16 hours ago, Darth Sanguis said:

I know, and realistically I accept that a corporate entity isn't required or even expected to treat it's staff like people and not resources but with something as niche as miniature gaming I guess I wasn't expecting something so coldblooded. Sometimes it's hard to look directly into the bleeding jaws of capitalism as it chews up and spits out good people. But as you and @buckero0 say, it's not uncommon, it's just hitting closer to home.

That said Alex and the gang will undoubtedly find a new home. Their resume is teeming with success.

Agreed. I don't think anyone is too concerned about minis moving out of FFG, but it's Luke, Alex, Michael, and all the others that made these Star Wars game that got fired unexpectedly. It hurts even more because we have seen their enthusiasm, love, and dedication to the games they got to create. They lost THE dream job. Creating games within the Star Wars universe and being able to interact with all the people that play it. I keep going back to the 2019 Gencon after show Q&A session where they just dropped the Clone Wars and the room was buzzing with questions and excitement. I can't find the video, but I remember the absolute joy Alex was having being able to finally talk about the Clone Wars.

I will say, the silver lining is these teams are no longer under Asmodee and have the freedom to get picked up else where or set up their own studio. I look forward to seeing what new games they come up. It just sucks this is how it had to happen.

Double Post

4 hours ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

Community includes the developers. As far as Im concerned Asmodee has already screwed up by jettisoning the creators of the game.

I dont have anything against AMG, but they will need to win me back as a customer, becuase as of right now my hobby dollars are going elsewhere. I bought into Legion becuase of the relationship and history I had with FFG, and becuase Alex Davy was the designer.

I understand the sentiment to be angry and boycott the game, but without knowing what the design team would want the community to do, I would hesitate to do so. I would imagine and hope they want us to continue to play the game they created instead of seeing their beloved games die. They invested a lot of time and effort into these 3 games and without them saying to burn it to the ground, I don't think the community should embrace that sentiment.

I hope they keep the bases that they already use, with each faction getting its own base color. I know mcp has nice bases, but I already have a system down for my bases and want my armies to look the same. I mask of the rim of each base before priming. It's going to be had to match CIS purple ever time I buy new units.

It doesn't matter what the 'design team' would want. It is for individual consumers to decide where they spend their spare cash (and if you not using 'spare' cash to buy hobby stuff, you have bigger issues).

Say what you like about Games Workshop but they recently paid back in full the government grant money they got from the Covid fund in the UK.

Battlefront have done some great work in helping out bricks & mortar hobby stores.

Moving the various product lines in to silos is great for building up value prior to a sale. If I remember correctly the current PE firm is the second PE owner of Asmodee.

43 minutes ago, Empire On Ice said:

It doesn't matter what the 'design team' would want. It is for individual consumers to decide where they spend their spare cash (and if you not using 'spare' cash to buy hobby stuff, you have bigger issues).

You clearly haven't seen or listened to the passion the design team had for all 3 games nor have you seen their impact on the community. Do what you will, I just don't want people to make rash decisions and boycott the game thinking they are in solidarity with the design team when they may not want that. We are a community, whether on discord, LGS, or here. If you don't want to play because of this, then leave. This transition already sucks and I don't want more people stirring the pot of hate when we don't know the outcome yet.

15 hours ago, ninclouse2000 said:

After the Lando and kallus wave I will consider my legion collection complete and I’ll no longer give my $$$ to them for this game and I’m Kurt to avoid asmodee products going forward with the exception of armada which maybe after a few waves of clone wars, my armada collection can be considered compete as well.

i think that'll be my plan as well. Get all existing armies I have to a point where they are complete as possible. It could be a good thing for the game going over to Atomic but past experiences tell me otherwise so I'm going to cover all my bases to avoid hunting for OOP stuff a year down the line to make my armies playable.

I think even in the unlikely event they did butcher the game people would pick up the old rules set and keep it running and make their own 3d prints.

Saw it first hand before with Halo Ground Command.

54 minutes ago, Empire On Ice said:

Moving the various product lines in to silos is great for building up value prior to a sale. If I remember correctly the current PE firm is the second PE owner of Asmodee.

Well, flipping businesses is one of the way private equity firms make money.

PAI Partners bought Asmodee for €1.2 billion in 2018 from Eurazeo (who had bought Asmodee in 2013 for €143 million).

@Doghouse. Not to mention all the GW specialists games that still have a loyal fan following.

1 hour ago, Undeadguy said:

I understand the sentiment to be angry and boycott the game, but without knowing what the design team would want the community to do, I would hesitate to do so. I would imagine and hope they want us to continue to play the game they created instead of seeing their beloved games die. They invested a lot of time and effort into these 3 games and without them saying to burn it to the ground, I don't think the community should embrace that sentiment.

Im exercising my right as a capitalist consumer to vote with my dollars. If a company or brand does something I dislike I have the freedom to take my dollar elsewhere.

I'll keep supporting the game. I hope for the best for all those that were let go and for the future of the game. I'm sure there will be changes and I'm hopeful they will be good and keep that game going for a long time. FFG didn't have a great history of supporting games (at least the ones I was into) and AMG seems to pour a lot of love into their Marvel game so although it is sad they let them go especially in that fashion I feel like Legion could improve and grow and what a legacy that will be to Alex and the crew that started it all. I don't think their hard work and influence will be lost.

I'm cautiously optimistic that AMG will do right with the game. Them being completely dedicated to minis could be better for product releases. It felt FFG was spread way too thin between all their lines of products that attention to Legion/Armada/X-wing lagged.

7 minutes ago, ewardell said:

FFG didn't have a great history of supporting games (at least the ones I was into) and AMG seems to pour a lot of love into their Marvel game

To be fair, FFG makes dozens of games. And if something was not as popular as it needed to be to warrant supporting it, it got dropped.

AMG, on the other hand, makes (well, prior to this week) exactly one game.

On 11/18/2020 at 11:48 AM, Alan Noir said:

First of all, that's a pretty callous comment when the people in question read these forums. There's a good chance a lot of people are out of the job. People who clearly had a passion and understanding of star wars.

Second, if there's that much wrong with the game then just let it go amd get on with life. I wanted a star wars mini game for years but didnt think imperial assault was for me, so I just passed it up. No big deal. X wing also lacked the home made feel, though I do like the game. Many of us love Legion and don't want drastic changes after investing so much time money and effort.

I wanted and hoped Star Wars miniatures battles from West End Games, combined with 40k multipart minis and armies... just a dream I've had for decades (I have always though, wouldn't it be nice if Gw had permission to make a star wars game like when they did Lord of the rings??) And it seemed to come true when I first heard of Legion, and that simply has not become true. So I hope AMG changes things. It doesn't have nothing to do with actual persons that designed the game, of course they did what FFG asked for, I am sure that they were not free to do as they would have liked, because production, requirements, sales and marketing department and Lucas-Disney sure have been messing everything... but that's exactly what I miss compared to 30 years old games such as WEG products... there was passion, effort, imagination and a lot of great ideas that came FIRST and profit, product economy and sales came SECOND.

Didn’t FFG have the Star Wars licence until 2023 or something like that. Maybe the shift doesn’t happen until the contract ends?

I don't think Alex Davy would have been let go if the move was that far down the line.

Yes Alex Davy was treated poorly. Being let go is never a case of being treated well no matter how it is handled. I thought for sure he would be retained when I saw the press release. That wasn't the case and this was handled badly. However bad this was, to see something he spent so much of his life working on also die because the community abandoned it will be quite the double blow.

I'm apprehensive on how a company that only releases single models in MCP is going to develop Legion, especially as Legion was just really getting into the swing of having tons of parts and options for a bunch of models, including both normal units and strike teams in the box, etc. I could easily see this swing towards more restrictive and more importantly, expensive releases. Or other forms of added cost via required supplements etc.

So a thought occurs while looking at the point rebalance.

This is totally speculative and I don't think less of Alex Davy or any of the dev teams in any way , but I think Alex and the devs were fired and the studio control transferred because of the persistent imbalance in these 3 games.

Looking at this PDF, there's so much here. This was way more than I expected.


Considering that with X-Wing 2.0 the player base took a massive hit (so much so that it's essentially been dead locally since 2.0 launched); the news that Armada (a game that is only 5 and a half years old) is getting a 1.5 update requiring a similar conversion package for cards, and Legion (which is only 2 and a half years old) is getting a revision that has more than double the last rebalance changes (and honestly maybe more than Armada had over the whole 5 years), might have spooked LFL, Asmodee, or the investors into considering a plan to keep these lines profitable.

Am I crazy?

This whole thing is "interesting" because this basically mirrors what happened to the RPG department earlier this year (which I'm sure some of you don't really follow). At least with minis they announced it first, but it still game with a sudden slashing of the division from FFG, laying off of all personnel in the RPG division, moving product to a new studio, confusion and consternation about the future of community, products, etc. The only thing Asmodee (or their private equity backers) learned from that period seems to be to announce the studio move first, then get to the dropping the re-org bomb.

That said, I will offer a potential hope in this situation. While at the time, the RPG staff of FFG were very surprised, upset, and genuinely looking for new places to hang their hats, once EDGE actually got the ball rolling being organized, they ended up bringing a lot of the people back on as contractors and rehired FFG's old RPG manager to be their RPG manager (doing work remotely as well, since EDGE is/was based in Europe). I hope to god AMG plans to and has the ability to expand their staff, since they are now running exponentially more games than they were before, and it may be possible after the dust clears that some of the old guard will be brought on part or full time to take back a hand in that dev process. Same with the OP guys, since AMG will need to run that too. Time will have to tell, and while it is a very confusing and uncertain time, I hope that like the RPG division moving to EDGE, this gets cleared up and looks brighter going forward.

I do not think Asmodee's method of handling these moves is framed or performed "right" to their customers or developers, but I would say not to boycott or disrespect AMG in this scenario, they likely have absolutely no control over the reorg decisions, but may have the power to move forward on this, and if it's not an immediate rehire situation, they're not gonna be able to bring back Alex or any of the others if Legion crashes the moment they move studio. And again, take a little joy they announced the move first, I still think interest in FFG's RPGs like L5R and Genesys is shaken because the transfer to EDGE was so quiet and unclear for the longest time. I still hear people say "didn't they stop making that?"

17 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

So a thought occurs while looking at the point rebalance.

This is totally speculative and I don't think less of Alex Davy or any of the dev teams in any way , but I think Alex and the devs were fired and the studio control transferred because of the persistent imbalance in these 3 games.

Looking at this PDF, there's so much here. This was way more than I expected.


Considering that with X-Wing 2.0 the player base took a massive hit (so much so that it's essentially been dead locally since 2.0 launched); the news that Armada (a game that is only 5 and a half years old) is getting a 1.5 update requiring a similar conversion package for cards, and Legion (which is only 2 and a half years old) is getting a revision that has more than double the last rebalance changes (and honestly maybe more than Armada had over the whole 5 years), might have spooked LFL, Asmodee, or the investors into considering a plan to keep these lines profitable.

Am I crazy?

I would agree on Armada and X-Wing, but not Legion. It's been a stable game with releases and update. They have precedence for yearly adjustments based off the meta and it does make the game healthier. That said, I have no idea how LFL perceives the game and IP handling. Did the Armada Flotilla Wars get all the way to LFL and they were unhappy? The consistent toilet bowl nerf in X-Wing 1.0? Does LFL care that much? Are they watching the content creators and reading discord? I think that might be extreme but you can do a lot when you have the money to hire people. I doubt Asmodee cares since they came into the picture recently in regards to Armada and X-Wing.

I would imagine this is more of a restructuring by consolidating people in one studio, which in turn is projected to yield a high value return, either in cash flow or increasing the Star Wars Miniature Games portfolio.

I think we may never know though.

26 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Am I crazy?

Yes, I think so. There is no way Asmodee is firing anyone over balance issues. Every competitive game has balance problems, and a few pages of rules errata and updates is certainly not grounds to fire anyone.

3 hours ago, Darth Sanguis said:

So a thought occurs while looking at the point rebalance.

This is totally speculative and I don't think less of Alex Davy or any of the dev teams in any way , but I think Alex and the devs were fired and the studio control transferred because of the persistent imbalance in these 3 games.

Looking at this PDF, there's so much here. This was way more than I expected.


Considering that with X-Wing 2.0 the player base took a massive hit (so much so that it's essentially been dead locally since 2.0 launched); the news that Armada (a game that is only 5 and a half years old) is getting a 1.5 update requiring a similar conversion package for cards, and Legion (which is only 2 and a half years old) is getting a revision that has more than double the last rebalance changes (and honestly maybe more than Armada had over the whole 5 years), might have spooked LFL, Asmodee, or the investors into considering a plan to keep these lines profitable.

Am I crazy?

Yes.

They moved the sections for the same reason the RPGs got moved, to section out things by production type.

It sucks that the designers got fired and I really hope they can go back to designing more games in the future(maybe start a new company?)

I just started playing Legion and I love the game and will keep supporting it in the future. I do hope AMG doesn't do an X-Wing 2.0 with Legion. If they want to rebalance do it with new RRG instead of a total rules overhaul especially if I then have to pay for new cards. AMG's statement that they want to make another SW game also worries me. You've only handled 1 miniature game and just got handed 3 more and now you want to make another? Crazy stuff.

Again, I'll still play Legion and buy more stuff(considering I've just started playing) but I really hope they don't mess around with these 3 existing games and their fanbase.

10 hours ago, Mokoshkana said:

Yes, I think so. There is no way Asmodee is firing anyone over balance issues. Every competitive game has balance problems, and a few pages of rules errata and updates is certainly not grounds to fire anyone.

Also, I'm quite certain that the only competition they're really looking at is Games Workshop, and they're releasing new editions literally every three years now (down from every four years during the '00s), plus major rules updates partway through, plus yearly points rebalancings. (That said, FFG's card-based style makes changes more of a hassle than they need be.)