Snaggas and the future of 40k

[TrawlingCleaner]

As others have said, if anything Fantasy became 40k-ified and birthed AoS. I personally think that AoS became closely aligned to 40k purely to become a test-bed game system to try out ideas for 40k, both rules wise and also range/release wise. I think this was the case to begin with but AoS became more popular than they thought it would and have now branched off to do their own thing. Stormcast and Primaris follow in the same release patterns, similar army rule concepts etc etc

 

As for the future of 40k, I hope it does follow in the footsteps of AoS to an extent. Let 40k designers let their hair down a bit, get werid and whacky, find the niche stuff in the setting or make new stuff, create a new narrative area with new characters that don't feature/only mildly feature characters we already know. Obviously Blackstone Fortress/ WH Quest is a good place to do this but I hope they expand it to 40k in general. I think this new ork range is a good step in this direction. Range refresh/releases will likely follow in Sisters/Lumineth's footsteps: Exclusive/Limited run box, book and dice followed up by a second wave a year or so later. It makes monetary sense and means you're less likely to get range weariness (Space marines)

[Valkyrion]

I think the return of a loyalist primarch was a bad idea, both in terms of fluff and on the tabletop.

The fluff of the Gathering Storm stuff is pretty terrible anyway, but mankind has had it's heroes and they are all gone and should stay gone.

40k is at its best when it's a tyrannical human empire beset on all sides fighting for its future, feeding men to the war machine and its heroes are Yarrick and Dante and Calgar fighting against Daemon Primarchs and the Silent King and so on - the story of the imperium doesn't benefit from having a primarch, its diminished by it.

 

If you were watching a film where humanity was besieged by aliens and all looked lost, would you be happy if Jesus suddenly appeared, converted everyone to his cause and drove the aliens away through the power of belief? Or would you rather Bruce Willis's happy go lucky mechanic character lassos a meteor and straps a nuke to his chest before hurling himself at the biggest monster he could find?  I mean, they are both equally silly, but one is worse than the other. 

 

 

On the tabletop the space marine Lord of War slot should have been filled by a Thunderhawk, or Mastodon, or Fellblade, or something similar - something rare but not unique and something that every players chapter could legitimately take. I mean, I can honestly say that if a plastic Thunderhawk was £100-£150 then I'd have three by now, instead of the 0 Guillimans I currently have. 

[Warhead01]

I haven't had the...pleasure... of facing down a Primarch in 8th or yet in 9th, In 7th/30K AoD rules I wasn't overly impressed but I do admit to a little silly luck.
It turned out that After two mobs of boys had killed the unit Corax had attached himself to the rest of the spill over in wound looked like a chainsaw movie and there wasn't anything left to use to identify the body. Well, there was probably blood and maybe some teeth, the back ones. 
and that was that garbage 7th edition Ork codex. 

My largest if not only big problem with modern Ork models is the sculpts. they are too rounded. As in curved.  While I am thrilled to get a new unit in a data entry I can't say the same for modern models. 

I think GW is going to continue to push the large crazy models as far as they can because they can. As far as limiting things like LOW or equivalent big models that ship has sailed. 
I do think though that I would have liked GW to have produced every Primarch playable as a unit in 40K but more so players can play battles from the grate crusades on to the Heresy. Just not in every event competitively with out specific army construction requirements, more like open play or themed games. 
I definitely got excited about the possibility of adding the Emperor of Mankind to my First Legion collection.  

I also agree. 

 

 

On the tabletop the space marine Lord of War slot should have been filled by a Thunderhawk, or Mastodon, or Fellblade, or something similar - something rare but not unique and something that every players chapter could legitimately take. I mean, I can honestly say that if a plastic Thunderhawk was £100-£150 then I'd have three by now, instead of the 0 Guillimans I currently have. 

I'd have at least 1 Thunderhawk for each of my armies if it were in plastic. Even if it were only as good as a Stompa. Of which I still have 3...  
 

[jaxom]

This is why I liked the larger time gap. It helped establish the stakes. A primarch leading the largest military crusade in 10,000 years was barely enough to stabilize half of the Imperium and absolutely failed at making in-roads on the other half even after ~200 years.

[Noserenda]

To be honest all the broad setting changes in 40k have done on the tabletop level is make various matchups more plausible as now none of the factions are locked to any particular locale, chaos is literally everywhere and both Tau and Tyranids are popping up in random places. You also simultaneously have an Imperium (arguably) on the rise and very much in decline depending on which side of the rift you are on.

Even Vigilus had potential as a new Cadia style galactic choke point but i dont think its been anywhere near as iconic for whatever reasons.

[Marshal Loss]

To be honest all the broad setting changes in 40k have done on the tabletop level is make various matchups more plausible as now none of the factions are locked to any particular locale, chaos is literally everywhere and both Tau and Tyranids are popping up in random places. You also simultaneously have an Imperium (arguably) on the rise and very much in decline depending on which side of the rift you are on.

 

Even Vigilus had potential as a new Cadia style galactic choke point but i dont think its been anywhere near as iconic for whatever reasons.

Some really good points. Building Vigilus into a world worthy of Cadia's mantle would have been a tall order even for a good writing team, and GW didn't do a great job (or, giving them the benefit of the doubt, haven't yet done a great job). Aside from both worlds being symbolic of the setting's status quo between its two most important factions, Cadia was built up over decades to be the war world, the fortress standing at the gates of hell. Losing Cadia was meant to be the beginning of the end. And then Cadia fell, and....the focus immediately shifted to the Indomitus Crusade with the Imperium resurgent, a Primarch reborn at its head, which was a bit tone-deaf, to put it mildly, even if it did serve its purpose as establishing a background for the launch of 8th edition. They've subsequently done a better job of addressing this in various quarters, but there is still a lot more to be done.

 

Vigilus is only going to attain that kind of gravitas if they more sharply delineate between the state of the Imperium on both sides of the rift, both in narrative and rules terms. The obvious move would have been to throw Vigilus to the wolves, at least temporarily, and accelerate the differences between the two Imperiums for a time. Maybe have the bad side be a true dark empire, a mirror to Horus' activities in the early heresy. Vigilus can't simply be another Cadia because now that everybody can run around the galaxy willy-nilly, and Chaos is everywhere, it doesn't possess the significance of its predecessor. The gates of hell are already open, the baddies are out. It needs its own identity, and a handful of references saying that "life is even worse over there, and will get worse still if we lose this world" isn't anywhere near enough.

 

 

I think the return of a loyalist primarch was a bad idea, both in terms of fluff and on the tabletop.

 

Wholly agree - I don't think any Primarchs should ever have been brought back. But the rabbit's out of the hat now, and GW, to their credit, have shown incredible restraint in bringing back subsequent Loyalist Primarchs, so that's something to take solace in.

[Closet Skeleton]

Warhammer (both fantasy and 40k) always had the idea of absolutely giant things having a place on the battlefield, it just wasn't always something they sold.

 

This is the 4th edition warhammer fantasy chaos book from 1994.

https://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/File:Chaos_4_Cover.jpg

 

That giant thing in the background is a warhammer 40k epic/space marine daemon engine, completely out of place from a game system perspective. But it shows that even in the 90s GW were thinking that there was some over-lap between how giant units should be a feature of both settings even if that wasn't reflected in the rules. In some sense the game is just catching up to the art.

 

A lot of the 90s Epic Daemon Engines had a fantasy look that was really weird in 40k, especially compared to how Forge World re-imagined them.

 

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/File:PlagueTower.jpg

This is a 90s 40k setting Nurgle plague tower that could just as easily be a steampunk weapon from warhammer fantasy.

 

 

Now all of this could be purely coincidence or the inevitable result of sculpting technology improving but my main point is that because the stuff that is similar in 40k tends to follow AFTER the stuff in AoS is released it leads to this feeling that the two systems are getting similar and because the AoS stuff tends to be first it leads to this idea that 40k is being AoS-Ified, if it was 40k first some AoS forum would be saying their game was becoming 40k-ified.

 

 

Its not a coincidence, there's nothing unrelated about a bunch of people working in the same building using the same tools. Presumably some of them are the same people, their concept artists certainly are still working on both.

 

 

 

 

The irony of the "Sigmarines" bit is that Space Marines themselves were conceived as a way of translating the popularity of Chaos Warriors in to Sci-Fi, because 40k started it's life as a space-faring spin-off of Warhammer Fantasy, replete with Beastmen, Dwarves, Slann and Ratmen.

 

 

Doesn't make much sense to me, chaos warriors aren't that much like marines except on the level of armoured humans. 40k has never been purely 'fantasy in space', its always had other design intentions going on and space marines are one of those. Maybe they were thinking 'this bunch of armoured humans is popular, what else can we do' but to me first ed feels kind of like a game being torn between multiple directions that just end up being thrown together at the last minute.

 

GW were putting out a lot of SF concepts around the time they put out that 40k: Rogue Trader rulebook. 'Our fantasy range but in space' was just one of multiple ideas, there were also some SF models released around the time of the start of 40k that never went anywhere.

 

Someone in the late 80s seemed to think 40k was supposed to be a complicated game about customising robots and strategically programming them and that didn't catch on.

 

Word. The tyranids are a great example of range refreshes as GW refocuses army aesthetics and new model making technology becomes available.

 

Plastic 2e and 3e warriors:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T8GFiJqa6pk/Tzu86kiJ1sI/AAAAAAAABdQ/Vdm_TNTBUZY/s1600/warrior_Plastic_2.jpeg

 

 

 

 

Those are advanced space crusade/1e warriors, 2nd ed warriors were metal but only came near the end of the edition cycle so the space crusade ones were used for most of that period.

 

 

a primarch ins't a necessity to counter a primarch, but it's a helluva lot easier, but regardless it creates armies that are 'haves' and 'have nots' in that regard, and imo will alienate players at some level who don't get a primarch for their army.

 

 

Everything I've heard about 30k says you never counter a primarch with a primarch because it just results in stalling part of the board and limiting your tactical choices. Primarch vs primarch battles between competant players can have the primarchs circling each other killing everything else.

Edited March 23, 2021 by Closet Skeleton

[jaxom]

 

Those are advanced space crusade/1e warriors, 2nd ed warriors were metal but only came near the end of the edition cycle so the space crusade ones were used for most of that period.

 

Not according to the 1996 catalogue that got me into the hobby. Regardless, the point remains the same. GW has a long history to tweaking designs and updating kits as aesthetics and technology shifts.

[Halandaar]

 

The irony of the "Sigmarines" bit is that Space Marines themselves were conceived as a way of translating the popularity of Chaos Warriors in to Sci-Fi, because 40k started it's life as a space-faring spin-off of Warhammer Fantasy, replete with Beastmen, Dwarves, Slann and Ratmen.

 

Doesn't make much sense to me, chaos warriors aren't that much like marines except on the level of armoured humans. 

 

It doesn't need to make sense to you, it's a direct quote from Gav Thorpe. 

[Lexington]

Except that as you pointed out, it’s a change in the narrative structure, not the setting itself.

 

Structure's important!

 

The narrative structure of WHFB and 40K ran pretty much in parallel, teetering on the brink of an apocalypse building since some ancient breach in a mythological past. You had your signs, your portents, seals and a cast of lost giants just itching to consume the place in their final conflagration. It's not an unpopular storyline, either. Historically speaking, it's had a lot of dedicated fans.

 

That's the structure, the setup, the beginning, the implied end and the "present," with tensions stretched out to the max. Then they both did their end thing. The seals broke, the big guys came back and slugged it out, all the flashy apocalyptic stuff. Wad blown. Structurally, that's the end, no matter how one feels about the quality of the proceedings.

 

Then they both made new stories, and they had the same story again. The embattled lord and his newer, mightier hosts jousting out to reclaim the land from darkness, etc., etc. Again, one can like this new story or not - I don't, but whatever - but it's a new story, even if it's got the same trappings. If one's looking to say 40K got "AoS'd", this is a pretty prime example.

[Bryan Blaire]

If one's looking to say 40K got "AoS'd", this is a pretty prime example.

I mean, if one agrees that’s what 40K being AoS’d means - I don’t and have already said why, so it’s not an example that’s convincing in any way.

 

Again, it will be impossible for everyone to ever agree on something like this, because not everyone even has the same definition of what “getting AoS’d” means.

 

The argument that “The narrative changed, therefore the setting of 40K is fundamentally altered like AoS’s setting is fundamentally different from WHFB Old World” is impossible for me to ever accept, because it’s like saying that because we went from the narrative of the Hobbit to the narrative of Lord of the Rings, somehow Middle Earth is now not the same setting - there was a pretty stark alteration in tone and narrative structure between the two, but they are in the same setting.  It’s not a fundamental change in the setting.  Middle Earth is still Middle Earth even though Bilbo stole Gollum’s ring and Sauron emerged, the 40K Milky Way is still the 40K Milky Way - did elements get altered, do you see different sections of it?  Of course, but the basic setting elements (minus Cadia) are all still there in 40K.

 

I think there’s a huge element of perspective to this entire discussion of “Did/Is 40K become/becoming like AoS?”  It all really depends on what you are looking at relative to that question.

[MegaVolt87]

I think that model is fine for a clan like snakebites in 40k, such a link was always there with fantasy feral greenskins. 

 

The problem with Vigilus, it was expanded too much. I was pretty invested when the enemies were just GSC/ orks,eldar popping in for a visit and the threat of a hive fleet showing up any minute. The CSM involvement and fallen felt really crowbarred into it. By the end I was expecting necron tomb ships to show up going #allyourbasearebelongtous. Also I think GW is overusing the OG loyalist chapters too much in the same campaign theaters. 1-2 max, then use successor chapters to give them some spotlight there. The big nine show up so much and everywhere these days you could almost forget they are actually chapters and not still legions lol. At least renegade CSM are more prominent, becoming the punching bags more these days, saving the CSM legions some dignity at least. 

[battle captain corpus]

As long as GW still put out great miniatures with fab rules I really don't care where they draw inspiration from. As for other games systems....nothing wrong with copying/adapting stuff that is clearly cool and inspiring!

 

BCC

[toaae]

AoS and 40k are on parallels trajectories. The miniatures are designed by the same teams, using the same equipment. This isn't about one system becoming influenced by the other, it's about GW's design philosophy and methods.

As for the Squighog Boy himself, and indeed future Beast Snaggas, they fill a spot in the Ork roster that has been hinted at and even requested. We have Squiggoths, and we've had people ask for squig riders, so I find the previewed model to really be filling that gap. I've been critical of AoS Orruk-style heads, but even I think this one is fine (and the grot is great).

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

I think the return of a loyalist primarch was a bad idea, both in terms of fluff and on the tabletop.

The fluff of the Gathering Storm stuff is pretty terrible anyway, but mankind has had it's heroes and they are all gone and should stay gone.

40k is at its best when it's a tyrannical human empire beset on all sides fighting for its future, feeding men to the war machine and its heroes are Yarrick and Dante and Calgar fighting against Daemon Primarchs and the Silent King and so on - the story of the imperium doesn't benefit from having a primarch, its diminished by it.

 

If you were watching a film where humanity was besieged by aliens and all looked lost, would you be happy if Jesus suddenly appeared, converted everyone to his cause and drove the aliens away through the power of belief? Or would you rather Bruce Willis's happy go lucky mechanic character lassos a meteor and straps a nuke to his chest before hurling himself at the biggest monster he could find?  I mean, they are both equally silly, but one is worse than the other. 

 

 

On the tabletop the space marine Lord of War slot should have been filled by a Thunderhawk, or Mastodon, or Fellblade, or something similar - something rare but not unique and something that every players chapter could legitimately take. I mean, I can honestly say that if a plastic Thunderhawk was £100-£150 then I'd have three by now, instead of the 0 Guillimans I currently have. 

this guy gets it.

 

If one's looking to say 40K got "AoS'd", this is a pretty prime example.

I mean, if one agrees that’s what 40K being AoS’d means - I don’t and have already said why, so it’s not an example that’s convincing in any way.

 

Again, it will be impossible for everyone to ever agree on something like this, because not everyone even has the same definition of what “getting AoS’d” means.

 

The argument that “The narrative changed, therefore the setting of 40K is fundamentally altered like AoS’s setting is fundamentally different from WHFB Old World” is impossible for me to ever accept, because it’s like saying that because we went from the narrative of the Hobbit to the narrative of Lord of the Rings, somehow Middle Earth is now not the same setting - there was a pretty stark alteration in tone and narrative structure between the two, but they are in the same setting.  It’s not a fundamental change in the setting.  Middle Earth is still Middle Earth even though Bilbo stole Gollum’s ring and Sauron emerged, the 40K Milky Way is still the 40K Milky Way - did elements get altered, do you see different sections of it?  Of course, but the basic setting elements (minus Cadia) are all still there in 40K.

 

I think there’s a huge element of perspective to this entire discussion of “Did/Is 40K become/becoming like AoS?”  It all really depends on what you are looking at relative to that question.

 

my topic, my question, my definition. someone wants to use a different way to define the phrase they can discuss their definition in their own topic.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Warhammer (both fantasy and 40k) always had the idea of absolutely giant things having a place on the battlefield, it just wasn't always something they sold.

 

This is the 4th edition warhammer fantasy chaos book from 1994.

https://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/File:Chaos_4_Cover.jpg

 

That giant thing in the background is a warhammer 40k epic/space marine daemon engine, completely out of place from a game system perspective. But it shows that even in the 90s GW were thinking that there was some over-lap between how giant units should be a feature of both settings even if that wasn't reflected in the rules. In some sense the game is just catching up to the art.

 

A lot of the 90s Epic Daemon Engines had a fantasy look that was really weird in 40k, especially compared to how Forge World re-imagined them.

 

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/File:PlagueTower.jpg

This is a 90s 40k setting Nurgle plague tower that could just as easily be a steampunk weapon from warhammer fantasy.

 

 

Now all of this could be purely coincidence or the inevitable result of sculpting technology improving but my main point is that because the stuff that is similar in 40k tends to follow AFTER the stuff in AoS is released it leads to this feeling that the two systems are getting similar and because the AoS stuff tends to be first it leads to this idea that 40k is being AoS-Ified, if it was 40k first some AoS forum would be saying their game was becoming 40k-ified.

 

 

Its not a coincidence, there's nothing unrelated about a bunch of people working in the same building using the same tools. Presumably some of them are the same people, their concept artists certainly are still working on both.

 

 

 

 

The irony of the "Sigmarines" bit is that Space Marines themselves were conceived as a way of translating the popularity of Chaos Warriors in to Sci-Fi, because 40k started it's life as a space-faring spin-off of Warhammer Fantasy, replete with Beastmen, Dwarves, Slann and Ratmen.

 

 

Doesn't make much sense to me, chaos warriors aren't that much like marines except on the level of armoured humans. 40k has never been purely 'fantasy in space', its always had other design intentions going on and space marines are one of those. Maybe they were thinking 'this bunch of armoured humans is popular, what else can we do' but to me first ed feels kind of like a game being torn between multiple directions that just end up being thrown together at the last minute.

 

GW were putting out a lot of SF concepts around the time they put out that 40k: Rogue Trader rulebook. 'Our fantasy range but in space' was just one of multiple ideas, there were also some SF models released around the time of the start of 40k that never went anywhere.

 

Someone in the late 80s seemed to think 40k was supposed to be a complicated game about customising robots and strategically programming them and that didn't catch on.

 

Word. The tyranids are a great example of range refreshes as GW refocuses army aesthetics and new model making technology becomes available.

 

Plastic 2e and 3e warriors:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T8GFiJqa6pk/Tzu86kiJ1sI/AAAAAAAABdQ/Vdm_TNTBUZY/s1600/warrior_Plastic_2.jpeg

 

 

 

 

Those are advanced space crusade/1e warriors, 2nd ed warriors were metal but only came near the end of the edition cycle so the space crusade ones were used for most of that period.

 

 

a primarch ins't a necessity to counter a primarch, but it's a helluva lot easier, but regardless it creates armies that are 'haves' and 'have nots' in that regard, and imo will alienate players at some level who don't get a primarch for their army.

 

 

Everything I've heard about 30k says you never counter a primarch with a primarch because it just results in stalling part of the board and limiting your tactical choices. Primarch vs primarch battles between competant players can have the primarchs circling each other killing everything else.

i never said you need a primarch going head 2 head with another primarch, but it gets much harder to deal with an enemy army that has a primarch killing your little dudes, if you don't have a primarch to kill their little dudes...thus it's easier to counter the enemy's primarch by having your own.

[Bryan Blaire]

my topic, my question, my definition. someone wants to use a different way to define the phrase they can discuss their definition in their own topic.

 I mean, that’s not how the board works - as long as we’re discussing the topic, everyone is free to use their own ways to define a definition-less concept to discuss.  That includes whether your personal definition is unnecessarily limited or seems cherry-picked to support your view.  My definition of “getting AoS’d” is what it actually is - the absolute end of a setting and game, the creation of a new game with a new name, and a reimagining of any surviving elements - because that’s what WHFB getting End Times’d/AoS’d actually meant for it.

 

If this is a “Convince me that...” or something along those lines, then no one can, you’ve picked a definition to suit something you already seem convinced of - you haven’t seemed willing to shift off your definition even though people have shown that maybe it isn’t as defining as you think it is.  That’s not interesting for conversation, so people are free to pick other veins of conversation to mine, as long as they are still within the overall topic that was presented.

 

You never have answered the question of how you think your idea that 40K has been AoS’d impacts the future of 40K per your own topic title.

 

We already know we’re likely to see more centerpiece style stuff (which certain things like the Baneblade and Knight predated AoS) - we just don’t know what exactly each faction/sub-faction might get, we know GW likes their digital sculpting process and that this continues the history of shared elements between “Fantasy in Space” 40K and “40K in Fantasy” AoS, we know that they aren’t shying away from having a moving metastory, and we know that they seem reluctant to alter the major themes of factions while adding in new elements.  Those aren’t revelations to the player base.

 

What are your predictions from all of this - what is the future of 40K?  Is that future something you think you will enjoy, or do you no longer enjoy the game because of the changes and just want the old 40K back?  Can you enjoy 40K without the GW metastory with friends (what I prefer - I don’t find the game studio story all that compelling) or play in the 9,750 or so years of the Scouring to pre-13th Black Crusade with new toys, but without all the Era Indomitus bits?

[Marshal Rohr]

 

 

I think the return of a loyalist primarch was a bad idea, both in terms of fluff and on the tabletop.

The fluff of the Gathering Storm stuff is pretty terrible anyway, but mankind has had it's heroes and they are all gone and should stay gone.

40k is at its best when it's a tyrannical human empire beset on all sides fighting for its future, feeding men to the war machine and its heroes are Yarrick and Dante and Calgar fighting against Daemon Primarchs and the Silent King and so on - the story of the imperium doesn't benefit from having a primarch, its diminished by it.

 

If you were watching a film where humanity was besieged by aliens and all looked lost, would you be happy if Jesus suddenly appeared, converted everyone to his cause and drove the aliens away through the power of belief? Or would you rather Bruce Willis's happy go lucky mechanic character lassos a meteor and straps a nuke to his chest before hurling himself at the biggest monster he could find? I mean, they are both equally silly, but one is worse than the other.

 

 

On the tabletop the space marine Lord of War slot should have been filled by a Thunderhawk, or Mastodon, or Fellblade, or something similar - something rare but not unique and something that every players chapter could legitimately take. I mean, I can honestly say that if a plastic Thunderhawk was £100-£150 then I'd have three by now, instead of the 0 Guillimans I currently have.

this guy gets it.

 

 

If one's looking to say 40K got "AoS'd", this is a pretty prime example.

I mean, if one agrees that’s what 40K being AoS’d means - I don’t and have already said why, so it’s not an example that’s convincing in any way.

 

Again, it will be impossible for everyone to ever agree on something like this, because not everyone even has the same definition of what “getting AoS’d” means.

 

The argument that “The narrative changed, therefore the setting of 40K is fundamentally altered like AoS’s setting is fundamentally different from WHFB Old World” is impossible for me to ever accept, because it’s like saying that because we went from the narrative of the Hobbit to the narrative of Lord of the Rings, somehow Middle Earth is now not the same setting - there was a pretty stark alteration in tone and narrative structure between the two, but they are in the same setting. It’s not a fundamental change in the setting. Middle Earth is still Middle Earth even though Bilbo stole Gollum’s ring and Sauron emerged, the 40K Milky Way is still the 40K Milky Way - did elements get altered, do you see different sections of it? Of course, but the basic setting elements (minus Cadia) are all still there in 40K.

 

I think there’s a huge element of perspective to this entire discussion of “Did/Is 40K become/becoming like AoS?” It all really depends on what you are looking at relative to that question.

my topic, my question, my definition. someone wants to use a different way to define the phrase they can discuss their definition in their own topic.

You are attributing the AoSificstion of 40K or the 40kification of Fantasy to like a centralized IP reason, and the reality is the production, packaging, and shelf space of kits in stores did more to drive 8th Edition and AoS than any other factor. Core troops with 3 Infantry Sprues for 60, 5 man/cavalry elite for 60, 3 big bois for 50-60, one bigger boi for 60-85, tanks/constructs/monsters for 65+. All in uniform boxes, on the same exact size sprue for the product class. Why do 20 Mortek cost the same as 10 Intercessors cost the same as 5 Dawnriders cost the same as 5 Chaos Terminators? Because it’s sprues and boxes driving units and product drives lore. That’s why they are shifting closer together.

[ThePenitentOne]

I hope that both AoS and 40k get to a place where new editions are no longer a thing.

 

I'd rather go through five years of campaigns to build up neglected armies with a few datacards here and there, plus AoR's and supplements. Dexes can be updated and rereleased as need be, but there's no need to tear it all down again and then spending another "first year" rereleasing everything we already have.

[Ishagu]

New editions will always be a thing, and they absolutely should be.

 

A ground-up rules refresh is exciting and creates a buzz in the hobby every few years.

[jaxom]

The idea of aesthetic identification between subfactions isn't new (Eldar: aspect and not, DEldar: Kabal, Wych, Haemonculi, etc). I think what we're seein across GW an increased variety between the aesthetics. Vanguard marines are not just Intercessors with camo-cloaks, the new necron destroyer types are very different than immortals, and to dip into AoS the new lumineth are not the same as the first wave with different headdresses.

[ThePenitentOne]

New editions will always be a thing, and they absolutely should be.

 

A ground-up rules refresh is exciting and creates a buzz in the hobby every few years.

 

I respect your opinion of course- 17k + posts! I just hit 1 K.

 

But if we were still playing second ed, every faction would have 100+ kits, not just Marines.

 

I won't deny it generates hype. Nor will I deny that some editions are better than others. I liked 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 8th and 9th. Ninth is my fave so far- it's the only edition where all factions have had distinct rules for their subfactions + Crusade rules. I very much suspect this will be my last edition; it was only Crusade that made me buy into 9th; I would have been content to play 8th for a decade at least.

 

Despite the few benefits that new editions have, as a design philosophy, they are almost single handedly responsible for the existence of "Have" and "Have not" armies. If GW fixes that this edition, maybe I'll get behind 10th. After all, once every army is in a good place, it would be much cheaper to keep up. But if they reset before they fix CWE and Guard, I'm done. Fixing the model range for these two factions is the most important job the edition needs to do- there are other things that need to be fixed too, but this is the bare minimum for the edition.

 

Crusade is another thing; if it dies with 9th, so does my support for the company. IMHO, it's the best thing that's ever happened to 40k, and I refuse to go back. I suppose if GW does equalize their support this ed, and they do drop a 10th, I probably could find a way to scaffold 9th's Crusade onto 10th's rule set... But they'd have to get a lot right in order for me to do it.

 

Personally, while new editions have caused hype in the past, I don't think they're necessary. If Indomitus, + Marine dex and Supplements + Cron dex + Marine range refresh + Cron range refresh had all dropped without a new edition, I think they probably would have sold just as well. And that's kind of what I'm advocating for... When it would normally be time for a new edition, just pick the two armies most in need of a codex update- reprint their dexes, refresh their ranges, put'em in a vs box, replace all the starters with models from those ranges as well and come up with a suitable story event, hopefully linked with a flashy Warhammer studio movie or the launch of a tv series.

 

No edition hype necessary.

Edited March 25, 2021 by ThePenitentOne

[Noserenda]

I think you may have gotten the way GW works backwards there Penitentone, if we were still using 2nd ed we would have exactly the same number of kits, just a wildly convoluted set of rules to play them with and likely more revisions of the various units rules. Models have always been the prime driver of GW rather than rules.

Well i say that but theres no way the game would have gotten so popular and expanded everything appropriately stuck with a 90's rulesset! 

[ThePenitentOne]

I think you may have gotten the way GW works backwards there Penitentone, if we were still using 2nd ed we would have exactly the same number of kits, just a wildly convoluted set of rules to play them with and likely more revisions of the various units rules. Models have always been the prime driver of GW rather than rules.

 

Well i say that but theres no way the game would have gotten so popular and expanded everything appropriately stuck with a 90's rulesset! 

 

But IF that's true (ie. the models driving sales not rules part), then why didn't we stay in 5th, which a lot of folks think was a near perfect set of rules, or at least a pretty good set of rules? If not to drive sales, then why? That would have been a perfect time to update CWE INSTEAD of a new edition. So why did they cop out, blow it all up and start over AGAIN if not to sell models?

 

Regarding the second ed part, I agree those rules were a bit much; I enjoyed it at the time, and armies were smaller then, so it worked well enough... but 3rd was an improvement.

[Noserenda]

They didnt set out to make the rules worse, every rules set is intended as an improvement, they just arent always right... Design briefs change, codexes creep and the studio staff change and evolve. Plus its just not possible to see how the meta will develop outside of the inevitably slightly odd environment of a games studio.

Well except maybe 7th which was more of a 6.5 with a full release really, but then that was also apparently punished in the sales department as the least successful edition of 40k (broadly, its obviously more complicated than that).