I was surprised they added the bribery IRL to activate an in-game mechanic. If a game of AoS was being played by a US national and a foreign national with ANY ties to the foreign government, lets say even voting rights in a democratic government, then there are federal bribery laws prohibiting and punishing such activity.

Pretty wild stuff!

I too have not played in years but have a huge empire army. I was looking forward to getting back into playing until I went onto GW site and it wasn’t clear how it changed but was obvious it had. After reading this site I too am dissapointed in the change and do not see myself pursuing Warhammer anymore. GW always did change the rules in a way that persuaded fans to have to spend more money though it is a business. I am going to look into KoW.

I’m all for simplifying rules to bring more gamers. After all, it’s what D&D did when it switched from AD&D 2e to 3e and, as a long-time player, there were some disgruntled members, but most things went well and it improved the fan base. AoS doesn’t seem to have brought that simplicity with it. It’s one thing to make a game simpler, it’s another to destroy the game entirely in hopes a fan-base for a new system will rise from the ashes.

When D&D went to 4e, I quit playing. Simply put. I’m sticking with a better version. Where Warhammer is concerned, I’m sticking with 8th. I’ve already gotten 2 friends into it and I can still buy models from Ebay and probably can long enough to purchase 2 armies, enough for a new player. Hopefully, GW will return to its roots, but until then, se la vie

I am old. I am set n my ways. I have been playing since 91 and was pissed at the first change. 2nd edition changed the game and I had to adapt. Fine! No more warp gift plasma guns! I can deal with that. I’m going to play dwarves! And the story kept going… What!? No more dwarf spearmen? Okay – they can live on the shelf in the back of the room. And it continued… Why the hell are these minis so damn expensive? I don’t care if some kid in the states swallowed one, give me back my cheap lead minis! And on and on. New rule books- check. New army books – check. whoa! We finally have a GW in town! Just in time for 5th edition top ups before we secretly launch 6 and your heroes are just the stuff of legend. Wood elves and halflings? Why the hell are these minis so expensive!? They are freaking plastic! Pssssht…have a hot pot and an Ent. 8th is it for me. It’s like a bad marriage, GW. They got 25 years out of me. They can keep the new…Ill keep the old.
Now if they would only bring back my Squats for 40k, I might see my way to forkiving them.

[…] was reading this really interesting and quite long post about the change Games Workshop has made to the old Warhammer Fantasy Battles game to Age of […]

Hey everyone,
I’m new to the whole warhammer thing mainly because of the upcoming game Total war: Warhammer. It looked so cool that i wanted to check out the original version. But on the site i couldn’t find the main armies. So i was confused but now i see the new rules it really sucks they don’t support the 8th edition anymore. I really want to get into it but i don’t know if it’s even worth it if i make an army with the risk i can’t play with it very well anymore. It makes me sad and i hope they see the mistake that they made and release maybe a version along side it.

The thing is GW has done this right before. War of the Ring was an expansion for Lord of the Rings that gave it Warhammer-like rules for larger battles, yet did not replace the core game. A sensible strategy would have been to do the same thing with Age of Sigmar. 40K also has a number of expansions that add new rulesets yet do not impact the original game.

@Luke Let us know what you think of KoW when you have a go ! Fantasy game of choice in my region now.

I was greatly taken with the latest offering from Perry Miniatures, the Agincourt range, so I bought myself 3 boxes and have just started painting. Just beautiful. I was going to look at the Osprey rules “Lion Rampant” to play the army but have discovered via the Mantic Forum that if you leave magic and flying out of the equation the army will play just fine using Kings of War Rules. A sort of “cinema’ version of history war-gaming, if you like. Somebody also mentioned that Allessio (of GW, and now Mantic fame) is adapting a rulebook to play historic games under the umbrella of Kings of War.

All my Warhammer Fantasy Arnies slot almost seamlessly into KoW Army Lists and and the game has become a delight to play again. As strategic as you want to make it, but most importantly “fun’ !

GW has no relevance anymore in my leisure activities; I am just about over my anger at their shoddy and arrogant treatment. I actually have some shares in their company which I bought as a gesture of support back in the day, which I will unload just as soon as their price stops heading towards the floor. I suggest that any former players do what I have done and have nothing further to do with them. Voting with your feet and wallet is the only thing they understand. They are not remotely interested in in your, or my, opinions.

@ Dimitri:
You are correct. The Age of Sigmar is a corruptable attempt to dove- tail on the success of 40K. I feel so terrible for all who have invested painting time and money to their deposed armies. If they change 40K with a new gamming structure, you will lose the pioneer players who evolved with the game. Milton Bradley never changes Monopoly to make it less competitive. Lastly, what kind of gosh designing models is Sigmar spawning. I have not seen a good looking mini that does not look like the pox or the dismissed 40K designs that never made it to production. Enough with the over-done textures and ornamentation!!!!!!!!! No more hammers please.

ravenboi wrote:

BTW check out Infinity. Amazing models. Amazing rules. Amazing fluff. A company that cares for their fans. What more could you want?

It’s on my radar. I’m currently happily playing Warmachine which is an amazing game with great balance and awesome support from the parent company. Privateer Press seriously rocks, and I have no clue how I have put up with Games Workshop BS for so long. I have also gotten into Malifaux as of late.

Infinity minis look great… Well, most of them. I have issues representation in some particular models of them, but that’s neither here or there. They’ve been getting better at it, and I’ve been actually considering picking up a starter pack. :)

@ Rick:

I bought the KoW rule book, but I haven’t played it yet. I like the rules, but I think we’re all just sore over the whole AoS thing still. I just can’t bring myself to play another game with my WFB minis. Soon though…

Daniel Ang wrote:

There had been much updates to Age of Sigmar, all those units with goofy rules have been updated with proper in-games rule.

The only updates I’ve seen were for Stormfront Eternals and Bloodkhorne Blood Blatters. Oh, wait, by updates do you mean the, absolutely awful, ugly as sin, mono-pose fyre-slayer minis? Or the fact that GW discontinued Tomb Kings and Bretonia?

Daniel Ang wrote:

You can now buy whatever you like and put them in a game, a Slann Mage, a Vampire Lord and a Goblin Shaman in the same army? Yes you can.

Or Screaming Bell and Fateweaver, combined with the GW promotional Tzeench dice with a 7 in place of 6, so I can auto-win every game on turn 1. Or one of the other 7 turn one-win combos.

If I wanted bunch of random minis from different armies on the table, I could do that in 8th edition too, if I discussed it with the other player and they were fine with it. In AoS you literally have to negotiate model selection and deployment with the other player to make sure one of you doesn’t accidentally win the game on the first round.

Daniel Ang wrote:

I really don’t understand all the focus in balance. WHFB had no balance, all forces were not equal, there were clearly some armies that were more competitive than others, certain builds were preferable etc.
No matter what edition. All you have is perceived balance because my army point make up is the same as yours. It is silly, and it makes some army overpowering.
So all your complaint about balance is invalid.

“GW is bad at balancing armies, therefore balance is a bad thing”. Do you even listen to yourself?

I started playing Warmachine, and while not perfect, the game balance is really solid. You know why? Because Privateer Press actually cares. Since AoS came out, they released like 3 official erratas with balance rule tweaks, one of which literally turned the competitive meta upside down. They listen to player feedback, do statistical analysis on tournament data, see what gets picked, which armies consistently win, which units never see the table, and modify the rules accordingly.

Game balance is a process. It takes effort. And it’s hard to achieve it using the GW model: one book at a time, without player input, or tournament scene data analysis. But at least, in the past they tried. AoS is total cop-out. Balance is hard, so let’s have none of it. That’s silly.

Daniel Ang wrote:

Lastly you sound like a person who haven’t tried the game. And will not try it. Why hate it when you don’t know anything about it?

I spectated a game. Two dudes set up their minis, then they chose sudden death rule, nominated the target, rolled off. On turn 1 the first guy had his entire wood elf army in range to the sudden death target, and able to shoot him due to funky targeting rules. Then they decided to play 8th ed instead.

I also watched bunch of battle reports. Most of them started with 20 minute explanation of the comp system the people were using, because “no points” thing is ridiculous. Also, how they measure from bases rather than from models, and dozen of other house rules. Then the players just moved their miniatures into the middle of the table and rolled dice for a solid hour.

There was literally one game I saw, that did not end up in a giant, ugly pile-up in the middle of the table. That was the game where Ogres stomped the not-space-marines into the ground without a single casualty on like turn 3.

I gave it a chance. The game is really, really bad. Games are either ridiculously un-fun sweeps, when you get tabled on turn 2, or even less fun, clusterfuck pile-ups in the middle of the table.

Sorry, I’ll play Warmachine instead, where you are actually supposed to play middle of the table by design, but games never look like ugly pile of minis just lying there.