[Archive] [AoS] Age of Sigmar as a Business Decision by GW

Archive [Archive] Wargame News and Discussion
1

Firehammer:

Split thread for the purpose of keeping the general discussion clean and preserving the company discussion elsewhere. Starting with Firehammer's response to Admiral to preserve the line of replies that led into this topic.

Mod
Sigmarines could always be put on square bases and used as Ogre Kingdoms if one prefer it that way.

Admiral
... and while celebrating the rich Warhammer Fantasy background that way, you could always ally them to Space Marine Bikes on square bases counting as Bretonnian knights :o
2

Admiral:

Come on now, the whole Space Marine shebang was based on Warhammer Chaos Warriors’ heavy armour when GW went to space with Rogue Trader. So while people like me are less than enthusiastic about anything close to power armour, such big blocky armour suits have pretty much always been a part of Warhammer. All this over-the-top unrealistic armour deal in Warcraft etc. stems from Warhammer styles during 4th-5th editions in particular.

Warhammer is an immensely rich setting with background firmly rooted in history, Tolkien and horror, and though I personally prefer it without angelic knights of light and judgement, such an army would never have been out in place in a setting as varied as to sport fimir, ogres, goblins, elves of every kind, ratmen, sentient dinosaurs, daemons… The list goes on. The Old World was always a fantasy smörgåsbord, catering to almost all tastes, and well it should. Sigmarines may not be my cup of tea, but they may well be someone else’s, and they wouldn’t even remotely break the setting if introduced carefully into the Old World, and not given a major role.

In the same vein, GW would have been wise to introduce Dwarf rune golems. It’s not something I would ever use in fantasy (though maybe for 40k Squats), but many other Dwarf players would appreciate it. Everything is optional. Myself, I prefer my own vanilla Dwarfs as tech-traditionalists without gunpowder and slayers to stay close to Lotr Dwarfs. It’s well possible to build such an army, and it’s a good thing it’s also possible to build a Dwarf army full of wacky engineering from organ guns to gyrocopters.

3

Firehammer:

Warhammer is an immensely rich setting with background firmly rooted in history, Tolkien and horror, and though I personally prefer it without angelic knights of light and judgement, such an army would never have been out in place in a setting as varied as to sport fimir, ogres, goblins, elves of every kind, ratmen, sentient dinosaurs, daemons... The list goes on.

Admiral
Warhammer has always been a setting of grimdark Fantasy, mostly taking place in a dirty expanded version of late medieval Europe.

Shining, power armoured, Ogre sized guys living in a space station (see below for an official pic) and armed with heavy bolters (see second pic) don't fit a medieval or Fantasy setting ... and are designed not to fit. GW managers try to stress at any opportunity that the Warhammer setting is dead, blown up actually. Every AoS release is meant not to fit the old setting, scalewise and designwise. Is it coincidence that almost all new releases are a head taller than Warhammer equivalents, is it coincidence that almost all AoS releases fit the 40k look much better than the Warhammer look? Or is it a sign of the expressed will of the managers? I think it is the latter. But if everyone else thinks, it is coincidence after coincidence, only by chance following the expressed will of the managers, I accept that and will not derail this thread any further.

BTW fun fact: There are almost no AoS books and miniatures that are required stock for stores anymore, not even the basic rulebook or any of the faction books. Seems GW finally bowed to the fact that AoS doesn't sell.



4

Timothy Archer:

Coincidences , such things does not exist

of course there is a deliberate will to change everything , the setting and the fluff

in order to sell more and more expensive things , i guess nobody here thinks GW is a charity compagny

but if you look closely : the old world is still an important part of the fluff, he is the base for new myths and legends , the old models got their grand alliance book

and an important part in the politics of the realm of Azyr

most of the players are just happy about those facts , their imagination will do the rest…

AOS is not Warhammer Battle anymore , Warhammer Battle is DEAD , you have to deal with it

there is no point in keeping a burning hate for everything related to AOS, players, compagny, models .its a barren state of mind  

its not the time anymore ( 6 month for god sake ) neither the place ( BOLS is perfect for that )

this topic was made in the first place by/for our fellow CD who don’t have a problem with AOS and who try to keep the burning flame ( yes i like to use this word a lot ) of zharr alive

i guess that is a really huge progress here and that would be really cool of you to try not to push non-haters boundaries, because we get it , you hate AOS , your point is made

Come on , Chaos dwarf should be the only thing we try to keep alive in this very special topic ???

5

Skink:

AOS is not Warhammer Battle anymore , Warhammer Battle is DEAD , you have to deal with it
there is no point in keeping a burning hate for everything related to AOS, players, compagny, models .its a barren state of mind  
its not the time anymore ( 6 month for god sake ) neither the place ( BOLS is perfect for that )
this topic was made in the first place by/for our fellow CD who don't have a problem with AOS and who try to keep the burning flame ( yes i like to use this word a lot ) of zharr alive

Come on , Chaos dwarf should be the only thing we try to keep alive in this very special topic ???

Timothy Archer
I got to say I agree with this guy. And yes, I am one of those people who will keep ranking up miniatures on 20mm square bases. But as I stated above:

A ) AoS has a fan base, and I really, really, really hope that it will bring lots of people together in a fun, social, and creative hobby. I still remember fondly my days at the club 15 years ago. The time passed with friends was what mattered to me, more than the rules and the setting.

B ) Aos, Warhammer, Kings of War, 9th age, Bananarama, I don't care for which system you use you CDs for, as long as you post them on this pages!!!

C ) Ultimately, if you say that the Old world isn't dead, then it isn't. Post an advertisement somewhere to recruit players, and create your own club of people still interested in old-fashioned fantasy battles. That worked wonders for Blood Bowl. Problem solved.
6

Admiral:

@Firehammer: Of course it’s intended design, but naturally one would ignore things not fitting in according to personal taste, such as those you mentioned, should one wish to incorporate bits of it into the Old World in one’s own collection and imagination. The Chaos releases in particular are easy peasy to include. Warhammer is alive and kicking, and that setting won’t die anytime soon even though the official game is axed and the official miniature ranges disappear one after another. Competitors will fill up the vacuum should GW seriously mean to completely abandon that relatively lucrative niche, and as Timothy Archer points to, perhaps a loosening of rules focus is healthy? (Spoken as one who’ve ever barely cared about the rules, BTW.) People who like Warhammer will continue to duke it out and have fun with their friends in a number of different games, and have fun building armies with Warhammer in mind. Or AoS. The hobby has always been your hobby, and the official line is more of a recommendation to most hobbyists.

As for large, virtually power armoured blokes, well, we’ve had Warriors of Chaos for long. As said, smörgåsbord, so little to no problem should anyone want to use AoS models in their Warhammer armies. Just a pity there isn’t more ancient and dark ages stuff in Warhammer Fantasy, come to think of it. At least Babylonian CDs, Tomb Kings and Norsca stand in for that, and one can always use historical Roman miniatures etc. and shoehorn 'em in, should one wish to.

Anyhow, while there’s certainly a place in any good fantasy setting for to-the-skies mythological epic stuff, have there been any attempt by GW to tell small stories in AoS, the way they could in a living, detailed and limited world like WHFB?

7

Firehammer:

in order to sell more and more expensive things , i guess nobody here thinks GW is a charity compagny

most of the players are just happy about those facts , their imagination will do the rest....
(...)
AOS is not Warhammer Battle anymore , Warhammer Battle is DEAD , you have to deal with it

Timothy Archer
1.) Never in the last 10 years has GW management acted like profits are their priority, that's why revenue is flat since 2006 ... in a growing market. GW could easily double sales if they wanted to.
2.) In my area, 80+ % of GW Fantasy sales are by people who stick to Warhammer Fantasy (5th to 9th edition) or Kings of War and have absolutely no interest in anything AoS related, so basically AoS is dead here but not Warhammer Fantasy.
3.) If an accountant working for GW says that I shouldn't have fun with Warhammer Fantasy, why should I care? They also said that "unbound armies" in 40k are fun, and not even hardcore GW fanatics play that. I'd rather side with the GW design team, who also dislike what accountants force them to do, esp. killing 20+ years of Warhammer Fantasy.
8

Admiral:

Indeed. They’re changing down for sure by replacing WHFB with AoS instead of playing them in parallell, and competitors will fill up the lucrative niche abandoned by the once market dominant company. Eventually, one would expect GW to return to Warhammer Fantasy to follow the money and capitalize once more upon what was once their core IP, generic though it might seem with eyes burning with IP fever. Have no greater worries about that, is my advice.

The more interesting question is, what will happen with AoS when WHFB resurfaces? Ideally, it’d be played in parallell as an OTT high fantasy skirmish alternative, but it is also possible that the Age of Sigmar range to some degree would be incorporated with the Old World, in one way or another (portals, or put into the actual Old World, or something else). Parts of the existing AoS range could definitely find a place, such as the Sigmarine miniatures minus heavy bolters (and forget their literal background here, incl. AoS homeworld).

GW took a drastic decision when they axed WHFB and replaced it with AoS. We’ll have to live with that for a while, as will GW. In the meanwhile, please enjoy what you can of the new, and watch the pendulum swing back.

9

Dînadan:

Question is, if AoS does flop, will GW actually come back to WHFB, or will the bean counters take it as a sign that fantasy doesn’t sell?

And even if it doesn’t flop, it probably won’t matter if a bulk of sales are of the old minis as to the bean counters, it’s still AoS branded minis that sell - they don’t care what you use the minis for, just that AoS minis are selling. At most it’d result in the retirement of some of the newer minis.

And if AoS is successful, then they won’t turn back to Fantasy, again regardless of which minis are the earners as to the bean counters, they’re all AoS, so there’s no incentive for them to bring back WHFB in their eyes.

I think the best hope (for official) WHFB has is actually with Forge World. Considering the establishment of a Soecialist Games department which will be bringing back classic Specialist Games and has taken over managing the LotR line, the best chance of WHFB coming back is as a Specialist Game (probably billed as something like ‘hey, know that massive AoS collection you’ve got? Fancy using it all at once, moving hundreds of minis in glorious massed battle without having to take all weekend to play?’).

Overall, I agree with Skink - the key to WHFB surviving lies in the fans keeping it alive like the fans of Blood Bowl, Mordheim, etc have with those systems. The biggest hurdle will be disseminating the army books, but considering how easy it is to find PDFs of oop Specialist Games and older editions of Fantasy and 40k (and how the trend is swinging more and more to digital books anyway), I’m sure new players will have just as much ease finding army books online, and as few if any of them will be playing in GW stores, I doubt they’re going to have any moral qualms about the illegality of such an action.

In other news, the orruks are now up for preorder with lots more pics. And I have to say that I think they actually look worse now that we can see the back. I think it’s a nice idea that they decided not to give them armour on their backs (reinforces their must keep going forwards and face foes head on mentality), but the execution is very lacking and it ends up looking poor. We also now have definitive proof that it’s the paint scheme that makes people think of them as Space Marines as GW have released a pic of the old Blorcs in the same yellow scheme and they look similarly space marine-y despite being the same minis we’ve had for years as far as I can tell. Also, from the 3d pic of the wyvern thing, I think it’d be really easy to turn into a greater lamasuu if you were so inclined (the rear feet even look rather hooflike if hooves had evolved into toes.

10

Timothy Archer:

in order to sell more and more expensive things , i guess nobody here thinks GW is a charity compagny

1.) Never in the last 10 years has GW management acted like profits are their priority, that's why revenue is flat since 2006 ... in a growing market. GW could easily double sales if they wanted to.

Firehammer
1) HAHAHAHA . Where were you when they decided to replace metal with plastic for the same price ????? when they choose to destroy specialist games because they were not making enough money ??? when they stop the Mail-order/ Trolls a long time ago when it was still possible to call and say " hey i need the right wing of a dragon , and the Nagash scepter for a conversions " in order to sell complete miniatures and no more bitz ? . when they changed the editorial line of the White dwarf from a rock'n roll magasine with lots of features and tips to make a cheap army, to a pure corporation magazine for a higher price ??? when they decided to sell a new brand of paint with more water inside , smaller bottle for the same price ???? when they start to accelerate the release of new codex , new versions of the game every two years to sell more armies and make them obsolete as fast as they have been released ......... and there is more and more like those

the hobby is completelly rotten since the end of the 4th edition , thinking we are something else than sheeps for them is at best naive because the signs were there all the time if you look back 15 years ago ...

So what do we do with all this anger ?????? two choice , Being angry against something we can't do anything about it .after all it is a normal reaction for people like us , spoiled Adult/child playing with miniatures , so why not !!

or just following the winds of change , things are evolving with or without you, a new game ! cool lets try . They bring back specialist games , AMEN !! GW paint , no more for me , white dwarf , hahahaha i find every informations online , need some bitz , ebay is there ....etc etc personal evolution ......

as for the destruction of Warhammer battle , reward it with a joyfull clapping ! after all they finally show some balls to make something really new and if you don't want to clap you can still play Warhammer battle or king of war , you dont need GW for that , just a bunch of friends with the same taste ( it should not be to hard since they are still into it in your area )

sorry if i seems to be agressive , but your anger toward GW and AOS are already old topic , everybody can say " been there , done that six month ago "  and honestly when AOS was released i thought this very website was dead for me , because it became toxic for a while , at this point we were many to leave this place for facebook groups or other places ....

and then few month later people are trying to adapt themselves , they try to bring back our old CD into a very strange world ,FW seems to make some kind of resistance with their new daemonsmith ( a bigger one indeed )  and we start to breathe a bit more because excitement is back somehow because younger players seems to be excited to bring their stone to build new ziggurats in a fareway land ....

and this is why my friends i think it is really important to give some space here with a ZHARR AOS sub forum , because i guess nobody wants to put young chaos dwarf players in a corner (Flashdance :hat off ) against angry warhammer battle  players

:hat off:hat off:hat off
11

Dînadan:

Why should we reward the destruction of something we like with joyful clapping? How is it a good thing to destroy a beloved setting and replace it with something else? It’s a bad thing to just dismiss the replacement out of hand and pooh-pooh it just for not being what it replaced, but just doing something for the sake of doing something is not good in and of itself. In fact your statement is just as bad as the aggressive anti-AoSers. And saying ‘oh and if you don’t like it just go play something else’ is a bit redundant as those you’re directing it to are doing that anyway.

I also find it baffling that you claim this forum became toxic for a period after AoS’s release when that was when the rabid anti-AoS members left and those who remained mostly varied between apathetic towards it and wait and see before passing judgement. The overall sentiment as far as I can recall has always been, focus on whichever system you want, I’ll focus on X and if you want to focus on Y then good for you. You may be mistaking distaste for the new models/discontinuing of perfectly good models/increasing prices and decreasing mini count/etc for bile, which is not the case for most, if not all, the active posters; there’s a difference between rabid hatred and saying I don’t like mini X because of reasons Y and Z and because the minis they’ve replaced were far superior. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and so long as they’re not hostile about it or making personal attacks against those of different opinions there’s nothing wrong with them expressing those opinions.

But over all the claim that we should celebrate GW making a bold move simply because it was a bold move is a terrible argument. If tomorrow the U.S. nuked Russia would you celebrate? After all it’s a bold move for bold move’s sake, so who cares whether or not it’s a good decision? Now obviously I’m being hyperbolic, but the sentiment is the same - a bold move should only be celebrated if good things come of it, and not just because it was bold.

You’re annoyed at people demeaning AoS. Fair enough. But please show those who don’t like it the same curtesy that you want for yourself and AoS, otherwise this site will become toxic as the two sides set at each other. Also, if this forum is lacking in AoS pics, posts, etc, it’s because the pro-AoS side aren’t posting. Instead of telling people to cheer and celebrate AoS, show us why we should. This is a site for all evil dwarves in one form or another, not just WHFB Chaos Dwarfs exclusively, but that can only be fulfilled if people are willing to post about other evil dwarves and show off why they’re just as awesome. WHFB CDs are our main focus, but all evil dwarves can find a home here.

As for giving AoS a subforum, it has been discussed in the past but the decision was to wait and see if it was needed to have a separate one rather than a mixed one; specifically if there were so many posts that it needed to be seperated for clarity. And that has yet to happen. If the pro-AoS crowd want a separate sub-forum here, then you guys need to start posting enough to make it worth it - there’s not really any point if it’s only going to end up with three threads and only posted in once every couple of months. There’s also the issue of where a subforum could go. Other than in the rules and army list section, everything else doesn’t really need it as many things are cross compatible if posted in army blogs, galleries or CD related news, and we don’t have subforum a for every single game out there in the other wargames news forum, so why should AoS get its own? Again it’s up to you guys to prove that it’s necessary rather than posting in the sections as is being good enough.

12

Helblindi:

I checked the GW website, and the prices for the Orrucs are just absolutely retarded. I mean, it’s not just expensive anymore. It’s unrealistic. $215 for a single hero on wyvern? $100 for 5 decent looking brutes? If you told me those prices, I’d think you were joking.

13

Thommy H:

Those are the New Zealand prices. The prices everywhere else are about what you’d expect.

And re: AoS generally - this site has been ‘system agnostic’ for a good few years now. That’s why the Warhammer General forum was changed to Wargames News and Discussion. Basically since Mantic did their Abyssal Dwarves and there were some C&D issues around the specific Chaos Dwarf IP, this place has been a broad church. I don’t think an AoS forum is needed, just for people to be civil to one another. If you don’t like AoS, if you’re still angry about the whole thing, maybe just stay out of threads discussing it? You don’t see me kicking off in 9th Age topics.

If your contribution to a conversation is just to reiterate your negative opinion for the nth time, you’re not adding a lot to the discourse and wasting your own time and energy making a pleasant environment more toxic.

14

Admiral:

Whatever the turbulence of the wholesale shift from WHFB to AoS (and no, Warhammer Fantasy is not dead, it’s thriving in various game systems, and in the community such as here on CDO with new background, illustrations and even miniature sculpts keeping on coming), I’ll grant it this:

It’s been one of the best things to happen to Warhammer, ignoring miniature range disappearance and end of official GW background writing.

9th Age is why. As it emerges from beta testing, it’s already the most balanced rules set ever written for Warhammer according to very many of its players. It is also the most completionist in scope, having included lots of old favourite units and added on logical equipment choices such as crossbows for Bretonnian archers and lesser torsion-propelled warmachines for the same faction, besides the field trebuchet.

This community project will even give us Terracotta army miniatures, and new Tomb Kings including Roman Undead!

For someone who for many years has been largely interested in fringe things in the hobby, this is all wondrous developments. :cheers

9th Age would never have existed without AoS replacing WHFB. Mayhap we’ll see a community treatment to Cathay, Nippon, Ind and Araby as well? Many 28mm historical models could cover the core units, while specialist fantasy and mythological being models could be supplied by community sculptors and minor companies.

The loosening of the official grip on Warhammer Fantasy seem to have some healthy liberating effect on the community’s creativity, especially where fringe areas of the setting are concerned.

15

Firehammer:

1) HAHAHAHA . Where were you when they decided to replace metal with plastic for the same price ????? when they choose to destroy specialist games because they were not making enough money ??? when they stop the Mail-order/ Trolls a long time ago when it was still possible to call and say " hey i need the right wing of a dragon , and the Nagash scepter for a conversions " in order to sell complete miniatures and no more bitz ? . when they changed the editorial line of the White dwarf from a rock'n roll magasine with lots of features and tips to make a cheap army, to a pure corporation magazine for a higher price ??? when they decided to sell a new brand of paint with more water inside , smaller bottle for the same price ???? when they start to accelerate the release of new codex , new versions of the game every two years to sell more armies and make them obsolete as fast as they have been released ......... and there is more and more like those

Timothy Archer
Let me rephrase that: Since 2006, GW has been acting like it was only interested in following the amateurish and vague views of a tax expert (Tom Kirby) on how business works. None of the weird decisions like doubling prices, introducing Finecast, doing low count models in plastic, thinking good rules don't matter etc. worked in any way to improve sales. They could barely compensate sales and customer losses with increased profit marges for a few years, until about a year ago the threshold for that was reached.

On the other hand, proven successful standard strategies like professional advertising (TV-ads) and marketing (wider distribution through non-GW stores) like in the late 80s and around 2003-2006 are still not adopted. Under Tom Kirby, GW was ideology driven and reality (sinking sales) was ignored. The emperor felt omnipotent, but had no clothes. Roundtree on the other hand seems more interested in reality, a sign of hope.

To me AoS is not a game, it is pointless not only in the literal sense. I haven't found anyone, who thinks of AoS as a viable alternative to Warhammer Fantasy, not even with loads of desperate house rules like point systems. So whatever AoS is, it doesn't replace Warhammer Fantasy in any form.

I don't know how GW managers (who mostly are not familiar with the product they sell as they are not gamers and don't respect gamers) will decide on the future of Fantasy miniature games, but it was them who killed their own game, not external influences. 7th edition was essentially killed by Matt Ward's Chaos Daemon armybook that killed game balance. 8th edition was killed by absurdly high entry hurdles for beginners and game balance issues because of absurd magic rules, where one good spell roll could decide any game. Much damage was done to the community. Only if GW managers start to deal with the internal reasons for the decline will they have a chance to revive Fantasy sales.
16

Admiral:

... thinking good rules don't matter...

I don't know how GW managers (who mostly are not familiar with the product they sell as they are not gamers and don't respect gamers) will decide on the future of Fantasy miniature games, but it was them who killed their own game, not external influences. 7th edition was essentially killed by Matt Ward's Chaos Daemon armybook that killed game balance. 8th edition was killed by absurdly high entry hurdles for beginners and game balance issues because of absurd magic rules, where one good spell roll could decide any game. Much damage was done to the community. Only if GW managers start to deal with the internal reasons for the decline will they have a chance to revive Fantasy sales.

Firehammer
There was a petition on that issue a while back, for whatever value petitions might have. Still, while it was discarded by many as a bag of empty words (perhaps it was - I'm in no position to judge), it does ring true with the symptom you described above. Warhammer rules began as a means to sell more miniatures, and it succeeded brilliantly, yet the marriage of models and game has not been given deserved care from Games Workshop, and lately they've driven toward divorcing a winning concept with such takes as Unbound in 40k. Game balance and the supposition that a game can even be balanced in the first place does not ruin a game, on the contrary it can make games between supposedly equal forces decidedly more enjoyable, by not making the outcome a given beforehand. Intentionally unbalanced game forms, such as siege or ambush scenarios where the goal for the underdog is something different than crushing your opponent, do have their place, but standard format should always strive for balance.

In Sweden, with its few and sparsely spread hobbyists, the tournament scene is a major way to play the game and meet fellow hobbyists, and here game balance has long been an important issue as evident in the old composition rules attempting to make up for GW's design flaws starting with 7th edition (the Dark Elf-Daemons-Vampire Counts round of boring foregone conclusions), and continuing with the high percentage of Swedish team members at 9th Age.
17

Firehammer:

In times, when Tom Kirby didn’t even listen to his design studio or anyone familiar with games of any kind, petitions were a waste of time. There are some positive signs that Roundtree might be interested in feedback from people who actally know what they are doing, but meanwhile AoS lists and 40k formations are still sold as if the quality of rules doesn’t matter. And thus the wave of GW-refugees to other systems or total drop-outs continues, with no single non-GW system being able to become the new standard and therefore the community often spreading out too far.

18

Dînadan:

In times, when Tom Kirby didn't even listen to his design studio or anyone familiar with games of any kind, petitions were a waste of time. There are some positive signs that Roundtree might be interested in feedback from people who actally know what they are doing, but meanwhile AoS lists and 40k formations are still sold as if the quality of rules doesn't matter. And thus the wave of GW-refugees to other systems or total drop-outs continues, with no single non-GW system being able to become the new standard and therefore the community often spreading out too far.

Firehammer
So what you're saying is that we need "One System to Rule Them All, One System to Bind Them, In the Land of Nottingham, Where the Shadiws Lie"?

;P
19

Firehammer:



Okay! GW facebook has finally unveiled their plan to actually make a point system. This is great news, and might get some lost players back in the fold (Not me, but some). Depending on the quality of the comp/point system, it could be the next step to make AOS competitive. One can wonder whether this was GWs plan all along, or a desperate attempt to earn money. Either way I guess it would have changed the reception of AOS tremendously if this had been ready at release day.


Malorndk
So Roundtree publicly pulls the emergency brake on another folly by his predecessor Tom Kirby. Anyone still doubting that AoS has been a financial disaster for GW?

It will take more than one book to bridge the gap to GW's former customers, but to be fair, it is the only thing that could be done in the short time since Roundtree took over. Changes in plastic production need a 2 year lead. And GW might still hope they can at least save the new setting with Sigmarines and all.
20

Firehammer:

Well, USA with its customary pick-up games in stores and every small gamers community could use a standard game. In my area with previously maybe 50-60 gamers, we now have 3 playing Malifaux, 5-6 playing Infinity, 5-6 playing 40k, 3-4 playing Dystopian Wars, 3-4 playing X-Wing, 3-4 playing Dropzone Commander, 2-4 playing Frostgrave etc. . If just one person moves out of town or gets a child, a whole gaming group may collapse.

Now even with current 40k, you need half an hour negotiation to agree on house rules (no unbound, no Escalation, not more than x FOCs, not more than x allies, no Imperials summoning Daemons, …).

Seems that today, Roundtree stopped the “mandatory pointless AoS games” folly by his predecessor. Which is at least a start.