The second bombshell from GW in End Times: Archaon concerned the rules. Or more importantly the lack of rules.
End Times does away with list restrictions....pretty much carte blanche. No longer are there percentage caps and floors on the various troop sections. Effectively there are no Rare, Special, Core any more.
You must have a General but that's pretty much it. You can have multiple BSB but only one is Army Standard (allows re rolls). So 50% limit on Lords and 50% limit on Heroes is also gone. There is no minimum number of units - so for instance you could have an army of 1200 Skavenslaves all in one unit. Probably not effective put possible.
I'm going to say at the outset. This is pretty F@&KED.
It makes the implied social contract between players much more problematic as there are no constraints. Even under "no comp", pre-ET Warhammer had a framework which restricted armies to a known template. Yes, some were more efficient than others - I've always thought someone had mixed up Rare and Special in the Skaven book - but there was a framework.
With this no holds barred approach the Tournament game would immediately be at risk. TOs have always meddled in out of the book Warhammer but now they'd absolutely be required to.....be it through house rule restrictions, draconian Victory Conditions, scenarios that guide list building etc. That will place a greater burden on TOs and potentially limit the "customers" willing to come.
Or they can do nothing. Who knows it might work. However I think it will be an unlikely coincidence that they have a fully balanced game with no restrictions at all.
Still if rumours of 9th being released this year are true then there is probably only a 3-6 month "Alienation" window before we enter the new edition " Rage Quit" window.
Perhaps you might want to check back at the end of the year when everything has settled down. Or you can get your Rage Quit in early and give your local Press Ganger/X-Wing Coordinator/Kings of War Manticker a call.
Certainly been an interesting week. Back to painting my Lizardmen spaceships.
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Seems consistent with their view that their core customer base is collectors rather than gamers (not sure why you can't cater to both, but anyway).
ReplyDeleteIf people are simply putting the pieces together and rolling dice no need for a balanced game.
Dave Kinsey
13,500 of their customers don't agree, https://www.change.org/p/games-workshop-limited-refocus-your-business-model-on-the-sale-of-a-game-and-support-of-a-gaming-community-vice-the-pure-sale-of-collectible-miniatures
Delete...or maybe all the gamers have rage quit and only the collectors are left. I've never bought a model that wasn't useful to an army I game with and have halved the number of factions I buy from since the release rate went up.
Well I've read the petition and after the intro thought great I'll sign it. But then the petition goes on to tell GW how to run their business and I'm afraid it loses all its impact.
DeleteAn appeal to GW to change their stated strategic direction is fine and should get GW thinking about it and developing their own policies to meet a new direction if they agree. Telling them how to do it is insulting and alienating IMO.
Still, 13,500 people think otherwise.
Neil
And now the wait begins, lets hope we dont have to wait too long until 9th
ReplyDeleteSo I can now field an entire army of High Elf Princes riding Star Dragons :)
ReplyDeleteOf course someone is bound to run a list that is simply dark elf masters on dark steeds :(
Such narrative, much fluff..
ReplyDeleteI enjoy the ranked units, but I also enjoyed a planet to squabble over as well. Interesting times.
ReplyDeleteSoooo many skill cannons...
ReplyDeleteDamon
I know - let's just pretend like Warhammer froze at the end of End Times: Thanquol, and keep playing and ignore any more stuff from GW. Little healthy denial never hurt anyone...
ReplyDeleteI like the way you think. Healthy denial works for me, at least until 9th comes out and possibly afterwards.
DeleteIf posting under "Anonymous" please identify yourself as a courtesy to other readers.
ReplyDeleteThanks.
I'm gonna play as if none of the end times ever happened. It'll be like historical wargaming.
ReplyDeleteIt'll be interesting to see what the setting is for Warhammer Total War.
ReplyDeleteBeing a "cup is half full" kinda person, I'd always imagined that 9th edition would be set at the beginning of End Times. In that way all the armies are still there to play with including the characters and "new found beasts". In fact, despite the world ending, I still like to believe that this is the case and have perhaps stupidly bought some more models.
ReplyDeleteI do not understand this "no rules" on army comp. It takes away an important element of the game. I described it to my wife as like playing Monopoly without the need for a set before you build houses. I takes away all the wheeling and dealing which makes the game. Even for a friendly garage game I cannot see that the no rules composition will appeal for more than a few games. It would soon disintegrate into "broken" and "unfair" arguments and cease to be any fun for either the winner or the loser. It looks like GW have had a massive brain fart on this one.
I'm sure we will all ignore this for now.
Roll on glorious 9th to bring some sanity back and live long and prosper to the Bretonnians.
Neil
So the designers notes in the book say the removal of composition rules are completely optional. Glad we didn't panic about that one....
ReplyDeleteNice blog...
ReplyDeleteOnto this. Well GW doesn't believe that the path to sales is a good wargame. And they kind of have a point. 40k has been a mess for ages, WFB has many quirks. The two best wargame systems they have designed were Epic and the ever-popular-in-every-period-of-history warmaster (I like the blitzkrieg implementation), but they didn't drive sales.
The_Real_Chris
agree on all points (including the excellent Blitzkrieg commander stuff). I like 40K (minus, you know, the rules) and loved epic Space Marine.
DeleteJ
Sorry Pete - my name is Brendan (long time reader, first time poster). I'm especially annoyed that I've got 200 skaven slaves that will now supposedly need round bases. But this makes no sense - why would GW take a fan base that has, over the last few years, begun wavering in loyalty already as a result of increasing costs and ever more frustrating design choices, and then literally rip the carpet out from under them? This system also seems to promote the next level of net listing - I'm sure I will face someone across a table who has never played before (not usually a problem) but thinks it's fun to field a completely broken list because it wins all the time (a 2000 point army composed entirely of GUOs or Mournfangs for example)... I'm determined to start a group who only ever plays 8th. Denial and Egyptian rivers and all that :)
ReplyDeleteThe latest that has been floating around is that you may have ranked units but with character models on round bases. They would sit off to the side of units.
DeleteThe FOG games use a similar mechanic but there it works as characters don't "fight" just exhibit leadership and control.
This wouldn't work in WHFB as I suspect in GW's world all characters do is fight.
Anyway I'm like you, I'd hate to have to rebase my armies and I suspect if that was an upshot of 9th I may decide to just continue to play 8th in its pre-ET guise.
Engage Dinosaur mode.
Anyway Brendan great to have you onboard. We are living in interesting WHFB times
There is no assumption that warhammer will require rebasing of whole armies. The general consensus is that the round bases refers to a skirmish or warbands version of the game. So warhammer could have two forms like lord of the rings and war of the ring.
ReplyDeleteThe current army books create interesting inconsistencies. Some armies have different units in different places in the list, some armies have knights as core some armies have near elite infantry as core. Some armies can already have all knight armies but others are prevented from taking this kind of list because their book doesn't have the units needed in core.
An army of all GUO would not win all the time, it would auto lose at blood and glory and would likely struggle at watch tower.
Yeah that might work with tournies but casual gaming it causes some problems where the scenarios people want to play creates an impasse.
Delete'B&G -Oh I auto-lose, lets rack again"
"Watchtower -Oh I auto-lose lets rack again"
"Battleline - Excellent, let's play - Start the Panzer Hans"