Weekender: New 40k Content & The Age Of Sigmar Debate
July 11, 2015 by warzan
Welcome to The Weekender. In this episode we're delving into long forgotten territory with the potential of a Warhammer 40,000 show and you might have noticed we've just had an Infinity Week!
Warhammer 40,000
First up we'd like to welcome AJ to the team who will looking to ramp up the Games Workshop 40k content on the website. With that in mind we should be looking at Adeptus Mechanicus as our first target.
Infinity USAriadna Week
As well as that you might have noticed that we've been talking USAriadna all week with Carlos and Killian and so we have an extra chat with the mighty Spaniard himself about Infinity.
USAriadna Week
They guys also get chatting about Infinity at Gen Con 2015 and the Infinity RPG from Modiphius! There's plenty of awesome Infinity-ness to look forward too over the next few months.
Don't forget to check out the whole week on the link above.
Age of Sigmar
I don't think we can avoid Age of Sigmar really can we? We talk about the anger and (sometimes) joy surrounding the rules, the direction for the background and where we think the product as a whole is going down the line.
We also got some amazing Stormcast Eternal pictures sent in by the community and give our verdict on them. It's 'Tommie Soule' by the way...*shakes fist at the sky*
Competition Winners
Talking of an awesome community, you guys really went to town when it came to the competitions of late. We announced the winners for Demigods Evolution and the Infinity Boot Camp.
Watch out to see if you won.
This Weeks Winners:
Four Pro Painted Demigods:
Winner: Lasse
Infinity Operation Icestorm:
Winner 1: Nemesis00
Winner 2: Redsarge
Winner 3: Whiteape1
Sign Up To Backstage For XLBS Tomorrow
Have a great weekend full of wargaming!
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)































Why do I have this awful feeling that I actually forgot to announce the winners on the show?!??!
mmmmmm
Ha, yeah you did.
Happy Saturday.
@dignity they are hand written on my show notes any chance you can add them to the post above when you are in later … pretty please?
The one you can’t read is m..u..l..t..i..f..i..s..h
Hmmm. Wouldn’t that be awkward if I actually had won :-/
I get to enjoy my BoW early today courtesy of my 21-month old daughter Amy who has had me up all night and STILL wanted to get me up at 6am 🙂
Can we have a filter to hide GW related content?
lol nope
But it might actually be interesting now content levels are rising even further to see if we can personalise a bit and give more prominence to games you mark as your favourites
It does dilute a bit of the community aspect though, where we are all exposed to the same view and can dialogue about that – so there is a trade off (and of course technical issues)
I will try to keep any 40K content as generally interesting as possible if that helps though … And I gotta say I have been pretty blown away by AJ (I must get his BoW username!) he is a credit to gaming and a hell of a lot of fun 🙂
A personalise bookmark to tag my favourite games would be great.
Have you ever considered a RSS feed?
There’s an annotation menu after the BoW advert at the beginning of the video where you can skip to what you want to see. Use that.
I do love the work and content you guys do, it is truly great. I can only imagine how much work it takes behind the scenes.
Just some personal feedback on the way the weekender has evolved over time… feel free to ignore this 🙂
Back when it was a show where you just had a bunch of guys get together, tea in hand and talk about the weeks gaming news for an hour I loved it. Would watch all the way through every week as if I wasn’t interested in the current topic I knew in 5mins or so you’d be on to something else of interest.
Recently I’ve been finding myself either skipping the show entirely after reading the heading, or only watching a small part then stopping soon afterwards.
Take this show, it’s 1h 30mins long, 30mins of infinity and an 1hour of 40k, luckily I love infinity but if not i’d just skip the whole show again.
Like I say, you do a great job on the amount of different content you do across the site, I’d just love it if the weekender went back to more of an off the cuff “here’s all the news you missed in the week” or “did you see this awesome community forum post on topic XYZ”, etc…
Just a lone idea 🙂
Cheers.
Ah, never mind. Show still great and if new format gives you more time for BoW, then all the better all round. Rock on!
What? The new guy really looks like you. A younger version.
We cloned him 😉
He has BoW spirit coursing through his veins lol
Cloning is illegal. Have you not learned from Frankenstein about the dangers of rogue science?
ALEPH has made great strides in cloning. The Computer is your friend. Trust the Computer.
Welcome AJ! Can’t wait to see the content you’ll bring us!
Looking forward to seeing some 40k content, especially as you guys always look at making narrative games and great tables to play on.
There’s a surprise guest appearance from me in the episode! lol
Happy Weekend!
I personally will never play 40k, but the skittari have a little bit of my attention. So I’ll give the mechanics week a go, hopefully it’s as good as any of the other weeks that have come beforehand.
Glad to see BoW is starting up its 40k content again and hoping for great things from AJ,
welcome aboard fella.
Well played BoW 😉
And about time I’m thinking! 😉
good morning! hmpf I’m at work can’t watch, need to watch….
lets see BoW does its magic and gets me excited about 40k again. Maybe I need to dust off my Nurgle Marines.
Happy Gaming. Good to meet the newest member of the team. You guys should get on ancestry.com or something to see if there is a connection. I got what the ‘J’ stands for but out of interest what does the ‘A’ stand for?
It must stand for ‘Another’ 😉
(Or Andrew) 🙂
Spent the evening painting up some bolt action us army while watching all the coverage of infinity and the US ariadna may just hook me. The plunge is just a couple of clicks away.
You’ll probably fall in love with US Ariadna once you start Infinity. Got for it!
@warzan its great that you found someone for the 40k content, but what happened about replying by email to people (meaning me) who expressed interest in the 40k role? A reply would have been appreciated.
We haven’t actually finished the process yet @deaddave and are looking at options on articles and the likes for others.
So bear with us 🙂
Just briefly on AoS, my biggest issue is the rules are poorly presented and lead to dull games. The balance is secondary for me and the party games aren’t an issue for me.
Can you expand on the ‘dull games’ bit as I see a good amount of variety and interesting things in the warscrolls so far.
(I will admit that I’m 50:50 on the party games bit – I do enjoy acting the eegit but I also enjoy losing myself in the game and it’s nice when your in the zone for it to remain unbroken)
Because the rules have removed tactical movement (and rightly so IMO) and replaced them with nothing, the games involve the two sides getting sucked into the middle of the table and the game turns into a drawn out luck-based dice rolling contest (and yes, I’ve tried it). The rules badly need something added to them to change this so the scenarios can’t come soon enough.
The party games bit can easily be ignored if you don’t like them, and as you say, they won’t be around as the game matures anyway.
I thought Tuomas’ take on the rules was very perceptive and aside from his views on random charges (I don’t see any risk/reward there), I’m basically in agreement with his take on them.
So you reckon it’s a fundamental mechanic missing from the core rules that is a system wide issue rather than something warscrolls compensate for?
Very interesting, it does highlight the balance required between core mechanics and the ability to offload into unit special rules 🙂
Yes. It isn’t an insurmountable problem as things can be introduced, such as the scenarios or your own house-rules or homebrew scenarios, but ‘as is’ there is that issue with the core rules.
And changes will come (probably thick and fast based on their output capacity) I don’t think this launch has went badly at all when you keep in mind that we believe the rules will be ‘living’
I honestly wouldn’t like to say if it’s gone well or not. Time will tell. I can only say that for my part, I had my gaming budget and I was a willing audience for AoS but the rules lost me and it got spent on other things.
I have to agree with redben the issue is with the core rules as they are at present. At present your position on the battlefield and relative to the enemy is largely meaningless. With rules for flank, rear or terrain affecting combat the fun part of a war game ie thinking of a plan trying to execute it, problem solving and out thinking the enemy have been removed. Now both sides simply move together and start a melee when then sucks in everything near it.
The next flaw then rears its head whilst warscrolls do affect what happens in combat it leads to one if two things especially with the current lack of balance. Either one side is overpowering and crushes the other or they are balanced and it becomes a tedious game of yahtzee, neither of those options make for a fun game to for. Like redben my money has gone elsewhere. This may grow or it may stay line room raiders a game to play with your young children. Only time will tell what happens.
If you write the “concept” of AOS down as a wishlist, it’d be awesome, but totally agreed on the core rules being not ready for public use due to presentation and how most games end up. (I literally have never played past turn 3 out of a handful of games so far.)
The problem I have is that the Warscrolls, special rules and such have been written based on a ruleset with several inconsistent core rules, be it ambiguity or downright shortsightedness.
It’s a game where you have a “core rule” that attempts to address balance (Sudden Death), but is claimed competitiveness isn’t really a thing, hence no points values, army lists etc, but still tries to achieve “winners” and “losers” of a battle.
If they’d brought it out as a complimentary Warhammer “War in the Heavens” Fantasy skirmish as opposed to the out and out replacement of the Warhammer World in canon, it’d perhaps give it breathing room to evolve, but if I may paraphrase @warzan – this is “New Coke”, and think perhaps we’ll see “Classic Coke” Warhammer before too long. Not identical WFB 8th, but perhaps something that takes from the direction AOS has gone and maybe meets it in the middle.
I don’t think the new customers GW is after would show up for a “complimentary product” to a game they already don’t value. They wouldn’t buy-in to Fantasy before, why now (assuming an evolutionary Fantasy product)?
Honestly I agree that the barebones rules are a problem, but if they were to chip in another scroll or addendum to add something along the lines of front & back arcs a la Privateer Press, it might encourage some more tactical planning rather than “Mush em up in the middle, lads!” Especially if a flanked opponent got penalties for attacking if they are flanked. If they treat this as a sort of specialty game like Mordheim, I’m in!
Definitely a touch of the Weird Science, the BoW team fed old family photos into an archaic computer and out popped AJ.
Carlos is a very enthusiastic guy.
So where the Hell is the equivalent from GW, fronting up and cheerleading for their products?
I could see a mass migration to KOW2
At least the more persistent companies as Privateer Press, or enthusiastic small publishers as Corvus Belli or those open guys at Wyrd will get more attention now.
Saturday arvo, watching the weekender while putting together the Chaos faction from Age of Sigmar. Perfect start to the weekend!
Hello AJ, welcome to the BoW rabble, I mean community lol.
Great show guys. A lot of cool info from General Carlos. I cannot wait to grab some of the new stuff he was talking about. I am also excited about the Mechanicus week. I am not playing them but it can be interesting. I do agree with all that was said about the AoS. btw. I saw the movie with the guy burning his minis… sad.
Good show as always , nice to see the new guy settling in well.
(Three peas in a pod comes to mind.)
If I was to launch a new rule set, I would prefer to have people talking about the good points as well as what they are concerned about.
(EG when Kings of War was launched , lots of people wondered what was missing , with the page count being so low.But after playing a few games lots of people thought it delivered elegant and intuitive game play.)
GW plc release of A.O.S seems to only have 2 positive points. its free, its 4 only pages.
The lack of ‘quality and substance ‘ in the rules appears to be what most people are talking about.
This is not a ‘perfect launch ‘ IMO.
Can you guys do a complete beginners getting started, the rules is complex, and I would like to try my ASD lad with 40K, and don’t have an easily accessible GW shop
I got AoS in my hot little hands right now and the scenarios in the book list specific troops to be used for each side for each scenario. The scenarios are rather simple but seem to have a good variety. There is also “Warscroll Battalions” that are in effect full balanced armies you can choose.
I think it is very clear, leafing through the book, that its not really geared towards “legacy” armies. If you choose to use the old unit warscrolls you will need to balance the forces yourselves.
My overall impression is we are going to see LOTS of scenarios each designed with its own recommended forces.
Still not sold on the rules but if I don’t like them I’ll just use the minis in another system.
Welcome AJ. Looks like you will fit right in. @warzan is keeping us in suspense for the competition winners.
Weekend greetings. Looking forward to the 2nd part of the Infinity head2head!
Did anybody spot where the competition results were? – I missed them
Go back and reread the first comment.
Might give AoS a go today – will have a few games of infinity
Welcome AJ! I am looking forward to seeing 40k be taken in hand and opened back up for me. Note: My first GW game was Space Hulk that I purchased in 1990. I picked up a small Tau army to play in a game store build, paint and play league. I lost every battle with my Tau. However, I had fun! My best memory of my sad Tau army was my fire warriors besting a unit of blood angels in close combat. I do want to see some good 40k content again. Themed weeks sounds perfect.
Hey my first Wargame I ever purchesed was first edition Space Hulk as well. Been painting miniatures (badly) for a few years before that but Space Hulk was the first game that made me take the jump into actually playing a miniatures game. Had a lot of Epic moments with the Terminator with auto cannon (my favorite model at the time). Good times.
Enjoyed the infinity bit, as always. Less so the GW to be honest but then I may be in a minority and I did used to love it before.
Welcome AJ, good to see someone new on board and looking forward to seeing the 40k content.
Age of Sigmar is interesting, and if they had of released a new addition with Elves and Orcs or Empire and Dark Elves I wouldn’t have looked twice at it… Now instead, the Post Lady bought be the box set this morning and I’m probably going to start building some models up to start painting tomorrow.
The Sigmarites have grown on me and I am going to use them as a challenge to learn NMM but am more excited about the Chaos models, I think they are fantastic.
AoS should be really good for the likes of schools clubs and thats where I see its strength lying. It’s much much more accessible and more streamlined. That means you really can get a load of new players into the game. The scrolls are much easier. The number of calculations is reduced. I can see my school club really getting into this.
Kids love the models but although I love 8th addition it just was a massive hurdle all those tables. It took forever to play and you need a game over in an hour for a club with young people. Yes they’ll want that long massive battle once in a while but 60 mins tops on a week by week basis.
if the vast majority of people talking about aos is negative then its far from a perfect launch especially when there entering a very competitive fantasy skirmish market which has hordes ,wwe and frostgrave all of which have thoughtful well balanced rules
Great show guys, and I’m pleased to see the 40k theme weeks returning, especially since the first ones Adeptus Mechanicus.
I have a question for Warren: Can you ask your GW sources when they design games do they design them with the intent that they be time-wasters with one’s friends or competitive contests of generalship? My prediction is the former, and rightly so. The narrow-minded player who burned his army , in my mind, illustrates the kind of player GW doesn’t want representing their game.
I know the answer to this as it has been the case for a long time.
They design games that will sell models (that’s the long and the short of it)
The designers themselves do seem to have a preference for more casual epic story line type play.
But bottom line is if tournament players were the only ones buying models (or buying most models) then that’s who would be targeted 🙂
Thank you. Makes total sense. And I do like the philosophy: “We sell models, how you enjoy the game should be up to you and your mates”
One reason I enjoy Beasts of War, you guys have better access to the folks behind the industry.
@warzan regardless of attention generated to you believe a shallow rules set, which has a predictable outcomes (which I feel it is) can be healthy in the long term, or do you believe this is a project for a churn of players?
Bit of a load question I appreciate – but in less loaded terms do you think this ruleset can hold long term interest or is this a get them in and then move them on system?
Also which model do you feel is better for miniature sales?
So glad you’re kicking off 40K with a Mechanicus Week (when ever we get to see it).
Oh c’mon don’t do Space Marines next, do something fun like Orks 😛
I’m super excited to hear your bringing back theme weeks and starting with Mechanicus. They are both so cool and since your covering both you’ll be able to really get into the synergies between the 2 armies especailly with that formation from White Dwarf that has both and Knights and lets each factions special rules apply to the others and all their upgrades are free, its such a cool formation. Sometimes when people cover just one book they can’t really get into how the forces work together. I really Can’t wait.
It is so true what @warzan said about the discussion of AoS I normally switch off with GW stuff but this has awakened a 25yo interest..lol
Oh and had to laugh when you guys were doing the showing of the painted miniatures from the community it was like the section in the shows presented by Tony Hart called the Gallery
https://youtu.be/6dP1V_acXqY
you just needed the naff music over the top and the age of the painters…haha
Need a new section on the Weekender, the minis gallery!
All the games out there these days and people still support GW no matter what they pull, it’s kinda funny to be honest.
GW customer care service.
http://captiongenerator.com/48861/Age-of-Sigmar-interview
We’re going to play a couple of AoS games and KoW games today. Really looking forward to see both games in action! Great show guys, looking forward to the XLBS tomorrow 🙂
(Y)
I’ve never played or collected 40k. When Mechanicus came out I started to take note. I bought both codices and I bought the 40k rules (wow what massive undertaking to read – still not finished). I’ll probably collect all the Mechanicus models but I’m not sure if I’ll ever really take up the game. I look forward to the new show to see if that will change.
AoS looks interesting. I’m going to pick up the box today. I think that Warren is correct and that GW aren’t looking back and will produce several box sets and campaign books over the next year in support of AoS.
Good show guys and welcome AJ.
Welcome AJ!
The guy fits right in and is pretty good at hitting the right note for camera (a natural).
@warzan your take on AoS (and enthusiasm) made me think that the no points allows for recreation of a lot of cool fantasy fiction battles (my brain is skimming through all the books I have read since I was a young’un) and doesn’t have to be in the AoS world.
You can use any system without its points. You can just choose not to use them and build forces to fit your scenario instead.
Linuxnavigator video in your comment explained everything to me. Thank you.
In essence in a traditional wargame you are trying to use your units so that they have an advantage via position, terrain or special abilities in the LOCAL combat in which they engage. Ie unit a v unit b
In AoS due to the mechanics pile in, measuring from spears or even there being no reason not to charge in more stuff next turn the combats dont remain local but become global.
Thus the balance goes from a well executed local advantage back to the overall balance of the armies. If balanced a grind uf imbalanced a slaughter.
Ie your charge your super monstering to a standard unit you have achieved a local advantage but when straight after i can charge in my super monster we are back to a balance between super monster A and monster B.
The abilities each monster has while adding flavour are irrelevant if both monster balance against each other. Thus warscrolls cant fix the flaws.
Last thoughts on why AoS doesnt work for me.
Firstly i bought my army taken time to paint and base it, when i deploy it my army looks cool. At most two turns in all we have is a big ugly disorganised pile of mini,’s that looks terrible and makes me wince and pray to the god of varnish.
Secondly stay with D6 and making the rolls so similar took away variation makes every roll feel the same and thus dull.
I have never played 40K.
Space Marines on the PS3 and Space Crusade was about as close as I got to playing the real thing.
In the upcoming 40K week, can you offer some of the content with a new comer in mind?
I know that may seem like sucking eggs for the enthusiasts, but I can’t be the only war gamer never to have played it.
that’d be good to see 🙂
I actually did put in an honest effort to look at AoS. The starter set looks pretty good, I’ll probably pick it up, I don’t rate the chaos gimp looking guys but. Why did they change chaos warriors so much?
Then I got onto the GW website and had a look at prices. Holy Hell! No way am I paying $340 for 20 plastic sigmarines. I know you guys like to avoid mentioning price, but this is ridiculous.
I can’t imagine many people buying items beyond the starter set. Hey little Timmy would you like 20 sigmarines, or for a bit more would you like a nice Playstation 4?
if you ever desired to smell like Carlos – now CB got for you a Carlos ode de toilet XD
They could easily come up with a cosmetics and make up range based on I-Kohl!
As for other products, I predict “Dogface” aftershave, Neoterra “bolt” cutters, Morat Aggression energy drinks, the list goes on.
Atalanta binoculars,
Antipode flea treatment kits, grooming kits and training collars,
112 emergency first aid kits….
The Age of Sigmar ideas appear to me to be coming from companies like Mantic. So in my mind they are steeling IP, maybe others should contact their lawyers.
It seemed a bit of a GW eekender today. First time I had to skip an episode but an hour of GW isn’t for me. For fans of the games though I’m sure it was great though. Was Lloyd ok today? He seemed a bit disinterested to me. Happy weekend though to all.
I felt like that for the first half hour!
@warzan, I agree with you. This has been a perfect launch for GW, because despite negative comments about the rules and balance, people are talking about it.
OK, a lot of the comments about Age of Sigmar have been negative, and some needlessly aggressive and derogatory towards GW, but in their eyes they won’t care about negative remarks as long as it sells. And it will sell. GW has a very dedicated fanbase which will always be there.
I commend GW for their bravery over Age of Sigmar. They are late off the mark by miles, but they have obviously seen the trend towards simpler rules, and free content. I don’t care about any balance issues as long as I can get together with my friends and family, move some minis around, chuck the dice and have a fun day.
This rule set does not appear to be aimed at the tournament player, as you said in an earlier comment, if they were specifically targeting tournament players, they would have done so. The lack of points values suggests this is meant for more casual or narrative game players. GW want to tell a story with the game, not focus on points match games and tournaments. Will it be a success? Who knows, because none of us do. If this game is not your cup of tea, walk away and play something else. It is JUST A GAME, and no tabletop game is perfect.
I am not a GW “fanboy”, in fact, I moved away from GW when they axed the Specialist Games range, but AoS has potentially got me interested again. It would be a shame if future releases were limited runs. I think that we will see a fixed core range of units and characters for each faction, maybe a starter set, that won’t change, but each quarter or third of a year, there would be a rotation of new units and characters that would be limited runs, which advances the story.
As for game balance, the book coming out has new scenarios in, so maybe that is where any balance rules will be introduced, possibly with suggested forces as well.
Love the show really interesting!
Quite amusing how that there is always something to complain about for some though, don’t we love the interwebs 🙂
Any chance the BOW team can do a gameplay tutorial video of the AVP game?
Still waiting for my copy. Prodos has said they have shipped about 300 out of 700 copies so far and they are looking to enlist a third party distributor to try and speed delivery up.
AvP week?
Loving the show, nice to see some 40k on the site its been a while. I am sitting here waiting for the postman to arrive with AoS so that the weekend sorted if it arrives
After 30 years of Warhammer I’m out of the game. I know Warren seems very excited but I loved the fluff, the models and the game, and now I don’t. This AoS is not Warhammer. I’ve tried it and it is infantile. It’s not tactical or strategic. The mechanics mean that a dragon or some other large monster can be dropped with ease. Had GW wanted to re-launch Warhammer then I would have loved a revamped Mordheim, a boxed version of ‘regiments of renown’ or a game set at the time of Sigmar. They could have followed it up with another set called Age of Magnus where they introduced more stuff loike blackpowder, more factions etc and final the Age of Karl Franz which could have been the Apocalypse scale system. Now WHFB is just another game that GW has thrown to the scrapheap. The stupid argument I keep hearing repeated is that Warhammer only makes up a small percentage of the company’s revenue. If you neglect a system as badly as Warhammer was (it went 18 months without a release this last edition) then people lose interest. This has cut the 15% of the companies revenue that came from Warhammer into 7.5% or lower. The worst thing is that GW will never admit they made a mistake even if it is undeniable.
We Warhammer fans went years without errata, new books, new models and they dropped armies without warning and they wonder why it wasn’t more popular. That’s a new sort of corporate stupidity in my books. They went in excess of 6 years without updating some army books. They tricked fans into buying $100’s of dollars/pounds worth of End Times books just to tell us how our world ended and then made the books useless. Imagine if they did this with 40K?
As far as sword and axe based skirmish games go AoS blows. I wish it didn’t but it blows chunks. I’ve played 3 games now and they were all painful. Saga by contrast is awesome. It’s a shame Saga doesn’t have a full-blown fantasy game too.
just get the new figures you like and stick with the old rules you like then? its that easy.
You should change that we to I. I’ve played since 1990 and I’m loving AoS. Our narrative campaigns have never been better and that is using the old armies. the biggest mistake I’ve seen from everyone trying the game is that they put down 2500 pt armies from 8th. That type of game is a mess to learn with.
who at gamesworkshop thought this was a good idea. They have in my opinion ruined a good mass battle game and turned it into a drunk frat party toy game
Soooooo looking forward to the new Infinity releases. I love the way they do their seminars.
Interesting show guys. See ya again tomorrow. Weekenders and coffee, the only way to start the day.
I’m not a 40K guy but you seem to have the right guy in AJ. Even down to the surname!
Anyway, he’s relaxed if front of the camera, speaks well and obviously knows his subject.
Welcome to the new “brother”. 😎
“in front of”
Sigh. Why can’t I tipe?
Well at least Infinity seems like it’s on the upswing! Age of Sigmar is just an all around corporate failure. Like Juan Joya Borja said, I don’t know who is supposed to play this game. It’s simplistic, not simple, basically an insult to gamers of any age, and where the 8 year olds with hundred dollar bills spilling out of their pockets are supposed to come from to start buying this game, I have no idea. Warren can say the people at Games Workshop are smart, therefore the game won’t fail because they’ll just expertly improvise everything they need to win over masses of new players as the game evolves… no. In a year from now, this game will look like about as worthwhile a property as Dreadfleet does in the eyes of a GW executive. It’s a bloated, old, unmaneuverable, board room controlled gaming company, dying a slow death in a new marketplace. After a few years of failure maybe they’ll slim down, get rid of the stores, trim operations, and just sell space marines, but it’s just as likely the suits will liquidate assets and go get new jobs because that’s a lot less work than saving a company.
for all thats happening with age of sigmar, I still can’t bring myself to show any interest. I guess I am way too sci-fi minded to get into the fantasy swing of things
Some may want the website to have a function to view only a tailored content but I like the variety.
As far as I’m aware GW is still the highest selling war gaming company out there.
If the site doesn’t commit as much time to GW as they do to the other worthy companies out there they will be alienating a large audience of potential backstage supporters.
I don’t have any GW miniatures, but am still enjoying the content. I see the argument about price. I don’t own any GW miniatures mainly because of the price. That doesn’t mean I am blind to the fact that BoW need to cater to those viewers that can and do buy it to these popular games. As long as Infinity, SAGA and Bolt Action aren’t forgotten I’ll be a happy camper.
Actually… complaining about GW and price… I am close to committing a load of money into Infinity where you can pay from £5 to £15 per miniature!? The sculpts are stunning, you don’t need a 100 models to play, but the per miniature price is still high. I guess this was never going to be a cheap hobby and I just have to be careful what I spend. You spend what you can and what you want and complaining about price won’t change it. I find hunting for the best possible price to be part of the fun sometimes.
Aww, I missed the chance to dance around in PJ’s at the start of the show. LOL!
For those who watch on youtube, make sure to check on the BoW website for the weekender show notes. And of course the daily updates of new wargaming goodness. 🙂
As for this weeks episode, interesting discussion on the AoS “purple cow”. I don’t play WHFB, as I am a 40k guy at heart. But I have been following AoS because I always had an interesti n playing an Empire or all Knights Brettonian army. AoS appears to be really easy to get into, even if the SigMarines looks like Slaanesh warriors with their rounded bulbous armor or something out of the Kingdom Death world [see: Apostles from Berserk manga]
Will they be releasing a general release of the dropbear miniature?
So, if AoS is a success because people are talking about it even if they don’t like it, doesn’t that make AoS the Kardashians of gaming?
Vapid, puddle-deep, look-at-me, gimme money, gimme gimme gimme!
Well the show started out good. Than way to much GW.
Getting on my nerves a bit some of the tripe people put, I came to BoW site and community for 40k became a backstage member and have supported all they have done in any games and think the diversity is great. The minute they show excitement for GW stuff again they get told the show went down hill due to GW content… Not even going to bother wording this well… I put up with games I don’t have interest in as that’s what BoW do but don’t piss on other fans bonfires because you don’t like it!
Also people saying AoS is a complete failure… It launched today and has had more people consider trying it than have gave a thought about fantasy in the last month than fantasy has since I can remember.
If you don’t like something don’t watch it, don’t read it, don’t play it, don’t discuss it. Your morale superiority is not gained by trashing something online. I don’t see 40k players jumping in to bolt action stuff to whine about Warlord or historical game for example. And if any do stuff them too!
Well said lol 🙂
Now do as I do matey – deep breaths 😉
Actually I think I’ll comment on whatever I want to whether I like it or not. but thanks for trying to tell others what to do(btw AoS is a steaming turd)
Tailored content would benefit you, too. You wouldn’t have to sort through and “put up” with the stuff you don’t want to see. I’d actually like to see *more* diversity in the features. I stopped coming to BoW at one point because it was GW with an occasional bit of something else. I came back when there was a lot more of something else. GW fans don’t seem to realize how smothering that company feels to gamers who don’t like them and it’s always surprising to find how many gamers play GW games just because of that and not because they actually *like* them. I can bring you to a shop filled with GW players… half of which have no problem commenting they wish it was easier to find people who played something else.
I’m completely in favor of being able to filter/weight content. I disagree with Warren about community building, I find what he describes is kind of divisive. Thus, people getting on your nerves and you getting on theirs.
I’d love to see some more features that aren’t just cult of the new. Let’s see some features on playing… MERCS? How about a game of Batman? More Dreadball? Dropship? Heavy Gear? Is Carnevale only good for a week?
The truth is, the BoW guys only have so much money and manpower. So for folks who prefer the other stuff, they see GW as not just being in the way, but like a weed that strangles off the resources that could be devoted to the myriad other, awesome games out there. GW stuff can be found in tons of places, already. I’m not one to begrudge anyone their favorite stuff but, obviously, if given the choice between what I want to see and what I don’t, I’m going to speak up for what I want to see. If given the choice between sifting through stuff I don’t want to see and being able to weight the presentation towards what I do, obviously I speak up for what I want to see.
Welcome to the community.
Games workshop’s market share is immense. To a huge number of people their games are the entirety of the hobby. If they release something poor, it will rightly draw a lot of criticism.
Most comments have been measured, constructive criticism. Most people have pointed out the flaws with the rules, without saying anything negative about the people who are enjoying, or hoping to enjoy the game in the future.
I’ve said myself, there’s much that’s positive, and I hope Age of Sigmar ends up being something good. I was excited about all the rumours, and set aside money to buy it when it came out. That’s why I have an interest in it.
But it’s not fair to say I’m not allowed to point out how disappointed I am with the product they ended up releasing, and explain why.
Yeah @tachycardia I don’t think that was the point he was making, he’s talking more about those who don’t play, don’t want to play, never want to play, don’t want anyone else to play, don’t want any content created for at any time whatsoever types 🙂
There is no issue nor has there ever been for constructive criticism 🙂
Yeah, telling people what they can and can’t comment on according to you is not a thumbs up worthy comment people. Sorry.
did you catch the context of his argument?
people are free to post on whatever they want absolutely, criticism is fine, my frustration isn’t with comments criticizing the rules, the models, the way they have released things etc. My issue isn’t with people like that who generally might post along the lines of…
“Models look alright, the rules and to my taste though and i think that they are being a bit daft with a product such as Combat Gauge?! That’s a stretch even for a die hard GW Fan and then the face to charge $XX.XX for the thing?!”
compared to the example below which is where I get frustrated
“Its a complete failure how dare you waste my time with videos about this rubbish!”
especially when some of the people who do post like my second example seem to pop up in all of the content about that system that they dislike so intensely.
Actually looking forward to the Mechanicum week. It’s a bandwagon I’m thinking of jumping on.
@warzan I wonder if James Hewitt is the influence behind the free stuff and the quick ‘n’ easy to play rules? Perhaps he’s brought his experience from Mantic and they’ve listened to what he might’ve said about how they could improve things and bring back a bit of the spirit of the old GW. A free mini on the cover of White Dwarf hasn’t been done in years, and free core rules that you can read and understand in about 10 minutes or so has never been done, so I doubt James Hewitt joined GW to become a guy in the background, and I doubt they hired him to be so either.
Whatever it is that’s happened, it’s wicked! 🙂
You have a point, there. I know that he had moved to GW, it does make you wonder if this change is partly down to his input.
Either way I think that one of the reasons for this change was the fact that Warhammer Fantasy was not doing well compared to 40K, so GW made the decision to start over with a total overhaul of the system. They’re taking a chance (makes me wonder if maybe the higher ups at GW saw that WHFB wasn’t doing well and told the design team “if you don’t come up with something, we’re pulling the plug on fantasy”).
I’m interested in AoS, but the only thing that will determine if this does well will be time. Wait for a few months and let’s see what happens.
“if you don’t come up with something, we’re pulling the plug on fantasy”
The design team does what it’s told (as it should). The top brass wouldn’t just tell them they need to come up with something or else. They’d tell them need to come up with something period and these are the parameters. The decision to reboot the setting to an IP-protectable one is a clear example of decisions being taken higher up the food chain.
Really liked the attitude of AJ, a complety different story 🙂
I like your choice for the 40K producer. AJ sounds knowledgeable and levelheaded. I like how he intends to discuss the game in a broader perspective that goes beyond the “this is awesome/afwul!” commentary you get a lot of when it concerns GW.
By the way @warzan , may I borrow your John sometime? I have several scenery projects that need to get finished. 🙂
congratulations to A J for the GW reporting job. interesting show guys, good news about the (wizards) book paint guides?
now is the GW purple cow going to turn into a soring swan or a pink elephant?
I think Warren is right about the game really being about the new models and armies. Here’s a good video with guys playing AoS with the box set:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8geGRMr7gag
It seems to play much better than the ones I’ve seen with people trying it with old models.
So that’s pretty definitive then. The game played as it was meant to be, using the models from the boxed set and the scenarios from the book.
6 turns of all the models churned up in a big (ok in this case there were two) combat in the middle where they took turns to roll either 3+/4+, 4+/3+, or 4+/4+ until everybody was dead.
The only tactical decisions were which order to roll your dice in, and who to use your buffs on, and to be honest those decisions kind of made themselves.
Again, you come away feeling like neither player had much impact on the outcome.
The most tense moments are the rolls for initiative.
Great show guys and welcome aboard AJ!
I’m with redben. My issue isn’t really with the lack of points (keeping an open mind), or the death of the old world (never really into it), or the stupid wars rolls for existing factions (easy enough to ignore).
It’s that, as I said from the beginning, the 4 page ruleset is not a viable game. It’s some basic mechanics you can use to bash models together. There’s no tactical depth. The scrolls don’t fix this.
I can’t say I’ve played it. Just read the rules, and watched demo games.
But those games have all seemed to just amount to a 3+/4+ mash-up in the middle.
And some of the core rules that aren’t meant to be silly just are. The way shooting works is ridiculous. Measuring to the model is annoying too, and is clearly a tacked-on workaround to avoid the touchy issue of switching to round bases.
I can only re-iterate the problems that people have with AoS. To go into detail on the issues though would take way too much time.
Sufficient to say that there are so many holes in these rules that it would be more accurate to call them a Rules “Net” rather than a Rules Set.
Never got past Rogue Trader as far as 40k goes for me, and I’m still playing my 1984 2nd edition of Fantasy.
Given its a personal hobby I’m not sure what all the fuss over AoS is all about… Its just another option.
Despite my Sci Fi and Fantasy gaming being stuck in the late 80s with associated bad hair do, I still enjoy seeing where they have gone with it, regardless of my personal feelings on it. Following GW news is in some manner a bit like watching a soap opera when you are ambivalent to the outcome.
Definitely right about getting people talking! Interesting times. Pretty exciting. I have never been into mass, ranked battle systems so not feeling the pain of that loss.
Welcome to the team AJ! I look forward to your take on the game.
Just throwing in my two cents regarding future updates/extentions of the rules:
One of the first things I expect them to add are coherent movement and unit formation, probably with the movement trays they had for War of the Ring.
Reintroducing points might be on the short term list as well, even if one statement from the FW open day supposedly was that points would not return (for the core rules).
Both these additions would allow them to expand on things that are currentzly absent from the rules: competitive play and mass battles. Both of which seem to be what a large part of the community wants, and if the actually listen to what we want, they would be dumb to not give it to us, as it would be the fastest way to truly burry the game.
Especially regarding mass battles, this solves one of the biggest problems I found with Warhammer Fantasy in the past: The typical army size was so big, that starting with the game (or a new army) was a big investment financially, and lots of potential players probably shyed away from that. While that’s gone for now, I expect it to make a return rather fast, but it will be optional (and probably not be the main focus of games in the GW stores).
I actually don’t see them replacing the whole range, especially the new models introduced by the End Times and even the last two to three years before, but I expect some repackaging. We haven’t seen much about what the new world looks like, and I woulden’t be surprised if it would turn out to be rather similar to the old one.
Taking the Orks as an example, there was some talk that they are servants of the (still present) old ones along with the Lizardmen.
While the structure of the GW shop and the tags on the Ork rules don’t indicate that, it would actually fit the 40k background they’ve had for a long time, so I’ll just assume that there’s some thruth in that.
Starting from this, I can see a range of more civilized, organized Orks fighting on the side of Order. I’d expect them to be less crude and bulky, both in their basic appearence and their Wargear. Now let’s see what happens when some Orks decide to follow a newly arrived god named Grimgor, that infuses his followers with all the orkiness the old Orks had, and we return to where we stand right now, but with an additional faction of ‘good’ Orks perhaps with a touch of High Elves and Lizardmen in appearence and Wargear.
If they haven’t planned on a development like this, the same as above applies. They’d be dumb to not listen to the community, and I woulden’t be surprised if lots of people thought of a plot (for the lack of a better word) that goes in that general direction.
Moving on, we have the ranges of the Empire and Bretonia, which are as generic a civilisation as it can get. I don’t see them expanding on any of them too much, but if thje community is loud enough, I can see them keeping the models and giving them proper rules for as long as possible.
My personal favourite armies are Lizardmen and Khemri, both of which have visual styles that are greatly inspired by ancient civilisations. In the existing fluff on the old Warhammer world, the Mayincatec style of the Lizardmen was established as that of the Old ones, and I don’t see any reason to change that in general, so I assume this army is rather save from great general changes.
Khemri was the birthplace of Nagash in the old setting, and I expect him to show up in some form again. And while we’re at it, why not give at least one undead faction the style of their supreme ruler and save my second army (and perhaps even give them the core skeleton wariors they deserve since two editions).
This might as well be wishfull thinking, but if I’m not alone in this and IF GW actually starts listening to what the community wants (which they should if they don’t want their game to die a miserable death only to be forgotten by former fans that moved on) I think at least some of these hopes might come true.
AJ you did great on the Wwekender. Looking forward to seeing your upcoming Mechanicus week.
Welcome AJ, and thanks “Beasts” for bringing back a 40K section. It’s not my main game but I do enjoy playing it and it does make a large part of the hobby for most of my group.
I don’t play infinty but enjoyed listening to the guys talk about it. It’s nice to listen to people who are passinate about their game.
Congratulations AJ! I hope that you love work, and I am looking forward to seeing your 40k content!
Well done on joining the team AJ. I’m excited by all this talk of how you can add some depth to the 40k universe.
Love the Infinity coverage. Always engaging. But I vote meh on 40k and GW. There are so many (better) game systems to cover. LOVE to see some Spartan coverage! hint hint!
I’d be interested in new 40K material
I wonder how close the Infinity RPG will be to their original home rules.
Your all idiots no offense but if GW cared about their customers they’d just realize all the 8th edition army books for free and maybe restock the old stuff thats sold out and then thats it and loan it out to its partner company fantasy flight which makes x-wing and its card/board games with the warhammer/40k themes this is just more shitting on its fan base you stupid wanker brits americans like me and austrailans can’t shop at online 3rd party stores and our prices are too dam high it maddening!!! Fuck games workshop may matel take it over when it fails at least they respect their customers all of their games and d&d sets are good
meant to say falls its already failing act like a horse beard contest fucking stupid torrie british bastards at GW their cunts and wankers rewrite the dam war scrolls and post all the 8th edition army books for free and then you’d have my support thats what they should of done 10 years ago that way they’d make more money on models no one really likes buying rules just make the models and let us buy the models les money on books means more on the bottom line buinsnes 101 dumbasses god their an asshole company!!!
Only just got round to watching this, congrats to AJ looking forward to all the 40k stuff.
@warzan The whole thing with the Skitarii not having a HQ kind of makes sense in the fluff too. According to the the codex the Rangers will get sent out to take out a target and will basically follow them to the ends of the earth till they achieve it.
I think narratively that could work well and would explain the presence of some Rangers as the target they have been stalking just happens to be in battle with another faction.. You could even use them in a kind of LotD kind of way, perhaps create a rule where they appear on a certain roll in times of need. Or perhaps you could nominate a target and once the Skitarii have eliminated it they disappear since that’s all they were programmed and ordered to do.