Re: Warhammer - And Now For Something Completely Different
Yay ... found it.
Here is everything that Autumn Leaves and I said about this on a thread over 12 months ago.
Originally Posted by Autumn leaves
It's downright sad.
I love Warhammer and I've loved it for years, probably since before some of the younger members here were born. Sadly WFB has not moved with the times and there are so many other options out there now many players have drifted away to them and stayed away.
I had high hopes for my teenage son to follow in my war hammer footsteps but he is not remotely interested in it. God knows I've tried but he is only interested in 40K and not very much either. I can see his his interest waning and all those 40K box sets I bought for him over the years in a vain effort to drag him into the hobby, and then showed him painstakingly how to put together and paint, they are going to be on eBay shortly. The only systems I have managed to get him interested in are the odd game of Space Hulk (yay) and Mantics 'Dwarf Kings Hold'. The idea being if I can keep him interested in DKH then i can turn him onto Mordheim…. but I digress.
A big part of what has taken so many thousands of war hammer players away from war hammer in the last 5 years is three fold and the reasons have been well explained by other members in this thread.
1) Warhammer fluff is generic with slip shod time lines compared to the much better fluff for 40K.
2)The price point has become too high. Big units cost a small fortune and armies look good and play well with big units. The fiscal outlay is prohibitive at bot the entrant level and for the veteran.
3) More modern games have come out with sleeker design features that interest older players looking for something 'different'. Competition has grown up.
Can GW win ground back for the ailing core game?
Of course they can but not by keeping it the same. Many many changes are required to improve its attractiveness to younger market and with the exceedingly precarious performance, that has seen a wide variety of WFB blisters and box sets being deleted by GW from the Indie retailers trade sales selection very scarily shows how little demand there is for the WFB product in the current climate.
When sales drop this low, and it has been happening for a long time, the axe is never far away.
Thats a reality.
Now I'm picking it will be the axe of change not the axe of final destruction that sees WFB take on a new look appealing to the youngsters as a Skirmishing game like 40K and LOtR. Smaller units,much smaller units. Many pundits see the same change approaching as it fits in with the GW sales format. WFB must start to increase it's profitability.
Change is coming.
To keep things the same means that WFB will go the way of the specialist games. Withering profitability = the end.
Can GW fix WFB under it's current format after years of decline in sales?
Possibly but the single biggest problem they have is to get profitability up they have to make it more appealing to the kids at the entrant level.
That would mean changing the format to bring it into line with the other two systems. Especially 40k.
Making it affordable.
1200 points is a skirmish game.
You need 2000 points to have a decent sized game.
If you really like war hammer skirmish then wait for 2015 and thats exactly what you will get as they repackage WFB for the entrant level market.
I have worked for the company.
I still know people that work for the company at Lenton and other parts of the world. I know some popular individuals who used to work for the company. From time to time all of those folks have been useful in offering insights as to what is coming up soon and to how the Kirby Hive mind thinks.
Common sense will tell us that 40K is not going to undergo any changes significant or otherwise, because it's happily making a great deal of money for the PLC.
WFB on the other hand has been suffering on a global level for a long time now and it needs re-booting to return to profitability.
Why would the PLC not take the easiest road to achieving that, by bringing WFB in to mimic the format that is working spectacularly well for 40K beginners?
Warhammer skirmish to get kids and adults in to play the game.
It makes sense and it lowers the entry cost making it instantly more attractive to a wide social strata of customers.
It won't hurt to finish releasing the army books to flesh out 8th edition and it's a fair call to the collectors of those armies without a book for a loooong time. A nod to the customer base. Nice touch.
I really hope the repackaging of war hammer skirmish works because the entire war gamer hobby benefits from the recruiting done by the GW bricks and mortar stores at a beginner entry level.
Perhaps a swan song…
I see Warhammer fantasy Skirmish starter set as a 'stepping stone' into the bigger war hammer game, perfect for entry level, and then options for growth of the beginners army into something more rewarding in time to come.
I can also see scenario aspects of the skirmish game that would lend itself in a slightly campaign way (each game affects the next) toward the Mordheim feel.
This is not a bad thing people, it could be a great new dawning for a system that drastically needs to be overhauled to catch up to the modern thinking that has moved on over the years.
I'm excited about it.
Perhaps introducing a skirmish style entrant level element in 2015 will give GW design a real chance to have the critical time to reinvent the wheel on WFB.
This last line I found interesting. He almost suggests 9th edition will be a temporary fix why they decide what to do with the Mass fantasy battle game???
Originally Posted by Autumn Leaves
Yeah they did fail with Warhammer skirmish in the past but to be fair that was pitched at an adult market more than an entrant level market.
I'm sure they have done their homework and they will make the new box set more attractive both price wise and game design wise than the previous war hammer skirmish.
Also, warhammer skirmish back in the day was quite an attractive game, but we had a fully supported Mordheim to fall back on. The cross over on other in-house systems was an issue for the older gamers.
No cross over now and an opportunity to get interest kindled in starting into fantasy with a skirmish box set.
I really don't think it's going to be a big problem for the older vets.
A new painting challenge.
A new gaming challenge.
Something that is guaranteed to be finished in a single club night. Maybe even two games 😵
WFB needs to be more accessible to the entrant level. Going to skirmish was the obvious choice, and the right choice.
But the round bases might be another issue..
Here is the first time anyone mentioned Round bases in fantasy.... as soon as he said this I knew he was not guessing ...as this was something I had already heard and you simply would never guess this for fantasy
Originally Posted by Malagor
Autumn Leaves, just because you keep repeating the same nonsense over and over again won't stop it from being nonsense.
Originally Posted by Harry
What if, eventually, he is shown to be the only one talking sense?
Originally Posted by Harry
As I have said repeatedly ... I do not know where the dust settled on all of this. Maybe the starter set is a skirmish game as Mr Leaves suggests ... maybe it's not?
Maybe Warhammer 9th is JUST a skirmish game ... as Mr. Leaves suggests ... Maybe it's not? Maybe they found a way of making it scale up successfully from a few figures in a skirmish encounter to an ambush on the vanguard to a full blown battle between two armies, to an apocalyptic 10,000 point battle of DOOOOOOOM!
That's what I have always done with every rules set (every edition) ... some have needed more bending than others.
It is how we did it in olden times.
I have huge armies of most fantasy armies but have always enjoyed playing small skirmish level games ... often as a prelude to and influencing future bigger games. I use smaller games as a way of focussing on individual units and writing their back story so they become more than just "a unit of 25 spearmen" and become something more ... "Bronzino and the Brown jackets, The veterans of skulldoom pass" etc ... you get the point.
Warhammer's origins were Role playing games ... I have always found it hard to shake that off ... thankfully.
I have been playing more 3rd edition than 8th edition recently ... but I still enjoy 8th edition ... however, the two games have very little to do with each other .... so it's not that big a deal to me if 9th edition is different again.
Just another way to enjoy Warhammer.
I am not saying Yes or No ... I am saying "I don't know".
All I know is they started into a 'ground up' re-write a couple of years ago.
Nothing was sacred. Not the timeline. Not the stat line. They started with a fresh page.
Anything could have changed ... Everything could have changed.
I have heard ... a few things since ... but not enough to say with any certainty what 9th edition will be.
Originally Posted by Autumn Leaves
I said Warhammer Fantasy won't be getting a new edition until 2015 and I also said it's going to be warhammer skirmish game in a similar format to the 40K starter sets and I also said that WFB is only contributing 8% of the overall revenue of GW's annual income in the last 12 months and thats a primary reason why the bean counters in the PLC are demanding some serious change to the former flagship core game.
Yes they are going to be 'rejuvenating' the Warhammer fantasy brand so it's more entrant level friendly for the kids.
I have made my predictions and I totally stand by them.
Watch and wait to see if they come true.
The company is undergoing some serious changes, the WD has been revamped already.
Originally Posted by Harry
Maybe they think they have cracked it with 8th edition (for the time being ... or once every army has a nice shiny new book) and the Skirmish thing for Fantasy (That Autumn leaves suggests) is more like Storm of Magic ... except designed to enable smaller games rather than bigger games ... just adding another dimension to the existing core game... Rather than replacing it. Just a thought.
Originally Posted by Autumn Leaves
Warhammer skirmish will be the gateway for the entrant level customers to be introduced to milieu.
Most of us won't buy it for anything other than the ruleset. I played LotR as a skirmish game but my miniatures were all on square bases and rectangular for the horses, so I could use them in war hammer and other systems.
You can easily buy movement trays for round bases to be ranked up in from the net.
The 8% is not a prediction or a rumour, it's a stone cold fact and the number may very sadly be a little high by the 'summer' of 2014 where GW numbers annually take a nosedive.
Gentlemen, wfb is sinking and not slowly, why… WHY do you think there is so much activity going on in the background around the White Dwarf revamp etc
Parents are not buying into a game for their kids where they are staring down the barrel of hundreds and hundreds of pounds just to build 'one army' on GW's current pricing strategy.
40K or LotR offer a cost ceiling in terms of box sets and whats required to crank out a little game for the entrant level customer.
LotR/The Hobbit is running hot at the box office and it's a self contained skirmish game.
40K does not make demands on the customer to purchase a wide variety of Big units. A couple of squads and a dreadnought or a tank and you're done, chances are most parents are thinking those toys will be in bits at the bottom of the toy box in a couple of months anyway. You know how kids are…
If the child shows a genuine interest then the incremental attachment for either LotR and in particular 40K are user friendly. Another squad and/or another tank/dreadnought/APC and you're all set.
They both play well for the entrant level customers and particularly 40K has enjoyed ongoing success and buoyancy.
Try playing war hammer with a unit of 25 models on each side and a general on a mount for each. With a war machine each.
It's beyond dull.
It's ridiculously expensive for what you get.
The actual customers worldwide who are buying these toys for their kids are not stupid. They can see the amount of money required to play war hammer effectively as it was meant to be played and as it is portrayed in the literature within the stores, i.e. with multiple units on each side and then they look at the boxes, how many figures do you get for how much?
Mums are thinking about the weekly food shop bill and that pair of Jimmy Choo's at the end of the month that hubby doesn't know is on the credit card yet… "Ummm, I think we'll take the space game thank you."
Of course GW are not foolish, the board members know Fantasy has been sick as a pig for a while now and it needs more than a revamp at 8%, it needs a full overhaul. Bar a few tweaks over the years it's essentially the same game designed in the very early 90's for 4th edition.
It's clearly not working and all the indicators are there to tell us it's not going to work until it is changed.
Warhammer skirmish?
Brilliant.
It gives the fantasy aspect of GW a chance to compete on a level playing field with 40K in a well priced self contained box set. Father and son can play it in a couple of hours at the dining room table and then son can teach it to his little buddies on the weekend. The budget can stretch to augmenting the model count to keep the boys interested. Job done.
In the meantime GW can flesh out all the army books for 8th edition and win the hearts and minds of elements of the disgruntled older members of the fraternity, and in the meantime, get to work feverishly on WFB 10th edition with an ALL NEW ruleset. Modernised and maximised for excellent quick gameplay. Reasonable levels of items and magic. Skirmishers that don't reinvent the wheel. Cannons that don't come with laser sighting, GPS and night vision et al the list goes on and on…
It will be the game that brings back the grumpy old grognards and joins them with the bubbly fan bois and we can all be happy little peas in a pod once again. 2015 is looking very positive.
Originally Posted by Harry
If Autumn Leaves is correct about the Skirmish thing ...This is the only thing that makes sense to me.
The only reason we are expecting a new edition of Warhammer fantasy Battle is because that is what we have had every few years.
BUT I remember having a conversation with Jervis and Gav .... so this is gong back a few years ... where they stated that they wanted to get Warhammer to the point that it did not need updating/re-writing and they wanted to get all the army books completed in such a way that they were robust enough to survive changes to the rules so they did not need to keep re-writing them. The reason for doing this was to allow them to look at more interesting things to develop aspects of Warhammer they did not have time to do. We discussed the obvious things like Skirmish, Siege, but also fighting on boats, in tunnels/underground, exploring new areas of the map, etc.
Alright this was a few editions and many years ago but what if? What if they feel they have reached that point with 8th. Where a new edition isn't going to change very much. Where every army has a book. What if they decide NOT to do a new edition but stick with Warhammer 8th as it is ... consider this the finished product for a while. .... What would they explore next?
We already have "Storm of Magic" for 'Big magic, Big Monster' games.
Maybe they would look next at Skirmish? (Autumn Leaves seems convinced).
So no new BRB ... as rumoured. But a new starter set ... as rumoured.
Not needing full army books but where all the armies could be combined in less books ... as rumoured. Would certainly be the way to present warband options.
Mmmm.
I was still left with some of the other stuff I had heard about the timeline advancing and multiple books. (Will it be two, three or four books?)
A recent conversation prompted a new line of thought ....
and started to make a different kind of sense to me.
What if this was nothing to to with the next edition .... but a "what would they explore next?"
What if they decided to explore different area of the world or different periods of history? Source books for playing warhammer in different times and places.
Same game ... same rules set just changing the setting a bit ... bit like the Lustria stuff.
An excuse to explore some new special rules, introduce some new characters, new monsters, exploring some undiscovered corner of the world or some undescribed period of history ... currently little more than a dot on the map or a story in an army book. A chance to undertake some new modelling projects, sculpt some new minis.
One book might be 500 years ahead, one 500 years the past (or exploring some key point in recent history). One might be based in an area of the world which has not been detailed yet. (Like the Lustrian stuff).
This started to make some sort of sense to me ... but it was late at night.
What if? What if you a games Developer for Warhammer fantasy? What if you were told you didn't need to write an new edition or rewrite an army book? Where would you go next? What aspect of Warhammer would you like to explore?
My guesswork here almost describing 'bubbles'
Originally Posted by Harry
I don't think they are trying to destroy it.
I suspect they will be trying their hardest to breath new life into it.
We are not seeing the end times for Warhammer just yet.
