WHtOW boxed set

[wolfie65Participant 1230xp 0]

I apologize for yet ‘nuddah thread about this, but I’m in the groove……

So we ‘know’ – thanks to the rumor mill – that the setting will be the War against Chaos and strife within the Empire, which means the most logical contents of the basic boxed set would be either Empire vs. Chaos or Empire Civil War, sort of a fantasy version of the Horus Heresy set.

There’s another rumor floating around that says Bretonnians vs. Tomb Kings, but that wouldn’t make much sense given the era  setting. If they go with this one, I’ll just be buying the rule book, I already have heaps of medieval minis in a wide variety of scales and from many different manufacturers and I have no use whatsoever for a bunch of Egyptian skeletons.

Personally, I would have gone MUCH further back in time, to the ‘Sundering’ or ‘Great Betrayal’, have an Elf army that isn’t divided into High-, Dark- and Wood-, drawing, as GW have done from the start, very heavily on Moorcock and his Elric saga (great imagery, crappy novels) or a war between Elves (Elfs ?) and Dwarfs (Dwarves ?).

Now THAT would be a boxed set I would not only buy, but pre-order 2 copies of, right now !

[slayerofworldsParticipant 3449xp 0]

Honestly at this point, I couldn’t care less about the “new” Old World.

Every reboot of an old game GW has done has been nothing but disappointment after disappointment.  I do not see how anyone can honestly say this will be any different.

Our old armies will not transfer over well to this “new” edition.  They will be weak, they will lack thematically theme.  They just will never be as good as the new army lines they plan to release going forward.

There is no reason to be excited or hyped up.  GW always fails to live up to the hype.

[paspinallParticipant 10xp 0]

Interesting, considering thats Not where what I have read places it exactly, they mention Louen Orcslayer as King; he died about 100 years prior to the war with Chaos; this would be on the run *up to* that war sure, but not yet the war, so its less likely to be outright Chaos that would be in the box; beastmen perhaps, or go back to the generic Empire vs Orcs perhaps

 

[wolfie65Participant 1230xp 0]

It is certainly possible that WHtOW will be nothing but a disappointing money grab, but I’m pretty sure that if I want to have any chance whatsoever of playing a fantasy battle game in my area with anyone other than myself, I will have no choice but to buy at least the rule book and an army book or three. Experience has taught me that.

The announcement that they will – oh so graciously – ‘allow’ us to use our existing minis – mine go back to the 1970s and consist of many different manufacturer’s products – does sound too good to be true, but since there isn’t an ‘official’ GW store within many hours of my place, I don’t care which minis Nottingham HQ deems ‘legal’ or not. If new players want to play with Bretonnian knights who have 5 arms and wings coming out of their crotches, they may do so, mine will still look like normal knights.

Can’t fully agree with the statement that every reboot GW does is a flop. Battlefleet Gothic was definitely an improvement over Star Fleet, 3rd edition WHFB over the first 2 – thereafter, it becomes a matter of taste, 2nd edition Blood Bowl  was better than 1st – arguably, 3rd edition was more playable and less chaotic and confusing, but also somewhat less creative, I’m not sure which edition of 40K – 1st, 2nd or 3rd – I prefer, similar could be said for Space Hulk.

Generally, though, the first edition/series/book/movie whatever of everything tends to be the best of the bunch.

[slayerofworldsParticipant 3449xp 0]

@wolfie65

Im not going to comment on whether it will or won’t be a cash grab on GWs part.  Ive really given up on such things in regards to GW.  Theres little or no point in the same old a back and forth on such discussions.

 

I dont think you understand my reasoning for disappointment.    What I ment is that GW has a history of saying they promote backwards compatibility in their new editions, then doing everything possible to not actually create workable playable backwards compatibility.  New models are always better, as far as GW is concerned.

Age of Sigmar being the most obvious example, however the new edition of Killteam 2.o showed exactly how GW plans to market “backwards compatibility” in there game systems.   It was horrendously bad, and quite frankly insulting.  They took what the learned before, refined it and used that marketing strategy going forward.  So yeah, do not get your hopes up.   GW will be marketing and pushing their new models… to the exclusion of all old models.

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 0]

I think the reason they haven’t gone further back in time is that the look and feel of The Old World itself would be different.  The Empire probably wouldn’t look the same as they do in the old WFB setting, they would probably look a bit more like Bretonnia.  The Empire are basically the poster boys for Warhammer so the new game needs to maintain that look and feel.  Also, I suspect very strongly that the new game will be reusing many of the old Warhammer fantasy kits – certainly the artwork teased so far looks like new artwork depicting 8th edition miniatures (Tomb Kings, Bretonnia etc).  I am sure that there will be new models aplenty (they’re introducing at least two new armies) but I am also expecting to see a lot of the old Warhammer models repackaged and re-released as well.

[bubbles15Participant 2308xp 0]

slayer of worlds – you’re pre-judging something without any experience. Give the game a chance when it is here.

And yes onlyonepinman , I’m also looking forward to it. I loved the Empire Knights when they came out with that heavy metallic barding, but my first ‘love’ was Bretonnians and the flowing carparison barding on the horses. As a small fellow I had grand dreams of ransk and ranks of knights charging across the battlefield.

Maybe that’ll be possible with the new set, same as Heresy lets you choose an armoured company?

Also, please use full titles in subject headings, wolfie. It’s difficult to know what you’re talking about.

[wolfie65Participant 1230xp 0]

Sorry for using the acronym, I thought that was the thing to do……

As for backwards compatibility, I’m sure GW want to sell new models and hatehatehate the thought of the gamers they threw under the bus with The Bland Times and the A$$ of Sickmar using their already existing armies, but then again, this would be the perfect opportunity to dig out those old molds – assuming they weren’t self-destructive enough to toss them – and re-introduce the Mail Order Trolls and their massive archive. What good does it do them if Oldhammerers have to hunt for that 1986 Chaos Champion they wanted but couldn’t afford as a kids on Fleabay, paying exhorbitantly astronomic sums, if they could just as easily sell this same figure themselves on a special order basis, for a somewhat reasonable price ?

Yes, that used to be possible until about the early 00s: You could order models and individual parts no longer in production from them, all metal, cast on demand. That would be something that might even get me to buy ‘new’ GW stuff again, which I haven’t done in nearly 20 years.

I think Empire being the ‘poster boys’ is basically just laziness. I realize that it’s hard to get out of your own head and try to think like an Elf, Dwarf, Skaven or whatever, and much easier to just cartoon the so-called ‘Holy Roman Empire’, but I, for one, would LOVE a boxed set of pre-split Elves and Dwarfs and fluff in which there are still LOTS of Dragons – they’re not all asleep on Ulthuan, waiting to go extinct – and no Empire, maybe even no humans at all.

Thinking back to previous editions, the in my opinion best boxed sets were the first one  – 4th edition – with High  Elves and Goblins (I’d be perfectly happy if they just re-issued that one with no changes, including all the original figures) and number 5 – 8th edition –  the Island of Blood, which may have been the best overall value one, because you got 2 1000-point armies, High Elves and Skaven, complete with Generals, Rat Ogres, wizards ‘n’ stuff.

[solarParticipant 2781xp 0]

IF GW cock this up (and I give them about a 50-50 chance) the internet is going to explode

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 1]

The Empire being the poster boys isn’t laziness – it’s branding.  In most fantasy settings, humans are the way that we relate to the world, the lense through which we view the setting.  They’re what give the world its flavour – however the humans are depicted is generally what the setting is perceived as.  So the Empire are what gives Warhammer Fantasy Battle its flavour, what makes it unique. The story of Warhammer is the story of the Empire, all other factions are secondary and it’s pretty much always been that way.  If you lose the Empire, or change them to an older, less technologically advanced faction, it’s basically not Warhammer any more, simple as that.  This is from the Warhammer community blog;

“With the end of the world well documented, the design team wanted to explore the earlier history of the Old World in more depth, to examine events in the history of Warhammer in more detail than ever before. But which part of its long and storied history should they focus on? Go too far back in time – to the War of the Beard or the time of Sigmar for example – and the setting would have become unfamiliar.”

So GW have even said as much – they couldn’t go back too far in time without losing what makes Warhammer what it is.  There’s nothing stopping you from having “ancient” Warhammer armies, of pre-split Elves and Dwarfs, you might not be able to do it with GW miniatures and rules.

[wolfie65Participant 1230xp 0]

I’m finding it harder and harder to relate to humans, especially after the past 3 years…..

I don’t agree that humans or the Empire were always the sole focal point of Warhammer, at least not the fantasy version, you might say that that is, indeed, true for the sci-fi version, aka 40K.

At least until 3rd, arguably maybe even 4th edition, there really wasn’t any one particular faction that was ‘dominant’ in terms of fluff, background or what have you, and the gaming groups I’ve been a part of were also always fairly evenly divided between the different factions, Dwarfs, Lizardmen, Undead and Chaos being perhaps the most popular ones. In  fact, I would argue that if there is 1 faction that makes Warhammer unique, it would have to be Chaos, because something like that doesn’t exist in most other fantasy game systems. Most of them, on the other hand, do have human factions of one type or another and there are hundreds if not thousands of historical games featuring Medieval/Renaissance Germans……

On a side note, I do kind of wish they would hire someone who actually knows real German and not just cobble ‘Reikspiel’ together from a dictionary and some highly unrealistic movies and TV shows.

And so what if it isn’t Warhammer any more ? There were and are better game systems out there, for example, I’ve always liked Fantasy Warriors by Grenadier, which was, iirc, the first fantasy battle game to have a boxed set with miniatures – Dwarfs and Orcs, iconic models even today  –

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 1]

Almost all of Warhammer Fantasy’s rich history is focused in and around the Empire.  That’s not to say that nobody likes or plays the other factions, but the Empire were always the main protagonist if the story.  It’s where most of the black Library novels were set, it’s where most of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay was set.  The Empire is the faction that basically sets the theme of 16th century Europe (with Chaos essentially being the manifestation of all the things gid fearing 16th century Christians were scared of).  The Empire is what separates Warhammer from more traditional Tolkienesque fantasy.  And that’s been the case since at least the early ’90s

[phaidknott 7023xp 0]

For a “Starter Set” with two small armies, I’d expect them to go with Empire (perhaps Kislev) and Beastman perhaps?

 

“Lore” wise it’s probably the most likely conflict that isn’t City State vs City state, uses the “poster boys” of WHFB (Empire), and Beastmen haven’t appeared in any starter set yet (so might tempt the grognards returning to the game)

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 0]

I would certainly say yes, Empire or Kislev or very likely candidates, especially if they releasing a new range of Kislev plastics.  I doubt beastmen will get a look in though.  If I had to speculate (and let’s be honest, that’s all this is) I think we could see Kislev or Empire vs Chaos or Orcs.  Or, and this is way out there – Empire vs Empire, it’s a period of strife and civil war so a set like Horus Heresy where you can either make one big Empire army or two smaller ones could be a possibility

 

 

 

[wolfie65Participant 1230xp 0]

I quote from Warhammer Fantasy Battles 3rd edition – published 1987, predating the Black Library in its’ entirety by a decade – page 189, ‘The cosmic background’: “The story of the Warhammer world begins with the story of the Cosmos itself and with the ancient race that first explored it. They were called the Slann, a race of highly intelligent amphibian creatures that evolved millions of years ago.”

It goes on about the creation of the warp gates, followed by ‘The Emergence of Elves and Dwarfs’.

Nowhere in the text is there an emphasis on any particular faction, certainly not Humans or the Empire, the same holds true for Warhammer Armies, the army list compendium for 3rd edition.

Although 3rd edition was not a boxed set, it did contain 2 armies in the form of paper counters: Elves and Orcs.

The cover shows a battle between a ‘Barbarian’, almost Chaos-looking Human, a few Elves and a Dwarf against a bunch of Orcs and what appears to be some kind of evil Wizard, very D&D. Not a single Landsknecht anywhere.

4th edition brought us  High Elves and Goblins, 5th Bretonnians and Lizardmen, not until 6th edition – the start of NewHammer in my book –  did the Empire even appear in a boxed set or take center stage.

In the immortal words of the great American philosopher Kelly Bundy: “The prostitution rests”.

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