K have, which is great.

Story progression, on the other hand, isn't something that can really be done with TOW, as we already know what happens in the end (the End Times and the birth of the Mortal Realms). However, GW can still do something to keep it going once it has been released by releasing more factions - given that GW have already gone so far as release the controversial Ossiarch Bonereapers, releasing armies for new factions in Warhammer Fantasy (in PLASTIC, not damned Forge World Resin) would look like comparatively safe moves. Just like Ossiarch does appeal to a fanbase (not that big a fanbase given the negative backlash I've seen on here and other forums), these factions that currently exist only in lore but not in game would also appeal to similarly select fanbases. GW have already allowed The Creative Assembly to do this with Vampire Coast (a third Undead faction with a different feel to conventional Vampires and Tomb Kings) for Warhammer Total War, so why not do the same with The Old World a while after all the previously-supported factions have been released and TOW has settled in?

The fact that GW have changed the names of all the Fantasy races from the generic names to something that sounds similar but ultimately looked different for Age of Sigmar (and that they also did some of this when 40K 8th Edition came round - Drukhari and Aeldari were introduced to veer away from Eldar, which is also a Tolkien term) are obvious signs that they binned Fantasy in part to make a more copyrightable game, otherwise they would have kept them as they were in AoS.

While I certainly like the 8th Edition ruleset, there is a lot of stuff to remember - lots of charts, lots of tables, lots of clauses relating to particular cases where rules are different from normal, e.t.c. Luckily I was able to learn all of these rules during weekends and holiday times when I was not at school or college back in the day when I first got into Fantasy, but many people don't have all that time to learn those rules (my dad being just one of those - he doesn't have that much time off and when he does he's usually busy out in the garden, so when we play our games of Fantasy I often have to refamiliarise him with some of the rules he has forgotten). As a result, this daunting prospect most likely turned away some potential players, and was I imagine the chief reason why they made AoS so simple in comparison. I hope that TOW will certainly shake some of the cobwebs and bureaucracy out of the 8th Edition rules to make it easier to learn, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's what GW are planning with it, given that they've also streamlined 40K.

Historically Fantasy wasn't that bad a game in terms of model count, but I have to say this is a massive flaw of 8th because of the damned Horde rule. I honestly hope to the Gods that GW bins this rule when TOW comes out, as not only does it not really make that much sense (if you're in the front rank and being pushed forward by your mates at the back, while a few more of them may be able to hit something, you're going to have a lot less room to swing your own sword as you're being compressed between your friends and the enemy - that's partly how Boudicca failed miserably as a general at the Battle of Watling Street), but it's also not good for finances for people to have to buy loads of boxes of a single core unit just to make that unit supposedly viable in tournament play, and if you're having to paint that unit of 30-40 (or even more) blokes, that could come with a risk to your sanity. GW should have learned from the failure of War of the Ring that writing rules to 'persuade' people to buy larger quantities of the same miniatures to fill your pockets may work in the short term money-gain department, but is terrible for the long-term health of the game. Furthermore, this would have been another factor that would have driven new players away from the game - why spend loads of cash on units of 40 Empire State Troopers when you could simply buy a couple of squads of 10 Space Marines instead?

Was this a typo or intentional? Because if it's the latter I like it

 

Afraid not... just poor typing skills on my part.

 

There aren't that many. Sure there are a lot of rules but I can only really recall two tables which are the ones for Weapon skill and Strength/Toughness and they are very very easy to remember, since you don't actually have to remember the table, you just have to know the pattern.

 

Exactly. As you said, it is extremely easy to learn the pattern behind those tables and I rather like the idea of certain things being harder to hit or wound than others. I would hate to see the fixed "to hit" and "to wound" values of AoS leech their way into TOW.

 

There are others as well, such as the Miscast table, misfire tables, e.t.c. I know you can just look them up, but I just thought that it would be easier for new players to get started if this was condensed a little. Doesn't have to be completely replacing all the tables with constants like in AoS (that would ruin it as you say), but it might encourage more players to join if aspects of the Fantasy rules were simplified just a little.

In any case, this is a derailment from the topic at hand. I know I haven't yet answered, I'm just waiting to see what all our Fantasy regulars say.

 

I haven't played 40K recently, but are the rules the same for it and Horus Heresy? If so, then I'd expect TOW to adopt similar/same rules as AoS. Sorry, but I'm a "glass half empty" person.