World Championships of Warhammer Preview

[Lord Marshal]

It's also a good way to test if the game will be a flop or not when they only need to put out the bare minimum of Imperial/Marine moulds, rather than making a bunch of Xenos (and Chaos) ones which are likely to sell peanuts compared to the Loyalist offerings anyway. If it's a bust? Well, they probably maximised the most amount of sales by focusing on Imperials initially anyway. If it does well? There's scope to expand into 40k.

 

I said it before during the Legions Imperialis launch, but while more people probably want 40k over Heresy, most of those same people want that so their Loyalist Marines can fight against Xenos and not because they intend to actually buy into them. I think the failure of Aeronautica probably made Specialist Games a lot more wary of going all-in with non-Imperials from the off.

 

In an ideal world it'd be 40k with a bunch of different Xenos, Chaos and Imperials from the get-go (I'd love to grab a new plastic Ork fleet) but at the end of the day I'd take Battlefleet Heresy over no Battlefleet at all - and it would still serve as a gateway drug to funnel more new blood towards fan rules/old editions of Battlefleet 40k.

 

 

Edited Friday at 10:56 PM by Lord Marshal

[No Foes Remain]

It could also be that they are trying to avoid another Aeronautica Imperialis, where there wasn't any intrest and it got folded into Legions Imperialis (if it is 30k battlefleet they better not name it Battlefleet Imperialis, the name is starting to look like a curse now), and to save themselves some time and money.

[TheVoidDragon]

44 minutes ago, No Foes Remain said:

It could also be that they are trying to avoid another Aeronautica Imperialis, where there wasn't any intrest and it got folded into Legions Imperialis (if it is 30k battlefleet they better not name it Battlefleet Imperialis, the name is starting to look like a curse now), and to save themselves some time and money.

 

That would depend on the reason Aeronautica Imperialis didn't do well being because it was set in 40k, though.

[ThePenitentOne]

3 hours ago, Lord Marshal said:

It's also a good way to test if the game will be a flop or not when they only need to put out the bare minimum of Imperial/Marine moulds, rather than making a bunch of Xenos (and Chaos) ones which are likely to sell peanuts compared to the Loyalist offerings anyway. If it's a bust? Well, they probably maximised the most amount of sales by focusing on Imperials initially anyway. If it does well? There's scope to expand into 40k.

 

 

It sounds true, but the thing is I won't buy it unless there are Xenos, so their "test" sale excludes people like me. They'll never know how many they would have sold with Xenos unless and until they release Xenos.

 

I think there were a lot of factors that led to the demise of Aeronautica. It had Orks, Eldar and Tau, which was decent... But once LI came out, Aeronautica being "Just aircraft" while LI had knights and Titans and tanks and infantry. If Nids had come to Aeronautica, I'd have bought in. If they ever come to LI I'll buy in.

 

But GW will never know whether or not Nids will increase sales until they release Nids.

[GryphonnePromethean]

I'd be very excited for BFG. Even with Imperialis it feels like a missing part of the range. My hope is that they're working towards a lineup of games that let them do "total package" campaign books that feature missions from every system to support the narrative. I want to fight my way planetside and then rush a facility with a kill team while my army holds off their reinforcements. 

[Scribe]

3 hours ago, ThePenitentOne said:

But GW will never know whether or not Nids will increase sales until they release Nids.

 

Sure, but I bet they know how much Nids are shifted in relation to Marines, how much Nids design, molds, and shelf space cost, oh and production cycles.

 

Simple run of the numbers?

[Matcap86]

5 hours ago, ThePenitentOne said:

 

It sounds true, but the thing is I won't buy it unless there are Xenos, so their "test" sale excludes people like me. They'll never know how many they would have sold with Xenos unless and until they release Xenos.

 

I think there were a lot of factors that led to the demise of Aeronautica. It had Orks, Eldar and Tau, which was decent... But once LI came out, Aeronautica being "Just aircraft" while LI had knights and Titans and tanks and infantry. If Nids had come to Aeronautica, I'd have bought in. If they ever come to LI I'll buy in.

 

But GW will never know whether or not Nids will increase sales until they release Nids.

 

I mean that's what a test is... Specialist games studio probably doesnt have the leeway to just see what happens with the very expensive moulds that need to be created for plastic. With the deficit in production capacity at GW, I think there's no room to do anything other than "will sell 100%". Especially from the more niche games.

[Mogger351]

2 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

Sure, but I bet they know how much Nids are shifted in relation to Marines, how much Nids design, molds, and shelf space cost, oh and production cycles.

 

Simple run of the numbers?

It's still not that simple, how many intercessor purchases translate to a nids purchase is a simple comparison, but I have a hard time rationalising HH marine boxes to nid boxes. They're separate games and audiences, with HH so intensively marine skewed it'd be a shock if they weren't ahead of or catching up to nids.

 

Also HH marines sales would be a degree lower than 40k marines, so pitching it at HH seems like a gamble if you're aiming for maximum exposure.

[01RTB01]

2 hours ago, Matcap86 said:

 

I mean that's what a test is... Specialist games studio probably doesnt have the leeway to just see what happens with the very expensive moulds that need to be created for plastic. With the deficit in production capacity at GW, I think there's no room to do anything other than "will sell 100%". Especially from the more niche games.

 

I understand why they do what they do, however, the lack of xenos in legions imperialis is why I don't play. Same as a battle fleet game if it had xenos in, I'd be there. I think there's many in a similar boat which is a shame I think. 

 

I don't know how well LI does/ doesn't regarding sales but I'd wager it'd be more popular if xenos were there for a more general epic game rather than heresy specific. I understand though that generates risk they don't like.

[Mandragola]

I think it was a clear mistake to set epic in 30k instead of 40K. It limits the scope of the game enormously and means lots of people aren’t interested. 
 

One of the odd things is that it doesn’t really let you use anything you can’t already field in “big” 30k. Just more of what you can already have. It’s not really more of a spectacle in that sense. If it was set in 40K then you’d be able to introduce bigger stuff that you don’t see on 40K battlefields. 
 

I also think they picked the wrong ruleset. Instead of epic Armageddon, which still has a following, they went with an older version of Space Marine. This, and using the wrong setting, meant they didn’t capture the existing EA community. Those people have a game they like better and no reason to buy most LI models, which aren’t compatible with their game. 
 

It’s strange when you see that they had such a successful model to follow with blood bowl. That had always kept going without official support. GW came along and re-released it. They gave us a board with bigger squares that fitted better models.

 

I really like the models for LI and I’ve had fun painting them. Very few people near me play though and it’s hard to justify the time and money investment. 
 

in terms of what releases to expect, there’s plenty of stuff they could go with. We still haven’t seen the big Legion superheavies yet, for a start. 

[Karhedron]

11 hours ago, TheVoidDragon said:

That would depend on the reason Aeronautica Imperialis didn't do well being because it was set in 40k, though.

 

I never really got into AI but there seemed to be a very limited number of aircraft per faction. They seemed to be trying to capture the appeal of X-wing but didn't quite nail it.

 

The original BFG did quite well with the modular ship construction meaning you could build diverse fleets from a limited range of sprues. It was feasible to build everything from carrier fleets to torpedo squadrons.

 

I don't know if the same approach would work 25 years on but I don't see why not.

 

Personally I would prefer a 40k setting but HH wouldn't be a deal breaker for me.

[Magos Takatus]

I'm pretty sad that Aeronautica Imperialis went down the pan so quickly. I wanted to invest in it, but it was gone before I got the chance. Thankfully my friend donated his stuff to me when he moved house, but that still didn't allow me to actually choose what I wanted to purchase. I didn't think with my FOMO head on and GW pulled the rug out from under me. 

 

As for Battlefleet Gothic, I collect Space Marines, Adeptus Mechanicus, Imperial Knights, Orks and Eldar and I would be interested in other fleets if they were supported. Imperial Knights wouldn't be likely to get any support since modelling drop keeps doesn't sound like something GW would bother with, but they could really do some interesting development now that BFG is over 2 decades old. New factions have arrived in 40k and old ones have been developed significantly. In BFG currently Adeptus Mechanicus is just Imperial Fleet with extra steps. They could make them have a more interesting identity. Necrons had no strike craft because at the time in 40k they had no access to aircraft. That is no longer the case, giving them a wider scope for carrier vessels. Perhaps they could use their teleportation tech to shunt strike craft into ambush positions instead of simply undocking from the carrier? Instead of a few crusty old Demiurg vessels in resin we have an entire new Votann faction, which could serve to flesh out the 40k army with urgently-needed lore. Of course, they could just make nice plastic sculpts of the Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 fleets and remain faithful to the specialist games ranges, but they potentially have a clean slate to do so much more. If we just end up with Lunar class cruisers trading shots with naughty Lunar class cruisers it will be a colossal waste of potential, particularly since the lore of BFG stated that the Chaos fleet was just older style Imperial ships, so technically most of the ships should just be the BFG Chaos fleet with less spikes and less spoopy names.

[Matcap86]

1 hour ago, Mandragola said:

I think it was a clear mistake to set epic in 30k instead of 40K. It limits the scope of the game enormously and means lots of people aren’t interested. 
 

Snip.

 

On the other hand, I wouldn't have bothered with it if it was set in 40k as a lot of the vehicles and larger scale stuff looks worse in my opinion than the 30k designs. Though that is of course completely personal opinion.

 

There's also a lot more super heavies, other variant vehicles and the likes already designed and ready to go for 30k compared to 40k so the initial design investment must have been a lot less. It's been said before that in the design process they scale down the models they're already bringing to 30k. For 40k they'd need to start (some) of the design process from scratch and develop new stuff to fill the gap between gladiator/impulsor tanks and knights/titans. 

 

Finally I feel like the slow grow they do now is better for a setting with a more limited scope. 60ish kits divided over 3 factions gives a lot more variation to play within them and makes them feel more complete. Compared to 40k where you'd either have to curtail the amount of races involved, leading to the same situation as when using the more limited 30k setting or give 10+ races 5-6 units each which isn't great either.

 

When you make 40k epic and just do Eldar, Ork and Marines for the first 2+ years you also exclude a large number of players who want to play "their" faction.  I truly do not believe they have the design/production capacity at the moment to churn out double or triple the amount of kits that would be needed to properly fill the 40k setting.

 

I think they made the right choice when taking those limitations in consideration. Aside from my being convinced they're not allowed to use 40k as that's a main studio thing.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

I've often said that BFG was the most fun I'd ever had playing a GW game.  I'd love to see it get brought back into the "supported" fold.  However, if it was made for Heresy only like LI, I think that'd be a massive blunder.  The good news is that there's a decent fan community keeping the original game alive, to include releasing a free PDF with tweaks & errata to the original rules, so if this ends up being a Battlefleet Heresy instead of Battlefleet Gothic. . . the Gothic community has a built-in backup.

 

Just need to download your STLs and that PDF now before the C&D's start dropping.

[Karhedron]

I am assuming that any new space combat game would be to a new scale of prevent people reusing their existing BFG models. IA went to considerable effort to rescale and ensure people would buy the new models. 

[Marshal Reinhard]

Horus Heresy (space) naval game would just make me yawn and look the other way. It's what happened with LI.

[Indy Techwisp]

When GW were hyping up the return of epic there was a lot of hype surrounding it which pretty much all evaporated as soon as we found out it was Heresy Epic and not 40k epic.

 

The same probably won't happen for BFG Heresy because we all saw the last time Gw brought back a beloved system and then locked it to Heresy so no-one's going to be building the hype for it.

 

LI also seems to have defaulted to "only release Marines" now, so even for the people that did still pick it up if you're a Solar Aux player or a Mech player then you're SOL 'cause it's yet more Marine releases padding out the largest faction while your stuff suffers. We can probably expect to see that repeat in BFG Heresy since GW seem to fall back on that if a Heresy game isn't doing too good.

 

Speaking generally tho, people want to play their factions in these games and locking them to Heresy locks out the majority of players from doing that (Marines don't have that big of a majority and a lot of those players aren't interested in HH regardless).

It's just money GW are leaving on the table in favour of releasing more yet more stuff for an ever decreasing amount of Heresy fans.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

20 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

I am assuming that any new space combat game would be to a new scale of prevent people reusing their existing BFG models. IA went to considerable effort to rescale and ensure people would buy the new models. 

 

True, but on the flipside TOW was engineered specifically so that old models could be used.  The new stuff is scaled up and the bases changed appropriately, yeah, but the point stands.  So there's evidence both ways.

[The Lost Son]

What if (this is pure hypothetical/wishlist) they've cottoned on to the limitations of pure heresy and set it in the scouring instead allowing a couple of initial moulds followed by capital/famous ships and xenos/ad mech/ dark mech if it sells. Easier to cover everything with expansion books than locking it to a single rigid period. Well I can hope loved the idea of bfg just no one around me wanted a new system at the time. 

[Marshal Reinhard]

4 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

Speaking generally tho, people want to play their factions in these games and locking them to Heresy locks out the majority of players from doing that (Marines don't have that big of a majority and a lot of those players aren't interested in HH regardless).

It's just money GW are leaving on the table in favour of releasing more yet more stuff for an ever decreasing amount of Heresy fans.

While marines are the biggest factions, it's at this point narrowed down like thrice.

 

Whole 40k fanbase -> Marine fanbase -> Heresy marine fanbase -> Smol spaceship battles fanbase

 

 

[Indy Techwisp]

5 minutes ago, The Lost Son said:

What if (this is pure hypothetical/wishlist) they've cottoned on to the limitations of pure heresy and set it in the scouring instead allowing a couple of initial moulds followed by capital/famous ships and xenos/ad mech/ dark mech if it sells. Easier to cover everything with expansion books than locking it to a single rigid period. Well I can hope loved the idea of bfg just no one around me wanted a new system at the time. 

 

That still wouldn't let T'au back in despite them being one of the main BFG factions.

[The Lost Son]

Just now, Indy Techwisp said:

 

That still wouldn't let T'au back in despite them being one of the main BFG factions.

True and their ships were cool, was just setting myself up for disappointment to be fair.

[Lathe Biosas]

4 minutes ago, The Lost Son said:

True and their ships were cool, was just setting myself up for disappointment to be fair.

 

Which Tau ships?

 

The amazing Forgeworld resin ships or the super meh GW pewter ones?

 

[Iron Father Ferrum]

22 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

 

That still wouldn't let T'au back in despite them being one of the main BFG factions.

 

"Main?"  I'm super curious how you got that description for Tau.

[Son of Rawl]

Being in the Heresy isn't a deal breaker for me. As being able to do a Planetary invasion with Gothic, followed by a giant war with Legions, and then a smaller skirmish with 30k in one campaign sounds very cool.

 

But then, I think about Votann ships and want that too.