Another falls. I think the number of 8th edition players will be severely reduced. I don't think it will act as an intro game (at least on the whole), but rather as competition... GW supported and promoted competition. There will only be a few of us left.
In my neck of Maryland there is only me,my brother which is a bit of a stretch to say and one friend still actively playing as of 2023. Anything to promote a revival of rank and flank Warhammer can only be a boon at this point. As it is, I've been considering taking up 6th edition again as I have heard there is still a strong community in my area.
While I do enjoy 8th I still play 7th. I know I'm not the most purr. I'd be better with it if the Tomb Kings book wasn't so bad.
I suppose it is theoretically possible, but I wouldn't bet on it. Prioritizing most of the armies I hate over most of the armies I love makes it an exceptionally long shot. There is a far greater likelihood that you absolutely hate TOW than for me to love it.
I have no need for such optimism because I'm am happily satisfied with the current status quo. 8th edition is awesome. It fulfills my gaming needs. If TOW is garbage, I'll still play 8th. If TOW is fantastic, I'll still play 8th. Unless GW backtracks on what they've already announced for TOW, there is no way it can beat 8th edition for me, personally. The game has already disqualified itself as a worthy successor to WHFB.
Just think if we had gotten the sphinx in 7th edition, it would have been so much better due to its high toughness that,unlike in 8th, meant so many things couldn't hurt it. I had great hope but with the author being who he was I wasn't surprised by its subpar quality. I hope they look into what makes the TK tic and make the book properly synergistic with the rules. I really would love the old magic but I know that's a pipe dream. Maybe some love for constructs...
You can if you look beyond the illusion of officiality. I have tweaked the mechanics with an erratum that keeps as close to the 8th book as much as possible but revises the mechanics to give the army a much-needed boost.
it takes two to tango. No matter the imbalance, no matter obvious RAI, in my area it's only RAW that matter. At most it's "yes, i absolutely agree with you, but unfortunately..."
I've mentioned this before but we did a test using the 8th edition book in 7th edition. The only thing we changed was movement spell allowed charges and units that "came from below" could also charge. The book was actually strong and while I liked the old magic system and items the new ones did ok. It was a sad thing as we weren't going to play outside our circle. This is why I'm cautiously optimistic about the new edition but until we see actual rules I'm not excited.
Interesting thought/query... did Robin Cruddace create a poorly written and weak army book, or did the other authors that came after him write overly powerful ones? The Tomb Kings were the second army book released under 8th edition; the first being the Orcs and Goblins. Compared to the O&G army book, the TK are admittedly weaker, but they are in the general ballpark. There are definitely a few small tweaks that would make the TK army book much, much better, but there are also good aspects about it. The internal balance is pretty good (for a GW army book) and a large contingent of the special characters (Arkhan, Khalida, Khatep & Ramhotep) are very characterful and really differentiate the armies' that they lead. If the army books that followed the O&G and TK would have followed suit in terms of power level, then Cruddace would not have been blamed. His work is far from perfect, but he has no control over the army books that other authors released after his.
I certainly agree that power-creep is more generally to blame here than Cruddace specifically wanting to nerf Tomb Kings. The next books in the series were Ogres and Vampire Counts, the former certainly having access to some powerful builds (especially Leadbelchers losing the one thing that kept them balanced...) and Vampires of course were given extra attention in improving the Undead mechanics that Tomb Kings first blazed the trail for. Next up was Empire which was pretty much distinctly average (which Cruddace also wrote), and after that was Warriors of Chaos which really started the arm's race that High Elves and Dark Elves would go on to compete in (I think Phil Kelly was to blame for Warriors, he certainly liked to amp up whatever army he got to write a book for, Adam Troke has always liked High Elves best and Matt Ward wrote Dark Elves I believe). Between those we also got Daemons (Matt Ward) and Lizardmen (Jeremy Vetock) which were seen to be more balanced, and afterwards we got Dwarfs and Wood Elves (whose authors weren't named as GW decided to keep them anonymous by this time) who were also more balanced (though all four packed more powerful builds and mechanics than what we got in the Greenskin and Tomb Kings books).