The most frustrating lie GW roll out is the "there was no room to create new things and expand" ...... Kislev, Norse, Cathay, Nippon, Ind, Araby, Chaos Dwarves, The Kurrgan Horse Marauders, Estalia, the Dogs of War from Tilea, The Pirates of Sartosa, Albion, The Vampire Coast, the Amazonians, The Swamp Dwelling Fimir, Marienburg as a separate army, the whole freaking continent of the Southlands! Such a ridiculous lie. Even in the established races nearly everything in AoS could have been introduced as expanding the existing factions or new sub factions.
@@mogwaiman6048 They slashed their own wrists... it wasn't that it failed for no good reason. They just couldn't stop F***ing with the rules and super charging units. They had a hard reset going from 5th the 6th edition and that seemed to be their high water mark. Ravening Hordes lacked all of the magical items but it was easier to play. I've never seen that much interest in GW games than I did at that time. But they progressively ruined the game again and threw away some armies in the process. I sold off 7 fully painted armies in 2005. Holding on for a fix that was never going to happen was just not something I wanted to gamble with. I had many years of fun but I had to let them go and move on. My friends had done the same and the interest just died out. No more local tournaments, few if any games being played in the FLGS. GW did this, not fans just getting bored.
@@mogwaiman6048 you see this alot as a defense of GW's action but it's truly a terrible argument when you break down the "why" of Fantasy's sales. GW basically did everything in its power to torpedo Fantasy - intentionally or not. Accessibility was low - high numbers of hard to work with resin and metal models, high point games for basic games, little to no support for smaller modes (ie border patrol or skirmish), every increasing prices, multiple ignored factions (in terms of models and rules), and generally inconsistent updates. Throw on to that the fact that by the time they really began to address these things in Fantasy AoS was already in production - meaning that resources were already being transferred over. That last one is a point many people just straight up miss or ignore. The decision to terminate Fantasy was likely made, at least 3-5 years before the plug was officially pulled. This is pretty telling about GW's attitude towards Fantasy because, around that same timeframe, 40k was also suffering from weaker sales, due in large part to having many of the same issues that plagued Fantasy (albeit, to different degrees). TLDR: GW chose to nuke the IP that literally built them instead of fixing the issues with it that they themselves were responsible for.
AOS is a fine game but WHFB is the greatest fantasy setting ever created. It was sheer madness to destroy it. The overwhelming support for that setting in Total War series and the Old World shows how moronic that decision was.
I can't think of another fantasy setting - even Middle Earth - where you could have an entire world map, mostly populated with places at least named and often described in detail, in the original source material, add 100-odd lords (again mostly from pre-existing lore) with unique artefacts and storylines (many more of which, granted, are invented rather than part of the backstory), and still have a lot of NPCs from the game lore and a number of notable characters and places missing - not to mention all the stories within the setting and some amount of the history. You couldn't do anything on the scale of the Total War games with anything else, and especially not with 40k which has obsessively-developed factions but no real sense of place and not even a lot of motivation for many of the factions to be in conflict beyond "everyone hates everyone else just because". All that said The Old World has exposed one flaw with how the Warhammer World developed (and no, not the oddity that they never actually gave the planet a name in 40 years - I doubt the inhabitants call it The Warhammer World): its history is pretty much an illusion generated by a few lore tidbits here and there rather than anything developed. That does give them freedom to invent a lot of what's happening in the current setting, but it had the notable oddity that half of the rulebook lore was about Lizardmen - who aren't a supported faction - and Nehekhara because that's the only developed 'deep past' the setting has, and what was going on in the Old World even in this comparatively recent time period (a couple of centuries pre earlier editions) is barely described in older material.
It still wasnt getting the sales and people weren't buying it as much. I remember because when I got into fantasy was just before aos and I left after that and just stuck with 40k. I was probably the only one still buying fantasy in that store before the change. Everyone else who likes it rather has an army and didn't buy more or worked there and got it for free.
@ethanvallance4989 The exact reasons they killed WFB have never been made public (assuming you don't take marketing guff about wanting more creative freedom with the setting at face value), but it seems to have been more complex than poor sales. WFB had been effectively subsidised by 40k for years - Priestly recently revealed that it had barely avoided cancellation as early as 3rd Edition since 40k overtook it so rapidly, and while 4th Ed. gave it a stay of execution they kept trying gimmicks to keep the game afloat - reinventing Lizardmen with pitch-perfect 'aliens meet dinosaurs' marketing in an era when both were obsessions of teen boys, then trying to sell a low model count army in ogres seemingly as a pitch to bring in new players daunted by the scale of the main game. What we now know as Stormcast would have been another effort in the same vein - it's clear that Age of Sigmar and the End Times were not part of any grand plan to ditch WFB, and they abandoned the system even before releasing the final End Times models. There were apparently a few obscure lore teases towards something coming for WFB that sound very much like Stormcast (possibly a race of golems, which may explain why none of the first generation Stormcast had exposed heads not to mention their bizarre proportions - they probably weren't originally meant to be human). AoS was evidently rushed to completion and nearly all of the models released in its first edition prior to the Sylvaneth seem to have been originally made for WFB (this is likely why Fyreslayers look like existing Dwarf Slayers despite having no real lore justification for their appearance). GW knew that WFB sold badly and that sales were still falling - if that were the only reason for dropping WFB I think there would have been more planning behind it.
@ethanvallance4989 Everyone had what they wanted who played the game, this is why they keep adding shite to 40k and re-releasing books with stupid stats on models - to force the spergs to buy more. Fantasy had a different type of gamer. If it makes no money, a company won't actively support it end of the day. People have some weird nostalgia thing going on with fantasy.
Couldn't agree more. That's why I'm back to my old first girl. Fantasy, and Mordhiem. Necromunda is a close second. digging out the old stuff is like finding the holy grail, or digging up Excalibur?
One of my fondest memories of my childhood was 1995 playing Fantasy battles with my best friend on the living room floor on top of a green felt because we didn’t have a table big enough. Cheers to the days of innocence and the wonder of this hobby!
40k 3rd and 4th are very similar with some overlapping codices. You can easily play a hybrid of the two editions and just use whichever rule you prefer in the few areas where they differ. You can even decide as you play by rolling off when it comes up, assuming it's a friendly game, which I assume it would be.
@@mikewilliams4443 Good idea. I did read somewhere that a lot of people swear by 4th edition but using the 3rd and 3.5 codices. They would absolutely be friendly games.
I remember playing Warcraft 3 for the first time and was completely obsessed! Then playing WoW and EXISTING in that same universe was just so awesome, cheers my dude!
Given the rampant stupidity and anti-consumerist that permeates Games Workshop; If your still buying their overpriced FOMO content you are part of the problem!
I'm on the boycott for ages. I still have all my old models from 30 years ago. It took me a year but I got all the rulebooks on ebay / marketplace ect. Managed to save 30 quid.
First thing I do when getting onto a new windows is to make sure I have a working in widescreen version of Dark Omen. My grandpa that is now in his 80's and into Total War still remembers all the optimal setups for every single mission, absolute classic of a game.
Age of Sigmar just feels like a modern warhammer iteration of D&D to me. Anything goes, nothing really matters, do what you want. Warhammer was closer to Tolkien in my eyes, I was always invested in the world, even if the game was too meta for me. I just want Mordheim back, I never got the chance to play that game first time round and regret it entirely. 😢
Mordheim doesn't need to officially return, the community has compiled all of the rules online on a single website and there are a myriad of miniature options available for purchase via retail or 3d printing.
I complete agree with the sentiment of the setting but I do recommend giving the old world rules a gander. I’ve played since 6th edition and in my humble opinion the old world is a great fusion of what we all loved about fantasy as a game. Just food for thought north.
To me, AOS feels like a modern squad/army meant for raiding a city or small enclosed battle area where rank-and-file discipline breaks down. While Warhammer fantasy battles had the epic feel of two full armies clashing on the battlefield where rank and file were made since you had to stay near your commanders to receive your orders.
Really? My thoughts were the exact opposite. What I like about WFB and the old world is that despite its fantastical nature, is that most battles are really just a clash of regiments and skirmishing forces. Where AOS feels like it wants to do the high fantasy battles you often see in movies, which is fine, and it does have its place. But I like the more down to earth feel of the Old world.
Scale-wise the games are much the same, as in points costs for infantry and cavalry are comparable and you will often see similar numbers of models on the table - an example I like to use is of a 3,000pt WFB Vampire Counts army featured in White Dwarf and a very similar mix of units in Age of Sigmar 3 Soulblight at 2,000pts: the WFB army was larger by one model. However, looser army restrictions and monsters that tend to be better than they generally were in WFB does mean that armies with fewer, more powerful models are more viable in AoS and some elite armies can have very small numbers of models. In both cases, fundamentally these are small-scale engagements - best pictured in the case of WFB as either battles between small forces of outriders or simply as focusing on part of a wider battleline. There are only a couple of hundred models a side at most for horde armies, which is no realistically-scaled military force, and unlike historicals where a single infantry model is often imagined to stand in for several men a conceit of Warhammer is that the scale has always been 1 to 1 outside Epic and Warmaster. Ranks do have a way of making WFB armies look bigger than they are, but in modern AoS infantry (visually) fight in ranks anyway following various changes to coherency rules - unit sizes are however smaller as each has a maximum size which in most cases is no more than 20 models. And you often need to literally remain near your officers to receive orders (this indeed is the Cities of Sigmar army rule), since auras were never really part of the design of WFB but have been a feature of AoS since the start.
@ See I agree and also disagree. TOW does the old school rank and file system in my opinion better. However, AOS infantry feel just as important and useful in a different way. (Granted I’m biased since In AOS, I play KO. Best faction) Going from playing Dwarves in TOW, to KO in AOS gives you very different feelings. Both good.
the reason i love Conquest is because its how i thought sigmar should have been. it mixes regiment combat with the ability to play skirmish/40k style games. the complexity of rank and flank with the one page rules mind set.
Just as a narrative setting, I found Warhammer Fantasy more interesting than AoS. Instead of all that realms nonsense. Having everyone on the one planet is forced to live next to one another. Leads to such natural conflict.
3rd/4th edition 40k makes me warm and cozy. Flipping through those rule books today and they still have that distinct "new rulebook" smell, seeing the gorgeous terrain they made from scratch with those famous bottlebrush style GW trees and EVERYTHING having a generous coating of textured paint. The simplicity of the rules focusing more on mateship, imagination and most importantly - fun.
Awesome video North! The nostalgia is real. You've hit the nail on the head with this one. Had the same experience as yourself with total war warhammer.
My cozy hobby is the one that started me on my gaming journey, Star Fleet Battles. Everytime I read through the rule books, look over SSDs, or pick up a D-7 cruiser mini I still get the exact same feeling of awe that I felt went I first saw the game all thosed decades ago.
GW lost their soul years ago. Why not play warmaster The fantasy Warhammer old world is one of the best fantasy lore settings. That homely-ness your talking about for me is the 2000ad worlds.
I’ve said it for so long Warhammer settings should be expanded laterally. Minimal forward. Explore campaigns. They are a great way to introduce new models. Fans can take a little of retcon if it turns out a new STC was discovered during a random campaign vs Xenos that happened to take place a few hundred years earlier. I have come to realise how much the appalling Eldar writing, leading into G-man’s return and the utterly terrible state that chaos Primarchs have been left in is. It’s so much “oooo big bad back” but then “but the imperium is barely scratched” Write campaigns about losing planets and then trying to get them back. So many settings nowadays have been “opened up” and made “more accessible” - soon it all becomes identical.
Fantasy 6th / 40k 5th Ed ( give or take some house rules for sanity ) is still what my local crew plays regularly, they're just timeless. We've mushed the better rule ideas from other Eds into what we call "RelicHammer"
Unfortunately in the Warhammer The Old World rules set they have made ranked up units terrible, only ONE rank can fight….. not two, not three but ONE, making ranked up units completely pointless and making the game a monster fest. Also they aren’t supporting certain armies (like Skaven) which is a huge slap in the face. In addition to all this crap most of the fan favourite special characters (the ones the Total War fans have fallen in love with) have been removed. My advice is to either play an older edition or play Warhammer Armies Project.
Only one rank fighting (except with spears) was how WFB worked for most of its life. Old World is based on 6th Ed. rules, not 8th Ed., so has a lot of features like that which were changed in later editions (not necessarily for the better). And usually monsters weren't that good in the older rulesets - what makes them good now is the huge boost to resilience they received by making their profiles giant stat boosts to characters rather than separate models, not the way ranks work, and even then it's mostly just dragons that are good from what I gather.
I adored the WFB setting and utterly loathed changing it for Age of Sigmar, to the point that I refused to even look into AoS for its first three or four years. But commercially it's evident that it was in no way a mistake in principle, for all that they fluffed the launch (and the hastily cobbled together End Times) so badly that there's still some resentment towards AoS a decade later for reasons that have nothing at all to do with that game or setting - after all, WFB was going to be dropped whether or not AoS was created as a way to let people use their models. If anything it's a testament to how effective the change was that they screwed up the launch so badly that they were forced to completely rewrite the rules within months, they continue to shove unwanted Stormcast down people's throats even after the game's own narrative team has decided they don't make interesting protagonists and sidelined the faction (in the last two editions they've only been present in three or four major story events and in most of them lost badly), and they have comprehensively failed to make the setting stick as an IP, and yet the game is far more popular than WFB was at its height. The GW playerbase is an order of magnitude larger than it ever was during WFB's heyday, and in a more crowded hobby landscape, and it's achieved sales ranks that WFB never approached. One suggestion for the decline in WFB's playerbase is that Kings of War poached players from it, but the idea of a game like Kings of War representing competition for AoS is absurd. The ICv2 top 5 'non-collectible miniature lines' has ranked 40k 1st for years, but AoS has been in the top 5 for most of the past 5+ years and only fell off this year (based on one data point, so quite likely a blip - and even if not that likely says more about the unstoppable resurgence of Battletech than any loss of interest in Age of Sigmar) and has periodically been no. 2. I'm not sure WFB made the top 5 at any point in its life cycle - it certainly never reached no. 2 - nor games like Kings of War or Conquest. What's all the more impressive about that is that, to all intents and purposes, Age of Sigmar is an unknown IP - it has next to no presence outside the GWverse and even a large portion of its players seem to pay little attention to the lore when compared with stuff like 40k or Battletech. Every other entry that comes and goes from the top 10 list is a well-established IP with decades of history - most are spin-off model ranges for Star Wars, Marvel and Dungeons and Dragons, the others are 40k and Battletech which are less known publicly but have 40 years of lore and fanbases invested in it. For a game to get to that point with no 'visible' IP and lore that only dates back a decade is a major accomplishment, and simply being backed by Warhammer branding isn't enough to explain it - WFB didn't make the cut and none of the side games ever have, not even Middle Earth. Meanwhile the WFB relaunch has been to very muted success - the new edition is very good and by WFB standards astonishingly well-balanced, especially given that neither the game nor the historicals whose mechanics it's ultimately based on were ever intended as competitive event games and it is intrinsically not very amenable to an information-rich environment that encourages 'meta chasing' (which is why 8th Edition became the mess it did). But it's not a style of game that has a lot of appeal to players who aren't already interested in WFB, and the online community isn't exactly going out of its way to seem welcoming - especially to Age of Sigmar players thanks to the enormous chip a number of WFB players vocally carry on their shoulders. When it first rereleased and battle report videos were first going up, a pretty common theme of comments from AoS players unfamiliar with it was along the lines "it doesn't seem to be for me, but I'm happy it's back for those who wanted it", which contrasted markedly with "AoS SUCKS!/Great, now they can kill of AoS/let's hope it does better than Age of Sigmar" coming out of the more vocal WFB grognards - who despite presumably having a greater average age tended, to my own embarrassment as one such grognard, to behave much more childishly.
You saved me a lot of time because I was just about to write a similar comment. Even with all there is to dislike about the End Times and how Warhammer Fantasy was ended, there are some facts that have to be acknowledged: Fantasy, for its last few editions, did not sell well. Age of Sigmar has been extremely financially successful and continues to grow as a game. I fully understand and empathise with WHFB players that are upset that their game stopped being supported and about how the narrative of the End Times played out. But if you want to claim that ending WHFB was a mistake, the above two facts are something you need to engage with.
AoS surged initially because it has low barrier of entry. But people don't stick around. And it has been dying a slow death. TOW has come in and ate AoS's lunch and GW has taken notice. Fantasy was just killed at the wrong time, and AoS was successful coincidentally, not because Fantasy needed to die.
Should always bring up The 9th Age. Honestly, had promise, but the team was more concerned with trying to make a product that could money and avoid GW Lawyers nixing the project. “Community Lead”, unless you were interested in helping the Worldbuilding, then you were completely disregarded for “professionals” for at least the whole first year. By then, AoS had at least some progression of the story. If T9A really did anything, it probably nuked Kings of War’s chance to really grow in the market.
Definitely agree that the old world invokes those cosy feelings and really captures the imagination. I’ve just finished building and painting an orcs and goblins army. I personally really enjoy the old world rules. They don’t work the best for competitive games but everyone in my area just plays rank and flack style armies. Just got all the rules for free online and my army is a mix of 3rd party and GW stuff.
OPR does a rank and file game called Age of Fantasy Regiments. You can convert AoS and Old World minis over to it and it's much easier and faster if you want to get down to some fantasy gaming. Using that game system to play games and narratives set in the Warhammer Fantasy Battles setting.
Conan and the world og Hyboria is one that i love alot. Low fantasy, cultures based off historical ones, grimdarkness, magic is rare. Everything is bloody and gruesome
Fantasy is what got me interested in Warhammer in the first place. While I did enjoy Dawn of War 1 and 2 and their expansions. With the limited time I have now as a grown-up I find myself wanting to play Total War: Warhammer 2 more, and I enjoy the experience more. There is just something awesome about fighting an army of skeletons and vampires with big dinosaurs and lizards.
"This is the end of all things, and when all is gone - all magic, all strength, all hope - then only faith remains." - Karl Franz, "The Fall of Altdorf" Faith was the Krazy Glue that kept the Empire of Men and the pre-Primaris Imperium together when they were at war with innumerable enemies upon all sides, yet the Cities of Sigmar and the current Imperium feel in no way oppressed and oppressive in desperate fights for survival against untold hordes of enemies. The only books from AoS that gave me that gritty Old World feeling were "Godeater's Son" and "Dark Harvest," everything else just feels like tradition high fantasy shtick, and 40K has just completely dropped any feeling that the Imperium could be swept away if one war went horribly wrong for them to be another by-the-numbers sci-fi setting.
For me its wonder. I never saw much if any WFB stuff painted and presented in a store but in old white dwarfs... oh yeah. Tales of four gamers. Old wfb battle reports... that filled me with a sense of imagination and wonder for that world.
I am having great fun with Blood Bowl right now. Me and 5 of my friends are doing a league. You max need around 16 models per team, and we are having fun converting our own League Commissioner, and comming up with lore for him. It is a fun way to tell a story, and I love how your team evolves over the season.
Id definitely say that setting wise fantasy is better because it overall feels more consistant and its overall smaller scope and scale work far better than 40ks galaxy scale. someone burns down kislev *again* you know its a big deal. Usually means theyre about to barrel into the empire and you can make a rough estimate when theyll hit. Theres genuine stakes. With 40k i really do like it. Love it even. But I can only take "the nids ate planet coughsyrup III! and theyre 0000.1cm closer to terra and also chaos is using forgeworld another one as a bounce house!" when theyre still thousands if not milions of lightyears away from even being remotely able to threaten terra. Alot of stuff these days in 40k seems very throw away. Nids eat the above planet? oh that sucks theres a million more like it. but if Chaos sacks kislev that has serious consequences for the fantasy setting in the short term. Also id argue the models for fantasy are indeed far more accessible over various plastic lines and 3d prints than 40k ever will be.
Except the success of 40k and AoS show that having an expansive setting is more beneficial toward selling miniatures. Also WHFB as a setting was always stuck at the 11th hour no matter how many times Kislev or Praag fell until the End Times finally happened.
@@mogwaiman6048 I think too few people pay attention to the AoS setting for it to have much influence on the game's sales - I think those are driven purely by gameplay and the models (which even AoS-haters tend to acknowledge are generally the best models GW makes). Middle Earth saved Games Workshop, so there's definitely crossover between a fandom that wants a clearly defined world explored in depth and people willing to buy large numbers of miniatures. The Warhammer World was certainly expansive enough to support players coming up with their own narratives and lore - there's a lot of empty space between the major named settlements even in the most densely-explored part of the setting. Being confined to a single planet with known races isn't much of a constraint - look how many fictional and indeed fantasy stories are set on Earth.
"I didn't play Fantasy when the game was alive and now I am getting into it with 3D printed proxies." So you didn't want to pay for the game back then and don't want to do it now. I'm no business analyst, but I think there might be a clue to the reason why GW dropped the game in that.
@@northernexile "their models sucked and still do. The setting on the other hand..." GW never supported Tomb Kings or Chaos Dwarfs in any significant way precisely because this is how the fanbase felt about them. It's no wonder they eventually did the same with the game. Though for their time I always rated the better WFB models above contemporary 40k. I'm very disappointed in nearly all of the new models except the Bretonnian foot knights, unicorn and pegasus duke, and the Dwarfs, because GW seems to have decided that the malproportioned goofiness of the older models is an actual design aesthetic rather than the result of sculpting limitations - and then decided to add modern 40k or AoS levels of clutter to boot.
AoS new fans aside (happy if they are happy). Boy oh boy did the wfb thing made people angry here. Wfb was super popular here, on pair with w40k. And when it got headshot people were not happy, and that is including optimistic peeps. It spawned 9th age. Heck Warmaster recasting is super popular and it is an offshot , of a dead game. To me the death of old warhammer was seeing the old space marine statue stuck under stairs and blocked off from viewing , while the Stormcast stands in front of the HQ.
"Warmaster recasting is super popular and it is an offshot , of a dead game." Warmaster is one of the most significant games GW ever made, and no one within the GW fanbase who doesn't follow other games knows it because it was just a 'blink and you'll miss it' Specialist Game during its active life. Its effect on historicals was comparable to that of Warhammer in 1983, which reminded designers whose games had become both increasingly technical and with rulesets that led to ahistorical 'spearman kills tank' outcomes on a regular basis that there was a market for simpler but more elegant rules that could represent the in-game events more plausibly. Warmaster Ancients was massively successful by the standards of pre-20th Century historicals gaming, and with Epic 40k essentially forms the basis of most modern historicals: Warlord's 20th Century and sci-fi games are all essentially derivatives of Epic 40k, and their older historicals like Hail Caesar are even more faithful to Warmaster (to the extent that the new Epic Hail Caesar is essentially just a renamed new edition of Warmaster Ancients). And Warlord is the GW of historical gaming these days, with game design by other companies largely following their lead. Warmaster itself was held back for a long time by the difficulty getting the models, especially as it had a surprising amount of 'post-retirement' model support that resulted in a lot of popular (in game terms) ranges that had very small production runs: Lizardmen, Skaven, Kislev, Araby, Dark Elves, Vampire Counts. 3D printing has given it a whole new lease of life because these are suddenly readily available - I grabbed a Lizardmen army last year.
North. I once had a huge 40k nurgle CSM army, Huge imperial guard army and Grey knights and inquisitor retinue. And other stuff. But fell off. This vid has actually inspired me to start up the paint station again. Thanks.
I get that fuzzy Christmas feeling from the rules of The Old World themselves. 😊 They remind me so much of 5th edition 40k, which was my first ever miniatures wargame. So far I've only played with my boyfriend's high elves army, but in both games managed to best his Bretonnians! But at long last, I've gotten my first box of dark elf warriors. I'll still get official models myself, but also do it to pay at the independent store where I play. Can't wait to have my own dark elf army, because TOW is my favorite game right now! 😍
I'd love to get into a discussion with you North about the decline of the Total war series and how the warhammer games while fun, have done far more damage to Total war than good.
The Age of Sigmar setting feels to much like a video game. Like GW wants to put the latest AAA Playstation game on the tabletop. The miniatures are just over-blinged. The setting feels too much like an MMO setting, or the latest "live service" video game. That just doesn't inspire me.
22:40 soo if you dont buy tow then stop complaing if thay kill the system; liek relity this is bisnes; and to have fun on bought sides you need suport the system to recive the support for it; or if you are not buing GW product dont complain about it not beekn X or Y;
I've said it a million times, and I'll keep saying it. AoS would have done amazing and been received with open arms had GW not executed the Old World in the process to justify it...
altytyute "i love your IP, but i dont want give your money for your work" creating ip is also a work; is like weerd; and not fair; than pepole were suprise why tha kill thesysystem
The main lessons everyone should learn from stuff like this. Never float your wholesome fan focused private company on the stock market. Be very careful about who you hire, Common sense and a passion for the setting and community that comes from being a part of the community should be a must. Not obsessed with profits over everything else. Ruthlessly purge extremist political activists from your company whenever they rear their head. Employees that are massively obviously sociopathic and or even psychopathic should get the same treatment. Failure to do any of these good housekeeping practices will almost certinally result in a very similar outcome to what we have now. I would probally also add not going out of your way to appeal too much to casually intrested people/lowest common denominator too. That almost always has a subtle but constant downward spiral-toilet bowl effect on the game and or thing your trying to sell.
Didn't buy enough? You needed a lot more figures than you did for 40k. Fans got tired of the armies only progressively being more powerful. It didn't help that over the years that armies like Dogs of War and Chaos Dwarfs were just written out of the game. Price increases weren't helping. Some armies got pretty well neutered in different editions and that also caused people to not want to invest in another army.
Back then a full army would range from $500-750 AUD. For 40K the equivalent modern army typically ranges from $600-800. Age of Sigmar, price ranges from $200-800.
I really would like AOS to rebuild the old world or something like it through the story. The realms of AOS could exist at the same time since they are disembodied flat planes of infinite space akin to the realms of chaos during the old world. I cannot ground myself in a space that doesnt have some cohesive world to fight on/fight over where the ground lost and gained means something since it is finite. To me it could be the best of both worlds.
Im sorry but youre just plain ignorant. Dont call me stupid because i want to buy GW product. "I love this setting even if games workshop dont." The people who deisgned and wrote the old world are extremely passionate people. The specialist design studio are a tiny dept responsible for mutiple games. Obviously you arent going to get a full range refresh. Why are you talking about joining a community while at the point of entry, trashing the players, and implying the studio dont want the game to succeed? Stop being ignorant man. Ill show GW i want to support this game by buying the product and being enthused about it.
You prob know this Northern exile but those knights are stls designed by Lost Kingdom miniatures. They have tons of other stuff that is just absolutely phenomenal - glad to see thier work in the RUclipss :)
12:25 viualsy save level on first look; quality hard to say from wordin i understand its a 3d printed and its a resin so thats a big challange; prise wize is almost the same for me at lest as in my local frendly store; and i have free delivery there; also need i se to buy base sepertly that is andoer cost
Warhammer Fantasy is my all time favorite setting. It is also why I am not that interested in the new "The Old World" setting since making it a prequel it feels like a half measure. The End Times still happens and all the characters with mortal lifespans hasn't even been born yet.
Just to say that the 9th age also has lore and background (which is free to download) would be interested in your opinion on it, as a player if wish to start a player, we have a friendly and welcoming community.
Love him but why does Northern have so many bad takes? Not just "bad takes" but REALLY bad takes. We don't want the game set 100 years ago - WE WANT BORIS TODBRINGER. "If you want to refresh the game, you take it to a different timeline" < what an inexplicable take. Legit my jaw dropped. What GW have done with Old World was petty and almost deliberately dictated from-on-high to KILL WFB: TOW. With 100,000s of new players from Warhammer Total War willing to take a look, what did GW do? Take it to the PAST where all the CHARACTERS we love are absent and deny us all the new plastic character kits that would have revitalised the game and made content 10,000s of newbies. In 2015 they should have moved the timeline forwards maybe a decade or so to justify "better technology" (seeing as they clearly wanted to advance the tech a bit) and introduce something like Priestly's (?) original Tamurkhan idea which mixed things up and pushed the story forwards. Everything we love was there just before the End Times. Northern's idea would have destroyed the very thing we love. Huge numbers of Fantasy players are now playing 6th and 8th WITH THE SPECIAL CHARACTERS and army they love. We don't want to have to re-paint our entire army because our faction - that we love and spend years painting - no longer exists 100 years ago. Seriously Northern. Come on. GW in 2015 were in the process of doing a range re-fresh, that was always going to happen: note most of the range refreshes in AoS ARE LITERALLY THE SAME AS WFB, just with better proportions, sculpting etc. It's the same stuff. Clearly WFB did not need to be taken 100 years in the past, it could have stayed exactly where it was.
Mid 90’s fantasy was my game. I played their specialist games like mordheim and necromunda but it was fantasy. GW killed fantasy and that was that for GW for a few years until 2010 my friend and I tried 40K. It’s ok but I got exhausted by new edition, new books, new campaigns books, new cards. Army starts good becomes bad, new edition army starts bad becomes good. Repeat. There was talk about fantasy returning. It came back, my friend and I had our armies but some models were only available from the uk and often out of stock. I’m glad it’s back, I hope fantasy continues to get support.
Chaos losing the end times and advancing the setting would have been far better, exactly what they did with 40K, imagine if Chaos won just because it always wins (despite the chaos gods not wanting to win cause that would be boring for them). Imagine a more industrial empire for instance.
I remember GW giving Skarsnik & Gobbla a hideous death in the End Times. At that point I knew the successor game wouldn´t get a single cent from me. And AoS up to this day didn´t get any of my money. LOL!
NA "Games Workshop have never done knights right" Me *nods in agreement* ... NA "Look at these griffon knights" Me *looks* They have POLLAXES! I must have them
While I absolutely love collecting and painting the soulblight gravelords models, I just can't see myself immersing into AoS and its aesthetic. It just feels like a generic, high fantasy setting you see in #23444 anime isakei. WFB is high fantasy as well, though it feels rather mature and nuanced, as you say, taking real life inspiration for its factions and their lore. For a long time I didn’t gave WFB much of a chance because I preferred the scifi world of wh40k much more, but after playing the Vermintide games and reading some of the lore, I kinda wished that I invested myself more into WFB earlier (though on the one hand, I saved myself the massive disappointment of experiencing The End Times). It's awesome that Old World has given people that chance to do so, and I hope it will make GW see that WFB is something worth investing into.
Not keeping the fantasy range updated killed it. An it's sad because they could of just scale creeped the same minis up maybe the odd tweak. An we would have kept buying... So happy it's back tho 😊
I played 2nd ed 40k back in the 90's when i started, I Loved it, I played 40k until 6th ed...then i just couldn't take the changes they made, then 7th,8th,9th,10th...LOL....god help them. I started playing WHFB in late 6th, early 7th, fell in love with WHFB built a Warriors of Chaos loved the models, world etc.. everything.. I bought the large hard bound Chaos Book, the one with the 4 chaos gods and there minions....Beautiful book. what they have done since then is just a disgrace. When they killed WHFB it was disgusting. then 40k on top of that...Uuuuuggghhhh...
I never got to play Fantasy but I wanted to and I’m happy I can play it now. I think a good amount of people were upset the game went away too in terms of wanting a rank and file game because i’m sorry AoS squad games don’t fit in fantasy games unless it’s something small like Warcry. But looking at 6th edition fantasy it had a fun vibe to it that I don’t see in modern games. AoS 2e kinda had that feeling but that may be because I started wargaming with AoS 2e
People expecting ranked play in WFB to have much significance beyond the visual aesthetic are in for a rude awakening. It's a combat modifier to morale tests and not much more, and three perennially successful armies - Wood Elves, Lizardmen and Beastmen - were at their most effective when they didn't really engage with the system while cavalry was often powerful in a single rank. In the current edition there's a viable if not optimal tactic of using large units of 40-odd models in a line, exploiting the new rule that all models in the front rank get to fight. People imagine a complexity to 'rank and flank' that isn't there in general - 40k editions with vehicle facings are as much a 'rank and flank' game as WFB as they have the same consideration about attacking flanks and rear - but the very concept of rank-based games being in some way substantively different from skirmish games didn't really exist when WFB was current, as there weren't large-scale fantasy skirmish games like AoS (Middle Earth was for most of that time a much smaller-scale game than it is now, it only became a 'battle-scale' game with the War of the Ring expansion). That means that WFB was never really designed with an eye to ranks being a particularly significant, let alone definitional, part of the rules.
23:30 tow is supported; i think is better by the box team; is difrent kind of suport than main aos or 40 teams; models are relise ; liek not all at oce; is liek good preactive to spread out thinks for people who want have all armes and keeep intrest in the system; ther is also khatay and kilew confinrm somwer in the furture; in fancala repor was tell that tow exided expetation adn will recive more suport then origanly plan; WFB dided bacos think that you presetn;
GW is trying to broaden their audience while thinking they will never lose their core audience. eventually all they will succeed at is never achieving the former and losing the latter.
I agree that it was a mistake to get rid of the old world and the reasons you would play 8th edition or a development thereof are very clear, meta is set and GW cannot mess, but I have been very impressed with the old world and believe it to be the best Warhammer fantasy battle game created by the specialist games studio taking all the good stuff from previous editions. The old world will hopefully be the Horus heresy of the setting!
I really enjoy age of sigmar too and believe they can co exist just fine. I don't even touch the 40k side as it is a hot mess in a dumpster fire and the players are the enemy of fun....
When GW killed fantasy I quit Warhammer/GW for many years. I got back into it with a magazine subscription for 40K during covid. The return of the old world has brought me back into buying GW products. If they don’t support old World I won’t support them.
I'm getting into old GW games like epic armeggedon, or indie games in 6mm like Full Spectrum dominance. I just wanna have fun tbh, and i'm sick of the stranglehold modern GW has on the gaming sphere. So many cool games are out there and I can't find games for it.
I loved Warhammer but always had 40k as my main as a kid. When High Elves finally got minis worth a damn I went and bought myself a tonne of them…. Only to watch the entire setting get snuffed out. I gave that army to a disadvantaged friend who was in a WHFB group and never looked back. I still remember that setting fondly but after End Times it is dead to me. Story concluded, setting ruined. Knowing the ending ruins the book and no way in hell would I buy another large Warhammer army again after seeing how GW treat them.
All it needed was a bit of support and a lower cost of entry. The anger stems largly from the absolute lore gore of the end times, the frankly piss poor quality of AoS lore and the early game that it was released to replace it. Not just losing THE rank and file game but having it replaced with "lol my beard is bigger i win" and orc players screaming wagh like utter *differently abled*. Even now the memories of the few games i played are cringe inducing.
What version of the 40k universe didn't have the Imperium winning all the time, whatever the tone of the lore? After all, it only lost one out of 13 Black Crusades (and that in the era you complain has them winning all the time). Many of the past victories were ridiculously overblown even by modern standards, such as Calgar's backstory or for that matter even the defence of Armageddon - both times. This was a setting whose very first scenario focused on a battle in which the Crimson Fists had just blown up their own fortress monastery and destroyed a large portion of the Chapter ... and still beat a planetwide Ork invasion. The Gothic War conclusion was tough to swallow, as was victory on Ichar IV, as were... In early lore (though after they stopped being well-equipped humans and became genetically modified) Space Marines were individual superheroes half a dozen of whom could hold a planet - that got gradually retconned away or described as myth so that there was less of a disconnect between game performance and lore. The lore seeding Primarchs' return was seeded as soon as there were Primarchs, with most of them having Arthur-like legends around them or gradually healing wounds - it's more a surprise that it took so long than a sign of GW trying to present a more hopeful setting. 40k narrative has always been heroic fantasy - as I've said before, 'grimdark' is a term 40k ended up coining but it has never been the sort of hopeless setting that term has come to imply. And the very worst offender for the "Space Marines win all the time" issue is the very series you praise for being grim - the Horus Heresy novels. Chaos loses, and loses, and loses, even in their own books. Erebus is a preposterous cartoon villain who fails more often than Dick Dastardly and Wily Coyote combined. The Iron Warriors were practically wiped out by a combination of Fulgrim's treachery and a *single strike cruiser's worth* of Iron Hands (though granted it didn't stick, since the HH novels aren't fussed about continuity and take the Gav Thorpe "there are always more elves" approach to military logistics). Half a dozen Marines destroyed a Word Bearers battlebarge. They literally specified in Pharos that there were 20,000 Night Lords attacking a planet held by a couple of dozen Scouts, and guess who won? With a large portion of the Night Lords being wiped out, no less. It's a huge flaw in the series that Chaos just can't be taken seriously as a threat.
I got into Warhammer after AoS came out. Some friends recently asked me if I was interested in that. I looked into the old fantasy stuff, and saw tomb kings were removed in the transition to AoS. I thus have no interest in AoS.
They have a counterpart in AoS - the Ossiarch Bonereapers. They lean heavily into the 'animated construct' element of Tomb Kings lore (though they're constructs made of bone and infused with souls, not magically animated statues) and are a lot of fun lorewise in their way. But they don't have any of the Egyptian trappings (for all that Katakros looks more like a mummy than the Tomb Kings models) and they don't make any attempt to mimic the playstyle or to include similar unit types (no archers or chariots) - the only actual model shared with the Tomb Kings range is the last incarnation of Arkhan the Black, and the only generic unit that made the transition as a one-for-one counterpart of a Tomb Kings unit is the Screaming Skull Catapult (though Carrion turned into a spell).
@@philipbowles5397 Exactly my problem, I like the tomb king aesthetic, and lore. They're the main, big thing that would've gotten me into that setting, but they made their choice of not including them. It's just money I don't have to spend on minis now.
@@Empty_Elegy Tomb Kings were always in an odd place. They always had fantastic art and the lore was amazing, but neither the rules nor the fairly atrocious (for the most part) models ever really lived up to it. And they were never popular when they were a going concern. When they reinvented the Necrons to make them literally just Space Tomb Kings rather than mindless undead with a few nods to the fantasy version, and updated the models with 40k8, they ended up with a better incarnation of the Tomb Kings than WFB ever had. TKs are like Chaos Dwarfs - everyone likes the idea but no one really wanted to buy them, and they've become progressively more popular in the aftermath of WFB than they were at the time.
The most frustrating lie GW roll out is the "there was no room to create new things and expand"
...... Kislev, Norse, Cathay, Nippon, Ind, Araby, Chaos Dwarves, The Kurrgan Horse Marauders, Estalia, the Dogs of War from Tilea, The Pirates of Sartosa, Albion, The Vampire Coast, the Amazonians, The Swamp Dwelling Fimir, Marienburg as a separate army, the whole freaking continent of the Southlands!
Such a ridiculous lie. Even in the established races nearly everything in AoS could have been introduced as expanding the existing factions or new sub factions.
@@chrisbatchelor3759 it’s about priorities; there is always resources for what is important.
Obliterating WFB was the worst thing GW has ever done.
They had to, couldn't keep bleeding money.
@@mogwaiman6048 business-wise, it makes sense.
@@mogwaiman6048whfb was not what was bleeding them, but it was put out to the ice flow to die.
@@mogwaiman6048 They slashed their own wrists... it wasn't that it failed for no good reason. They just couldn't stop F***ing with the rules and super charging units. They had a hard reset going from 5th the 6th edition and that seemed to be their high water mark. Ravening Hordes lacked all of the magical items but it was easier to play. I've never seen that much interest in GW games than I did at that time. But they progressively ruined the game again and threw away some armies in the process.
I sold off 7 fully painted armies in 2005. Holding on for a fix that was never going to happen was just not something I wanted to gamble with. I had many years of fun but I had to let them go and move on. My friends had done the same and the interest just died out. No more local tournaments, few if any games being played in the FLGS. GW did this, not fans just getting bored.
@@mogwaiman6048 you see this alot as a defense of GW's action but it's truly a terrible argument when you break down the "why" of Fantasy's sales. GW basically did everything in its power to torpedo Fantasy - intentionally or not. Accessibility was low - high numbers of hard to work with resin and metal models, high point games for basic games, little to no support for smaller modes (ie border patrol or skirmish), every increasing prices, multiple ignored factions (in terms of models and rules), and generally inconsistent updates. Throw on to that the fact that by the time they really began to address these things in Fantasy AoS was already in production - meaning that resources were already being transferred over.
That last one is a point many people just straight up miss or ignore. The decision to terminate Fantasy was likely made, at least 3-5 years before the plug was officially pulled. This is pretty telling about GW's attitude towards Fantasy because, around that same timeframe, 40k was also suffering from weaker sales, due in large part to having many of the same issues that plagued Fantasy (albeit, to different degrees).
TLDR: GW chose to nuke the IP that literally built them instead of fixing the issues with it that they themselves were responsible for.
AOS is a fine game but WHFB is the greatest fantasy setting ever created. It was sheer madness to destroy it. The overwhelming support for that setting in Total War series and the Old World shows how moronic that decision was.
I can't think of another fantasy setting - even Middle Earth - where you could have an entire world map, mostly populated with places at least named and often described in detail, in the original source material, add 100-odd lords (again mostly from pre-existing lore) with unique artefacts and storylines (many more of which, granted, are invented rather than part of the backstory), and still have a lot of NPCs from the game lore and a number of notable characters and places missing - not to mention all the stories within the setting and some amount of the history.
You couldn't do anything on the scale of the Total War games with anything else, and especially not with 40k which has obsessively-developed factions but no real sense of place and not even a lot of motivation for many of the factions to be in conflict beyond "everyone hates everyone else just because".
All that said The Old World has exposed one flaw with how the Warhammer World developed (and no, not the oddity that they never actually gave the planet a name in 40 years - I doubt the inhabitants call it The Warhammer World): its history is pretty much an illusion generated by a few lore tidbits here and there rather than anything developed. That does give them freedom to invent a lot of what's happening in the current setting, but it had the notable oddity that half of the rulebook lore was about Lizardmen - who aren't a supported faction - and Nehekhara because that's the only developed 'deep past' the setting has, and what was going on in the Old World even in this comparatively recent time period (a couple of centuries pre earlier editions) is barely described in older material.
It didn't sell enough miniatures for years, it's easily undercut by a myriad of alternative generic fantasy miniature options.
It still wasnt getting the sales and people weren't buying it as much. I remember because when I got into fantasy was just before aos and I left after that and just stuck with 40k. I was probably the only one still buying fantasy in that store before the change. Everyone else who likes it rather has an army and didn't buy more or worked there and got it for free.
@ethanvallance4989 The exact reasons they killed WFB have never been made public (assuming you don't take marketing guff about wanting more creative freedom with the setting at face value), but it seems to have been more complex than poor sales.
WFB had been effectively subsidised by 40k for years - Priestly recently revealed that it had barely avoided cancellation as early as 3rd Edition since 40k overtook it so rapidly, and while 4th Ed. gave it a stay of execution they kept trying gimmicks to keep the game afloat - reinventing Lizardmen with pitch-perfect 'aliens meet dinosaurs' marketing in an era when both were obsessions of teen boys, then trying to sell a low model count army in ogres seemingly as a pitch to bring in new players daunted by the scale of the main game.
What we now know as Stormcast would have been another effort in the same vein - it's clear that Age of Sigmar and the End Times were not part of any grand plan to ditch WFB, and they abandoned the system even before releasing the final End Times models. There were apparently a few obscure lore teases towards something coming for WFB that sound very much like Stormcast (possibly a race of golems, which may explain why none of the first generation Stormcast had exposed heads not to mention their bizarre proportions - they probably weren't originally meant to be human).
AoS was evidently rushed to completion and nearly all of the models released in its first edition prior to the Sylvaneth seem to have been originally made for WFB (this is likely why Fyreslayers look like existing Dwarf Slayers despite having no real lore justification for their appearance).
GW knew that WFB sold badly and that sales were still falling - if that were the only reason for dropping WFB I think there would have been more planning behind it.
@ethanvallance4989 Everyone had what they wanted who played the game, this is why they keep adding shite to 40k and re-releasing books with stupid stats on models - to force the spergs to buy more. Fantasy had a different type of gamer.
If it makes no money, a company won't actively support it end of the day. People have some weird nostalgia thing going on with fantasy.
Couldn't agree more.
That's why I'm back to my old first girl. Fantasy, and Mordhiem.
Necromunda is a close second. digging out the old stuff is like finding the holy grail, or digging up Excalibur?
One of my fondest memories of my childhood was 1995 playing Fantasy battles with my best friend on the living room floor on top of a green felt because we didn’t have a table big enough. Cheers to the days of innocence and the wonder of this hobby!
I still play 4th edition 40k with my friends and we have a grand time
i have a small group of friends that I play forth with. and several who i still play second with.
Hoping to get back into old 40k in 2025. Still torn between 3rd and 4th edition.
40k 3rd and 4th are very similar with some overlapping codices. You can easily play a hybrid of the two editions and just use whichever rule you prefer in the few areas where they differ. You can even decide as you play by rolling off when it comes up, assuming it's a friendly game, which I assume it would be.
@@mikewilliams4443 Good idea. I did read somewhere that a lot of people swear by 4th edition but using the 3rd and 3.5 codices.
They would absolutely be friendly games.
I feel the EXACT same way about Warhammer the Old World. The only other game that gave me that feeling was Warcraft 1,2,3 and the OG WoW.
I remember playing Warcraft 3 for the first time and was completely obsessed! Then playing WoW and EXISTING in that same universe was just so awesome, cheers my dude!
Given the rampant stupidity and anti-consumerist that permeates Games Workshop;
If your still buying their overpriced FOMO content you are part of the problem!
This. We need to start shaming the buyers of these products as part of the problem.
I'm on the boycott for ages. I still have all my old models from 30 years ago. It took me a year but I got all the rulebooks on ebay / marketplace ect. Managed to save 30 quid.
First thing I do when getting onto a new windows is to make sure I have a working in widescreen version of Dark Omen. My grandpa that is now in his 80's and into Total War still remembers all the optimal setups for every single mission, absolute classic of a game.
I come back to this game every other year
Total war is great but the battles/regiments are too large to give you that tabletop feel
Age of Sigmar just feels like a modern warhammer iteration of D&D to me. Anything goes, nothing really matters, do what you want.
Warhammer was closer to Tolkien in my eyes, I was always invested in the world, even if the game was too meta for me.
I just want Mordheim back, I never got the chance to play that game first time round and regret it entirely. 😢
Mordheim doesn't need to officially return, the community has compiled all of the rules online on a single website and there are a myriad of miniature options available for purchase via retail or 3d printing.
I complete agree with the sentiment of the setting but I do recommend giving the old world rules a gander. I’ve played since 6th edition and in my humble opinion the old world is a great fusion of what we all loved about fantasy as a game. Just food for thought north.
The only thing i know is that all the old guards who were playing old hammer switched to The Old World as soon as it dropped
Just the 8th edition people, 8th and ToW are some of the worst games ever made
@JohnWood-w9n ToW is widely considered one of the better editions of warhammer lol. Fixes alot of problems with the later editions
@mastermide77 They were just as bad
@@JohnWood-w9n 8th was one of the best received editions, and ToW is extremely popular.
@mastermide77 Among the masses who didn't leave. 8th was so good it went out of business for 9 years.
ToW is one of the worst games ever made
To me, AOS feels like a modern squad/army meant for raiding a city or small enclosed battle area where rank-and-file discipline breaks down. While Warhammer fantasy battles had the epic feel of two full armies clashing on the battlefield where rank and file were made since you had to stay near your commanders to receive your orders.
Really?
My thoughts were the exact opposite.
What I like about WFB and the old world is that despite its fantastical nature, is that most battles are really just a clash of regiments and skirmishing forces.
Where AOS feels like it wants to do the high fantasy battles you often see in movies, which is fine, and it does have its place.
But I like the more down to earth feel of the Old world.
Scale-wise the games are much the same, as in points costs for infantry and cavalry are comparable and you will often see similar numbers of models on the table - an example I like to use is of a 3,000pt WFB Vampire Counts army featured in White Dwarf and a very similar mix of units in Age of Sigmar 3 Soulblight at 2,000pts: the WFB army was larger by one model.
However, looser army restrictions and monsters that tend to be better than they generally were in WFB does mean that armies with fewer, more powerful models are more viable in AoS and some elite armies can have very small numbers of models.
In both cases, fundamentally these are small-scale engagements - best pictured in the case of WFB as either battles between small forces of outriders or simply as focusing on part of a wider battleline. There are only a couple of hundred models a side at most for horde armies, which is no realistically-scaled military force, and unlike historicals where a single infantry model is often imagined to stand in for several men a conceit of Warhammer is that the scale has always been 1 to 1 outside Epic and Warmaster.
Ranks do have a way of making WFB armies look bigger than they are, but in modern AoS infantry (visually) fight in ranks anyway following various changes to coherency rules - unit sizes are however smaller as each has a maximum size which in most cases is no more than 20 models. And you often need to literally remain near your officers to receive orders (this indeed is the Cities of Sigmar army rule), since auras were never really part of the design of WFB but have been a feature of AoS since the start.
To be fair AoS does a better job of emphasizing infantry while TOW often doesn't look like a rank and flank game due to the poor state of infantry.
@@mogwaiman6048 Earlier editions often didn't look like a rank and flank game due to the good state of Skinks.
@
See I agree and also disagree.
TOW does the old school rank and file system in my opinion better.
However, AOS infantry feel just as important and useful in a different way.
(Granted I’m biased since In AOS, I play KO. Best faction)
Going from playing Dwarves in TOW, to KO in AOS gives you very different feelings. Both good.
the reason i love Conquest is because its how i thought sigmar should have been. it mixes regiment combat with the ability to play skirmish/40k style games. the complexity of rank and flank with the one page rules mind set.
Just as a narrative setting, I found Warhammer Fantasy more interesting than AoS. Instead of all that realms nonsense.
Having everyone on the one planet is forced to live next to one another. Leads to such natural conflict.
3rd/4th edition 40k makes me warm and cozy.
Flipping through those rule books today and they still have that distinct "new rulebook" smell, seeing the gorgeous terrain they made from scratch with those famous bottlebrush style GW trees and EVERYTHING having a generous coating of textured paint.
The simplicity of the rules focusing more on mateship, imagination and most importantly - fun.
Awesome video North! The nostalgia is real. You've hit the nail on the head with this one.
Had the same experience as yourself with total war warhammer.
My cozy hobby is the one that started me on my gaming journey, Star Fleet Battles. Everytime I read through the rule books, look over SSDs, or pick up a D-7 cruiser mini I still get the exact same feeling of awe that I felt went I first saw the game all thosed decades ago.
GW lost their soul years ago.
Why not play warmaster
The fantasy Warhammer old world is one of the best fantasy lore settings.
That homely-ness your talking about for me is the 2000ad worlds.
I still have Bernhard, and the Necromancer.
AoS is not interesting to me at all as a setting, but the minis are insanely good
I’ve said it for so long Warhammer settings should be expanded laterally. Minimal forward.
Explore campaigns. They are a great way to introduce new models. Fans can take a little of retcon if it turns out a new STC was discovered during a random campaign vs Xenos that happened to take place a few hundred years earlier.
I have come to realise how much the appalling Eldar writing, leading into G-man’s return and the utterly terrible state that chaos Primarchs have been left in is.
It’s so much “oooo big bad back” but then “but the imperium is barely scratched”
Write campaigns about losing planets and then trying to get them back.
So many settings nowadays have been “opened up” and made “more accessible” - soon it all becomes identical.
Just finishing my 2nd old world army, all 3d printed
Fantasy 6th / 40k 5th Ed ( give or take some house rules for sanity ) is still what my local crew plays regularly, they're just timeless. We've mushed the better rule ideas from other Eds into what we call "RelicHammer"
Unfortunately in the Warhammer The Old World rules set they have made ranked up units terrible, only ONE rank can fight….. not two, not three but ONE, making ranked up units completely pointless and making the game a monster fest. Also they aren’t supporting certain armies (like Skaven) which is a huge slap in the face. In addition to all this crap most of the fan favourite special characters (the ones the Total War fans have fallen in love with) have been removed. My advice is to either play an older edition or play Warhammer Armies Project.
Only one rank fighting (except with spears) was how WFB worked for most of its life. Old World is based on 6th Ed. rules, not 8th Ed., so has a lot of features like that which were changed in later editions (not necessarily for the better).
And usually monsters weren't that good in the older rulesets - what makes them good now is the huge boost to resilience they received by making their profiles giant stat boosts to characters rather than separate models, not the way ranks work, and even then it's mostly just dragons that are good from what I gather.
Yeah it's one of the worst rule sets ever
I adored the WFB setting and utterly loathed changing it for Age of Sigmar, to the point that I refused to even look into AoS for its first three or four years. But commercially it's evident that it was in no way a mistake in principle, for all that they fluffed the launch (and the hastily cobbled together End Times) so badly that there's still some resentment towards AoS a decade later for reasons that have nothing at all to do with that game or setting - after all, WFB was going to be dropped whether or not AoS was created as a way to let people use their models.
If anything it's a testament to how effective the change was that they screwed up the launch so badly that they were forced to completely rewrite the rules within months, they continue to shove unwanted Stormcast down people's throats even after the game's own narrative team has decided they don't make interesting protagonists and sidelined the faction (in the last two editions they've only been present in three or four major story events and in most of them lost badly), and they have comprehensively failed to make the setting stick as an IP, and yet the game is far more popular than WFB was at its height.
The GW playerbase is an order of magnitude larger than it ever was during WFB's heyday, and in a more crowded hobby landscape, and it's achieved sales ranks that WFB never approached. One suggestion for the decline in WFB's playerbase is that Kings of War poached players from it, but the idea of a game like Kings of War representing competition for AoS is absurd. The ICv2 top 5 'non-collectible miniature lines' has ranked 40k 1st for years, but AoS has been in the top 5 for most of the past 5+ years and only fell off this year (based on one data point, so quite likely a blip - and even if not that likely says more about the unstoppable resurgence of Battletech than any loss of interest in Age of Sigmar) and has periodically been no. 2. I'm not sure WFB made the top 5 at any point in its life cycle - it certainly never reached no. 2 - nor games like Kings of War or Conquest.
What's all the more impressive about that is that, to all intents and purposes, Age of Sigmar is an unknown IP - it has next to no presence outside the GWverse and even a large portion of its players seem to pay little attention to the lore when compared with stuff like 40k or Battletech. Every other entry that comes and goes from the top 10 list is a well-established IP with decades of history - most are spin-off model ranges for Star Wars, Marvel and Dungeons and Dragons, the others are 40k and Battletech which are less known publicly but have 40 years of lore and fanbases invested in it. For a game to get to that point with no 'visible' IP and lore that only dates back a decade is a major accomplishment, and simply being backed by Warhammer branding isn't enough to explain it - WFB didn't make the cut and none of the side games ever have, not even Middle Earth.
Meanwhile the WFB relaunch has been to very muted success - the new edition is very good and by WFB standards astonishingly well-balanced, especially given that neither the game nor the historicals whose mechanics it's ultimately based on were ever intended as competitive event games and it is intrinsically not very amenable to an information-rich environment that encourages 'meta chasing' (which is why 8th Edition became the mess it did). But it's not a style of game that has a lot of appeal to players who aren't already interested in WFB, and the online community isn't exactly going out of its way to seem welcoming - especially to Age of Sigmar players thanks to the enormous chip a number of WFB players vocally carry on their shoulders. When it first rereleased and battle report videos were first going up, a pretty common theme of comments from AoS players unfamiliar with it was along the lines "it doesn't seem to be for me, but I'm happy it's back for those who wanted it", which contrasted markedly with "AoS SUCKS!/Great, now they can kill of AoS/let's hope it does better than Age of Sigmar" coming out of the more vocal WFB grognards - who despite presumably having a greater average age tended, to my own embarrassment as one such grognard, to behave much more childishly.
You saved me a lot of time because I was just about to write a similar comment. Even with all there is to dislike about the End Times and how Warhammer Fantasy was ended, there are some facts that have to be acknowledged:
Fantasy, for its last few editions, did not sell well.
Age of Sigmar has been extremely financially successful and continues to grow as a game.
I fully understand and empathise with WHFB players that are upset that their game stopped being supported and about how the narrative of the End Times played out. But if you want to claim that ending WHFB was a mistake, the above two facts are something you need to engage with.
AoS surged initially because it has low barrier of entry. But people don't stick around. And it has been dying a slow death.
TOW has come in and ate AoS's lunch and GW has taken notice. Fantasy was just killed at the wrong time, and AoS was successful coincidentally, not because Fantasy needed to die.
Should always bring up The 9th Age. Honestly, had promise, but the team was more concerned with trying to make a product that could money and avoid GW Lawyers nixing the project. “Community Lead”, unless you were interested in helping the Worldbuilding, then you were completely disregarded for “professionals” for at least the whole first year. By then, AoS had at least some progression of the story.
If T9A really did anything, it probably nuked Kings of War’s chance to really grow in the market.
Definitely agree that the old world invokes those cosy feelings and really captures the imagination. I’ve just finished building and painting an orcs and goblins army. I personally really enjoy the old world rules. They don’t work the best for competitive games but everyone in my area just plays rank and flack style armies. Just got all the rules for free online and my army is a mix of 3rd party and GW stuff.
OPR does a rank and file game called Age of Fantasy Regiments. You can convert AoS and Old World minis over to it and it's much easier and faster if you want to get down to some fantasy gaming.
Using that game system to play games and narratives set in the Warhammer Fantasy Battles setting.
Conan and the world og Hyboria is one that i love alot. Low fantasy, cultures based off historical ones, grimdarkness, magic is rare. Everything is bloody and gruesome
Fantasy is what got me interested in Warhammer in the first place. While I did enjoy Dawn of War 1 and 2 and their expansions. With the limited time I have now as a grown-up I find myself wanting to play Total War: Warhammer 2 more, and I enjoy the experience more. There is just something awesome about fighting an army of skeletons and vampires with big dinosaurs and lizards.
"This is the end of all things, and when all is gone - all magic, all strength, all hope - then only faith remains."
- Karl Franz, "The Fall of Altdorf"
Faith was the Krazy Glue that kept the Empire of Men and the pre-Primaris Imperium together when they were at war with innumerable enemies upon all sides, yet the Cities of Sigmar and the current Imperium feel in no way oppressed and oppressive in desperate fights for survival against untold hordes of enemies.
The only books from AoS that gave me that gritty Old World feeling were "Godeater's Son" and "Dark Harvest," everything else just feels like tradition high fantasy shtick, and 40K has just completely dropped any feeling that the Imperium could be swept away if one war went horribly wrong for them to be another by-the-numbers sci-fi setting.
For me its wonder. I never saw much if any WFB stuff painted and presented in a store but in old white dwarfs... oh yeah. Tales of four gamers. Old wfb battle reports... that filled me with a sense of imagination and wonder for that world.
I am having great fun with Blood Bowl right now. Me and 5 of my friends are doing a league. You max need around 16 models per team, and we are having fun converting our own League Commissioner, and comming up with lore for him. It is a fun way to tell a story, and I love how your team evolves over the season.
Very glad i clicked on the video, i think I'll go with this site too and start using one page rules. GW is probably beyond hope at this point.
Id definitely say that setting wise fantasy is better because it overall feels more consistant and its overall smaller scope and scale work far better than 40ks galaxy scale. someone burns down kislev *again* you know its a big deal. Usually means theyre about to barrel into the empire and you can make a rough estimate when theyll hit. Theres genuine stakes. With 40k i really do like it. Love it even. But I can only take "the nids ate planet coughsyrup III! and theyre 0000.1cm closer to terra and also chaos is using forgeworld another one as a bounce house!" when theyre still thousands if not milions of lightyears away from even being remotely able to threaten terra. Alot of stuff these days in 40k seems very throw away. Nids eat the above planet? oh that sucks theres a million more like it. but if Chaos sacks kislev that has serious consequences for the fantasy setting in the short term. Also id argue the models for fantasy are indeed far more accessible over various plastic lines and 3d prints than 40k ever will be.
Except the success of 40k and AoS show that having an expansive setting is more beneficial toward selling miniatures. Also WHFB as a setting was always stuck at the 11th hour no matter how many times Kislev or Praag fell until the End Times finally happened.
@@mogwaiman6048 I think too few people pay attention to the AoS setting for it to have much influence on the game's sales - I think those are driven purely by gameplay and the models (which even AoS-haters tend to acknowledge are generally the best models GW makes). Middle Earth saved Games Workshop, so there's definitely crossover between a fandom that wants a clearly defined world explored in depth and people willing to buy large numbers of miniatures.
The Warhammer World was certainly expansive enough to support players coming up with their own narratives and lore - there's a lot of empty space between the major named settlements even in the most densely-explored part of the setting. Being confined to a single planet with known races isn't much of a constraint - look how many fictional and indeed fantasy stories are set on Earth.
"I didn't play Fantasy when the game was alive and now I am getting into it with 3D printed proxies." So you didn't want to pay for the game back then and don't want to do it now. I'm no business analyst, but I think there might be a clue to the reason why GW dropped the game in that.
Me too, their models sucked and still do. The setting on the other hand...
@@northernexile "their models sucked and still do. The setting on the other hand..."
GW never supported Tomb Kings or Chaos Dwarfs in any significant way precisely because this is how the fanbase felt about them. It's no wonder they eventually did the same with the game.
Though for their time I always rated the better WFB models above contemporary 40k. I'm very disappointed in nearly all of the new models except the Bretonnian foot knights, unicorn and pegasus duke, and the Dwarfs, because GW seems to have decided that the malproportioned goofiness of the older models is an actual design aesthetic rather than the result of sculpting limitations - and then decided to add modern 40k or AoS levels of clutter to boot.
AoS new fans aside (happy if they are happy). Boy oh boy did the wfb thing made people angry here. Wfb was super popular here, on pair with w40k. And when it got headshot people were not happy, and that is including optimistic peeps. It spawned 9th age. Heck Warmaster recasting is super popular and it is an offshot , of a dead game. To me the death of old warhammer was seeing the old space marine statue stuck under stairs and blocked off from viewing , while the Stormcast stands in front of the HQ.
"Warmaster recasting is super popular and it is an offshot , of a dead game."
Warmaster is one of the most significant games GW ever made, and no one within the GW fanbase who doesn't follow other games knows it because it was just a 'blink and you'll miss it' Specialist Game during its active life. Its effect on historicals was comparable to that of Warhammer in 1983, which reminded designers whose games had become both increasingly technical and with rulesets that led to ahistorical 'spearman kills tank' outcomes on a regular basis that there was a market for simpler but more elegant rules that could represent the in-game events more plausibly.
Warmaster Ancients was massively successful by the standards of pre-20th Century historicals gaming, and with Epic 40k essentially forms the basis of most modern historicals: Warlord's 20th Century and sci-fi games are all essentially derivatives of Epic 40k, and their older historicals like Hail Caesar are even more faithful to Warmaster (to the extent that the new Epic Hail Caesar is essentially just a renamed new edition of Warmaster Ancients). And Warlord is the GW of historical gaming these days, with game design by other companies largely following their lead.
Warmaster itself was held back for a long time by the difficulty getting the models, especially as it had a surprising amount of 'post-retirement' model support that resulted in a lot of popular (in game terms) ranges that had very small production runs: Lizardmen, Skaven, Kislev, Araby, Dark Elves, Vampire Counts. 3D printing has given it a whole new lease of life because these are suddenly readily available - I grabbed a Lizardmen army last year.
North. I once had a huge 40k nurgle CSM army, Huge imperial guard army and Grey knights and inquisitor retinue. And other stuff. But fell off. This vid has actually inspired me to start up the paint station again. Thanks.
I get that fuzzy Christmas feeling from the rules of The Old World themselves. 😊 They remind me so much of 5th edition 40k, which was my first ever miniatures wargame. So far I've only played with my boyfriend's high elves army, but in both games managed to best his Bretonnians! But at long last, I've gotten my first box of dark elf warriors. I'll still get official models myself, but also do it to pay at the independent store where I play. Can't wait to have my own dark elf army, because TOW is my favorite game right now! 😍
I've heard that the main reason for ending warhammer fantasy was about recapturing the IP of the GW medieval setting.
8th edition home brew for LIFE!
I'd love to get into a discussion with you North about the decline of the Total war series and how the warhammer games while fun, have done far more damage to Total war than good.
Ive always prefered fantasy over 40k. So glad fantasy is back. Aos is a joke.
The Age of Sigmar setting feels to much like a video game. Like GW wants to put the latest AAA Playstation game on the tabletop. The miniatures are just over-blinged. The setting feels too much like an MMO setting, or the latest "live service" video game. That just doesn't inspire me.
I think the fact that WFB didn't have an obvious cash cow like the Space Marines was a big factor in them discontinuing the game
It drove so many people away and yes old world has risen since, but have many of those come back.
I doubt it
Bravo. Im looking forward to your future Warhammer fantasy setting videos.
22:40 soo if you dont buy tow then stop complaing if thay kill the system;
liek relity this is bisnes; and to have fun on bought sides you need suport the system to recive the support for it;
or if you are not buing GW product dont complain about it not beekn X or Y;
I was buying it. It turned into aos a few months later
I've said it a million times, and I'll keep saying it.
AoS would have done amazing and been received with open arms had GW not executed the Old World in the process to justify it...
Dark souls 2 has that same comfy-cozy feeling to me that you’re describing
It's not exactly cozy but I just love the darksun setting for d&d. The prism pentad books are fantastic.
Warhammer Fantasy was the start of my path into 40k. If it wasn't for the Mount and Blade mods, I would have never heard of Warhammer
Still got old Warhammer miniatures from 30 years ago chaos warrior plastic kits and metal grail knights and Pegasus riders
altytyute
"i love your IP, but i dont want give your money for your work"
creating ip is also a work;
is like weerd; and not fair;
than pepole were suprise why tha kill thesysystem
AoS lore is getting better.
So are my piles, i still wouldn't recommend it.
23:25 it still annoys me that people will think these massively inflated prices for 20 year old models is fair and Gw doing them a favour.
The main lessons everyone should learn from stuff like this. Never float your wholesome fan focused private company on the stock market. Be very careful about who you hire, Common sense and a passion for the setting and community that comes from being a part of the community should be a must. Not obsessed with profits over everything else. Ruthlessly purge extremist political activists from your company whenever they rear their head. Employees that are massively obviously sociopathic and or even psychopathic should get the same treatment. Failure to do any of these good housekeeping practices will almost certinally result in a very similar outcome to what we have now. I would probally also add not going out of your way to appeal too much to casually intrested people/lowest common denominator too. That almost always has a subtle but constant downward spiral-toilet bowl effect on the game and or thing your trying to sell.
To be fair, liking the setting is one thing. But when it comes down to buying miniatures the community didn't buy enough.
Didn't buy enough? You needed a lot more figures than you did for 40k. Fans got tired of the armies only progressively being more powerful. It didn't help that over the years that armies like Dogs of War and Chaos Dwarfs were just written out of the game. Price increases weren't helping. Some armies got pretty well neutered in different editions and that also caused people to not want to invest in another army.
Back then a full army would range from $500-750 AUD.
For 40K the equivalent modern army typically ranges from $600-800.
Age of Sigmar, price ranges from $200-800.
Mogwaiman damage control activate
22:21 my opinion is 6th edition with homebrew is the way to go
Just tried OPR. Love it. Not all my friends do, but they all love aspects of it.
Warhammer old world is fun, but i am keeping myself open to playing older editions too.
I really would like AOS to rebuild the old world or something like it through the story.
The realms of AOS could exist at the same time since they are disembodied flat planes of infinite space akin to the realms of chaos during the old world.
I cannot ground myself in a space that doesnt have some cohesive world to fight on/fight over where the ground lost and gained means something since it is finite.
To me it could be the best of both worlds.
Going to grab myself some cannon's for my tilean army. Thank you for finding me a aesthetically pleasing cannon lol.
I used to have a high elf army. Now I’m going with the dwarfs I’ve had a few good games, just can’t decide if I should go with one cannon or two 😂😂
Im sorry but youre just plain ignorant. Dont call me stupid because i want to buy GW product. "I love this setting even if games workshop dont." The people who deisgned and wrote the old world are extremely passionate people. The specialist design studio are a tiny dept responsible for mutiple games. Obviously you arent going to get a full range refresh. Why are you talking about joining a community while at the point of entry, trashing the players, and implying the studio dont want the game to succeed? Stop being ignorant man. Ill show GW i want to support this game by buying the product and being enthused about it.
You prob know this Northern exile but those knights are stls designed by Lost Kingdom miniatures. They have tons of other stuff that is just absolutely phenomenal - glad to see thier work in the RUclipss :)
20:10 can you elaborate this part as it's very in the know. Thanks
14:15 no cosier and affirming place accessible to me than Skyrim remastered
I still have Shadow of the horned rat and dark omen games for the play station. Also space hulk. Probably worth a few quid these day's.
12:25 viualsy save level on first look;
quality hard to say
from wordin i understand its a 3d printed and its a resin so thats a big challange;
prise wize is almost the same for me at lest as in my local frendly store;
and i have free delivery there;
also need i se to buy base sepertly that is andoer cost
Warhammer Fantasy is my all time favorite setting.
It is also why I am not that interested in the new "The Old World" setting since making it a prequel it feels like a half measure.
The End Times still happens and all the characters with mortal lifespans hasn't even been born yet.
Just to say that the 9th age also has lore and background (which is free to download) would be interested in your opinion on it, as a player if wish to start a player, we have a friendly and welcoming community.
AoS is pretty much mythic fantasy, which is just not my thing. I do not hate it like some of my fellow old guard do, I just prefer WFB.
Love him but why does Northern have so many bad takes? Not just "bad takes" but REALLY bad takes.
We don't want the game set 100 years ago - WE WANT BORIS TODBRINGER.
"If you want to refresh the game, you take it to a different timeline" < what an inexplicable take. Legit my jaw dropped.
What GW have done with Old World was petty and almost deliberately dictated from-on-high to KILL WFB: TOW. With 100,000s of new players from Warhammer Total War willing to take a look, what did GW do? Take it to the PAST where all the CHARACTERS we love are absent and deny us all the new plastic character kits that would have revitalised the game and made content 10,000s of newbies. In 2015 they should have moved the timeline forwards maybe a decade or so to justify "better technology" (seeing as they clearly wanted to advance the tech a bit) and introduce something like Priestly's (?) original Tamurkhan idea which mixed things up and pushed the story forwards.
Everything we love was there just before the End Times. Northern's idea would have destroyed the very thing we love. Huge numbers of Fantasy players are now playing 6th and 8th WITH THE SPECIAL CHARACTERS and army they love.
We don't want to have to re-paint our entire army because our faction - that we love and spend years painting - no longer exists 100 years ago. Seriously Northern. Come on. GW in 2015 were in the process of doing a range re-fresh, that was always going to happen: note most of the range refreshes in AoS ARE LITERALLY THE SAME AS WFB, just with better proportions, sculpting etc. It's the same stuff. Clearly WFB did not need to be taken 100 years in the past, it could have stayed exactly where it was.
Mid 90’s fantasy was my game. I played their specialist games like mordheim and necromunda but it was fantasy. GW killed fantasy and that was that for GW for a few years until 2010 my friend and I tried 40K. It’s ok but I got exhausted by new edition, new books, new campaigns books, new cards. Army starts good becomes bad, new edition army starts bad becomes good. Repeat. There was talk about fantasy returning. It came back, my friend and I had our armies but some models were only available from the uk and often out of stock. I’m glad it’s back, I hope fantasy continues to get support.
Chaos losing the end times and advancing the setting would have been far better, exactly what they did with 40K, imagine if Chaos won just because it always wins (despite the chaos gods not wanting to win cause that would be boring for them). Imagine a more industrial empire for instance.
I love both fantasy and aos. But i probably wouldnt have gotten into any of them if they didnt do what they did.
I remember GW giving Skarsnik & Gobbla a hideous death in the End Times. At that point I knew the successor game wouldn´t get a single cent from me. And AoS up to this day didn´t get any of my money. LOL!
NA "Games Workshop have never done knights right"
Me *nods in agreement*
...
NA "Look at these griffon knights"
Me *looks* They have POLLAXES! I must have them
You really should give Conquest a go
While I absolutely love collecting and painting the soulblight gravelords models, I just can't see myself immersing into AoS and its aesthetic. It just feels like a generic, high fantasy setting you see in #23444 anime isakei. WFB is high fantasy as well, though it feels rather mature and nuanced, as you say, taking real life inspiration for its factions and their lore. For a long time I didn’t gave WFB much of a chance because I preferred the scifi world of wh40k much more, but after playing the Vermintide games and reading some of the lore, I kinda wished that I invested myself more into WFB earlier (though on the one hand, I saved myself the massive disappointment of experiencing The End Times). It's awesome that Old World has given people that chance to do so, and I hope it will make GW see that WFB is something worth investing into.
WHFB is generic though. It's literally ripped off from LoTR and Moorcock. Not that I dislike the setting, but it's the most derivative setting GW has.
im mad for wood elves in these games and i get what you say when you say homely
Not keeping the fantasy range updated killed it. An it's sad because they could of just scale creeped the same minis up maybe the odd tweak. An we would have kept buying... So happy it's back tho 😊
21:30 no chessee ;[ ;[ ;[
Old hammer is GWs magnum opus.
I played 2nd ed 40k back in the 90's when i started, I Loved it, I played 40k until 6th ed...then i just couldn't take the changes they made, then 7th,8th,9th,10th...LOL....god help them.
I started playing WHFB in late 6th, early 7th, fell in love with WHFB built a Warriors of Chaos loved the models, world etc.. everything.. I bought the large hard bound Chaos Book, the one with the 4 chaos gods and there minions....Beautiful book. what they have done since then is just a disgrace. When they killed WHFB it was disgusting. then 40k on top of that...Uuuuuggghhhh...
Old world is great and some of the best priced minis you can get from GW. You can get a whole unit out of one box usually.
It was a HUGE mistake, agreed
I never got to play Fantasy but I wanted to and I’m happy I can play it now. I think a good amount of people were upset the game went away too in terms of wanting a rank and file game because i’m sorry AoS squad games don’t fit in fantasy games unless it’s something small like Warcry.
But looking at 6th edition fantasy it had a fun vibe to it that I don’t see in modern games. AoS 2e kinda had that feeling but that may be because I started wargaming with AoS 2e
People expecting ranked play in WFB to have much significance beyond the visual aesthetic are in for a rude awakening. It's a combat modifier to morale tests and not much more, and three perennially successful armies - Wood Elves, Lizardmen and Beastmen - were at their most effective when they didn't really engage with the system while cavalry was often powerful in a single rank. In the current edition there's a viable if not optimal tactic of using large units of 40-odd models in a line, exploiting the new rule that all models in the front rank get to fight.
People imagine a complexity to 'rank and flank' that isn't there in general - 40k editions with vehicle facings are as much a 'rank and flank' game as WFB as they have the same consideration about attacking flanks and rear - but the very concept of rank-based games being in some way substantively different from skirmish games didn't really exist when WFB was current, as there weren't large-scale fantasy skirmish games like AoS (Middle Earth was for most of that time a much smaller-scale game than it is now, it only became a 'battle-scale' game with the War of the Ring expansion). That means that WFB was never really designed with an eye to ranks being a particularly significant, let alone definitional, part of the rules.
AoS armies are just as large as TOW armies, sometimes larger.
@@mogwaiman6048I can understand that. The size of the armies isn’t my issue.
OPR regiments is great, my high elves march to war that way these days
23:30 tow is supported; i think is better by the box team; is difrent kind of suport than main aos or 40 teams;
models are relise ; liek not all at oce; is liek good preactive to spread out thinks for people who want have all armes and keeep intrest in the system;
ther is also khatay and kilew confinrm somwer in the furture;
in fancala repor was tell that tow exided expetation adn will recive more suport then origanly plan;
WFB dided bacos think that you presetn;
GW is trying to broaden their audience while thinking they will never lose their core audience. eventually all they will succeed at is never achieving the former and losing the latter.
I agree that it was a mistake to get rid of the old world and the reasons you would play 8th edition or a development thereof are very clear, meta is set and GW cannot mess, but I have been very impressed with the old world and believe it to be the best Warhammer fantasy battle game created by the specialist games studio taking all the good stuff from previous editions. The old world will hopefully be the Horus heresy of the setting!
I really enjoy age of sigmar too and believe they can co exist just fine. I don't even touch the 40k side as it is a hot mess in a dumpster fire and the players are the enemy of fun....
When GW killed fantasy I quit Warhammer/GW for many years. I got back into it with a magazine subscription for 40K during covid. The return of the old world has brought me back into buying GW products. If they don’t support old
World I won’t support them.
WHF was a good designed game until around 7-8 where they went for extreme policies that forced mass purchasing
I'm getting into old GW games like epic armeggedon, or indie games in 6mm like Full Spectrum dominance. I just wanna have fun tbh, and i'm sick of the stranglehold modern GW has on the gaming sphere. So many cool games are out there and I can't find games for it.
I loved Warhammer but always had 40k as my main as a kid. When High Elves finally got minis worth a damn I went and bought myself a tonne of them…. Only to watch the entire setting get snuffed out. I gave that army to a disadvantaged friend who was in a WHFB group and never looked back. I still remember that setting fondly but after End Times it is dead to me. Story concluded, setting ruined. Knowing the ending ruins the book and no way in hell would I buy another large Warhammer army again after seeing how GW treat them.
All it needed was a bit of support and a lower cost of entry.
The anger stems largly from the absolute lore gore of the end times, the frankly piss poor quality of AoS lore and the early game that it was released to replace it. Not just losing THE rank and file game but having it replaced with "lol my beard is bigger i win" and orc players screaming wagh like utter *differently abled*. Even now the memories of the few games i played are cringe inducing.
What version of the 40k universe didn't have the Imperium winning all the time, whatever the tone of the lore? After all, it only lost one out of 13 Black Crusades (and that in the era you complain has them winning all the time). Many of the past victories were ridiculously overblown even by modern standards, such as Calgar's backstory or for that matter even the defence of Armageddon - both times. This was a setting whose very first scenario focused on a battle in which the Crimson Fists had just blown up their own fortress monastery and destroyed a large portion of the Chapter ... and still beat a planetwide Ork invasion. The Gothic War conclusion was tough to swallow, as was victory on Ichar IV, as were...
In early lore (though after they stopped being well-equipped humans and became genetically modified) Space Marines were individual superheroes half a dozen of whom could hold a planet - that got gradually retconned away or described as myth so that there was less of a disconnect between game performance and lore. The lore seeding Primarchs' return was seeded as soon as there were Primarchs, with most of them having Arthur-like legends around them or gradually healing wounds - it's more a surprise that it took so long than a sign of GW trying to present a more hopeful setting.
40k narrative has always been heroic fantasy - as I've said before, 'grimdark' is a term 40k ended up coining but it has never been the sort of hopeless setting that term has come to imply. And the very worst offender for the "Space Marines win all the time" issue is the very series you praise for being grim - the Horus Heresy novels. Chaos loses, and loses, and loses, even in their own books. Erebus is a preposterous cartoon villain who fails more often than Dick Dastardly and Wily Coyote combined. The Iron Warriors were practically wiped out by a combination of Fulgrim's treachery and a *single strike cruiser's worth* of Iron Hands (though granted it didn't stick, since the HH novels aren't fussed about continuity and take the Gav Thorpe "there are always more elves" approach to military logistics). Half a dozen Marines destroyed a Word Bearers battlebarge. They literally specified in Pharos that there were 20,000 Night Lords attacking a planet held by a couple of dozen Scouts, and guess who won? With a large portion of the Night Lords being wiped out, no less. It's a huge flaw in the series that Chaos just can't be taken seriously as a threat.
I got into Warhammer after AoS came out. Some friends recently asked me if I was interested in that. I looked into the old fantasy stuff, and saw tomb kings were removed in the transition to AoS. I thus have no interest in AoS.
They have a counterpart in AoS - the Ossiarch Bonereapers. They lean heavily into the 'animated construct' element of Tomb Kings lore (though they're constructs made of bone and infused with souls, not magically animated statues) and are a lot of fun lorewise in their way. But they don't have any of the Egyptian trappings (for all that Katakros looks more like a mummy than the Tomb Kings models) and they don't make any attempt to mimic the playstyle or to include similar unit types (no archers or chariots) - the only actual model shared with the Tomb Kings range is the last incarnation of Arkhan the Black, and the only generic unit that made the transition as a one-for-one counterpart of a Tomb Kings unit is the Screaming Skull Catapult (though Carrion turned into a spell).
@@philipbowles5397 Exactly my problem, I like the tomb king aesthetic, and lore. They're the main, big thing that would've gotten me into that setting, but they made their choice of not including them. It's just money I don't have to spend on minis now.
@@Empty_Elegy Tomb Kings were always in an odd place. They always had fantastic art and the lore was amazing, but neither the rules nor the fairly atrocious (for the most part) models ever really lived up to it. And they were never popular when they were a going concern. When they reinvented the Necrons to make them literally just Space Tomb Kings rather than mindless undead with a few nods to the fantasy version, and updated the models with 40k8, they ended up with a better incarnation of the Tomb Kings than WFB ever had.
TKs are like Chaos Dwarfs - everyone likes the idea but no one really wanted to buy them, and they've become progressively more popular in the aftermath of WFB than they were at the time.