Expectations to a 9th ed - new rumours from Warseer added

[John Rainbow]

From Earlybird:

from the horse mouth

factions :

1) Chaos : Demons + Beasts + Mortals
2) Elves
3) Empire
4) Undead
5) Orcs and Goblins
6) Skavens

Lizards are gone in space.
Dwarves survivors join the empire with the ogres.

1) Chaos core : Warriors of chaos/chariot/Hounds
Demons figs will be kept as they are usable in 40k
Bye bye marauders, ungors, centigors, razorgor etc

2) Elves core : spearmen/archers/cavalry on horse
No more xbows
the 3 elves will blend in one faction
dark elves monsters are gone : cold ones, hydra

3) Empire core: Hallberds/Handgun/Canon
Some dwarves survivors and ogres are included
Imperial and bretonnian knights are merged

4) Undead core : Skeletons/Ghouls/Spirit host
bye bye bone giant, scorpion sphinx, chariots and everything too much egyptian

5) Orcs and goblins core : Goblins/Orcs/Black orcs
no real change for them

6) Skaven core : Clanrats/Plague rats/Rat ogres
no real change for them too

[Francis]

Do note however that Earlybird has a bad trackrecord all in all. I would not trust that list too much.

[Shadeseraph]

Given that the rumours state 5 "old" armies + new "marine" army... well, seems guesswork at best.

Not liking this in the least. Though I guess I'll be able to use my Nids in fantasy, too.

[Ferny]

Maybe it's moving towards the interchangeable system of WarmaHordes...FantaK anyone (sounds better aloud: "Fanta-Kay")

[Galharen]

What the fu#$...

[Nightwing]

I honestly don't see them trying to insert any scifi into fantasy, I think the "space marines" in fantasy is just a metaphor for an attempt to create a unit/army with the same mass appeal as space marines have in 40k. A forces of order mirror to the "demonic" flavoured chaos warriors. I forsee some magic armoured Knights, maybe even ripping of the basilleans from kings of war, angelic wings and all.

[Aicanor]

While I would appreciate rules that allow for quicker games, the changes in the background are something I am not looking forward to if this has an ounce of truth in it. Shards of reality floating in a sea of Chaos and "colliding" from time to time is not something that appeals to me. If it did, I would have chosen another game to play.

Edit: To not come out as too nostalgic, I will wait and see what happens before final judgement.

[Swordmaster of Hoeth]

Hi guys,

There are a few things that were discussed so let me address these (in no particular order):

1. Less is more vs variety

I am not against trimming the number of factions in general. It may, indeed, be better for the game. As it has been said it may mean better balance between the factions, steady and more frequent releases for each of them, regular support.

In fact, one of the best games I enjoyed was Warmaster that had much simpler rules and only a few factions. The choices were also quite limited in comparison to Warhammer. However, the game was very dynamic and despite the fact that you used few types of units it still created infinite amount of possibilities.

The skepticism comes from the fact that GW is also known for producing unbalanced rules for these models and for lack of game support in the form of regular FAQ.

That leads to limited number of choices usually taken by the players, as Rod said. That, in turn, creates a situation where armies simply look the same. If they simply limit the number of choices in the "faction book" then I am afraid it will really result in having 6 armies everywhere, the difference being the painting of the miniatures.

I would be very happy to be wrong but this is one of my concerns.

2. The case of veteran players

I have been playing since early 4th edition. I haven't collected huge amount of miniatures in that time but it is still considerable amount. Last year I bought Wood Elves army book and Khaine ET. I am sure I am not a model client for GW. And I don't expect them to treat me as a priority.

However, it does not mean that players like me should be completely disregarded. I would buy new models with new release. I did so with our army book. Not many but still. I would get models for ET Khaine if they released some. The thing is that trying to get new players does not mean you have to at the same time make older players to feel like they are actually a liability.

Many veteran players own huge armies. It does not mean they would not buy more though. Actually, the guys who own such vast collections are likely to buy new ones just because this is what they do. The get new armies quickly. However, imagine half of your armies are suddenly not usable because they are gone.

3. Change

Change can be a good thing. It prevents stagnation. But it is also important what is this change about and how it is introduced. I don't mind and even want the timeline to move on, to get something new in the background stories, even major shake ups. I perfectly understand why it is often hard to accept. We quickly get used to things.

I am concerned because even with current End Times these changes are introduced in not so good way. First of all, why change must mean total revamping of the existing background? Why cannot be adding to what was, expanding, enriching? Instead, it seems like the whole ET story is just an excuse to kill bunch of characters in quite pathetic way, destroy the world and force you to cross the river because they just set the bridge on fire.

Finally, if they introduce such dramatic change they also know it will cause a lot of confusion, frustration maybe nerd rage. They don't say a thing about the future though and I am not sure if that actually helps them even if I understand they want to protect their ideas before somebody copies them.

4. Personal remark

I went through a few editions in the past. As soon as the rumor showed up the new one is coming I was excited. I kept asking myself then what is different this time. I came to the conclusion that it is because I was involved in 8th edition much more than in any one before. I spent many hours on battle reports alone. I played against the largest group of players ever, both on the events and on UB. The best painted miniatures were for 8th edition. I guess this time the fact that there is a massive change coming I am simply concern it all will not matter in a few months time that much anymore.

I try to keep calm, read the rumors with critical eye and wait for the change to happen to judge if I like it or not. but sometimes simple waiting is not the best course of action when you want to smoothly adapt to the new reality.

Cheers!

[Axiem]

This is likely to prove very disruptive. The U.S. Masters already is considering whether or not to continue this year, and many players already threatening to drop out / have already.

A lot of this comes from / is confirmed by Harry and Darnok, both who have very good track records. That's as close to a confirmation as you'll get.

Edit: I'll withhold judgement on the whole changes until I actually see them, but it has me intrigued. Having collected a large number of models already, I like the idea of something a little smaller-scale, if the rules support it and aren't wildly different / 40k inspired.

Axiem

[John Rainbow]

Interesting post Swordmaster. I agree with most of your comments except those about the ET release. I really like the direction of the End Times story. I've always felt that WFB was lacking in the fluff dept. and now this comes along to fix that problem! I agree that it is difficult to backtrack new fluff and the ET storyline is pretty cataclysmic but it has rejuvenated WFB in a big way and I think that is great. What comes next is still up in the air but I do have some faith that GW knows what they are doing. Every edition gets better than the last (IMHO) and WFB really needs some decent fluff to get it going again relative to 40k.

[Asur Fire]

Earlybird doesn't have a great track record- but Darnok & especially Harry do. What I get from Harry's post, which has been added to the first post on warseer, is that Fantasy as a game isn't/hasn't been selling like they want it to. GW has reached market saturation with this game, and the decision has been made to scrap it & introduce a new one- as Harry & the "birdies" have said this means most of our models won't be used in the new edition. Frankly, it sounds like 9th is actually the 1st edition of another game.

Has it been GW's own fault for causing this? Doesn't matter, it seems like this is what is happening. We only can wait & see, but this is the reality we are looking at.

This is different than "the sky is falling" because of rules changes for an edition, this is a reset. Full stop.

[Swordmaster of Hoeth]

Hi John,

Thanks! It is not that I am totally against ET, quite contrary. Not to derail the topic too much let me just point two things and connect it to the rumors about "the future".

1. In ET: Khaine we have quite a few battles but as somebody has mentioned before (I am sorry, I forgot who made that excellent comment) but if we had one or two fewer battles and that space was used to develop characters in a more sophisticated way then the story would be better overall. There is no way it will be equally liked by everybody but at least it would make more sense.

It is of course biased point of view but I would love to read more about reasons for the things to happen too.

2. ET: Khaine battles are pretty much brutal clashes of two masses of soldiers. We have two the most sophisticated armies in the entire warhammer world and the only thing they do is to charge headlong into each other. Quality over quantity again. They don't have to be written in the way some ancient battles are described (although I would not mind seeing some deployment maps ). They don't have to be very complicated. But they should put some more effort into these epic conflicts.

So how does it connect with the future warhammer? Well, ET is said to be introduction to it. It sets up the stage for new background. I can accept the fact that the decision was made and background has to follow in order to fit new reality. but it would be nice to have something more complex and less lazy than the idea of ancient lie and then the story of a big cry baby Malekith who cannot do anything by himself versus mad Tyrion who was riding around swinging evil sword.

[Prince of Spires]

The earlybird rumours sound a bit too specific and too close to my own wish-listing for me to believe them. Part of them will likely become true, but that's simply because he's going for easy educated guesses. As mentioned earlier, undead, deamons and elves are pretty much a given for post ET fluff, simply going from the current ET books...

As for the rumors, I'll just wait and see. Looking at previous "wild" rumors that turned out to be not that big a deal or to be actually quite nice, I'll give GW the benefit of the doubt for now. Just to pick out two from the past years:
- return of the % system in 8th. This would definitely completely break the game and cause everyone to quit. Turns out it's actually a decent change and it plays quite well (or at least it did before the 50% shenanigans...)
- Sinking of Ulthuan. I think no HE player liked this prospect (and to be honest, I still don't). But the fluff is decent enough and most people have accepted it.

I do feel I should perhaps clarify my remark about veteran players. This was not aimed at anyone specific, and I have great respect for the long time players (for instance, Shannar is a wealth of knowledge of the history and models of the HE). My remark was more that a long time customer who doesn't spend any money on your products is not actually a customer at all. And thus someone you should consider less as a company then new customers who do spend a lot of money (or existing ones that spend a lot of money...). I know I'm not a good customer for GW, I'm a decent one in recent times (I've bought the ET books). But before that I hadn't spend any money since the HE release.

Rod

[Shannar, Sealord]

I'm a terrible GW customer. Though I was once a very good one, and helped create other very good ones. They lost me along the way though. Things got really bad in 6th after big promises of making the game better. There were just to many models in some armies that weren't useable, and to many armys that couldn't be used anymore because of the new concept of "core" and the balance between armies only got worse. Taking out the % system actually really messed things up as well. I was very happy to see that come back. A lot of people really bad mouth 5th, but it wasn't tons worse than what we have now. A little restraint and it was fine, which isn't all that different than the various "comps" that everyone is so fond of now.

I got a bit side tracked there, but the last time I personally bought anything was with the HE release. My group bought the ET books and a few others, but that's split 8 ways. I don't even use GW paints. Part of that is the pots. A lot of it is the old pots (the first batch without the flip tops) that didn't open after you used them. That got me to look at other brands and I found some that I like better, and didn't dry out after a couple uses. I've never looked back. Part of it is also that there are no stores that carry them in the area (as GW has made carrying their stuff to big of a hassle for a lot of small stores) and even trying to pick up a couple gw paints along with some of my other supplies is more hassle than it's worth because they don't let online stores put their stuff in a "cart". If I could there have been times when I would have added a couple metalics or some liquid greenstuff, or maybe even a single model or two. But it's not worth the hassle of a separate invoice.

The side games that they stopped doing also played a huge role of keeping me attached to the "warhammer world". Man O' War, bloodbowl, warmater, and of course mordheim all helped keep us in the GW range, and added possibilities to campaigns.

I guess my point is that it's true that I'm no longer a good customer. But it's because they've given me no reason to be, and in some cases actually put up barriers to me buying their things. That's without getting into the disappointments of 6th, dropped armies, and support for all the side games suddenly disappearing.

If even half these rumors are true they'll be repeating a lot of these mistakes for a whole new generation of gamers.

[fransotto]

The earlybird rumours sound a bit too specific and too close to my own wish-listing for me to believe them. Part of them will likely become true, but that's simply because he's going for easy educated guesses. As mentioned earlier, undead, deamons and elves are pretty much a given for post ET fluff, simply going from the current ET books...

As for the rumors, I'll just wait and see. Looking at previous "wild" rumors that turned out to be not that big a deal or to be actually quite nice, I'll give GW the benefit of the doubt for now. Just to pick out two from the past years:
- return of the % system in 8th. This would definitely completely break the game and cause everyone to quit. Turns out it's actually a decent change and it plays quite well (or at least it did before the 50% shenanigans...)
- Sinking of Ulthuan. I think no HE player liked this prospect (and to be honest, I still don't). But the fluff is decent enough and most people have accepted it.

I do feel I should perhaps clarify my remark about veteran players. This was not aimed at anyone specific, and I have great respect for the long time players (for instance, Shannar is a wealth of knowledge of the history and models of the HE). My remark was more that a long time customer who doesn't spend any money on your products is not actually a customer at all. And thus someone you should consider less as a company then new customers who do spend a lot of money (or existing ones that spend a lot of money...). I know I'm not a good customer for GW, I'm a decent one in recent times (I've bought the ET books). But before that I hadn't spend any money since the HE release.

Rod

Hehe come on, Sinking Atlantis has been there all the time.. Oops did I say Atlantis? I mean Ulthuan... As well as meteor/comet is destroying the dinosaurs and the mammals takes over.. Oops I mean space ships and lizardmen and skavens...

I cannot understand how long time collectors of the WHFB fluff can be upset about whats going to happen/happening in ET, but the best part is the part I have highlighted.

GW is a company with people trying to make a living. This is not charity.

All rumored changes are good because why?
1. Can it be worse than a big mess in army/rule book versions we have today?
2. Can it be worse than non existing FAQ support?
3. Can it be worse than just copy paste all the old pictures and stories and re-sell it again?
4. Can it be worse than just make some guesses about the unit rules/stats?
4. Can it be worse than they stop fantasy all together?

GW have seen a problem and they try to fix it. Be happy.

But all this rage can also be a good thing, it might be that GW need to make a official statement about these rumors as I do believe people will stop buying WHFB all together. They will not change route but maybe there will be a something in order to show that they care.

[Shannar, Sealord]

They will not change route but maybe there will be a something in order to show that they care.

If I had to pick and area where GW has majorly failed in recent years it would be this. Shutting down rumors has shut down excitement. It's also let the more negative things have more life that they would have if there were positive and exciting things that were more reliably known.

[Nyeave]

As a relatively new player who have jsut started experiencing the game this is what worries me:

I have put in about 5-600$ into models so far and as you know this gives me an army but not close to being able to just pic and choose during army building. If GW stops supporting this army and turn it into an all elf force where half the units dissapear from procdution I am in a situation where I can't use it for the new edition without using my existing models as proxies (as we don't know the new armies yet I don't even know if thats possible) and I can't just keep playing 8th as I just don't have the models for it.

It's fine when people say: "if you don't like the changes just keep playing 8th", but some of us aren't really in a possition to do that. I am very excited about any changes to the game as I haven't had enough time to get attached to the current fluff and game system, but I am worried that I will end up with substantial amount of money bound to an army that fits neither the old nor the new system.

[Truthiness]

While Darnok and Harry are very reliable, Harry's stuff is intentionally vague and Darnok's quotes of his "birdies" are somewhat contradictory. Darnok is also on the record as saying Bretonnia would be released in the first quarter of 2015, so he's throwing his own rumors out the window here. Here's what I envision based on all the rumors floating around.

The condensing of factions makes perfect sense. We're already seeing it with the End Times. Elves are pretty much Elves for gameplay purposes. What makes us different, for the most part, is little bits of fluff flavor. From a rules prospective, Executioners and White Lions are damned near the same. Wildwood Rangers and Swordmasters are pretty damned close too. You can make a single army list entry that gives a few minor options and lets players use whichever models they so choose. By making a single book for High Elves, Wood Elves, and Dark Elves, they give players maximum choice, while minimizing costs and development time. Everyone is whining about the Host of the Eternity King list and I've yet to understand why. You can make whatever theme you want with it. It does not restrict choice. It gives you absolute freedom.

I don't think we'll see the drastic invalidation of units and kits that some are predicting. This comes from a customer satisfaction (I know, not GW's strong suit) and a business logic. Instead, I see a gradual reduction. For example, high elf spearmen are old as dirt at this point. However, you've got Eternal Guard and Dreadspears that just got released. Those kits aren't going anywhere anytime soon, otherwise it's just a loss from a business prospective. We've all discussed this at length, so I won't belabor this point. I can just see there being an "Elf Spearmen" unit that lets you use whatever models you want.

The fluff going forward doesn't bother me. I've liked what I've seen thus far. If you don't like it, you can ignore it very easily. If done right, the consolidated factions will likely still allow you to play only High Elves if you so wish. You can still get those Dark Elf vs High Elf grudge matches with your Dark Elf buddy. All you have to do is use the right models. I think progression in fluff will be good for the game. You can still play in whatever phase of Warhammer "history" you want. Hell, damned near every Orc and Goblin special character is dead after all.

What I'm not seeing a whole lot of is rules specifics, the thing that I think the community cares the most about. All we've seen is some vague mentions of round bases. That is literally the only piece of rules information I've seen. That is from a single sentence from Harry (who said "I think" rather than a definitive statement) and from the oh so reliable Faeit. The Faeit rumor, however, remarks that ranking up is still possible, and even more beneficial. All the other sources seem to point to more or less 8th edition 2.0. That's what the End Times is looking like as well. This is where I'm most nervous and most hopeful. A huge shake up in the rules of an edition that works pretty well is not something I think the community wants to see, and hence all the nerd rage. I hope minor tweaks, like the combined profile of characters riding monsters, is what's in store. If a skirmish style ruleset is indeed there, I hope that it is at least the flexible options like the Faeit rumor described. The idea that I can choose to go skirmish could be an interesting tactical decision. So long as I can still rank up and it has major advantages, I'll be OK with it.

[Teledor]

I cannot understand how long time collectors of the WHFB fluff can be upset about whats going to happen/happening in ET, but the best part is the part I have highlighted.

I dunno, I guess it's primarily that I've invested quite a lot into High Elves and now Ogres. The idea that my newest army might just go poof is really awesome. Not sure where happiness can come in when that kind of radical change is being floated. I guess I just had awful timing to decide to pick up a new army, and even worse choice. But I'll reserve judgment. Just going to be incredibly pessimistic though so if GW does crap the bed - I won't be shocked; and if they actually improve it or make some great changes I'll be delightfully surprised.

On the ET fluff lines - Khaine was the only thing I cared about, but basically it confirmed my long held view that GW has a fanboy hard-on for the evil races of the game. With ET Khaine the Dark Elves won pretty much. Luckily I waited for reviews of the book and knew I wasn't interested in buying it.

I just don't think the ET series needed to go to such an extreme in terms of the story - basically ending the fluff line. Maybe it will be time to finally move to pew-pew.. but it just doesn't sound the same.

[Shadeseraph]

I guess that, after all, my biggest disconfort is that I actually like cliched fantasy / sci-fi tropes (I play Tau, Tyranids and High elves, figures, the most straightforward archetypes), and this is pretty much an invitation to "incredibly unique and different factions never seen before!" in the style of WarmaHordes, which don't catter to me in the least.

That, and I prefer Civilization over Dinasty Warriors, which, frankly, it's what WHFB is looking like more and more as times go by.

With ET Khaine the Dark Elves won pretty much. Luckily I waited for reviews of the book and knew I wasn't interested in buying it.

Worse. Dark elves won despite them putting their best effort not to, but High elves took them to victory either way.

[Swordmaster of Hoeth]

I cannot understand how long time collectors of the WHFB fluff can be upset about whats going to happen/happening in ET, but the best part is the part I have highlighted.

GW is a company with people trying to make a living. This is not charity.

And what is so hard to understand? Also, what does it have to do with the fact that GW is a company that has to make shareholders happy? Did anyone said we want miniatures for free?

Last but not least, why is it so often assumed that making profit has to be at the expense of the customer's satisfaction?

[SpellArcher]

The most important thing seems to be that GW establish a model for the game that will make them money. So they will keep producing and supporting it for the forseeable future. If this happens then the forums, tournament scene and all the other trappings of the game will likely survive too. So long as I can play my elves in such an environment, that's OK from my personal point of view. Losing the ability to play their army would be a sod for Lizardmen etc players though. We've seen the 'counts as' mechanic before. While it hurts the feel of things they can usually get away with it. 3rd edition 40K is a good example. It was a hammer blow for Epic though.

As said, another reason players are worried is that most feel 8th works pretty well and an edition change likely bigger than any we've seen risks losing that. But I guess some players never liked 8th and as we see from Shannar's post, there is always disagreement about which editions work better. The gameplay question for me is how much they care about balance now. ET lists are a departure from the 8th books (and the old Storm of Chaos lists) in that little attempt has been made to address this. So will 9th, in whatever form, be a game that plays well or will it be a dahed-out ruleset that players feel they have to modify to get a game worth playing?

[Truthiness]

With ET Khaine the Dark Elves won pretty much. Luckily I waited for reviews of the book and knew I wasn't interested in buying it.

They did? Could have fooled me. We still have the Everqueen last I checked and Malekith has bent his knee to her. If anyone won, I'd say it was the Wood Elves. They may have lost their faction leaders, but one of their leaders was more or less merged into the Everqueen, they own the real estate, and their culture seems likely to be dominant. After all, Athel Loren has a will of it's own. The Wood Elves survived by acceding to that will. The influence of Khaine, the dominant deity in the Dark Elf pantheon, was defeated. I will give you that the High Elves lost the most. They have to share their faction leader with the Wood Elves, the other faction leader is their hated enemy, and they lost their home.

[fransotto]

I cannot understand how long time collectors of the WHFB fluff can be upset about whats going to happen/happening in ET, but the best part is the part I have highlighted.

GW is a company with people trying to make a living. This is not charity.

And what is so hard to understand? Also, what does it have to do with the fact that GW is a company that has to make shareholders happy? Did anyone said we want miniatures for free?

Last but not least, why is it so often assumed that making profit has to be at the expense of the customer's satisfaction?

Well, a company with shareholders is a company with shareholders, doesn't matter what they produce. GW is not immune and they need to make profit. Apparently they think 30 years of copying real world history and then copy themselves over and over again will not work for another 30 years.

No we don't want miniature for free, we want rules, books, tutorials, faqs, free contents, free minigames, free pictures and everything around the miniatures. A company cannot work like that in the long run, not the size of GW anyway. They were able to do so until they got competitors (around 1990?)

Making profit will always be on the customers satisfaction as the customer is constant looking for something better, something cheaper. GW is looking for new customers and the new customers got another idea of what fantasy is.

I think this is very interesting as I am start to feel old when I hear kids talking about the WoW fluff or about how cool Legolas was in the Hobbit movie (I mean come on was it a book from the beginning?!). Take a look at modern fantasy games/stories. Before GW was the inspiration, I believe GW is forced to take inspiration from mainly computer games in order to attract the younger audience and it smells like 9th is going that route.


Edit: removed the last sentence. Sorry it was too much I guess.

[SpellArcher]

Please keep things as civil as possible guys. This is an emotive subject.

SA

[Shannar, Sealord]

As said, another reason players are worried is that most feel 8th works pretty well and an edition change likely bigger than any we've seen risks losing that. But I guess some players never liked 8th and as we see from Shannar's post, there is always disagreement about which editions work better. The gameplay question for me is how much they care about balance now.

Nah, this one is probably the "best" overall, since 3rd anyway. It's just the differences aren't as big as we pretend they are. And while I like the fact that heros are toned down from 5th, it does take away from fantasy feel a little as you no longer have heros that are legendary (to the same degree anyway). Likely that didn't help sales. But to make the minor tone down that was needed they could have simply toned down the spells a bit, and put a points cap on magic items. Instead they ripped the game up, and then have ended up trying to work their way back. And it looks like in order to get there they'll rip the game up a 2nd time.

Thing is, they could have kept both sides of that divide happy. All they had to do was keep warmaster (which I wish was 15mm instead of 10mm, as at 15mm the minis are a lot nicer while still being small enough to allow for large battlefields.)

[mcmulligan]

I cannot understand how long time collectors of the WHFB fluff can be upset about whats going to happen/happening in ET, but the best part is the part I have highlighted.

GW is a company with people trying to make a living. This is not charity.

And what is so hard to understand? Also, what does it have to do with the fact that GW is a company that has to make shareholders happy? Did anyone said we want miniatures for free?

Last but not least, why is it so often assumed that making profit has to be at the expense of the customer's satisfaction?

Well, a company with shareholders is a company with shareholders, doesn't matter what they produce. GW is not immune and they need to make profit. Apparently they think 30 years of copying real world history and then copy themselves over and over again will not work for another 30 years.

No we don't want miniature for free, we want rules, books, tutorials, faqs, free contents, free minigames, free pictures and everything around the miniatures. A company cannot work like that in the long run, not the size of GW anyway. They were able to do so until they got competitors (around 1990?)

Making profit will always be on the customers satisfaction as the customer is constant looking for something better, something cheaper. GW is looking for new customers and the new customers got another idea of what fantasy is.

I think this is very interesting as I am start to feel old when I hear kids talking about the WoW fluff or about how cool Legolas was in the Hobbit movie (I mean come on was it a book from the beginning?!). Take a look at modern fantasy games/stories. Before GW was the inspiration, I believe GW is forced to take inspiration from mainly computer games in order to attract the younger audience and it smells like 9th is going that route.


Edit: removed the last sentence. Sorry it was too much I guess.

Just to add some perspective here, nobody is asking for anything for free. Miniatures, rules, etc, have all cost money for a lengthy amount of time from GW, and we're fine with that. My experience doesn't go back to the beginning, but from at least 4th/5th edition, we've been paying for rules, models, white dwarves for pictures and campaign ideas, campaign books (storm of chaos, and the lustria campaign, and the albion campaign, were all sold for real live dollars!!!!). Hell, in 5th if you wanted to use magic, you had to buy an entire other box of cards and rules for around $45.

So no, nobody expects GW to do anything for free, especially none of us that have been around long enough to understand the business.

Enough rebutting your comment (which sorry, but it really was asinine/silly)

My personal thoughts on the matter are that I can probably get behind the new background and concept. My only real trepidation at this point is going to be that 2 of my 3 armies are dwarves and lizardmen, which currently don't have an obvious home in the new factions, and/or look pretty prime for a squatting (lizzies). That makes me uncomfortable. Considering the several thousand dollars and hundreds of man hours invested in painting/assembling, to have that potentially rendered unusable in the newest version of the game is disconcerting to say the least. I'm hoping GW finds a way to fit all the current armies into their 5 factions (the 6th is already taken by the spez merines).

[John Rainbow]

Hi John,

Thanks! It is not that I am totally against ET, quite contrary. Not to derail the topic too much let me just point two things and connect it to the rumors about "the future".

1. In ET: Khaine we have quite a few battles but as somebody has mentioned before (I am sorry, I forgot who made that excellent comment) but if we had one or two fewer battles and that space was used to develop characters in a more sophisticated way then the story would be better overall. There is no way it will be equally liked by everybody but at least it would make more sense.

It is of course biased point of view but I would love to read more about reasons for the things to happen too.

2. ET: Khaine battles are pretty much brutal clashes of two masses of soldiers. We have two the most sophisticated armies in the entire warhammer world and the only thing they do is to charge headlong into each other. Quality over quantity again. They don't have to be written in the way some ancient battles are described (although I would not mind seeing some deployment maps ). They don't have to be very complicated. But they should put some more effort into these epic conflicts.

So how does it connect with the future warhammer? Well, ET is said to be introduction to it. It sets up the stage for new background. I can accept the fact that the decision was made and background has to follow in order to fit new reality. but it would be nice to have something more complex and less lazy than the idea of ancient lie and then the story of a big cry baby Malekith who cannot do anything by himself versus mad Tyrion who was riding around swinging evil sword.

I get what you are saying. I do however think the new fluff is much better than the older stories and much more exciting. I also agree that no one at GW seems likely to grab a Pulitzer any time soon though. The number of times I've read "and the light of [insert god] shone on his brow" or similar is starting to grate.

At least they are getting the chance to have that light shine though I guess. The fluff of old was just far too stagnant.

[Galharen]

well, if GW is really going to get rid of warhammer fantasy as we know now and to make of it a skirmish or whatever game, we can still stay with 8th edition and still have fun.
There will be at last t=no problem with mixing miniatures from other systems into it

[Nightwing]

I have nothing to base this assessment on other than its what I would do....however I don't think they're going to make warhammer a skirmish game per se. I think they'll use 40k as a template as it is very popular. The main difference between wfb and w40k, apart from the setting is that 40k has a far cheaper entry point. Most if not all units are playable (if not optimal) straight out of the box. Where as with fantasy you need big units, and in most cases that means you need two boxes (if not more) of each kit to make a payable unit. My suspicion is that WFB will be scaled down so that units are usable "straight out of the box", rather than become an out and out skirmish game. I'm not ruling out skirmish rules being tacked on in an expansion though.