GW News: BIG N' SMALL WAAAGH! COMIN'

To paraphrase @Scalenex : It's better to be a pessimist because nine times out of ten you're proven to be right and the tenth time you're pleasantly surprised.

That said, I don't really consider myself a pessimist, but rather a realist. I try to arrive at my opinion based on the data that is available to me. If that data happens to skew more towards the negative, then some might see that as pessimism. I simply don't have much faith in GW based on past precedence. I've seen the things they've done and don't see any indication that they are on the verge of a miraculous change of heart.

That is a mighty big ask of any gaming group.

Are saying that a gaming group who doesn't see it your way isn't a decent gaming group?! That is a mighty bold claim and if I'm being honest, very self-centered.

Come on friend, surely you can't believe that to be true.

You better have a huge surplus of TOW gaming groups to choose from because I assure you that your standpoint will be an extraordinarily rare outlier.

The primary impetus to abandon 8th for TOW is twofold:

1. TOW will be the currently supported game
2. TOW will have a larger active player base (so it's easier to find players to play with)

Your strategy instantly kills both of these advantages. I'll stop short of saying that nobody will adopt your viewpoint, but most players will want to play with the new toys that are made available to them. They will be excited for their shiny new army books and when the newly minted models are released, people will want to buy them and add them to their armies. They won't want to leave them on the shelf because you happen to play an army that only receives the free PDF rules. When the new stuff comes, the unsupported stuff will gradually fade away. We've seen it before, and we'll see it again. I'd even wager that the TOW player base adopting your strategy will be smaller than the 8th edition player base that is left behind.

 

If the NIGHTBRINGER is always correct (which he likes to believe ), then by agreeing with the NIGHTBRINGER, you too will always be correct!

*NIGHTBRINGER

Perhaps surprisingly... no, I do not disagree with your conclusion.

People have different gaming needs. From the sounds of it, you prefer 8th edition, but you are unable to find enough games to satisfy your hobby needs. That is not unreasonable.

I'm in a very unique position, so my decision to focus on 8th edition works for me. I am less motivated to switch over to a different game for the purposes of seeking out new players and playing more games because:

• Warhammer is just one of many hobbies I have and each of those hobbies vie for my time/attention.
• I like theory-crafting, analysis and list building as much (if not more) than playing.
• I have no desire to play a bunch of random people at a gaming store.
• I am very much in the camp of Quality > Quantity. I'd rather play a game I love once a year than have multiple weekly games playing a game I feel is inferior.
• I already own more models than I'll ever get around to painting. I really don't want to add a whole bunch more in the form of a new army. I adhere to a self-imposed 4 army limit. If I were to get a new army, I'd have to sell one of my current armies and I'm not quite ready to part with my Lizardmen.

However, I don't pretend that this applies to everyone. Everyone is in a different position with different needs. Your conclusion seems entirely reasonable to me, even if it would never apply to me.

As far as AoS goes, I enjoy giving it a really hard time, but I assume that people generally understand that it is mostly tongue-in-cheek. I don't actually hate it like I once did. When it first came out (before the first edition of the General's Handbook) it was a complete dogshit game. Incomplete, with cringe rules and a nauseating skew towards the Sigmarines. However, it's evolved into a perfectly playable game since then. It features many great models and factions that would be genuinely fun to collect. Ultimately it is too simple for my liking, but I can understand that not everyone wants to play a game with the size, complexity and barrier of entry as that of WHFB. Different strokes for different folks.

So if you can't find enough WHFB games, then go give TOW, 40k or even AoS a try. Seems logical enough to me. Surprised?

 

Chaos Dwarves have never had an army book.
Originally it was "White Dwarf presents Chaos Dwarves". A collection of articles that appeared in WD.
For 6th edition we had Ravening Hordes which allowed one to still play them.
If we ever get our own book it will be a milestone,
(As opposed to a millstone)

 

I'm surprised that you're surprised that I admitted it. Why is it surprising?

It's pretty much confirmed that it won't be happening in TOW... unless something drastic changes in the future.

 

Is it really any more selfish to request players of the Big Nine in my circle, including myself, to sacrifice some updates to give these people more of an equal chance, giving an overall more fun game for everyone, than for a player to keep badgering one of their friends who plays one of the non-focus factions to play against a new update to one of the Big Nine, knowing the latter is at a big disadvantage?

The whole raison d'être for my viewpoint is that I simply want to see an Edition of Warhammer Fantasy that has every faction in the same boat with regards to balance, so that everyone can have a fair game and a fun time without their army being on an uphill climb or getting an easy win, simply because GW gave one side a better book, a newer book or more units to play with. The main way in which this can now be achieved is with TOW's set of threshold army lists (at least until we can get confirmation that the non-focus factions will gradually make their return into the game through campaign books and/or army books).

My desire to set this as the standard way to play TOW in my gaming circles is nothing to do with personal ego - if someone else had come up with the idea instead (in a gaming group I join or elsewhere), I'd be equally eager to support them in making it happen, even if it meant I couldn't use anything new that GW would release for the focus factions I own in the future, because my only interest is in the greater good of preserving a balanced way of playing the game so that everyone gets a fair crack of the whip.

Again, I'm not fussed about my own welfare here, I have four armies that are all among the 9 focus factions. If I wanted to I could just use those four armies, updates and all, and keep my Lizardmen and Skaven for when I play games of 7th, 8th and TOW with threshold lists. My concern lies with those out there who only collected PDF armies before TOW and aren't interested in collecting any of the Big Nine, just as I had concerns for Bretonnian, Tomb King and Beastmen players in 8th Edition. I may not be able to do anything to make things better for these players on the fully official front, but I can do something in the casual scene, and if even one person benefits from such a gesture then my work is done. I'm doing this in 8th by creating 8th Edition books and addenda, and in TOW I can do similar by setting the house rule of threshold lists only (until it can be confirmed that the PDF factions will get future support).


Currently my main gaming circle features 2-3 people who are pretty much open to any version of Warhammer I want to introduce, and are not in touch with GW's releases, and having learnt that my local GW stores don't host many games anymore, I haven't anything to lose by sticking with my chosen TOW strategy, and still potentially have something to gain from those others who want to play TOW and will be fine with keeping to threshold lists. For me, the only way is up with TOW. As long as I gain some new opponents that's all that matters. And I'm used to playing with older stuff not many others play now, I've been doing that with 40K for a while now and I still have my most stalwart opponents around to enjoy those older rules with me.

The thing is though, what new stuff could there possibly be to replace the old if GW go down this route of getting rid of the non-focus factions? The factions I can think of that could be added in their place are:

• Kislev
• Albion
• Estalia
• Tilea/Dogs of War (which really needs a serious reinvention to be considered a coherent army rather than a silly jumble of mercenaries, sorry DoW fans)
• Norsca (if GW wants to make them a separate entity to WoC, which would require some serious lore work)
• Fimir (if the controversial aspects of their lore are cut)
• Halflings (if only as a joke army)
• Gnomes (if GW are willing to expand them from being a WFRP race into a full faction again)
• Araby
• Cathay
• Ind
• Nippon
• Snakemen of Khuresh (not even entirely confirmed as official, much of the work done to expand them had been done by the fan community)

Now this looks like a significant list, but of those, only 4 are non-human, only 4 could be considered non-Good (particularly bad for a game which already has significantly more Good factions than Evil), some are only very loosely-defined ideas and not many have the real personality or coolness of the non-focus factions from previous editions. Of the above I personally would only ever consider collecting four of them (Albion so long as they're proper Celts and not campy Gaels or dull Stone Age savages, Fimir, Gnomes and Snakemen). Certainly seeing some of these arrive into the game would increase variety by a small amount, but I doubt they alone could keep the game alive for long. GW need a long-term plan here if they want TOW to be successful and well-received, and outright ditching half the original Fantasy factions is not a sound long-term plan.

 

The average person is going to want to play the fully up-to-date version of the game. That's how it is with 40k, that's how it is with AoS and that's how it will be with TOW.

The game will be designed around the 9 featured factions. It's unrealistic to expect people to adopt stopgap rules for the sake of people fielding "legacy armies". The game is not designed with the legacy armies in mind, they are merely an afterthought. The majority of people will want to experience the fully fleshed-out version of TOW as presented by GW. They will want to buy the new army books, the new models and use these in the games they play.

Ask yourself this, how many people are still playing AoS using the launch rules? Imagine expecting someone to ignore all the new battletomes, models and newly-introduced factions that have been released simply because they disadvantage legacy armies (who aren't the focus of the game in first place).

The original author of idea is irrelevant. The issue I raised is simply in reference to your position that any descent gaming group will understand and adhere to the strategy of gaming that you have adopted as the ideal:

The statement quoted above implies that any gaming group that disagrees with what you feel is the ideal way to play the game is not a decent gaming group. I thought perhaps you had originally misspoken, and hoped that you would correct the record, but now you seem to be doubling down. The simple fact of the matter is that 99.9% players will likely not adopt your approach to playing TOW. Choosing to play the fully updated version of the game does not disqualify a group of players from being considered a decent gaming group. Your ideas/approach to gaming stand as the outlier, not theirs. You're completely entitled to seek out players who wish to play the game in the same fashion as you do, but can't expect that the average player will want to follow your restrictive approach to the game.

At the moment, I've decided to stick with 8th edition, but if I ever did decide to adopt TOW, I would play it with the full set of updated rules. That does not mean that I'm not a decent player or part of a decent gaming group... and I'd be happy to debate you on the topic if you feel otherwise.

I see no issue with that at all. If your group of players all want to play the game the same way as you do, that's awesome. Go and have fun with it. Just like making a house rule, there is nothing wrong with it if everyone is on board. The only thing is, you can't expect the wider gaming community to adopt your personal house rule, or your way of playing a restricted TOW game.

I am curious though, if your focus is fixated on balance, why not play T9A? That game is designed and tweaked with balance in mind. I'm pretty sure T9A will prove to be more balanced than the launch rules of TOW. Balance has never been that important to GW.

That's my point, most players will be following along with the current set of updates. You probably won't find many new people who want to play the game in its launch state once the new updates start rolling out. If you happen to come across them, have fun and thank the Chaos Gods for your good fortune.

Personally, the only one of those I'd be remotely interested in are the Dogs of War.

 

I've now just had a better idea... as new army books for the Big Nine and new factions come out, I'll work on some errata for the PDF lists of non-focus factions to bring them up to the same power level... with new units of their own if necessary. That way the players of the Big Nine can benefit from new releases, and I'll have done my bit to help non-focus factions avoid being left out. Everyone now wins...

...and yes, perhaps I did speak too strongly against those who want to keep following new releases, for which I apologise. Of course everyone has the right to choose what they want to do, and of course, as hobbyists, we're always tempted by a new and cool model to add to our armies.

I did look at T9A for a while, but a few things put me off:

• The way it can't seem to decide whether it wants to be an attempt to keep Warhammer Fantasy alive, or a whole new game in its own right with it's own ruleset (and allegedly a particularly bureaucratic one at that) to learn makes it just feel 'fake' in my eyes.
• Allegedly there was some significant toxicity on the forum there for a while, and on nicer communities like Lustria there has been very little interest or discussion in it
• I haven't met any T9A players in my local area, and though I could potentially persuade my little family gaming group to try it, I think we'd just fall back to Warhammer (as happened after I tried introducing KoW once)
• The game seems to be gradually decreasing in popularity the world over, as AoS and KoW became better and more popular, other easier-to-learn rank-and-flank games like Oathmark arose and in particular now TOW's coming.
• I fell in love with the world, lore and races of Warhammer Fantasy specifically all those years ago when I first started playing, and T9A's counterpart factions lack the sheer depth of lore and immersive background that the Warhammer versions have.

All in all, I'm still eager to give TOW a chance, particularly when the ruleset itself looks particularly great on paper in my own view, with a good lot of my requirements for a '9th Edition' satisfied.

 

What are the Big Nine?

 

The 9 main supported factions in TOW:

• Bretonnia
• Tomb Kings
• Dwarfs
• Beastmen
• High Elves
• Greenskins
• Wood Elves
• Empire
• Warriors of Chaos

The others are being given PDF lists to start off with, but it's dubious as to whether they'll have any more of an appearance than that.

 

Sounds like a fun new project for you to undertake! That should keep you busy (especially if it has a fierce release schedule).

Apologies are not required. For all of our differences, we both share the same level of passion for our hobbies and viewpoints.



Welcome brother!

She is a seductive mistress. Slaanesh would be proud.

All fair points. I took a quick look at it when WHFB was ended, but it was never my cup of tea. I came to the conclusion that it was too willing to sacrifice fun for the pursuit of balance.

T9A and KOW are definitely deadzones here on L.O. They're lucky to get a mention or two within the course of a year. I suspect that 8th edition will soon follow after TOW is released. Such is the way of things. If @Lizards of Renown was still active here, our combined posting power could probably keep it alive. Alas, I may soon find myself to be the last of my kind.

You won't have to wait long. From the sounds of it, its release is imminent.

I am curious to hear your thoughts on the game once it is released.

 

That leaves

• Lizardmen
• Dark Elves
• Kislev ?????
• Cathay ????
• Chaos Dwarfs
• Vampire Counts
• Chaos Demons
• Ogre Kingdoms
• Dogs of War

. . . as the PDF factions? Why are the shiny new Kislev and Cathay relegated to PDF? Too political, given current events? Am I missing any?

 

Something like this is what needed to happen to 8th edition with Brets, Tomb Kings, and Beastmen. And maybe a couple of others.

Or, just do a points ratio system.

For every 100 points of Chaos or other top tier army…

Brets, TK, Beasts are allowed 120 points. Or 110, or 140. IDK what the numbers would be. Might be different for each low tier faction.

The other fix that 8th needed was Nuclear Spells for all. Some armies have Purple Sun? Fine, Brets get something new called Blazing Orb of Goodness, Beasts get Howling Moon, Kings get Raging Duststorm.

Everybody gets a #6 spell, that spells doom for the OpFor (if it can be cast).

 

My guess is that Bretonnias & TK were rather overlooked in WHFB, but have passionate fanbases. It seems like GW is throwing those old fans a bone in the hopes of getting them to try TOW (WHFB reboot). Maybe politics, but I think Kislev and Cathay will be added "soon," based on the untapped new model potential.

 

As far as I know, the only factions slated for free PDF rules are:

• Chaos Dwarfs
• Lizardmen
• Vampire Counts
• Ogre Kingdoms
• Dark Elves
• Skaven
• Daemons of Chaos

Kislev and Cathay have no models at the moment, so if they are introduced to the game, I'd guess it would be later on (and with proper rules/book).

 

Some Tomb Kings lore bits...

https://www.warhammer-community.com...he-noble-history-of-the-tomb-kings-of-khemri/

 

Most interesting... the Bretonnian one was shown just two days before this, when all previous Old World Almanacs have been shown weekly, on Mondays.

This suggests to me that it may well be announced for Pre-order on Sunday, New Year's Eve.

 

Appears to be hastily thrown together. Note the broken verbiage:

“When Settra himself awoke, he commanded demanded all the monarchs of Nehekhara kneel…”

Nothing misspelled but that is a train wreck of a sentence.

 

"Settra does not serve. Settra command demands!"