Finally got around to purchasing the Nagash books last week and over the past couple of days have only been skimming the rule book part so far and something has just occurred to me that GW have missed with how they’ve handled the End Times. Instead of releasing the books over a few months, they could have spun out the End Times over a few years.
Now, on the surface that sounds like a bad idea, dragging the fiasco out over such a long period, but it could have been turned to GW’s advantage. Instead of a series of quick splurge releases, they could have devoted more time and made each year a theme year. For example, with Nagash:
For January start dropping hints of something big coming.
February have an undead spotlight in White Dwarf, recounting the history of the undead in brief, maybe showcase how the minis have evolved over the years, etc.
March, April and May release one of the three Mortarchs that ride the dread abyssals each month, but instead of releasing them on their monster mounts, release them as either plastic or fine cast, possibly bundled together with an undead horse/nightmare/whatever; include the rules for them in that month’s White Dwarf, but only listing regular mounts as options (eg skeletal horse for all, barded nightmare for Mannfred, chariot for Arkhan, the vamp throne thing for Neferata).
June release the dread abyssals with rules in White Dwarf, dropping hints of a dark power allowing them to exist. Possibly make them a Rare choice for Vamps and TKs, but hold back on allowing the Mortarchs to be mounted on them until -
End of June/July release Nagash and the accompanying book. Oh and new zombies - about bloody time they got updated
August, September and October Spotlight issues of White Dwarf focusing on the other Mortarchs (Krell, Vlad and another) and each month have some sort of army deal tied to that month’s Mortarchs. Eg for Krell’s month, do a bundle of say two boxes of Chaos Warriors and one box of skellies so people can kitbash Chaos Warrior skellies or for Vlad have a box of zombies bundled with a couple of boxes of Empire. And make these bundles actual deals so it works out cheaper than buying the boxes separately to entice people. But possibly only have the bundle for that month (and make sure it’s stated they’ll only be for that month so people have chance to get them/pannic buy them). Also means White Dwarf gets material for an article showing how they can be kitbashed and paint scheme ideas. There don’t have to be rules, but if you really wanted, have rules in White Dwarf for a special unit each month (eg Krell’s is a special unit of Grave Guard)
Rinse and repeat each year with the new theme, escalating to mid year before that book’s ‘Big Bad’/‘Big Good’ is released and then winding down towards the end of the year by expanding on the impact and fleshing out the relevant forces and laying the groundwork for the next year. Of course some rejigging of when things are released might be needed to avoid overshadowing 40k/to allow 40k to get their releases.
The advantage of this is that it’d allow ‘the story’ to be moved on without the rushed nuking we got, and in fact could mean that’d there’d be no nuking required. After, say five years, of this, the Warhammer world would be left a very different place, but would still be left largely intact. Future army books could then build on this, showing how the armies have changed in the aftermath and the fluff section covering how things have changed for that faction; but it would be important that the army books after this are ‘lower key’ as maintaining the ‘big event’ year after year will be impossible or at best would just make people get fed up with it. Obviously this five year event couldn’t be called ‘End Times’ as the plan is leaving the world as existing, but I’m sure a suitable title could be concocted (eg ‘Dark Times’, ‘Rising Darkness’, etc).
The idea behind the End Times wasn’t to tell a story (although it managed to tell a couple of good stories). The idea was to get a rid of a no longer profitable product, way beyond maturity, and replace it with something new that can place itself better in the market. You want to do this as fast as possible. This move was probably planned and discussed long before the release of Nagash… If memory serves me well I remember that rumors about erasing Warhammer in favour of a skirmish game (the infamous “Spanish rumors”) popped out on Warseer more than one year before the release of Nagash.
More than likely it was, but one reason Fantasy was losing ground was some people bitching about the setting growing ‘stale’ and whining about GW never moving the timeline forward; GW could have addressed these concerns by…moving the timeline forward (dundundun). I’m under no illusions that ET wasn’t about telling a story (a story that ends ‘rocks fall, everybody dies’ is hardly a good one), I’m saying that it could have been, and that could have been used to revitalise Fantasy by 1) addressing the concerns of those fed up with the ‘it’s always five mins to midnight’ angle they tried to push and 2) creating buzz and hype to draw people in.
The problem is GW being run by bean counters and shareholders looking for a quick buck. Instead of generating less profit, but over a longer period, they want as much cash as quick as possible so they can dump the stock and run off to invest that money elsewhere to get as much money as quick as possible and so on.
More than likely it was, but one reason Fantasy was losing ground was some people bitching about the setting growing 'stale' and whining about GW never moving the timeline forward
Dînadan
That's an understatement. That was only one of the problems. People were also bitching about price vs quality (finecast), price vs quantity (high model count to enter the game), and the lack of support for some of the factions. I agree with GW on some of the choices they made... I guess that Warhammer was a good game & setting in the 80s or 90s (in fact ther majority of the old-setting's supporters are in their 30s, 40s), but they needed to make it appealing to younger generations. And I still think that 15 factions (+ CDs) were too unwieldy to handle properly. At least they made us the courtesy of writing an end for it.
The entry point issue could be dealt with like they’re doing now - start with small units for a skirmish game and then upscale to larger mass battle games as you collect more. It doesn’t require nuking the world.
Lack of support for some factions is an issue, but other than combining undead and combining elves the only way to reduce factions is to scap them, and players of those factions aren’t magically going to switch to another one. If anything they’ll say F-you and drop out. But the thing is, my plan doesn’t preclude scrapping some factions; the destruction of some factions can be worked into the story. Eg Ogres, have the ogre migration due to warpstone showers making their land uninhabitable and mention the majority get enslaved by Chaos Dwarfs, but some make it to the Empire; pare down the list to a bare bones merc list and include it in the main rulebook as something everyone can take from. No need to worry about having to renew the book any more and no need to redo minis or come up with new ones. Or Beastmen, roll them into WoC in the next WoC book. Alternatively, drop the constant escalation of adding big things and concentrate on the rank and file and make them viable.
Cost and quality isn’t really going to go away with this new game. Yeah it’ll only cost say £75 instead of £200-300 or whatever for an ‘average’ army, but the cost per mini is still going to be high and still going to turn people off - yes some will look at it as getting a whole army for a lower price while others will look at it on a mini by mini basis. This issue would be better addressed by cutting prices to draw people back in and/or having sales or deals. If you charge £5 for a blister (or £6 with a 2 for £10 deal) someone with £10 will probably be tempted to pick up two, but charge £6 with no deal, and they’ll either only get one and spend the remaining £4 elsewhere, or go ‘one isn’t worth it’ and spend the whole ten quid elsewhere.
Maybe I’m weird, but I qualify for ‘younger generation’ and I enjoy fantasy as is.
Also, note my plan doesn’t preclude nuking the setting; use the Nagash year and the next year to set things up (Nagash sets up the rising threat of the undead while the next year sets up Chaos coming in force and taking beachheads in the Empire for example). If this hasn’t revitalised the game, then condense the next three into a single year (doable as we got five in one year) ending with nuking the planet. If it does revitalise things, then don’t nuke, carry one with the plan ending with a world that is different from the old one, but still recognisable and maintaing the IP continuity.
But that said, mentioning IP, let’s face it, IP is probably what it really was about - nuking the setting allows for them to wipe away all the generic elements they are able to so they can replace it with things which are uniquely GW. That’s why Imperial Guard got rebranded Astra Militarum and Space Marines got rebranded as Adaptus Astartes for their marketing name remember.
That aside, I think you’ve missed my point. My point was about what could have been done with the End Times to draw people back to fantasy and about assuaging some (not all - you’ll never assuage all) of the gripes people had. Is it perfect? Not by any means, but it’s better than what we got, and as said would still allow them to go down the nuking route if it didn’t pan out. End Times could have been epic. It could have been so much more. But it wasn’t.
As an addendum, I’m fairly sure it’s agreed that with fantasy you need to maintain a player base, not have a quick turn around of kids buying the starter set, playing for a few months, then dumping it in favour of other things. The best way to do that is to engage the player base and get them excited. Some are excited by this new setting, but most are turned off by it (that’s why people are starting to dump their armies on eBay in greater numbers) and those people feel betrayed that something they’ve invested so much in emotionally is being ripped apart (that’s why some are deciding to stick with 8th instead of taking up AoS). Yeah the world will always be there as the old books will still exist, but officially it’s gone and that stings.
since GW went to a weekly release schedule with White dwarf and the mini’s, the standards of everything have dropped a lot, its a common theme, we see it with movie making, apple products, cars etc, fast food, its just consumerism and capitalism working against us.
since GW went to a weekly release schedule with White dwarf and the mini's, the standards of everything have dropped a lot, its a common theme, we see it with movie making, apple products, cars etc, fast food, its just consumerism and capitalism working against us.
Doombeard
Ironically a weekly White Dwarf could have worked to the advantage of my outline, using it to escalate hype through each month to that month's feature and/or dealing with the aftermath of that feature (eg Mannfred month, week one do an article on Mannfred's fluff, maybe filler on what minis he's had over the years; week two have a fluff article on what he's up to now; week three, release the mini and do a battle report staring him; week four, fluff article on the aftermath of his actions, leading into Arkhan month. Add in a few painting/modelling guides and viola). Could even have one issue in the month have the first chapter of a tie in novella on the character promoting Black Library.
...of course this requires using White Dwarf as a hobby supplement rather than a catalogue. ;P
But like you said, it's all about greed these days rather than keeping your fans engaged.
Everything GW does now is a missed opportunity. They had to change when they started getting eaten alive by smaller companies doing similar but good-enough games. Since then it has been one poorly thought-through scramble after another. Futuristic dungeon-crawl game? Lets make the game so simple that gamers find it boring, but the models too complicated for beginners. Oh, and let’s only give them a few variations on the same quest, and make it cost more than Imperial Assault.
I can’t wait to see the rules questions that arrive from this new Warhammer game(s), it’s going to be a mess worse than the marketing for it (let’s shut down the Warhammer world and leave everyone in the dark for months, encouraging everyone to find a supported alternative).
Linked to this, just had another thought on a missed opportunity with the End Times/AoS debacle.
Considering the leaked picks of new terrain (including the new Realm of Battle tile considering it’s probably the only patch of the Warhammer world without a layer of skulls a foot below the surface :P) wouldn’t look out of place in the Chaos Wastes, what they could have done is un-retcon the Storm of Chaos and have the Forces of Order push the advantage. Not full scale invasion, but rather sending expeditions into the Wastes for various reasons (I’m sure a competent writer could invent viable reasons for each faction to be there (obviously WoC, DoC and BoC don’t need reasons as that’s where they live, and Orcs are always up for a scrap)).
This gives them their basis for a skirmish game and let’s them make terrain that wouldn’t really fit in regular Fantasy games (outside of SoM). This also gives them an excuse to introduce their Fantasy Marines faction - have the game reveal that unbeknownst to the Forces of Order, there’s been a faction of quasi-devine beings fighting in the Wastes, holding back the worst of the tide of Chaos.
Okay it’s not a great idea, but at least it wouldn’t nuke the setting and scrap the game we all love
This is all pretty academic now, but I think there’s certainly a case go be made that nuking the world wasn’t necessary. The main issue with WFB was not the game or the IP, but that it cost far more than 40k.
The last time we had a hard reset of the rules system was the move from 5th-6th edition. There are a lot of parallels. A booklet with rules for existing models came free with White Dwarf, but new army books were seriously apired down with a lot of items and units disappearing. “Herohammer” was largely done away with. The main difference was that 6th Ed coincided with the advent of regiment boxes, which made modelling a unique army much easier and cheaper. Prior to that, you were stuck with one or two monoposed plastic core units per army plus expensive metal blisters. Creativity and affordability were relatively balanced. The best bit of that edition though was how they built up to the Storm of Chaos campaign (End Times 1.0) through each army book, advancing the plot through WD articles and building to a global campaign event. It kept people excited because every new release was relevant to the story.
8th Ed was a superior game to 6th in almost every way. Unfortunately, the shift in emphasis to hordes (a good thing) came at a time when GW had decided to charge the same amount for WFB minis as 40k. It meant you needed four times as many models for a game, so it cost you four times as much to play.
As for factions, yes they needed consolidating. Reuniting the Undead and the three Chaos factions is a good move, and it’ll be interesting to see how the Elves are handled. Introducing allies 40k style could have been interesting too.
Sadly, we’ll never know what could have been with WFB.
