Warhammer Fantasy rebooted with space marines

General questions, debates, and rants about RPGs

Moderator: Moderators

Zinegata
Prince
Posts: 4071
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 7:33 am

Post by Zinegata »

FrankTrollman wrote:That wouldn't match buying patterns either. Think about people collecting magic cards for a moment. People with small collections run "limited decks" that mostly use workhorse commons with a few rare bombs. People who have big collections make the oddly named "standard decks" that use a lot of workhorse rares and uncommons that provide good synergy and commons are mostly used for interaction or filling the low end of the curve.

What you're talking about is like if someone got a bigger collection and then made a limited deck that was twice as tall. People don't even want to do that.

-Username17
Yes, but that's a function of viability. You can't really compete using a limited deck against a standard deck, which is why you eventually have to bite the bullet and buy all the rares especially since constructed competition requires you to have a standard-level deck at the minimum.

That's why there's a gap in players between limited deck players and standard; there's no point in being "semi-standard" since you will be hopelessly outgunned in the Standard tournaments while the casual limited players don't like playing with you since you'll generally win against them.

By contrast Hearthstone does have middle-of-the line players between their version of "limited" (basic cards only) and the elites who have full collections of all the rares and who can readily adjust to the meta at higher levels.

But that's because Hearthstone is mechanically designed to be more friendly to incremental growth. For instance there are daily rewards to help you (slowly) add to your collection as you play more; and you aren't stuck with unwanted cards since you can sell them to the Blizzard "bank" and convert them into other cards.

This slow growth model in fact created a "middle class" of players with decent but incomplete card collections who can compete reasonably well and reach the mid-teen rankings. The elites by contrast are of single digit rank and who regularly swap cards in and out of their decks depending on the encountered meta; and they usually have full collections. The "limited" equivalent players meanwhile are in the 20/high teen ranks and are still playing with mostly basics and some rares.

(This of course assuming competent play. Plenty of money spenders are still at the bottom of the rankings)

Of course you can't be giving out free figures the way Hearthstone gives out free packs - since digital cards have no production cost but a physical mini does. But it does show how you can have a middle-of-the line class of players if the system supports it.

Edit: Huh, light bulb. Maybe this model would be possible in an online minis game.
Last edited by Zinegata on Fri Jan 15, 2016 9:34 am, edited 2 times in total.
Username17
Serious Badass
Posts: 29894
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Username17 »

Having a miniatures game scale to players with different collection sizes is in fact relatively simple. Models and units have points costs (unless you're Age of Sigmar, in which case GTFO). So since large units and monsters cost more points than smaller units and monsters, you can cater to people with intermediate collection sizes simply by setting the points limit to an intermediate level.

The goal is to have larger point values also encourage a heavier emphasis on larger units and themed armies. And that's not a difficult design challenge. The "Leader Levels" thing I talked about earlier would probably be enough to make that true all by itself. If the Dwarven Captain gives a bonus to all Dwarves in 20 cm, and the Dwarven King gives a bonus to all Dwarves on the table, then a battle on enough points to justify (or allow) a Dwarven King would also be one that inherently favored having a "Dwarven Army" and a battle on enough points for the Dwarven Captain would encourage you to have a block of Dwarves but still use whatever you had lying around to fill out the rest of the table.

You can get similar effects from standards and shit - if the bigger blocks of spearmen are also more effective, then the higher a point total the battle gets to the more incentivized you are invest in themed units. And you can have a natural progression where as point totals increase an effective army looks more like a planned collection and less like a haphazard collection.

Card games have a lot of trouble with this, because the "slot in the deck" cost is always the same no matter what level you're playing at. But miniatures games are simply played at different points values, so scaling is (comparatively) easy.

-Username17
User avatar
OgreBattle
King
Posts: 6820
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:33 am

Post by OgreBattle »

There's a Warhammer 30k now,you can play as Space marines and fight against Space Marines, also some puny humans and machine cult lists.

There's also a standalone board game of 30k marines vs marines:
http://www.games-workshop.com/en-NZ/The ... Calth-Book

But it's basically a 30k starter set as the models are the same. The other armies are Forgeworld:

Image
Last edited by OgreBattle on Wed Jan 20, 2016 1:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Zinegata
Prince
Posts: 4071
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 7:33 am

Post by Zinegata »

OgreBattle wrote:There's a Warhammer 30k now,you can play as Space marines and fight against Space Marines, also some puny humans and machine cult lists.

There's also a standalone board game of 30k marines vs marines:
http://www.games-workshop.com/en-NZ/The ... Calth-Book

But it's basically a 30k starter set as the models are the same. The other armies are Forgeworld:
The price tag for Calth is ridiculous however. The sole copy the local store got still hasn't been bought.
Username17
Serious Badass
Posts: 29894
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Username17 »

Speaking of local gaming stores, I discussed the state of GW with my local gaming store and it confirmed pretty much what I thought.
  • GW told sellers that everything was going to be fine with blowing up the fantasy battle world because they did a study and found that eighty percent of their sales went to customers who didn't actually play the game.
  • Age of Sigmar is doing very poorly for them, and gets almost no play.
  • 40K still sells and people play 40k games regularly.
  • X-Wing is also very popular.
I think what they were looking at is that the barrier to entry on Warhammer Fantasy was so high that a super majority of people who started collections never ended up putting together enough to actually play the game. Certainly if I found that four out of five of the Orcs were being sold to people who got frustrated before being able to field an actual Orc army, I would try to make the barrier to entry a bit lower. I would not conclude, as GW did, that the rules and setting don't really matter and we can all go play Calvinball.

With 80% of sales going to casual players with just a few boxes and the remaining 20% o sales going to dedicated players with dozens of boxes, I can only conclude that if you could plausibly expect to play low point total games with just a few boxes, that they could increase sales by more than fifty percent. Even when they do customer research, GW is so fucking retarded that it breaks my mind.

-Username17
Zinegata
Prince
Posts: 4071
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 7:33 am

Post by Zinegata »

X-Wing is also very popular.
Yeah my importer friend also mentioned this and he's of the opinion FFG is basically printing money with this.
Certainly if I found that four out of five of the Orcs were being sold to people who got frustrated before being able to field an actual Orc army, I would try to make the barrier to entry a bit lower. I would not conclude, as GW did, that the rules and setting don't really matter and we can all go play Calvinball.
My impression regarding GW's "thinking" is that 40K lives and dies with the Space Marines, since the majority of 40K players have Space Marine armies. So their idea behind "fixing" Warhammer Fantasy was to blow up the setting so they could add Space Marines to it.

The problem here is that it fails to recognize that 40K's Space Marine dominance is a bad thing born out of shitty GW packaging economics.

The real-world price of a Space Marine squad box isn't that far off from a Imperial Guard squad box, but in-game a regular IG squad costs only half the points of a Space Marine squad. So to equal the point value of the SMs you have to buy twice the number of models, do twice amount of work, and pay GW nearly twice as much money.

Naturally most people eventually just gave up trying to buy expensive horde armies and stuck with Space Marines. The Imperial Guard managed to somewhat salvage a credible niche by focusing on tank-heavy armies with only minimal infantry squads (the veteran squads being a blessing), but I still haven't seen an Ork or Tyranid army in years.
shlominus
Journeyman
Posts: 123
Joined: Mon Aug 04, 2014 11:22 am

Post by shlominus »

x-wing is quickly becoming the most popular system in my gaming club and that was already happening before the new movie came out.

about that 80% "study" - i think this myth originated in this post:

http://www.iii.co.uk/news-opinion/richa ... it-machine

i seriously doubt there was such a study. no gaming store i know of has been told anything like that.
User avatar
OgreBattle
King
Posts: 6820
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:33 am

Post by OgreBattle »

Is the Xwing game worth looking at for good design?
User avatar
angelfromanotherpin
Overlord
Posts: 9745
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by angelfromanotherpin »

OgreBattle wrote:Is the Xwing game worth looking at for good design?
Sure. The 'move' and 'attack' parts are simple, accessible, and functional. The simultaneous movement-decision and the one other Action you can take in a turn make it intellectually engaging. The broader RPS dynamic contributes to a relatively interesting meta. There's a lot of good stuff in there.
User avatar
OgreBattle
King
Posts: 6820
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:33 am

Post by OgreBattle »

"Boy it sure would be neat to see SWXW adopted to-"

Yep, Gundam adaption: http://msmecha.blogspot.com/2014/01/wel ... ttles.html
Image
Last edited by OgreBattle on Mon Jan 25, 2016 7:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
maglag
Duke
Posts: 1912
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2015 10:17 am

Post by maglag »

The Dropox link on the page tells me that the rules file isn't available anymore... I love me some giant robot battles. But the most interesting part it's that there was already an official Gundams mini game that never made it out of Japan.
name_here
Prince
Posts: 3346
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:55 pm

Post by name_here »

Gundam is also a member of the giant robot video game crossover series that has never made it out of Japan. Apparently due to US licensing issues, which is difficult to understand unless one of the license-holders is powered by inexplicable spi- HARMONY GOOOOLLLDDDD!

Yeah, one of the other series involved is Macross.
DSMatticus wrote:It's not just that everything you say is stupid, but that they are Gordian knots of stupid that leave me completely bewildered as to where to even begin. After hearing you speak Alexander the Great would stab you and triumphantly declare the puzzle solved.
User avatar
maglag
Duke
Posts: 1912
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2015 10:17 am

Post by maglag »

Super Robot Wars Original Generation I and II managed to get an official translation and come out. But I guess that's because they didn't use anybody else's characters on those ones (there's even a 4th wall breaking joke when one of the characters is about to call a real pilot a "Red Comet" when somebody else interrupts, saying that would be copyright violation).

And then the SRW Original Generation sequels stayed only in Japan. Why can't we have nice things?
Zinegata
Prince
Posts: 4071
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 7:33 am

Post by Zinegata »

name_here wrote:Gundam is also a member of the giant robot video game crossover series that has never made it out of Japan. Apparently due to US licensing issues, which is difficult to understand unless one of the license-holders is powered by inexplicable spi- HARMONY GOOOOLLLDDDD!

Yeah, one of the other series involved is Macross.
Bandai wasn't the problem; they were in fact licensing stuff to America and had opened a Bandai US office. The problem was that sales for the old Gundam series just wasn't enough to justify continued licensing of Gundam in America. Gundam Build Fighters may change that though given its hugely positive response.

Super Robot War's US license issue moreover lay with the fact that they had to get permission from many, many different studios. Harmony Gold wasn't even involved in most SRWs since not many of them included Macross.

OG by contrast had no multiple licensing issues. Its problem was low sales, hence the US ports ending by OG2.
Last edited by Zinegata on Wed Jan 27, 2016 5:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
OgreBattle
King
Posts: 6820
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:33 am

Post by OgreBattle »

Shinji Aramaki has said the worst thing to happen to Macross was Harmony Gold.

I love g generation, playing it on the PSX introduced me to the Gundam multiverse
Last edited by OgreBattle on Thu Jan 28, 2016 2:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Stahlseele
King
Posts: 5974
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 4:51 pm
Location: Hamburg, Germany

Post by Stahlseele »

Macross can be awesome.
I still watch "DYRL" at least once a month ot so . .
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.

Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
User avatar
phlapjackage
Knight-Baron
Posts: 661
Joined: Thu May 24, 2012 8:29 am

Post by phlapjackage »

GW is now making a special-edition throwback mk6 beakie now...fuckers are all out of ideas, all right....

http://toyland.gizmodo.com/games-worksh ... 1768965492

"limited time offer" :rofl:
Last edited by phlapjackage on Tue Apr 05, 2016 2:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
Koumei: and if I wanted that, I'd take some mescaline and run into the park after watching a documentary about wasps.
PhoneLobster: DM : Mr Monkey doesn't like it. Eldritch : Mr Monkey can do what he is god damn told.
MGuy: The point is to normalize 'my' point of view. How the fuck do you think civil rights occurred? You think things got this way because people sat down and fucking waited for public opinion to change?
Smirnoffico
Journeyman
Posts: 106
Joined: Sun Jun 30, 2013 1:16 pm

Post by Smirnoffico »

They do it every five years for anniversary. They release limited models all the time
User avatar
angelfromanotherpin
Overlord
Posts: 9745
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by angelfromanotherpin »

So a pile of high-grade players got together and put together their own 9th edition of WHFB, and all the rules and such are free to download here if anyone's interested.
User avatar
Stahlseele
King
Posts: 5974
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 4:51 pm
Location: Hamburg, Germany

Post by Stahlseele »

Does it still have silly voices and beards in it?
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.

Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
User avatar
angelfromanotherpin
Overlord
Posts: 9745
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by angelfromanotherpin »

No, it's intended as a continuation of the previous gameline, not the Age of Shitmar stuff.
User avatar
maglag
Duke
Posts: 1912
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2015 10:17 am

Post by maglag »

Age of Shitmar stole speech merines from 40K.

The fan 9th edition is stealing Imperial Guard from 40K.
FrankTrollman wrote: Actually, our blood banking system is set up exactly the way you'd want it to be if you were a secret vampire conspiracy.
User avatar
codeGlaze
Duke
Posts: 1083
Joined: Wed Oct 05, 2011 9:38 pm

Post by codeGlaze »

angelfromanotherpin wrote:So a pile of high-grade players got together and put together their own 9th edition of WHFB, and all the rules and such are free to download here if anyone's interested.
>_> WHFB-Pathfinder?
Username17
Serious Badass
Posts: 29894
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Username17 »

codeGlaze wrote:
angelfromanotherpin wrote:So a pile of high-grade players got together and put together their own 9th edition of WHFB, and all the rules and such are free to download here if anyone's interested.
>_> WHFB-Pathfinder?
Sort of. GW stopped supporting their tournament scene altogether. And then a bunch of high end tournament players said "Fuck it, we're making our own rules and going on without you!" Pathfinder was a group of peripheral WotC freelance content producers who ran off and kept writing without the "official seal," these are fed up consumers trying to keep the game alive.

There actually have been several attempts by GW alumni to make their own minis games. Chronopia and so on. Those are more analogous to Pathfinder, except I think they mostly crashed and burned. Fans taking up writing a game after it has become abandonware doesn't have a great track record either. If I was being uncharitable, I would compare it to the fanbois who took over writing Shadowrun after Coleman crashed the company into the sun.

-Username17
shlominus
Journeyman
Posts: 123
Joined: Mon Aug 04, 2014 11:22 am

Post by shlominus »

as far as i can tell (one of the people working on 9th age frequent my gaming club) what they came up with makes the warhammer tournament community very happy. you could call it glorified house rules, but it works and players accept it, as the people working on it are all respected members of the international tournament circle. they also asked for and received a lot of feedback from the fans, which is something gw might have considered before killing off warhammer for age of shit.

a few people think this has the potential to really take off (and might indeed turn into something like pathfinder). army books are in the works and there are talks with miniature-designers to support the game. most realise it's probably just a last gasp for warhammer, though, cause few games last long without any official support.

i wish them well, maybe gw can learn a few things about gamedesign and balance from this effort. it's an improvement over 8th edition on all acounts, as far as i can tell. magic toned down, army lists balanced better against each other and with more diversity, clear rules-text. customers made a clearly superior game than gw did. it's a shame really...

ps: i am still not convinced that they are in the clear from gw's legal department, but they said they are confident. we shall see about that.
Post Reply