Tiberius5000
Zombie
Skaven being folded into Chaos makes sense, as they are a result of Chaos, but not actually chaos.
RIP WHFB 2015
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Except it isn't happening. Skaven are relatively unique to GW, thus IPable, and have proven reasonably popular in the past. They are on team Archaon for the end times, but they aren't getting rolled into chaos for 9th edition, not according to any of the rumors seen so far, which list the 9e factions as:
Chaos
Humans
Elves
Orcs
Undead
Skaven.
Chaos
Humans
Elves
Orcs
Undead
Skaven.
Tiberius5000
Zombie
I still don't see it happening. Maybe everything being rolled into 6 army books, but not 6 factions. Rendering armies useless is not a smart thing to do on GW part. I can't see them doing that. If they do... then
*insert Captain Picard facepalm here*
*insert Captain Picard facepalm here*
Patrunkenphat7
Grave Guard
The only explanation that is believable for me is the following:
-Lizardmen were too difficult to protect with copyright
-Ogres and many Ogre units will be used in several of the army books like they already are
-Dwarfs are merged into "Humans"
The Dwarf part of this rumor is the least believable because they have a new book with so many new kits. GW would have had to decide to axe them after the decision to make all these new models because they will probably lose a chunk of money on those molds.
-Lizardmen were too difficult to protect with copyright
-Ogres and many Ogre units will be used in several of the army books like they already are
-Dwarfs are merged into "Humans"
The Dwarf part of this rumor is the least believable because they have a new book with so many new kits. GW would have had to decide to axe them after the decision to make all these new models because they will probably lose a chunk of money on those molds.
Tiberius5000
Zombie
Since when were lizardmen too difficult to copyright? Who out there makes knock off lizardmen? I've seen tons of knock off undead, and elves, and orcs, and yet 9e will have each of those. If anything, GW's lizardmen are up there with skaven in the 'pretty distinctively warhammer, don't see much of this anywhere else' department. Unless I'm wrong, and there's a bunch of non-GW lizardmen out there I'm not aware of?
The only thing I can think is that lizardmen just didn't sell well enough to make the cut.
The only thing I can think is that lizardmen just didn't sell well enough to make the cut.
Tiberius5000
Zombie
Infernal Skull
Wight King
Every army has relatively new plastic kits. but if the rumors of making releases that are only available for a limited time are true, then eliminating them isn't out of the realm of possibility. Dropping a kit that's been around for a year isn't any worse than dropping a kit after it's only 6 months old.
And they wouldn't be losing money on the molds. I'm pretty sure that pricing and sales numbers are calculated so they recoup the cost of the molds in the initial run, plus some profit. A kit is not profitable until its initial investment (mold costs) are paid off. With the amount of new kits GW's spining out they can't be waiting years before those products start making money.
And they wouldn't be losing money on the molds. I'm pretty sure that pricing and sales numbers are calculated so they recoup the cost of the molds in the initial run, plus some profit. A kit is not profitable until its initial investment (mold costs) are paid off. With the amount of new kits GW's spining out they can't be waiting years before those products start making money.
Well if the statement about their quarterly report saying that only 8% of their revenue is from Fantasy then I don't think they care about any of the molds. If that part of their business is not making money then it is not making money and those molds are as good as useless anyhow. Look how intricate Glotkin and Nagash are. Do you really think those two entities will go forward into 9th edition? Maybe we (the gaming community) do not truly understand what exactly is involved in the mold making process.
Maybe you can make molds only designed to handle so many uses and then they degrade. That might make the process cheaper. Plus, GW is not on the hook for royalties to the sculptor for the next 10-12 years. Who knows. This whole topic has me severely depressed. Warhammer was my main hobby. Guess I will try to learn fishing for like the 10th time.
Well considering GW's stock lost more than 25% last year and Kirby's sort of insane preface to their annual report, they must be trying to shake things up from a ledger standpoint. We all know what they could do to engage their customers and build the community like they did, but the reality is that those days are never coming back.
I still have a hard time believing they'll drastically alter the game, but they do need to lower the barrier to entry. If this is how they want to do it, I guess we nust need to wait and see.
I still have a hard time believing they'll drastically alter the game, but they do need to lower the barrier to entry. If this is how they want to do it, I guess we nust need to wait and see.
What is insane is that Kirby's still in charge. Not the first time their stock has taken a nose dive. I owned about 1000 shares back around 2000 or 2001. At that time that was only worth about $5000 US. I'm surprised the current share holders have not unseated him as CEO. He must hold a huge position himself.
I actually had a revelation earlier tonight about where I think 9th is going. Here is my thoughts https://www.vampirecounts.net/threads/how-9th-could-be-awesome.28447/
Emicrania
Wight King
Dear Infernal Skull,
I been sollicitated to be realistic in my sentence. I presented a fact, an example, but still a fact. Now you are free to do whatever you want with that fact.
I have nor the time or energy, or the lust, to controll every single piece of the gw price increase during the years.
There is a big part of the community that sees the price inflated in an exagerated manner. Other like youserlf, obliviously, not.
In this part of the world we are still free to think and talk and say what we want. I hope is the same over there.
However anytime there is a discussion about economics things get heated. I guess is because is the only religion that matters anymore.
I belive the price are over the roof. I think it,I feel it and i have the proof,and as for the big mac 1001% in 47 (1967), is not that far from 580% in 25 years. Also considering the quality drop is really a prove to the decay of things in order to substain a reckless consumistic economics. Plus :
However I'm leaving you guys to this and any future reference on rumors and indiscretions for the same reason I stopped to follow the Cyberpunk 2077 forum after some months. Is just speculations and devil's advocate.
If you call something an elven warrior/spearman etc that can't be copyrighted. Neither can a tall, thin, pointy eared guy with medieval armor and weapons. Morghasts on the other hand are distinct enough and their name unique enough that they can't be copyrighted. Same thing with Stormfiends, Plaguekings, Maggothlords, Verminlords etc. All of those things are unique and named in a legally protective way. All the named characters are too. So far, everything that has come out for end times fits the copyright-able bill.
Lizardmen units that have made up names (i.e. Slaan) or look very distinct from dinosaurs and generic lizardmen (i.e. stegadons with engines of the gods) can be copyrighted.
The name doesn't matter. Fancy names can be given to whatever, and don't stop anybody from making generic named knock offs. Besides, the only thing that doesn't have a unique name is the faction itself, and that's a simple job. 'Generic Lizard Person' isn't any more generic than 'human' or 'dwarf' or 'elf' or 'orc' or 'undead' or even 'rat person'. 'Tyranosaurus' isn't any more generic than 'dragon'. Yeah, they might want to move to a style that isn't so historical based, but given that the humans and elves at the very least are being given entirely new styles shows that there's no reason this couldn't have been done for the lizzies as well.
Again, I've seen entire armies of knock off humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, chaos warriors, and undead, and all of those are remaining as factions in one form or another. But I've hardly ever seen knock of Lizardmen. Lizardmen may not be coming with into 9th edition. At this point it looks like they aren't. But IP issues certainly weren't the deciding factor.
Again, I've seen entire armies of knock off humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, chaos warriors, and undead, and all of those are remaining as factions in one form or another. But I've hardly ever seen knock of Lizardmen. Lizardmen may not be coming with into 9th edition. At this point it looks like they aren't. But IP issues certainly weren't the deciding factor.
Tiberius5000
Zombie
Maybe Lizardmen get tossed in with Elves. Ancient Ones or something. Heck maybe their fluff totally changes or whatever. I just cannot accept that they would take, arguably, their most unique faction out of the game.
You are making the most negative assumptions you possibly can. I get you're passionate and concerned, but if GW is such a terrible company why do you care so much about what they do. If their products are so bad and everything they touch inferior to other companies, then go play the games you feel are better. Right now you are just locking on to the worst possible outcomes and ranting at everyone who has anything positive to say. Please just assess where you are at and your feelings on the matter. We are here for you if you genuinely are stressed about 9th and trying to cope. If you need to rant, at least keep it constructive and not so hostile. If you are looking to troll every post, stop it.
So, let's refocus this. If rumors of 9th are true, in your opinion, how could GW do them right?
Tiberius5000
Zombie
What negative assumptions am I making in the post you quoted? People said Lizzies got axed because they're too generic, I said no they're not too generic, not compared to any of the factions supposedly staying int the game, so if they're getting axed that's probably not the reason. Where's the negativity there? If anything that's more positive and less jaded than those who are saying lizardmen are getting cut simply for cynical IP reasons.
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As for the rest, if the rumors of 9th ed are true, then GW cannot do it right, because the rumors already describe them doing it wrong.
Ranking up round based models is terrible game design (I played WotR, that's experience talking). Limited release models does not work for a hobby minis game. The rest is mostly fine - focusing on a smaller scale to make entry buy in more manageable is something I've been asking for since 7th. I can even understand scrapping all factions and starting from scratch with a manageable number - which, if rumors are to be believed, is what they're doing, and why lizardmen are getting squatted if they are - not for IP reasons, but just because they wanted to start with a small, manageable number of factions, and Lizzies apparently just didn't make the cut. I have no animosity over that, though I'm sure I would if I played lizardmen. If the game were ever successful enough to add more factions in, I'm sure a return of the slaan would be on the short list.
I don't expect that to be the case, but that's neither here nor there. My expectations won't define the success of the game. What will define its success is whether they can get existing 40k players to buy in. Too much of the fantasy community is likely to be bitter over this, and even if they weren't we've already established that the existing fantasy community is insufficient to sustain a game. And brand new players to the hobby will likely be in limited supply, since unless GW plans on buying back existing fantasy stocks, I can't imagine too many independent hobbyists will be keen on promoting a new version of the game.
No matter what, this is not so much a new edition of fantasy as it is a new game entirely, with the fantasy we've known cancelled. That's fine, I can engage with it as a new game. But as a new skirmish scale fantasy game, it's wading into a market with tons of competition, one currently largely populated by players who already have beef with GW, and in burning their bridges behind them they've made a pretty huge opening for any off brand company that can make a successful shift from selling models for GW's games to selling games for GW's models. Mantic in particular seems well positioned for that, with a new version of their Kings of War game set to debut right around the time that 9e hits. Granted, it would have to be a much, much better game than Kings of War has been in the past, but if they can pull it off they could easily end up being the Pathfinder to newhammer's 4th edition.
Which provides an especially good parallel since, taken out of context, I personally found 4e to be the superior game, while Pathfinder was a flimsy knock of of 3rd edition, preserving all of its flaws and lacking much of the better design which emerged later in 3.5's life cycle. But because they were able to capitalize on the nerd rage, and because WotC proved so colossally inept at understanding and communicating with their own player base, in the end they ended up squandering the biggest brand name in tabletop rpgs and losing out in the market to a generic knock off. And all of that sounds very familiar right about now.
-------------------------
As for the rest, if the rumors of 9th ed are true, then GW cannot do it right, because the rumors already describe them doing it wrong.
Ranking up round based models is terrible game design (I played WotR, that's experience talking). Limited release models does not work for a hobby minis game. The rest is mostly fine - focusing on a smaller scale to make entry buy in more manageable is something I've been asking for since 7th. I can even understand scrapping all factions and starting from scratch with a manageable number - which, if rumors are to be believed, is what they're doing, and why lizardmen are getting squatted if they are - not for IP reasons, but just because they wanted to start with a small, manageable number of factions, and Lizzies apparently just didn't make the cut. I have no animosity over that, though I'm sure I would if I played lizardmen. If the game were ever successful enough to add more factions in, I'm sure a return of the slaan would be on the short list.
I don't expect that to be the case, but that's neither here nor there. My expectations won't define the success of the game. What will define its success is whether they can get existing 40k players to buy in. Too much of the fantasy community is likely to be bitter over this, and even if they weren't we've already established that the existing fantasy community is insufficient to sustain a game. And brand new players to the hobby will likely be in limited supply, since unless GW plans on buying back existing fantasy stocks, I can't imagine too many independent hobbyists will be keen on promoting a new version of the game.
No matter what, this is not so much a new edition of fantasy as it is a new game entirely, with the fantasy we've known cancelled. That's fine, I can engage with it as a new game. But as a new skirmish scale fantasy game, it's wading into a market with tons of competition, one currently largely populated by players who already have beef with GW, and in burning their bridges behind them they've made a pretty huge opening for any off brand company that can make a successful shift from selling models for GW's games to selling games for GW's models. Mantic in particular seems well positioned for that, with a new version of their Kings of War game set to debut right around the time that 9e hits. Granted, it would have to be a much, much better game than Kings of War has been in the past, but if they can pull it off they could easily end up being the Pathfinder to newhammer's 4th edition.
Which provides an especially good parallel since, taken out of context, I personally found 4e to be the superior game, while Pathfinder was a flimsy knock of of 3rd edition, preserving all of its flaws and lacking much of the better design which emerged later in 3.5's life cycle. But because they were able to capitalize on the nerd rage, and because WotC proved so colossally inept at understanding and communicating with their own player base, in the end they ended up squandering the biggest brand name in tabletop rpgs and losing out in the market to a generic knock off. And all of that sounds very familiar right about now.
The negativity is just in general, every post you've made has a tone to it that replies with conflict and argument with the an extreme negative view.
As for kings of war, do you work for them? Joking aside, they are a company with some talent and 2nd edition looks cool, but I checked out 1st edition and it sure didn't scratch my warhammer itch. I'm mixed on their models and factions. If anything. they are to generic for me. Regardless of anything, warhammer has Chaos, Nagash, the thirteen clans of skaven and the great horned rat, the elven gods, slaan, sigmar, etc.. I can go on. Those things, plus all the rich history of the warhammer setting and what is being b turned into. I have faith GW can pull off a bad ass new fantasy setting most of us are happy with.
As for kings of war, do you work for them? Joking aside, they are a company with some talent and 2nd edition looks cool, but I checked out 1st edition and it sure didn't scratch my warhammer itch. I'm mixed on their models and factions. If anything. they are to generic for me. Regardless of anything, warhammer has Chaos, Nagash, the thirteen clans of skaven and the great horned rat, the elven gods, slaan, sigmar, etc.. I can go on. Those things, plus all the rich history of the warhammer setting and what is being b turned into. I have faith GW can pull off a bad ass new fantasy setting most of us are happy with.
Patrunkenphat7
Grave Guard
I'm with Najo on this regarding Kings of War. I'm not sure what 2nd edition of that game will bring, but the rules that exist right now are pretty lame. There are very few tactics in movement, and the game feels like you are just throwing dice at your opponent without even nice fluff to back it up.
I have faith that Warhammer will be fun in 9th, and right now my only concern is square vs round bases. Not only do I not want to re-base my 400 models, I believe the square base system is an integral part of every phase of the game and the number one reason WFB is a better tactical game than other similar systems. I have my fingers crossed that they will put skirmishers and war machines on round bases and keep squares for everything else. Honestly war machines should be on round bases anyways; I don't understand the no-base system on these units.
I have faith that Warhammer will be fun in 9th, and right now my only concern is square vs round bases. Not only do I not want to re-base my 400 models, I believe the square base system is an integral part of every phase of the game and the number one reason WFB is a better tactical game than other similar systems. I have my fingers crossed that they will put skirmishers and war machines on round bases and keep squares for everything else. Honestly war machines should be on round bases anyways; I don't understand the no-base system on these units.
I don't, but I'm certainly going to be looking for alternatives to 9e, so I'm somewhat hopeful. The current KoW rules are bland and boring as heck, and I dislike their models. They're easily 15 years behind GW in production and design quality, and their 'plastic' is atrocious, at least as bad as Warmahordes. But if KoW 2.0 lets me use more units from my army than Warhammer 9e does, you can bet I'll be eyeing it pretty closely.
I do not expect 9e to have Nagash or his mortarchs, btw. I'm kind of surprised that you do? As for what the warhammer setting is being turned into, well, its rich history doesn't seem to play an especially big part in it, but we'll see.
As for my negative disposition. A few short weeks ago I was happily modeling units for my newly expanded undead legion, waiting for the weather to warm enough to spray prime them so I could start painting in earnest. Despite the lousiness of the ETM rules, I was excited for ETIV, and for fantasy in general. It wasn't a sour disposition that colored my reading of these new rumors, it was reading these new rules that soured my disposition on the game.
I sold off much of my chaos marines to buy in with the Undead Legion, and now I'm finding out that by the time I've painted any of it the entire game will be gone. How am I supposed to feel about that, Najo? How do you want me to feel about that?
Oddly enough, though, I'm fine about that. I ranted and raged and got over it and went back to modling my crypt horrors. I'm a very mellow man, Najo. If the game dies, so be it, whatever, shit happens. Other games will replace it. Instead of blaming 9e for the death of everything that came before it, I'm more than willing to accept it on its own terms, as a completely new game, as I did with D&D 4e. Except that there are several key aspects about the rumors that indicate 9e is not a game worth my time, and at the very top of that list is a limited release scheme that screams 'quick cash grabs with minimal commitment', and that is not an attitude of a game company that expects to still be making this game in two years time.
And reading people trying to praise that as a good thing just pushes some buttons, you know?
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I'm sort of with Malisteen. 
I don't want to talk trash about GW but if most of these rumors end up being true I'll be trying to convince my close knit buddies to stay with 8th edition. The rumors just seem nuts to me. 
Almost like GW 'wants' to shit-can Fantasy. Seriously, who is going to buy an expensive model like Glotkin if by the time you get it painted and play one or two games it is not 'official' anymore? Yes Privateer Press is constantly adding new units to Warmachine/Hordes but they have promised to never make the old units invalid. We play Warhammer, not Magic the Gathering. Frankly I would not care about cards becoming obsolete because I did not invest time or money getting them painted.
I'm just very depressed.
I am sorry. Been play Warhammer Fantasy steady since 4th Edition. 3rd and before was kind of a clunky game.
I don't want to talk trash about GW but if most of these rumors end up being true I'll be trying to convince my close knit buddies to stay with 8th edition. The rumors just seem nuts to me. Almost like GW 'wants' to shit-can Fantasy. Seriously, who is going to buy an expensive model like Glotkin if by the time you get it painted and play one or two games it is not 'official' anymore? Yes Privateer Press is constantly adding new units to Warmachine/Hordes but they have promised to never make the old units invalid. We play Warhammer, not Magic the Gathering. Frankly I would not care about cards becoming obsolete because I did not invest time or money getting them painted.I'm just very depressed.
I am sorry. Been play Warhammer Fantasy steady since 4th Edition. 3rd and before was kind of a clunky game.I think many people have this all wrong. At a business level, here is my opinion...
I work for a large global publicly listed company and have a very good idea of what makes many large listed companies tick.
The board of GW will have a primary mandate that asks for a growth in share price and stability and/or growth in dividends. Don't read this as a bad thing - this is perfectly normal business. Keep reading...
At the next level down with the CEO, his performance (and pay) will be centred around these metrics but he will be responsible for laying down the strategy that should hopefully result in achieving those metrics.
What GW would have done at a CxO level is work out where the growth in the business can come from so they can get back on track. Growth is defined as NEW business. I don't think anyone will argue with Space Marines (and the rest of 40K) being their cash cow. But in all likelihood - this is probably not a growth engine for them as they are already highly saturated in the futuristic war game segment of the market. Where they can achieve significant growth is Fantasy. As someone said earlier in this thread, if Fantasy is only 8% of revenue, this has a lot of room to grow. But in order for Fantasy to achieve this growth something BIG needed to change. I don't think anyone disagrees with this...
People are all doom and gloom thinking that GW are destroying Fantasy, but I believe Fantasy is their best opportunity to grow shareholder value and they are in fact doubling down and doing a major reboot to modernise the whole franchise.
Sure this will annoy some people think they will be burnt when their favourite army is 'consolidated' from a 'future' release perspective (but what they have will probably still be compatible with 9th). But taking a step back and looking forwards about 12-18 months, I think WHFB is going to be getting massive lore / content / models love from GW with renewed focus and most of us are going to be pretty happy with the results...
Just my 2 cents...
I work for a large global publicly listed company and have a very good idea of what makes many large listed companies tick.
The board of GW will have a primary mandate that asks for a growth in share price and stability and/or growth in dividends. Don't read this as a bad thing - this is perfectly normal business. Keep reading...
At the next level down with the CEO, his performance (and pay) will be centred around these metrics but he will be responsible for laying down the strategy that should hopefully result in achieving those metrics.
What GW would have done at a CxO level is work out where the growth in the business can come from so they can get back on track. Growth is defined as NEW business. I don't think anyone will argue with Space Marines (and the rest of 40K) being their cash cow. But in all likelihood - this is probably not a growth engine for them as they are already highly saturated in the futuristic war game segment of the market. Where they can achieve significant growth is Fantasy. As someone said earlier in this thread, if Fantasy is only 8% of revenue, this has a lot of room to grow. But in order for Fantasy to achieve this growth something BIG needed to change. I don't think anyone disagrees with this...
People are all doom and gloom thinking that GW are destroying Fantasy, but I believe Fantasy is their best opportunity to grow shareholder value and they are in fact doubling down and doing a major reboot to modernise the whole franchise.
Sure this will annoy some people think they will be burnt when their favourite army is 'consolidated' from a 'future' release perspective (but what they have will probably still be compatible with 9th). But taking a step back and looking forwards about 12-18 months, I think WHFB is going to be getting massive lore / content / models love from GW with renewed focus and most of us are going to be pretty happy with the results...
Just my 2 cents...
Pirate Robot Ninja of Death
Vampire Thrall
Couldn't agree more.
End Times has clearly been in production for several years, if not longer. There are hints heralding the events of the End Times buried throughout pretty much every major 8th edition book. The kits that have been released were mentioned by rumourmongers like Harry ages before they came about, and likely were in development much longer than that.
None of this is evidence of a company dropping a major product line. And even if they were THINKING about it, from the WE release being sold out for MONTHS to the End Times books flying off the shelves so fast that softcover books were rushed in to fill the demand while the highly sought-after hardcovers were moved to online show that demand for WHFB is much higher than GW anticipated.
So...why put in all that money for a line they're going to drop / purge / cut back? That's just insanity. You can count the number of successful sci fi challengers to WH40K on one hand, and half of those are linked to major franchises and aren't really "true" competitors. But fantasy-esque wargames are popping up a dime a dozen these days, and you can't help but think that GW is looking at those and thinking that they aren't fully capitalizing on the available market.
And what do all of those games have in common? Small warbands with a low startup cost, named characters with a strong background of fluff, and lots of diversity within thematically distinct factions.
They already have a lock on the mass-battle games (with Mantic pulling up a distant lead), but they haven't touched fantasy skirmish since Mordheim. What better way to increase sales of WHFB than to create a skirmish-based game whose models can be cross-used into a standard WHFB system.
All speculation here, but we've been hearing for months now of a possible "skirmish system" meant to draw people into the game. Perhaps this is all just wishlisting built on the back of speculation, but it could just as well be based on reality. GW has been pumping out WHFB product at a solid rate for quite a while now, and with End Times the love we've been getting only seems to be growing. This is not the time to drop a game.