TOW THE OLD WORLD - Poll: Will TOW be a faithful successor to WFB 8th edition?

Yes?

It is very possible there are a lot of WTW players because the game was in a video game format.

I conceded that there are a lot of them. But they may represent a player base that thought Warhammer Fantasy is interesting but Painting Miniatures is not. Or that armies are too expensive unless they are virtual digital armies.

I conceded the numbers but not the automatic interest.

 

To create a faithful successor to 8th edition would require that either:
a) GW decides that destroying Warhammer was a mistake, and that it actually has plenty of value as the game it was.
or
b) GW decides that Warhammer was a solid foundation for a game, and with some fine-tuning to their approach, it can be as profitable for them as they'd like it to be.

I think (a) is unlikely. Though destroying Warhammer was a mistake in a moral and cultural sense, I think they did so because they became a company that existed to make money, rather than games, and Warhammer was not a recipe for making money. So I think the best-case scenario for The Old World is that they apply some of the things they've learned from AOS and other games, and adapt those things to make Warhammer conceptually faithful, while making it more flexible and profitable.
In particular, I think the idea of releasing models with their rules on an ongoing basis, rather than putting everything into a rulebook and running with it for years, is a concept that allows for both novelty-driven sales, as well as a way to balance armies on the fly, without having to rework the whole book. Warhammer could really benefit from that kind of piecemeal, more modular approach if done well.

Unfortunately, there are also other ways this can go that don't result in a faithful successor:
c) GW realizes that nostalgia can still be milked, and puts in the minimum effort so that The Old World 'looks' like Warhammer, without the depth.
d) GW realizes that Herohammer is more profitable than a proper war game, and goes all-in on that.
e) GW pulls another End Times, taking our favorite characters, peoples and places and ruining them all.

 

Then we stick with 8th and watch TOW as it crashes and burns!

 

I predict a 1 page rules book

 

God.

If they do that, they should burn.

But the number of pages for the rulebook is a good yardstick of how much effort they put into it. I was deeply unimpressed with the length of the AOS battletome.

 

Like the original AOS rules. And because its ancient warhammer you probably will get a special rule if you dress as one of your army's characters and shout something stupid.

 

I can't imagine them making that mistake again!

 

That is what I voted as well.

That is definitely a possibility; a fairly likely one at that.

That would end my interest in the game immediately!

 

Different strokes for different folks.

Personally, I don't want a simpler game. If I wanted a simpler game, I could easily jump into 40k or AoS. If TOW doesn't turn out to be a natural edition upgrade (i.e. 9th edition WFB), then I'm more than happy to stick with 8th. Especially if TOW is Forge World game produced as @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl had previously discussed.

 

Those are the kinds of things that I would like to see as well. I view changes like that as logical improvements going from one edition to another other. The examples you provided have no bearing on the complexity of the game; instead they would simply make for a better game.

 

Sounds like a plan. I feel the TOW is a bit like a book adaptation to film... you want to have a true fan doing the upgrade to really make it work (not anyone related to sales... for example the resident Forge World Rep at GW).

For instance, one rule which I feel would help the game mechanics is the ranks bonus vs number of models who can attack...

On the one hand, you cannot fire into combat because it's a mixed, swirling melee but on the other side the only models that can attack are in the front rank (with second rankers able to do a single attack).

It doesn't actually logically work out. I feel it would be more accurate to have rules that would depict the swirling melee and give a disadvantage to the tarpit phenomena of one single model tying up an entire regiment and only a couple of figures able to attack them.

 

The War of the Worlds agrees with you on that one - we still haven't got a truly top quality media adaptation yet...

 

I'm going with number 4 on this one, it's a bold move and I'm cautiously optimistic about it (thinking back to my post when Kirby was given the boot). Simply scrubbing out the End Times altogether and apologizing for Kirby's idiocy was never an option, it would have caused far more problems than it was worth, from fans to share holders.

 

I am more pessimistic about this as they already seem to be going with a high fantasy road thematically and I don't see how going with what 8th was will make them enough money. The army size alone was killing the interest in the game for most of the new players years ago and I don't see them changing that much. I hope I'm wrong but the formula they seem to be going with is one or two centerpiece models/units and then a few big units and a few flashy models. I would love to see a balanced game but haven't really seen that in the past, the most balanced book was the 6th edition Tomb Kings armybook and once 7th hit it was off to the races with the new books. 8th was even more painful for Tomb Kings as the book had a ton of great ideas that never fully worked, barring the Casket of Souls which was amazing, which made the later better books a go to choice for me. Sorry this is less ordered than I would like it to be but it's been a long day. Honestly I see them using what is popular in the new edition of 40k and converting it to fantasy movement. This wouldn't be an issue to me but I don't care for the new 40k and switched over the Horus Heresy. All that being said as long as I can use my Dogs of War as actual Dogs of War and not proxy Empire troops I'll be happy enough to try it.

 

Yeah, that sounds about right...

Not just me thinking that...

I never played anything past early 7th edition, in part because I got married and in part because the Dogs of War went away and I had 10K points' worth of them at the time. Balanced armies have long been an issue with GW. In 6th edition I ran a Dark Elf cityguard-themed army with more than 100 elves in 2000 points, because I could. Was it balanced? NO. I had 4 bolt throwers in that list because they were 2 per Rare choice. It was fun though, and that is what I cared about in college. But balanced? Nothing was balanced. People complained about it CONSTANTLY.

That would be nice, especially if they revamp the generic Dogs of War army from 6th edition so I can use the proxy DoW army I've been making with the Warhammer Armies Project 8th edition list... I miss my pikemen.

 

The Tomb Kings definitely drew the short straw. 8th edition was still fairly well balanced overall. All that would be needed is to nerf the Dark Elves, High Elves and Warriors of Chaos a bit and boost the likes of the Tomb Kings, Bretonnia and Beastmen.

 

Warhammer Armies Project was my go to for Dogs of War rules for 7th and 8th, sadly I've misplaced the 7th edition rules and they don't have them on site anymore. I will agree that there was more balance in 8th overall but one of my main gripes with that edition was the billing that we wouldn't have to take high level mages and that magic wouldn't be the end all thing. I ran a Sethayla style Wood Elf list in 7th and didn't need a caster due to how magic played then, did I get stomped by a few Empire, Elf and Lizardmen armies that went all in on magic? Yes but that was people paying 1000+ points for an overwhelming magic phase. It's obvious that we will never have a truly balanced game and I can live with that, I don't have to like it. I would like however to be able to have more than one or two viable builds to play competitively but still be fun.