Well if you look at GW's history they have on several occasions gone in different directions and the fans be damned.

GW started of as 3 guys who were gonna make and sell handcrafted backgammon boards and stuff (that's where the workshop comes from actually) but then two of them got into D&D and turned GW into the premier RPG importer for england/europe. They did that for a while and citadel minatures came in to make rpg models untill after a few years GW decided to make their own games and (around WD #100) they had almost completly dropped RPGs in favor of miniature wargames. If you think the fans are angry now... Imagine the company you bought all your stuff from go from one type of games to a completly different type.

And now GW probably went: meh it has worked before, lets kill that one game nobody plays/buys anymore (their view of the situation, not mine) and scrap it.

White Wolf also did that around 2000 when they killed of the World of Darkness series, also with a series of "End times" books. The difference with GW is, when WW came back with New world of Darkness it was actuallt a pretty well conceived set of new rules and setting, rather than this hodgepodge that GW has made of age of sigmar.

Well, there you go. It seems I have become another hurt fanboy, raging because some beloved thing is altered to deviate from the iteration I grew up with and came to view as the One True Version. It is one of the greatest curses of fandom to weep and rave with dismay as "our" rendition is scrapped, whilst we ourselves gaze bewildered at others when they do the exact same thing with regards to their own pet product.

Speaking of D&D - aren't GW turning WF into something quite like that franchise? I'm not terribly familiar with the former, but as far as I know it has a kind of meta-setting, a core set of rules with modular races, fluff, and tropes that you can use to create your own world, each being paralell dimensions or plains that meet in a kind of overworld hub. If I'm not completely off the mark, doesn't that mean that GW is therefore removing much of the uniqueness and character of Warhammer, not just by abolishing an established framework and standards, but also fashioning it after another IP?

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I mean it's ok to feel upset after they screw with the canon like that. Just aslong as you don't go completly nuts and set fire to your army . I for one, am still pissed of over what they did to Slaanesh.

You are correct about D&D...However as to GW's plans and the exact nature of the AoS setting: I haven't got a clue. I just don't know what's going on anymore. In the end times the world has been destroyed. In AoS it's not destroyed, excecpt it is. And something something angry spirits of the dead something restored the warhammer world something something flickering reality, bla bla vengeance against the chaos gods. Oh yeah and aparantly there are some characters out there who can come back from the friggin apocalypse by sheer force of will alone! You don't just say "NO." to the apocalypse and then walk out of the warp onto a new world. Gaaaaaah!!!

From what I've heard, GW plans are:

1. Sell more models.
2. Make everything subject to GW copyright (can't trademark "elf" but you can "Aelf")
3. Make warhammer more sociable/ slap fans in the face (depends on who you ask.)
4. Spazmehreen averythaaang!

And it burns burns burns...

Yeah, lizardmen are now Seraphon, ogres Ogors and so on.

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer:_Age_of_Sigmar

Reflects my attitude pretty well

- which has been called by fans many names such as New Warhammer, Nuhammer, Warhammer Light, f*cking bullsh*t ...

- only to find the f*cking Skaven have blown up his Black Pyramid. AGAIN

Awesome.

The End Times/Age of Sigmar bullcrap is so *fricking* ridiculous. Did a bunch of middle-school kids invent this crap?

I love the Old World (and 40K) fluff, but man I sure do hate GW.

Yeah, lizardmen are now Seraphon, ogres Ogors and so on.

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer:_Age_of_Sigmar

Reflects my attitude pretty well

Seriously, they can't have thought this through. No balancing? No model point values or limits to the size or composition of your force? NO BALANCING? NO F=ck1n6 BALANCING?!?! NO BALANCING NOW BALANCUNG NO BALANCING NOBALANGUJROI NOOOOOOO BAAALALANXING NO GJEIOGJWRG BALANSINGNOBALANSOBALANSINGKAKJGEWNALANZ!!!!!??

And here I was thinking the fluff changes were ridiculous. It's like they are dissolving Warhammer in a highly acidic solution of blandness and stupidity, trademarks and space marines. If they are ruining both the lore and the game rules like this, I highly suspect that they will end up alienating most of their fan base beyond remdemption. I haven't seen a company doing something that awfull since Microsoft announced Xbox One. We can only hope that GW suffers a similar fate and get their **** together before it is too late. There is a chance that might happen sooner than with Xbox, because GW isn't part of a larger company (right?) that has enough money to keep it alive despite failing sales - but that might also mean that if AOS totally flops, they might not be able to recover.

Wow, I just got the details of what GW did. All I can say is WTF???? Abnormal size minis. Destroyed all civilization and went to total-war and re-sell you all the books.

Yes, it appears WFRP is dead to the RPG market in its entirety b/c of GWs choice.

On the other hand - and thankfully - two quite promising looking Warhammer fantasy themed PC games are in development now: Mordheim - City of the Damned and the aforemenmtioned Warhammer Total War. Both of these are placed in the "traditional" Old World setting. If these games live up to their potential and gain some measure of success, they might attract new fans who are left to discover that this awesome setting doesn't officially exist anymore. Could this become a problem?

In addition to Mordheim and Total War there is also Vermintide. Although set during the End Times it is still in the old setting too.

BTW, Total War just released this trailer

I am curious to see how GW is going to handle the old setting. Do they continue licensing it out or what. If it is open for license someone could make a excellent CRPG set in the Old World.

In addition to Mordheim and Total War there is also Vermintide. Although set during the End Times it is still in the old setting too.

BTW, Total War just released this trailer

I am curious to see how GW is going to handle the old setting. Do they continue licensing it out or what. If it is open for license someone could make a excellent CRPG set in the Old World.

That was utterly epic! It put chills down my spine and a massive grin on my face, just because it's Warhammer. Even if the graphics weren't particularly impressive, and there was a distinct lack of gore (a man is being torn apart by a wyvern, and there's no blood? That's just silly). And I guess it's too late to hope that Empire humans will ever have German accents, even if they totally should.

Seeing a proper Warhammer RPG (video game) has been a long term dream of mine - I can only imagine what glorious things a competent developer like Bioware or CdProjekt Red could do with that setting. Maybe something where you play was a witch hunter, and incorporating a lot of mystery/crime/horror elements. Even a more "indie" studio making an old-school, sprite-based game that basically is a straight port of the WFRP3 mechanics could be quite interesting.

But aren't we going a bit off topic here? I won't complain - in fact, it is a sure sign the there isn't a whole lot to say about what was originally up for discussion.

The topic was age of sigmar...as far as I'm concerned we can stray as far off that as we want.

Good/sad to see SEGA understands warhammer better than GW does these days.

0-1 Steamtank. Good. Battery of hellblasters. good. Giant wondering what to do with the picked up soldier (not down the pants!) before slamming him back down: good! Wizard casting Comet of Casandora: yes! To bad he didn't carry Van Horstman's Speculum ... Deathclaw! Yaaaay!!!

That was warhammer.

Even if the graphics weren't particularly impressive, and there was a distinct lack of gore (a man is being torn apart by a wyvern, and there's no blood?

Remember Total War games are usually played zoomed out to battlefield scale. This trailer is zoomed in to the max. The blood & gore might be added later, or released as a separate DLC pack like they've done for their other games.

Really GW? You blew up Morsleib?

Really GW? You blew up Morsleib?

That's what you get upset about? The chaos moon getting blown up by the Skaven was kinda awesome . The skaven then shifing Skavenblight into the warp was a bit rediculous.

But yeah around book III of the end times it became pretty clear things were not going back to normal.

All of the empire is in ruins? they can rebuild right? They undid the magical vortex? that's not good. They blew up Morsleib? Aaaaww shi-

Ps GW (sadly) blew up more than just Morsleib...

I would say it's not just that the Skaven blew up Morrsleib but it's the other 99 ridiculous, bat-guano, crazy events that came about with End Times/AoS. Actually, Robin, as you observe it's pretty much emblematic: Morrsleib like so many other icons of the Old World (including Morr himself), gone just like that.

*sigh*

The end times did have some nice things to

• That beastman spell that turned all cattle/live stock in the whole empire into bloodthirsty mutants overnight.
• Clan Pestilence going back to Lustria en masse for round two against the lizardmen.
• The elves raising Khaine
• Archaon killing Valten (yes!)

Wit aos... sigh..I don't even know where to begin. it's all this munchkin OP drivvel without context. There's no emotional content in any of it. The old world had backstory, there was a history there! dwarfs had grudges against the elves and orcs. Aos is suposedly hundreds of years after the end of the world but do we get a history or a culture/society for any of the factions? No!

It appears to me, and I hope not to offend too many people, that they have made it a childish-anthropomorphic, total-war setting where everyone is a special snowflake and there is no real deep-thinking anymore. Then they are just selling the same old crapola all over again to the same dumb, hoarder-collector purchasers who are gullible enough to fall for it again and then teir goal is to attempt to make fantasy sales into 40k popularity by whatever means necessary to make it attractive to a new audience of people who will buy their obscenely priced, abnormal-scale miniatures and books. The "whatever means necessary" is where I guess I disagree.

They probably did focus groups right? Does this encapsulate their actual target market?

It didn't work for Forgotten Realms in DND4e. It didn't work for World of Darkness. ..but we're no longer talking about "Fantasy" being a role playing game. They took a lesson from FFG where "it's just business, it's no longer personal."

Still, I don't see why they couldn't just make AOS as a separate thing, a parallel setting in an alternate future. That's what I thought it was at first, with the End Times being something of a Storm of Chaos rehash that wouldn't interfere with the "current" timeline. I still thought it was **** stupid - was all "OMG my Warhammers! - but if they at least hadn't enforced it as canon for the main franchise, they might have ended up provoking a lot less nerd rage from existing fans whilst also being able to gain new ones. Completely demolishing the world we all love just seems like a utterly idiotic, pointless, and possibly very destructive bussiness move, the last drop that forces open the floodgates of discontent, unleashing torrents of fury that accumulated over the years from the annoyance of loyal but frustrated fans. Why couldn't they just release Age of Sigmar as its own separate thing and see how that went, instead of risking it all on something so potentially divisive?

It all boils down to that one cyllable question: why?

I suppose they all went too far into "reckless" and misable failed their Intuition checks that day. How many banes and Chaos stars they must have rolled...

Great. Now I wonder what the AoS version of Bloodbowl looks like.

Those massive liberator shoulderpads should come in handy...

I hate AoS with a passion. I started playing Warhammer back in the mid to late 1980's as a kid. I still have the slaves to darkness book and rogue trader. I have Squats and Chaos Dwarf armies still. I fell in love with Warhammer Fantasy battles and that setting is still the best IP out there. My group of friends that are now finally able to start playing the 3rd edition RPG are all in love with the setting. What GW did in destroying the world just so they can copyright new armies (all the factions are being renamed if you are not aware of this to horrible names) is insanely stupid and frankly a dagger in the back to every real fan of Warhammer.

Purely as a miniatures game, Age of Sigmar isn't too bad, and even has some cool ideas that could be worth porting into WFB if they ever decide to reverse their decision and make a new WFB edition. I doubt that will happen though, since apparently the main purpose of AoS is to downsize the fantasy range (which wasn't very profitable compared to 40K). If downsizing the fantasy range had to be done anyway for business reasons, I could sort of understand why they felt it necessary to blow up the world. That way they can "sell" people on the downsize as a feature not a bug.

True, but they really should have made it a stand alone game rather than what should be WFB 9th edition.

They took out so much of what made warhammer cool: terror, fear,: Undead and chaos were terrifying to fight against becuase of teh numerous fear tests you had to take! In AoS a Bloodthirster is a scary as a skaven slave! All there is now, is move, rol to hit roll to wound, roll to save. Done. (entry level game to draw in the young uns, that's ok I understand) Remember when each lore of magic had several spells and you never knew what you would get before the game started? Now it's bolt, shield and one or two other spells.

I'm sure the game has it's merrits, but you'll have to forgive us old timers yelling betrayal at AoS.

True, the good parts of AoS as a rule-set will probably be overshadowed by negativity about GW's overall handling of the situation (just as happened with Storm of Chaos). There was actually some nuance added to the Warscrolls to replace the nuance lost (e.g. horse archers can shoot first then move, cannons have a grapeshot option, carrion can "fly high" like WFB4e). Also the inclusion of units' Special Rules in the Warscrolls makes AoS smoother to play (i.e. no flipping back and forth between army book and rulebook). Once I get a couple more games in, I'm going to write a proper review of AoS as a skirmish game using Warscrolls (i.e. ignoring the setting changes and new factions, because I can't comment objectively on those).

The problem is the management at GW. The last CEO thought that GW was just a miniatures company and the new CEO used to be the companies Chief Financial Officer. As far as they are concerned, selling figures is all that matters.

The consequences are that they have turned AoS into 40K with swords, in the belief that if they make their "fantasy" line into an offshoot of 40K, that it will do as well as the 40K lines. They have also established that their target audience are 10-12 year olds with Mummy and Daddy picking up the bill. The rules therefore are designed to be played in 1-2 hours on the 4' x 4' or 6' x 4' of a GW store table using the armies they provide. There are, as Herr Arnulfe says, some good points in the rules but they are not designed for people like us, wrong target audience.

I was seriously disappointed with the fluff in AoS, skimmed would be an understatement. It was also slightly confusing. Unfortunately AoS means that the chances of a 4th edition WFRP is about as high as 9th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles, ie nil.

Unfortunately if FFG were to try and do Warhammer Age of Sigmnar Roleplay, they would probably do it in three volumes, a Deathwatch variant for the Sormwatch Celestials, a Dark heresy variant for Azyrheim, and an Only War variant for all the other races on the other seven worlds. Maybe there will be a version of Black Crusade for the chaos mob as well. However none of that would interest me in the slightest, whether it was with dice pool or percentile dice, it matters not.

I am afraid that AoS means that we wil have to make do with 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition WFRP and what the fans will come up with now. GW and FFG will have nothing for us and we will have to get used to that. Sad but true!