GW News: SKAVEN VICTORY! #NewAoS

You spelled Chaos Dwarfs wrong.

 

It is surprising that Skaven and Vampires are on the left out list (legacy list).

The other armies in the legacy group are geographically distant from the Old World zone.

Lore ++questions:
Where was the Skaven Capital ? Or the origin point of the Skaven, if those are different.

Were the Vampire Counts not well established during the time period WH : TOW is set in?

++hopefully those better informed about fluff/lore can offer enlightenment.

 

Skavenblight, the Skaven capital, is located in Tilea, specifically the Blighted Marshes. The Vampire Counts or rather the Von Carsteins were recovering from their losses in the Vampire Wars about a century before.

 

Skaven and Vampires are (as far as I ever knew) right in the geographic area that this TOW is supposed to cover. So it’s odd they’d get second class treatment.

Unless maybe the Skaven are beaten down and weak during this period? Kind of like the Vampires??

 

I know in the lore the Skaven are in the midst of a huge civil war at that period. But then again the Skaven are almost always in the midst of a civil war. See the Dark Elves being permanently omitted makes little sense, as they eventually invade Ulthuan around the time of the Great War Against Chaos, which TOW almost inevitably will include. Same with Daemons of Chaos, as they form part of the Chaos armies of that war. Ogre Kingdoms were involved as mercenary forces on both sides of the war as well. So MAYBE those factions might possibly see a revival of sorts if GW changes their mind after a time, as lore wise, it would make sense.

 

It's sort of a strange launch for TOW.

Imagine being a new player and wanting to start a TOW Wood Elves army, where are you supposed to get the models from? I would have thought that the original (pre-existing) range of models for all nine featured armies would have been made available at launch. As it stands, a new player would have to start with either TK or the Bretonnians... or wait until their army of interest gets their models released down the line.

 

This is very much the reason why I'm holding off on buying anything other than the rulebooks until High Elves get re-released. At best I could run my Skaven as a Legacy army on round-to-square movement trays in the meantime, but that's about it.

I do feel you on the Wood Elf miniatures though. I'd sooner be using them as proxies for Darkshards in my Living City army than the actual Dark Elf models.

 

I will still write my errata and some Arcane Journals for the PDF lists to keep them up to speed with the focus factions, and will host them on this forum and others for the benefit of all who want to use their Lizards and other factions in the new game. Hell, I'll even host the PDF lists themselves on my Google Drive if GW ever decide to ditch them.

I'm not going to let a dumb corporate decision spoil enjoyment of what otherwise looks a solid new entry in the Warhammer Fantasy timeline.

I mean, someone leaked a pic of the Dwarf dice not long ago, so it sounds like at least some of the next factions' stuff has already been made, so it sounds like all of the Big 9 should have their initial releases by Quarter 2 or Quarter 3 of this year, if not earlier. Those with patience shouldn't have to wait too long.

 

That doesn't change it's a weird way to release a game.
The idea of SAAS and how it impacts release schedules has screwed up a ridiculous amount of industries at this point. Who cares about releasing a full product, gotta have that recurring revenue and smear it out as much as possible...

 

So how many game systems are you working on? Are you putting aside your work on your 8th edition army books in favour of TOW?

That's fine and well for us old school players, with several armies at our disposal, but it doesn't make much sense for the new hobbyist who GW needs to attract in order to make TOW a successful game. Seems like a very half-assed way to launch a game.

 

Nope, my work on 8th Edition stuff will continue also. My duty as an army list writer is to players of all the games I play.

As a whole I'm writing rules for the following systems:

• Warhammer Fantasy 8th Edition
• Warhammer The Old World
• Warhammer 40,000 6th Edition
• SPQR (Ancients warband-level rules)
• Never Mind the Billhooks (started off as a ruleset for wargaming the Wars of the Roses but has since been adapted for other periods, I've penned the Dark Ages version on the game's Facebook page)
• Some skirmish companies for In Her Majesty's Name (Victorian Skirmish rules)
• Some 19th Century/Victorian company-level Wargames rules I picked up at a Wargames Convention last year that I'm adapting to game The War of the Worlds

I've also thought about some rulesets for 7th Edition Fantasy and 5th Ed 40K, but as I play those a lot less often I haven't made any real start on those.

It may sound chaotic that I have so many rulesets for so many systems, but whenever I get a good idea for writing some rules I have to start getting it all down, even if it means pausing something else halfway through, or else the idea might leave my head never to be seen again. Ultimately I will finish all the rulesets I'm writing, it just may take me a while to do so.

 

Ambitious. How much time in a given week do you devote to these projects?

Don't spread yourself too thin.

 

So to summarize the TOW launch...

• nearly half of the the classic WHFB armies are brushed aside to free pdf only status
• only the two featured launch factions (TK + Bretonnia) have old models made available
• the majority of the two launch boxes are comprised of decades old models

And all this was years in the making. There is still plenty of time for things to turn around, but as far as game launches go, this one seems pretty low effort.

 

I mean, what did you expect? It was always going to be side project largely focused on nostalgia baiting.
Though only releasing "new" models for 2 out of 9 "core" factions is indeed just an abysmall for a release by any standards.

What I find hilarious though is that in a weird way the legacy factions have better support than the "core" factions.
Seraphon, Skaven, Daemons of chaos, ogres, & vampire lords all have AoS to support them. They have some old models that are still around which will still be valid, and some of the newer stuff, like our new warriors may not be the perfect for ToW, but at least its something.

That's 5 out of 7 legacy factions that have some kind of (accidental) support through AoS.

Meanwhile, the "core" factions only have Tomb kings & Brettonia that are fully supported, and warriors of chaos that can get some support through AoS. But that's about it. The other core factions only have a handfull of legacy models still floating around, and the newer AoS stuff definitly won't fit for them. Which means only 3 out of 9 "core" factions have any significant support.

This is rather silly. Who planned this release?

 

It's not even that (at least at the moment), smaller games like Warcry and Underworlds have significantly better releases.

 

For those who really love TOW and have money burning a hole in their pocket...

https://www.warhammer-community.com...ith-a-limited-edition-box-of-exclusive-merch/

 

The things they use to promote the release of ToW are genuinely confusing.
There's only a handfull of models, but you can buy a freaking blanket.

 

Yup... GW's priorities seem to be slightly askew.