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

Probably because bringing The Old World back has nothing to do with the failure of AoS and everything to do with the success of Warhammer: Total War (and a desire to keep market share away from Wrath of Kings and other games).

 

There is definitely some wisdom in that... but that doesn't make it any less fun for those of us who enjoy stirring the pot every now and then.

GW's error came in the form of:

• discontinuing WHFB as Total War Warhammer was being developed for release
• discontinuing WHFB and alienating a bunch of players/consumers that they then could not capture with AoS
• discounting WHFB and leaving a large market share on the table in terms of consumers looking for a large scale rank & file wargame

The question is, how successful would AoS have been if it was released alongside of and co-existing with WHFB 9th edition?

 

We will never know the answer to that question.

On the plus side, GW has officially said Spring 2024 for TOW release, so we shall see. I'm hopeful, given the Bretonnian previews. Not... totally sold on the trebuchet coming back as Forge World resin, and some of those older Bretonnian plastics they're bringing back ... well, they're not the worst sculpts, I guess? Most of them are from the early 2000's at the oldest. A friend of mine has raised his hope that they'll sculpt new core infantry and cavalry for Tomb Kings when they release, as those sculpts are fairly old now (late 90s)...

 

I only ask because if we were to assume that AoS could not have thrived while being released alongside WHFB and GW really wanted AoS, then maybe the discontinuation of WHFB was not an error at all on GW's part. It gave AoS the space it needed to grow and then try to recapture the mass infantry battle consumer base with TOW. Whether or not they can recapture that market remains to be seen. Some people might be lost to them forever, but on the flip side, absence can make the heart grow fonder. There seems to be a lot of excitement around the upcoming Bretonnia and Tomb Kings releases, which historically were armies that garnered very little consumer interest. Scarcity, even manufactured scarcity, can sometimes drive up excitement and sales.

It will be interesting to see how all this plays out.

Take all this with a grain of salt. Just some interesting musings. I am still of the opinion that the wisest course of action would have been for GW to have WHFB / TOW available alongside the release of Total War Warhammer. Capture that new market while the interest is at its peak. Strike while the iron is hot, as they say.

 

It is not failing, which is kind of the point. AoS is not failing, therefore TOW's release has nothing to do with that.

 

True, and this might be part of the reason to draw the delay out this far.

Yes.

True, that would have been the best way to go, but it did not happen. Regardless, it should be interesting to see what the future brings. I, for one, welcome our Orc Warboss overlords.

 

The new video is pretty interesting. Seems they have cut the magic phase and put all the spells in different phases. Looks like we are really getting it around 2024!

 

I'm torn on that. I hated when they did that to 40k and I prefer we not have Wizard's be mandatory as we had in 8th. I ran no mages in my Wood Elves in 7th and due to it being a Sethayla style list didn't have that big a problem. Did it hurt to play against Vampires, skaven and Chaos? Yes but even if I had a wizard I'd have had a fight with those armies. I'll hold off full judgement until the release but this feels like you'll need to have a wizard to buff or debuff, etc and if you don't have one your enemy will have a massive advantage. I'm trying to be positive.

 

That was my favourite phase in the game.

 

Mine was movement but I play Tomb Kings so I love the magic phase as well.

 

Are you allowed to link to this new video?

 

All the new info is here

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/10/30/old-world-almanack-your-first-look-at-the-rules/

And here!

https://www.warhammer-community.com...e-movement-phase-introduces-marching-columns/

I like the idea of a marching column and the overall focus for formations. Looks like the Lance might be something all cavalry get to do? It looks cool to me.

 

Nope, it's specifically stated in the article that it's exclusive to the Bretonnians, as it should be.

And of course now we know why the new Lance is the old 5th Edition one, rather than the 6th Edition one.

 

What's the difference?

 

In 5th Edition, the Bretonnian Lance was equivalent to the Wedge Formation used in real-life Earth ancient history, whereas in the 6th Edition book (and thus in 7th and 8th Editions too), the Lance was a 3-knight-wide column. The latter Lance would now be interpreted as a Marching Column in the new TOW rules (any unit configuration with more models per file than per rank), so GW had to bring the 5th Edition Lance back to differentiate the two.

 

I hope in this edition they won't try to push the horse plop they did in 8th about not having to field a wizard. Specifically saying high level Wizard's wouldn't be needed. With magic now in every phase you'd be a fool to not have it. It's disappointing but expected.

 

The thing is, though, if the power level of magic is reduced across the board to the very low level already displayed by the Tomb King spell that was previewed recently, then taking Wizards won't be nearly as vital as it was in 8th when the magic was potentially game-breaking, even with it being distributed across the other game phases now.

I think all we can do is wait and see on that front, either for one of the weekly articles to share more insight on magic, or for when the game arrives in full.

 

That sounds familiar. I did a Dark Elf Cityguard army back in 6th edition and only ever ran a single level 2 mage for dispelling the odd spell. I mostly relied on big blocks of dark elf basic infantry.

 

.... the good old days when every Nurgle plague bearer unit above 10 had its own spell.....
or my chaos dwarf lammasu had its own spell