The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[Vermis]

I finally figured it out. GW are making not figures of the mantic angelic human army. Irony it snot just for getting the wrinkles out of shirty's.

Age of sigmarmite.Love it or hate it, it's going to end up in the cupboard somehow.

 

Welp, 4 copies left when I phoned the GW shop. None left when I got there. Still, I got a look at the assembled preview copies of the starter set minis. Yes, the sigmarines are a good head taller than the regular khorne guys, though the latter are still pretty chunky in themselves. The 'leader' khorne guys are a similar height to the sigmarines, despite being on 32mm bases

To be honest I don't think they look too bad for what they are. But when you turn the sigmarines around, the first thing I thought was 'whoa, they must hoik their golden undies up hard.' The crotch is about on the proportional level that a normal human's waist would be.

A lot of rage over the silly rules they tossed in there... my first impression on reading those was that they weren't meant to be taken seriously.  I mean, unless your opponent is a jerk (and therefore not worth playing against) it is easy enough to just ignore all the silly rules that have obviously been put in there for a joke.

So were points systems really. The divide between sporting players and gimps who want to build unbeatable forces has always been there, whether you do it by using a point system or not. I've already seen people on the Warhammer Forum who have found ways with these new rules to cheese-win in turn 1.

One blackshirt explained it today: 'if someone wants to be a douche, you can be a douche back. If someone wants to play nice, then it's great'. True enough, but I'm not so convinced 'cos that was like the excuse GW fans give for points-based cheesery and powergaming. And that was possible because points-based matchups are not inherently balanced; not when you seem to shuttle between picking points values out of a hat, and favouring the newest, biggest toys, like GW does. From what I hear any kind of playtesting done in Nottingham consists of a couple of guys knocking about, not caring what happens, just waiting to see things blow up. Just as they imagine every other 40K/WFB player doing, which is far from accurate.
You'll get 'those guys' in any game but GW's two seem to really foster them, thanks to what looks like an almost complete breakdown between the studio's apparent intent* (anything-goes, 'narrative-forging' games) and what a great many gamers assume the intent to be. I.e. a heavily points-based system = some kind of competitive, 'tournament' gaming. That so many people can easily hunt out the most overpowered, undercosted units and items, and figure how to slot them into nigh-invincible combos, is more an indication of the attitude of the GW studio (and the overly strategic, 'mathammery' nature of the games) than a failure of points-based wargaming.
I'd say that the abandonment of points in AoS is at least more honest and aware on GW's part. Still don't think it'll make the game much more playable, though.

* 'Course, there's the train of thought that the studio doesn't have much say in the matter, viz. Rick Priestley's reasons for leaving.

Meanwhile, back at the GW store, there was the guy (let's call him a stereotypical GW store inhabitant) who came up to me and the guy I happened to be standing adjacent to (Why us? Who knows?) to tell us about the hilarious new rule he just found: when your hero challenges your opponent's, or something, you can specify which body part he's going to hit. If successful, your opponent has to act as if they recieved the injury themselves. I.e. if their hero's right hand is injured, your opponent has to roll dice and move minis with their left hand for the rest of the game. And that's just the start of the potential japery of that one rule. I'm actually surprised at the effort it took to politely chuckle at his discovery, rather than stare in disbelief.

I was going to download all these free rules 'cos they're free, and one more option for gaming; now I don't think I even want to read them. It sounds like those stupid novelty boardgames that get you to stand up and act like a tool for one game, then gets shoved in the back of a cupboard and forgotten. People say you can just ignore the daft rules or not take them so seriously; but an awful lot of GW fans are notorious for doing things by the book, by the letter of the rules, grabbing whatever tiny, arbitrary loophole and advantage they can. They're either going to leave in droves, or make the game even more intolerable and unplayable for many people. (You can also ignore the daft rules by... playing something else. And a tightly-written, reasonably balanced game hurts no-one on the sliding scale between 'serious' and 'non-serious' gamers.) I've been a bit sceptical but otherwise undecided; but guys, now I honestly think this is the death of WFB. This is the game soiling itself in the last stages of senility.

Oh, and while I didn't get this issue of WD, I wandered into the newsagent and saw the newest issue of W:SS was out! Score!

[Duke Donald]

I can't see this being a commercial success either.

[stone-cold-lead]

Oh, and while I didn't get this issue of WD, I wandered into the newsagent and saw the newest issue of W:SS was out! Score!

£15 to £45 BIN prices on Ebay if you really want that WD! 

[Arlequín]

IG were right on scale, at 30mm tall.

Well no, as the Marines are one of the 'original' figure ranges and were supposed to be 7' tall at 33mm (4.7mm to the foot), then to be 'on scale' the IG should have been 28mm tall (or about 25mm sole to eye if you prefer).

[Ajsalium]

28mm... naked, or wearing combat gear?

Just kidding. This is quickly escalating into a button counting match... for GW products!

[Astor]

Meanwhile, back at the GW store, there was the guy (let's call him a stereotypical GW store inhabitant) who came up to me and the guy I happened to be standing adjacent to (Why us? Who knows?) to tell us about the hilarious new rule he just found: when your hero challenges your opponent's, or something, you can specify which body part he's going to hit. If successful, your opponent has to act as if they recieved the injury themselves. I.e. if their hero's right hand is injured, your opponent has to roll dice and move minis with their left hand for the rest of the game. And that's just the start of the potential japery of that one rule.

Bugger that for a game of soldiers.

Oh, wait...

You can also ignore the daft rules by... playing something else. And a tightly-written, reasonably balanced game hurts no-one on the sliding scale between 'serious' and 'non-serious' gamers.

Agreed 100%. But after a few conversations with friends who are seemingly quite taken with AoS, that means I'm against the concept of 'fun', and that since fantasy is about 'having a laugh' (or, as you say, acting like a tool) I should give up on something I liked and go play 'boring' Napoleonics... 

[Too Bo Coo]

Seems lots of people like the new stuff, and others not so much.  To my mind the real value GW had was in their IP.  If they blow that up, I'm not sure what is left to them given the competition.... 

[FramFramson]

What on earth is the mini in that WD that people want so badly?

[Duke Donald]

What on earth is the mini in that WD that people want so badly?

An oversized cyberman on steroids

[FramFramson]

You just described more than half of the 40k line. 

[Arlequín]

28mm... naked, or wearing combat gear?

Just kidding. This is quickly escalating into a button counting match... for GW products!

I always try to stick to what I do best. 

Anyone that plays with me knows I mix and match all sorts of insane stuff glued to random sized bases on a regular basis....
*snip*
I think like many here every single post about this new game is with tongue firmly planted in cheek.

I didn't mean you specifically btw... I was talking in general. And yes, nobody here seems to be getting bent out of shape over this, which is of course how we generally roll here on LAF. You're buddy's right though, you don't blow up the world, at best you only threaten and try to. I suppose they could always back-step somewhere down the line and 'it was all a dream' it.
 

[YPU]

I just noticed that in the age of sigmar PDF's every elf has the "Aelf" tag. I'm pretty sure they are trying to make every faction have a name that they can copyright.

EDIT: right, dwarfs? you mean "Duardin?" And what are these lizardmen you speak of, we only have "Seraphon"

[fastolfrus]

Holy shit... how deep does this rabbit hole go?!

Total bloody nuisance springs to mind.

I run a school club where we try to encourage sporting behaviour - shaking hands after games, not dancing about acting like a dork, not being overly rude about your opponent always failing rolls, etc.
Now GW decide to make their gamers look like nutters.
Although we don't have any GW players in club, we still get non members (and parents) who think we are.
It annoys me that we get tarred with their brush.

[Cubs]

This is the game soiling itself in the last stages of senility.

This should be the marketing tagline. It's honest, to the point and sums it all up very nicely.

[Arlequín]

I just noticed that in the age of sigmar PDF's every elf has the "Aelf" tag. I'm pretty sure they are trying to make every faction have a name that they can copyright.

Well I wish them good luck with that 'Aelf' is one of several Old English terms for Elf. They'd have more chance copyrighting the term 'Space Marine'... oh wait...