Vince and Tom are such an old married couple: very similar interests so a lot connecting them, find the other's perspective kind of annoying so a certainty of endless arguments over those interests, don't care enough to divorce and they wouldn't find someone with the same interests anyway, sleep in separate bedrooms, and ultimately fine with their life together and wouldn't be comfortable with anyone else
Man more I keep watching the more I keep just seeing things and thinking when someone says “x won’t happen” is “40K just did this” With subfactions 40K moved away from chapters/craftworlds/locations and moved over to types of army say a space marine mechanised force or terminator force. Any chapter can play these like ultramarines or blood angels. You now have a single core army rule and then can play in any of the detachments (subfactions for 40K). Playing both games a lot there’s so much AoS can copy which would work so well,
Thank you for all the videos, Vince, Tyler, & Tom. Y'all are a pillar of the AoS community. Hope you and your families have a great rest of 2023 & even better 2024. Here is to hoping for a new OBR monster artillery piece that is a horrible amalgimation of 10 skeletons shooting bows full of femurs, tibias, & spines in droves.
So something to add on what Battletomes we might see next year is they actually have done a really good faction spread with 40K with xenos, chaos and imperium all planned out to be represented within the first 12 months.
How is 40k's new secondary system not the MAJOR talking point for AoS given how sour everyone is on battle tactics?? Not only does 40k have way more flavorful secondaries, which are all universal, but 10e's changes made the secondary system a HUGE bonus to the game. If you copypasta'd the 40k 10e scoring in its entirety I fail to see where there would be any other changes needed apart from individual war scrolls
Separately, 40k always complained about the troop tax, which is somewhat of a problem in AoS too; if GW looked to REAL COMBAT, they would see that the answer is very plain: only REGULAR (units of 5 / 10 / 20) troops score objectives, everything else exists to push "battle line" troops off objectives.
re 4th edition: I want to see changes so big that all battletomes get tossed & we need indexes. sucks for fec players, but rip the bandage off the problem factions out of the gate. that kind of change also needed for my more specific wish: attach heroes to units. there are so many awkward rules structures in aos - look out sir, various bodyguard rules, gelato stuff, short range 'wholle within' auras, sequential combat activations - all trying and failing to emulate the idea of attaching heroes to units, to say nothing of all the 5 wound beatstick heroes who are all garbage because they all explode the moment they make contact with an enemy unit. If I never again have to watch my lynchpin hero charge into combat while his trusted bodyguard just sort of schuffle their feet and watch him go because they flubbed their charge roll after he made his, it'll be too soon.
> If I never again have to watch my lynchpin hero charge into combat while his trusted bodyguard just sort of schuffle their feet and watch him go because they flubbed their charge roll after he made his, it'll be too soon. Words cannot express how much I agree with this. It's such an awkward scenario, and feels antiethical to the entire tone of the game.
Nothing more than seeing everything Indexed that I’d love to see. If they can do it to 40K they can easily do it AoS. As someone who plays a lot of both AoS and 40K in the more casual community AoS is in just a bad a spot now as 9th Ed 40K was.
@@nearlyheadlessnickaos2635 I mean AoS 3rd has all the bad parts of 9th edition people hated. Bad secondaries, Terrible Book Balance with multiple out of line releases, book specific hidden information, over-cooked damage lethality etc. AoS third has some great bones but it’s had arguably one of the worst years of not the worst year of its existence rules wise this past year. Love the game but can’t wait for a reset it desperately needs.
Overcooked damage and terrible book balance? I thought when you said you played a lot you might have had an idea regarding the balance of AOS this edition which has been really good minus a few books needing serious balancing like SBGL and OBR which has been effective. There is this weird trend of people talking about balance in games like AOS that don’t play it competitively or don’t have a strong grasp on how the game is in a really good place balance wise minus some outliers. But if you just play casually don’t use the tactics and things you mentioned 🙃
Just want to say thank you all so much for bringing us so much fantastic content each week for another year. I really hope you guys have had a lovely time with your loved ones this festive period and do so over the new year. :) I'm very excited for AOS in 2024, I can't quite put my finger into where it will all go but I have a gut feeling it's going to be super awesome and I'm here for it! :D
Would love to see a complete Darkoath faction with a new plastic Chaos Mammoth center piece model. Would love to a combined Dwarf faction with KO, FS and a new forged Dwarf dispossessed faction. Bring on the Chaos Duardin! A new Path to Glory system with a map campaign system would be the best !!
Having an index/ 4 vallina GA books, then releasing periodic narrative expandopedia books on a regular schedule, with special armies, rules, etc kind of solves the "squatting" problem for the less popular factions as well, easier to add a single special battalion thing for them once in a while then dedicate an entire battletome release. I really like the idea of having smaller supplemental releases for army expansions/ updates like we had for IJ, so long as everything stays collated together on the APP.
That would be nice, but GW has to make as much money as they can. If they can print nearly the exact same battletome with the same warscrolls and rules as the previous edition they’re going to do that. They know that if they lock army rules behind a battletome that people will buy it, so that’s what they’re going to do. It’s not the best thing for the game, but it’s how they do stuff
My main issue with the Old World is all the old guard coming out of the woodwork to spread misinformation on AoS. Especially on the lore. Its based on 8 year old notions and its pretty frustrating to read their takes.
Really for me it's about the game. I switched from 40k to Fantasy years ago because of how much more fun the game was, so no matter what AOS lore is, I'm not interested. Maybe for ppl who don't play the lore is most important.
Also a thought on the issue of reach, why not simply say that only spear can fight in two ranks? And only monsters an behemoth have to measure actual reach of two to three inches. That way you never have to measure how many can fight, instead if they touch the in it s base they can fight. There’s too much angle shooting with reach. That way horde units can’t all fight just because they have a small base.
For 2024 I'd dearly love GW to write themselves out of the corner they've made for themselves narratively with Khorne. He and his followers can be summarised in recent years as "me smash" but it doesn't match up with how BoK plays in the game itself. Bring back Khorne as brutally efficient strategist, strength of the many over glory of the individual (that's where the rivalry between Khorne and Slaanesh comes from btw), and master of arms. Khorne just isn't a fan of magic, but he's got no problems with war machines. Give me skull firing bazookas and blood flame throwers.
As far as White Dwarf goes, I've actually started to pick it up again *because* of the new Bunker program, where you get a nicely-formatted battleplan for each game each month. It hits that's "regular lightweight semi-collectible release" part of my brain real good, and I can now actually recommend that people pick up WD as a quality bit of reading and hobby material. I've picked up every one since the Bunker launched, and I haven't regretted a single one - something I can't say for some of the narrative books.
Concerning The Old World philosophy from GW perspective. They have to recognize their target audience. This style of game is traditionally not something for younger gamers. So, knowing this, it's my opinion that there will be a combination of old sculpts and new sculpts in regiment boxes. I cant believe GW would be naive enough to believe a line that "failed" 20 years ago, would be waited for with baited breath by consumers. I am confused by the choice of starter armies however. I hope it succeeds, i need more options for my Mordheim games :)
I would assume that they chose britonians and khemri because they are the most uniquely old world armies. The rest of the armies have some level of overlap with AoS so they have more time to work that out.
I'm onboard for Vince's grand alliance books, with future books that explore the factions more. Not only is this the way that GW is handling the Old World relaunch, it is also how they handle the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game books.
On Lovecraftian stuff for Idoneth I think that there is a race in the lore which is the literal Lovecraftian deep creatures called the Arboleth I think. So would love to see the lovecraftian stuff as its own thing, maybe as a Destruction army which will break the relative monotony of that GA (which is almost entirely Greenskins atm and imo should be a relatively diverse set of armies)
For good or ill I am kind of expecting keyworded USR special abilities like 40k for 10th. I'm hoping for terrain rules, making BTs scenario specific or randomized and less mandatory, and some kind of pairing down of all the special "do a thing" activated ability type mechanics. We have too many. Command abilities, spells, prayers, heroic actions, monstrous rampages, and generic warscroll abilites. Way too many decisions to make in a single turn, all happening at different times using different resolution methods. There's gotta be a better way
I really hope they cross pollinate the army composition into AoS. Armies look much better if they actually have to include decent amounts of infantry and the like.
They showed the stalkers, tomb guard, ushabti and I think a Sphinx in other previews. So they are coming. I’m just wanted them to remake the old mummy unit from “undead”. Would have been a perfect opportunity. Not a fan of the old skeletons, wish they brought back the updated ones released after, though I get why they didn’t (no TK upgrade sprue). Converting tombguard to be standard skeletons will look better.
3 battle tactics over the course of the game sounds interesting! and keeping them secret adds another dimension and tension to the game which is fun. Very similar to Twilight Imperium where you have up to 3 secret objectives, and you're often trying to figure out what the other player is doing or what are they trying to score based on their play, and try counter what you think is their secret objective Personally, after all these years to finally have a game (I can't think of another time in any GW game, but I'm sure there is one) where you have all armies with a book (I mean, we sort of have to count Slaanesh as having a book technically), to do away with them all would be a shame. I personally think the main issues for me is battletome tactics - into the sun they go mortal wounds - I hope they move towards more the 40k rules with Crit hits/Wounds ; Lethal hits/Devastating wounds ; Mortal wounds Terrain rules better defined Clean up with Errata for battletomes or new books, better sub-faction rules (please get rid of ones based on just one unit says the Maggotkin/Nighthaunt player)
On terrain and endless spells, the new stuff was all in 2nd edition. Everyone got their terrain or endless spells with their first book in 2nd edition (including the stuff in malign portents like nurgle) they got spells and/or terrain. Other than the mawpit, which I think is just a one-off thing, no endless spellsnor faction terrain have been launched in 3rd edition *at all*
The old world will make its money from books and new resin. If their plastic factory is already 100% tapped, i think it makes sense to just monetize the audience through books. They can make books pretty easily and arent production constrained there.
On the Fyreslayer squat argument I agree with Vince (never thought that would happen in relation to FS). I just do not see GW getting rid of an original AoS army. I would assume they want to build those up as apart of the high fantasy identity of AoS.
A big issue with combined books, or indexes is that you're frontloading a lot of the work, which makes for a very tough transition period if you're intending to put in the right amount of work to do it right. The complexity of the balance issue also doesn't increase linearly, with a single army you might have a mostly stable environment, but for each extra army you're doing at the same time you're making your environment more unstable.
The GA index + optional DLC per faction idea sounds really amazing to me, especially if the books come with lots of fluff for the faction n all sorts. Would be cool if they did a rebalancing of the grand alliances, order is too bloated while Death and Destruction are too small. Warcry is so good these days i think GW is genuinely surprised at how popular its become. Hopium is Slayers finally getting fixed properly.
I dont get the 'it's for TWW players' argument either. Justified or not, this was the group screaming murder over the costs of DLC ($20 to $30, and once again not saying the price was justified). But we are expected to believe this customer base, who don't have models from years ago, are going to be fine with paying around $250 to $300 for 1,250 of an army (and I got a feeling in the TK list, the dragon is carrying that number) and being told 'oh you have to buy another $150-$200 to play the standard 2k game...Oh, and you still have to assemble and paint them all.' The ones that aren't scared off by the time commitment to even get models on the table, or even the price, are then going to run face first into the fact that GW will not produce enough kits to meet demand for the units people want- Grail knights, questing knights, trebuchets, tomb guard, ushabti, necropolis knights, etc. That's not idle speculation that's how things are right now for 'main' games. At that point, they are not going to play, or they will 3d print. Either option is a loss for GW.
Like the logic with GA books Vince, I suppose counter argument would be that probably quite a few ppl own several armies within a specific GA and hence could get one book instead of one from each army..
How many citadel paint names are about to make sense again? EDIT: Regarding Tom's indignation about the number of scrolls to index, I'd say "they did it to 40k, they did it to space marines" as argument enough. The World Eaters codex was only good for like a couple of months. If the bean counters command it, it'll be so.
I plan on picking up Warhammer Fantasy for the first time. I can give you my personal buyer persona as a marketer since you were trying to assemble one during the stream. Long-term Brand Loyal GW customer, Competitive gameplay focused, Psychographic connections between other fantasy genre content and sports competitions. Readiness to purchase depended on expecting updated models and stability in the game (when I was going to buy it years ago, I didn't because it was the end times, and I was waiting for a range refresh (boy, it's been a long wait). I enjoy the lore I have watched on RU-vid for Warhammer and especially Tomb Kings, and I would say I have an affinity (similar to a player's affinity in sports) for the Settra character and ancient Egypt. As for the boxes, I always thought soul caskets, chariots, and Usabti were the best-looking and most astonishing units I've seen people playing with. I also liked the Scorpion, but I would be happy with the infantry in the box since I will likely need it anyway. I appreciate that I can buy a starter set without buying models I don't want; I'm looking forward to painting the army in teal and Vincy V Gold paint mix and oil washes.
Soapbox time! I'll preface this with maybe I just misunderstood the point he was making, but It sounded like Vince was suggesting that Total War Warhammer players don't have the attention span, patience or tolerance for complexity to be a good target demographic for TOW. If I understood correctly, I disagree wholeheartedly with that take. In Total War Warhammer you spend dozens if not hundreds of hours in one campaign gradually building up your armies, unlocking new unit types, leveling up your heroes and units, meticulously planning your army builds and developing little narratives around your units and heroes as they participate in battles and achieve victories and sustain losses. You learn the lore, races, characters and conflicts of the Warhammer Fantasy universe and get more and more invested in the setting with each 100 hour campaign you play, and all the while you are cementing the emerging narratives of your armies that your are creating as you play into the setting, armies that you remember and would love to recreate in a different medium. You remember that one basic-tier infantry unit that you started a campaign with that stood firm against all odds in that one important battle against superior enemy units, being whittled down from 100 to just 25 surviving models while courageously defending your squishy ranged units or the last chokepoint defending an important position in a siege, and you watched their leadership tick down lower and lower with their growing losses, wavering, you expecting them to turn and run at any second, but just before they do the cavalry finally arrives to crash into the backs of their foes and save them and the day is won. This unit of basic infantry has made their way into your heart and you've renamed them something silly like "The Unbreakables" in honorable memory of their steadfast heroism in the face of almost certain death, and eventually you reach the end-game of the campaign and that same unit has survived with you from the beginning and they're still somehow in your main army alongside a bunch of elite units because you haven't wanted to replace them because you got attached to their narrative and they've reached max level. An example for me is the unit of hobgoblins who earned the title "Da Eagle Slayas" after routing not one, but two units of wood elf eagle riders who attempted to dive my backline by bursting out of stealth unexpectedly as the eagles swooped in and focus firing them down with poisoned throwing knives before charging into them from behind. Those sneaky hobgobblins remained my dedicated backline defense unit for the rest of the campaign, ambushing any who dared to charge into the flanks of my archers. That's an experience that sounds familiar to any tabletop warhammer player. In the real time battles, units have more than a dozen different stats, way more if you include the hidden stats. Units of hundreds of models fight in combat and each individual model that swings a sword triggers a DND-like set of calculations to determine hit chance and damage dealt. Charge speed and a model's mass determines how much impact they have on the charge and whether they will blob up and be repelled by a braced infantry line or smash straight through it. Careful positioning of units and setting up efficient trades in engagements thanks to good knowledge of different units and their capabilities is key to victory. There are all sorts of abilities to consider like bonuses vs large/cavalry, resistance to charges and stealth mechanics. You have spells that increase or decrease melee attack, defense or armor and you need to do some math just to understand how any of these actually translates into actual results on the battlefield otherwise you may use them in circumstances that will give you little to no benefit at all. Army composition and pairing units that work well together is very important to success (at least in multiplayer). I definitely don't think Total War Warhammer players fit the mold of desiring a streamlined, simple, 12 page rulebook vs a meaty rulebook full of complexity, special rules and corner cases. Total War Warhammer units and battles have special rules and complexity aplenty. There's even a competitive multiplayer scene which has built itself up with community supplemental rules and organization despite the game developer's long-standing unwillingness to devote resources to or inability to properly support a good quality baseline multiplayer platform/gamemode/ruleset, whose increasing popularity and online presence has finally encouraged the developers to make a number of positive changes in the right direction in the design elements of their multiplayer game modes/rules/balancing and devote additional resources to supporting the "rules"/unit balance/multiplayer design. That right there has gotta be about as good of an analogue for the experience of playing a GW tabletop game as anything could be! Total war players, at least the hardcore ones, definitely have the chops for the complexity, they are willing to make large time commitments to their gaming, and their love for the lore and background could very well be enough to pull a lot of them into the hobby even if they never saw themselves as creative or hobby types before. Total War Warhammer is what got me into AOS around 5 or 6 years ago, and I never would have considered a hobby like this otherwise! I'm no expert on marketing or corporate decision-making, but TOW doesn't have to be a good fit for all Total War Warhammer players, TW:WH is such a popular video game series that just a fraction of them would need to be pulled in to TOW to make that a valuable demographic for GW right?
40k player here, and I wouldn’t be surprised for the new edition of AoS if; 1) Absolutely get indexes 2) Armies of Renown replace detachments 3) AoR/Detachments solve the special character and sub faction problem. They will be designed around particular playstyles but like the generic space marine detachments in 40k, they will be chapter/sub faction agnostic, meaning anyone in that battle tome can use it
My only fear with the skaven refresh is how much will wind up going away. Not things like gutter/night runners but more like "you have night runners, why do you need skryre acolytes?" (Mid range ranged chaff).
Concerning Tom’s take on sub-factions being too important to squat. Just look at what they did to 40K. There are no more subfactions there anymore. You just have to theme around your army detachment and I would say that space marine chapters are way more ingrained into 40K lore than anything is Aos.
And it should be noted that the new Detachments are far, far more impactful and army-defining in some ways than the old subfactions ever were. I can run my Necrons as a Herohammer Close-Combat phalanx like Slaves to Darkness *or* a teleporting up-and-down 2e Kharadrons army!
The big question for me, as a beasts of chaos player, is will there still be a place for this range in AoS 4th? Or will it be shuffled off to the Old World? Maybe it’ll be there in the index but will it get a new battle tome?
Next year shapes as another great year for AoS! I can't wait! Hopefully 4th ed cleans up some stuff, simplifies other areas. I like ranges on melee weapons but perhaps it would be better to make it like: 1 rank, 2 rank, 3 rank? LRL Wardens have those stupid, getting in the way, long as stork legs pikes that are pain in the ass to play (for my fat fingers) and some way to simplify counting how many models are in combat would greatly help. On the other hand my solution won't work as AoS is not a rank & file game. This could be a fix for all those 25mm bases that can attack from 2 lines, while 32mm more elite models have to do stupid formations... I agree that Skaven will be part of the launch box. I might skip it if SCE are not looking too good, but who knows... I've bought Dominion at start of 3rd Ed and recently sold it, still in shrink wrap :D I hope StoD's will get expansion of Darkoath minis! Savagers are great minis (I finally painted a warband of them, but not in an army unit style, that would take ages to complete whole army). Current Marauder Horsemen are ok, but Darkoath Riders would be a good way to introduce new sculpts. On the flipside that would introduce new warscroll, so perhaps just replacing current Horsemen would be better?
I've just bought and assembled about 2500 points of Bonesplitterz and have got 20 boars painted so far. Are you telling me I've wasted my time and money?
Counterpoint to Tom regarding the indexes: Yea, there are many warscrolls in the aos. But do you know how many profiles in the 40k? And can we think of many significant rules changes moving from 9th to 10th? Just saying it might be the same case for 4th
73 warscrolls for Stormcast, that’s a little over HALF of what Space Marines had. I know they moved a lot to legends, but that argument holds a no weight with that logic.
40k did indeed do it but what is the working design/development teams size difference between these two games? Given the significant revenue difference between these games, I would suspect that 40k has a much larger team to tackle a task like this.
Yea, i can agree that there's a difference, but even if AoS team is two times smaller, the task at hand is also at least two times smaller. I mean, it's obviously wont be an easy ride, but it's something very doable, imo.
my predictions: Sure thing: more gimmicks in the GHB 50/50: Destruction release before AoS 4, my moneys on a new warclans book and a kruleboyz expansion. They can roll in the new IJ stuff, fix the book, and cut bonesplitterz out. Hopium: Chaos dwarves in the starter box against something other than stormcast.
About future stormcast for the dawnbringer books or 4th edition, it would be great to get lord commanders for other stormhosts as well as updated and more flavorful rules for each stormhost.
Surely if there is a new Army Chaos Dwarfs must be in with a shout? The fact there's an on release PDF for em for Old World suggests minis might emerge.
I think i know their target customer, they’re shooting for the 40k equivalent to the Heresy Player. The commited pre-existing GW customer who wants either a more complex in-depth game, or prefers the older ways of doing things. Like, the parallels are very obvious, the only difference is that with heresy they struck while the iron was hot and had the full weight of FW and Alan Bligh behind it, while the Old World will likely be stuck in the same slow stagnation that Heresy 2.0 is in. Can Old World survive that? I don’t know.
Have GW had these sprues sat in some warehouse all this time? And some bright spark suggested sticking the sprues in these starter boxes to help clear space?!
Your idea on grand alliance books would also sell more models, I don't buy tzeench because I already have 2 battletomes as a tax each edition, if it had all chaos I would certainly expand out to other models in my GA.
the main brettonian list requires peasants, but the same article mentioned that there would be variant brett army structures including a knights only option.
On a side note, speaking of people buying all the books, what I've never understood is why they don't have the option of purchasing all army book rules on the app. For instance, I have a couple of armies, so over a course of an edition I might purchase say 2 books (NZD$80-90 each) But if you had an annual subscription which had Warhammer+ and all the books for say NZD$150-200, and this would be annual..... I would most likely buy it, so over an entire edition you'd get me spending $450-600, to me its a no brainer. Also, shout out to Tyler about Blue Eye Samuri - now I'm hooked
Tom's suggestion that the people who buy every battletome are statistically significant is more fuel for my theory that that man has never had to work for his money haha. I absolutely feel him when he talks about the pitfalls of battle tactics though. I don't hate their current implementation to that degree, by any means, but I live in a much more casual environment. 40k's secondary system in 9th ed actually pushed me away from that game entirely. List building (something I love) became unfun because the lists I wanted to play didn't fit into the framework of the "good" secondary choices. My armies could kill things and score primary, but "oops you lose cause you didn't add an action monkey" made for an unfun experience.
The Brett knights stoll look ok to me, but I'm old enough to remember how big of an upgrade they were over the 5th ed starter box brett knights. which means i'm so old that I'm clearly going senile.
Warhammer 40k went 19 years and 5 editions without a full reboot. And AoS is in a pretty good place, rules-wise. Apart from the complexity issue and a few minor things. Therefore, I am pretty sure we will not get a reboot that instantly invalidates all 3rd edition books and warscrolls. Instead, like Tom, I expect another evolution like from 2nd to 3rd. Only this time it is more about trimming and refining rules rather than adding them. For example, you could remove/replace the whole battle tactics and grand strategy system and it would only affect one page in each battletome. On the other hand, heroic actions and montrous rampages would probably only be slightly modified, because they are sprinkled unevenly over allegiance abilities and individual warscrolls.
Going to faction books would be amazing. Heroes tied to subfactions? The way Neave is painted black and red because I like that scheme? Everyone is an Anvil for me. :D I hope the core book has better help for narrative play, I hope they tweak Path to Glory a little. While not having a unit at full strength because of losses is narrative, there’s a balance between that and getting to put what you have managed to paint on the table. A little better help with emergent storytelling would help.
I want to say no to the old world, but my heart says, "Do it, lol. Probably get the books and map, but hold off on minis as im waiting for my wood elves 1st. I started in 4th edition & i can't help with the nostalgia trip. Look forward to your take on the rules & further developments. AOS will still be my main game, but a bit of fantasy sounds too good to resist. I wish it was more updated model wise. Who knows if it's successful in 5/10 years, we may get more updated plastic minatures 🤞🏻. Great show as ever, guys.
Are the variety of chapters maybe in part the REASON for such a high meta representation for Space Marines? Maybe unique and flavourful storm-hosts with signature units would increase Stormcast interest?
I think its a chicken and egg, the popularity of the thing allowed the split of the thing, which grew the thing. AoS players have been much more ambivalent about SCE releases.
I have no evidence for this but i suspect you underestimate the value and love that the player base, including comp, put into sub-factions. Excellent episode as ever 😀
I really think you guys are misunderstanding old world. Comparing old world to other game systems when the conversation is the success or failure of the system we need to consider the overall investment. If you see old world launching with old sculpts, few armies, limited range of kits available, and a skeleton staff(some estimates have the rules being written largely by 1 person) we should be comparing this game to Necromunda or bloodbowl, very small and niche specialist games. Sure old world is an army game ala 40K or aos but because it’s similar in scale doesn’t mean gw is going to hold it to the same expectations instead they will look at ROI and since old world is such a budget offering as far as they are concerned even a modest success will represent a whole lot of minerals for gw. I also think you are misrepresenting the games chances. This game seems primed to capitalize on 2 groups of people, old grumpy gamers and old zoomers/young millennials. For old grumpy gamers you are right most of them already have the models so at best will pick up the books. Good thing gw has a skeleton crew so even that small purchase represents a large roi and because the models are old and already paid off in terms of sculpting and dye construction they aren’t too bummed you didn’t buy them. For zoomers/millennials, think between ages of 18-30 these models have a powerful nostalgia we were too young to really accumulate those models as children and as the oldest of us started to get just summer jobs the universe died and most kits were gone forever, or had already been retired. Now that we have the money and free time to indulge is more expensive hobbies and warhammer is rising in popularity and acceptance we are a ripe audience to exploit. Assuming I am even somewhat correct in these assumptions that will lay the ground work to have a core audience to counter nay sayers as they lead into new settings. Wanna play some renegade factions like skaven buy some aos 4ed skaven gw is still happy cause you’d also buy the old world rules same goes for vampire counts or lizard men and those kits are widely available and brand new if you are so connected to the cult of the novel. Overall I think it’s got a bright future and ya’ll aren’t really the core demo so struggle to see its path to the sun. Of course it can and has failed once already so we’ll see.
You may very well be right, if they are holding it against the smaller game standard, then no issue, if they aren't, which I am not sure, internal GW politics of the main armies games are often frought, then they may have a challenge.
my predictions: Pre 4.0: We get a 5th dawnbringers book. they have confirmed each GA is getting a book focussed on them, so we get a chaos book. For sure in that book we get my boi Khorgos Coolio, the daemon prince of khorne. they have also teased a varanguard hero, so thats a maybe. my hopium is a new blue scribes sculpt. i this will lead us into 4th, with skaven and sce. Skaven: i think either ninja rats or skrye in the launch box. i just dont think eshin has enough units to fill the launch box, so my bet is on skryre. they have more than enough units to fill a launch box, and people love techomutant rats. they might combine it with some new moulder stuff, like we have mixed units between those. the rest of the updates will come after the launch box. For Sce, they could do anything tbh. refresh, new models, new chamber, who knows. For new books after 4.0: 2 starters ofc. then we get NH, FS and orruks. This gives us something from each GA (not counting SCE, cuz we know they always get a new book on ed launch). All those 3 books could use a rewrite from the ground up. i would hate for FS to be there because they need a decent amount of new units, but the new warband helps.
The only real investment in the old world has been making a new rulebook. Even if it fades out, they will mske a profit and do some fan service for good PR points. The danger for 40k is a Star Wars style over exposure and burn out
The TK skeleton thing is almost a meme itself already. Not only are the TK versions 20 years old - but the skeletons those are built on are even older! Those foot skeletons are from 1998. They were outdated when they got that TK update six years later. Just let that sink in. Goddammit, nostalgia is one hell of a drug, but this is just too much for me...
Tom needs to look at 40k. it has more warscrolls/units than sigmar. they indexed it at 8th edition and again just this summer at 10th edition. if they want to, they will index 4th edition. Also 40k doesn't weapon ranges, so they can do weapon ranges real easy, hell 40k has a lot more big bases that sigmar monsters.
I think the difference here is that AoS is *way* more focused on Melee than 40K is, so mechanical depth in melee is more important. I cannot see weapon range stats going away, but I do see it getting refined and moving to being measured in something other than inches.
To Thom's point about subfactions 40k essentially did away with sub factions and 40k was essentially *sub faction the game* and I can very easily see AOS going in the same direction. That said here's hoping we see the return of Grombrindel the White Dwarf in 4th edition feels like his return was teased over an edition ago.
re: who TOW is for: tabletop players who miss rank & flank battle games, with armied that look like armies & capture that epic helms deep / pelenor fields feeling with large armies but where battles can still play out in a reasonable time frame. because for all that rank & flank with marches & wheels adds complexity, once you've learned the rules it just plays faster compared to games of aos or 40k or mesbg with similar model counts where each model has to be moved & measured individually. I don't think there's a big market for that. certainly all the games that have tried to fill that niche have failed. but there could be enough to keep the game chugging along at the same level as mesbg.
I always assumed that with the release of TOW they will releases boxes with all the old models. So I could for example start a completely new wood elves army and buy all the old models in new branded boxes. If that‘s not the case the game is dead? Then it‘s really just only for people that already have exactly what they want/need to play?
I didn't even buy all the books for all the armies I have. If they made bank of the 10E 40K index cards, that will motivate them to try it for AoS far more than any nominal need for it with rules changes. I also think battle tactics and grand strats as army specific things are going away. I'm probably getting the Bretonian box, but I have 0 interest in Old World - I want the models to finish a collection and then I will figure out what I'm doing with them (Cities Proxy Army is high on the list). I think Beasts will be updated for AoS before they are released for Old World, just so they can use those old kits for Old World and have a distinct visual for Beasts for AoS.
While i do like the Brets i just can't see myself paying attention to TOW. I don't have any of my old fantasy models and they don't seem to be putting a lot out there. I think it'll be like AOS where i completely ignore the first edition. Will i get enough support and models to make it worth while? who knows i've also been looking into other rank and flanks from other companies like The song of ice and fire and Conquest Last argument of kings. i can see indices working fine. it would be a lot of work, but they have done that for 40k and that is just as big of a job. either way i just hope the new edition is fun to play.
Indexing would be a great opportunity to merge warscrolls and to get rid of vestigial elements. I really hope they shake it up with 4th edition because 3rd has been the worst I have felt playing AoS.
I find the whole Old World Idea is abit crazy at the moment. GW cant keep their current ranges in stock. Adding in a whole new game seems insane. They dont have the production capacity to release dwarfs, elves etc. Are people going to be playing Tomb Kings v Brets for months. It makes no sense.
Would it kill GW if they spent a year releasing no new books, and all tomes are out and current and we can just play it? What if the only new AoS stuff getting released was new minis(with those new warscrolls added )?
Own battle tactics for armies sucks. The non turn player should always have the chance to stop a general battle tactic and interact. General battle tactics should be for the fighting and objective game.
I agree the tk box contents are terrible. I get not updating the skeletons & skeletal horses - even if doing so would have been such a better use of resources than the bone dragon. but to then pack the box with these terrible models when tk /had/ 8e plastics that may look old but at least hold up way better.
I'm definitely of the opinion that GW has Morbed themselves with TOW. They weren't able/willing to adequately support the game ten years ago, i have no reason to believe they can do it now.