8th ed and where we stand

It's hard for VC's to deal with salamanders though, and those take out huge chunks of their blocks.

My opponent though wasn't careful with his lord and lost him during both games. The second time I had my regular steg flank charged by grave guard and the vamp lord. Lord wiffs and deals no wounds. Then the steg hits 4 times and wounds 4 times, and the lord dies...

Well, that can happen to anybody though. Bad dice rolling are bad dice rolling. Can't judge an army's goodness or badness on a single situation. Could also be his layout.

They could use Black Knights on the Salamanders, charge them early to avoid them. Or fell bats or dire wolves to tie up the salamanders. Dunno, just some thoughts.

Glad your getting chances to play though!

Dakai wrote:Jerry i love how you take over a board that has nothing to do with your problems with GW. Shut the fuck up

Impossible for to take over anything, if you can think for yourself.

All I was proposing was I believe it is possible for GW to make a good product that does not require a reboot every three to four years. Battlefront and Privateer Press are good examples and oh yes, chess.

I don't have a problem with GW, I'm just not a fan boy.

And I love you too.

Warmachine has gone through a revision, and now a new edition within 7 years.

Battlefront has gone through a new edition within 8 years so far. They updated to a 2nd edition in 4 years.

Neither game has been around for even 10 years so it's pretty crazy to make such claims. GW tends to do it every 5 years with WFB 8E being one of the first exceptions at 4 years. PP will be updating as often as GW if they keep going the way they are now, and we have to see how Battlefront stands in a few years.

A better example would be Battletech which has been around for a very long time with fairly minor tweaks to it's ruleset over the years, though it's never been a huge hit moneywise.

Lawyered

I think GW needs the reboot because gaming in general changes so dramatically over the years. I mean, I've been gaming for a long time, and if you compare gaming in the 80s and 90s, be it RPGs, tabletop, or hell, even board games, to gaming today, sometimes you can't really compare.

Games started out trying really hard to be a simulation, with the belief that the closer things were to give you a sense of "reality", the more fun it was. Now games are more focused on elegance of design and capturing a "feel" more than the nuts and bolts of an experience.

Add to that technological advancements, where we have new models looking so much better than models of ten years ago, and reboots are inevitable.

It's easy to point at new companies and say "they got it right". Give them ten years, and if they haven't revamped, they will fade.

Even battletech went through a LOT of revisions. God knows I've thrown away my fair share of obsolete starters for that game.

Vycem, you have an excellent point, I never would have thought of that.

I just don't think that the revisions have to made so often as GW has done in the past.

Kyle, you don't count the first rule set. So GW's fantasy came out 25 years ago with additional 7 revision over the years (one original rule + seven revision = eight versions). So 25 years divided by 7 revisions equals 3.57 year change gaps.

Battlefront ONE original rule ONE revision equal a total of two version over 7 year span.

Privateer Press about the same, unless they are on version 3.

So I stand by what I had said, that it is possible to have a good rule and not have to change or update every 3 to 4 years.

Oh, yes, let's not forget chess, best ratio of the group and will probable out last them all.

WFB came out 27 years ago.

So instead they change rules ever 5-7 years, it doesn't make a difference the companies are going to change. These companies you are setting up as an example of something have changed their rule sets, they will be doing it again and that is pretty much a guarantee in the hobby gaming world. Be it 4-8 years time difference, you just need to accept it's going to happen.

Adding a year or two and whining about it is just grasping at straws. So you are ok with changing a ruleset ever 5 or so years instead? Doesn't matter how much time passes, if they are constantly updating a game to a new edition then it really kills the whole "good rule set" nonsense you keep talking about. Adding a year or so to a revision gap does not make it a good ruleset, it just shows a changing game, a changing market, a broken game, etc. You have to be delusional to not expect multiple more revisions of these games by the time they are 27 years old as well.

And enough with the fucking chess comparisons, it just makes you look silly. Thematic miniature wargames compared to a completely symmetrical board game that is public domain? Seriously?

No you are just stretching to complain about something

I think rule updates for these games are key - I just think they go about it the wrong way.

Digital distribution would be more green. It would allow for a faster change process. It would allow for a rapid and cost effective method of distributing those changes.

The living FAQ docs are a step in the right direction. Governement changes and pressure (ie: taxes to use natural resources, changes to business tax incentives, etc) will do the rest. When the cost of paper gets too high...... I doubt we ever see a 9Ed Rule Book.

I think the changing of rules every few years is cool. it keeps you on your toes. It feels refreshing to learn something new every handful of years. And if you dont like the new edition you can always find some one whiling to play the old edition. Like me who would love to play a game of 5ed warhammer. 1000 point slaan......oh yes!!!! but what ever

@ jerry, we have known for a while that your not a fan boy. You drink high grade hateoriad brewed fresh daily with all natural flavors.

Bill, although I agree that digital distribution is great, I still like to have a printed copy of the rules. The rulebooks and army books are much nicer than anything I'd bother printing, and they are an additional income source for GW. Digital distribution would be greener, since players wouldn't print the fluff really, but most would still need to print a copy to take with them to the store.

I apologize for derailing the thread further, but I did want to ask Jerry a question: my understanding is that you hate GW because they jack their prices up constantly and abuse their customers. I agree their prices are unreasonable, but we both know there are many ways of getting good prices and trades through bartertown, ebay, trading with friends, etc. So what I wanted to ask is, do you actually dislike the products themselves or the game systems?

The way I see it, by refusing to play warhammer or warhammer 40,000, you've just managed to marginalize yourself from the community. I mean, how many games (doesn't matter what system) do you get in a week, and how big is your pool of opponents? If you don't like GW miniatures or the game systems, that's cool, but if it's just about GW's prices or some kind of boycott against GW, I really don't think it has been worth it.

Lot of smaller companies are going digital as printing is just not economical anymore, but GW is big enough to be able to still do print. I don't see them dropping printed rulebooks any time soon, though wonder if they will also start doing digital releases on the side as well. Black library is now doing digital even though that is mostly ebook market, I would imagine people would be interested in digital versions of the 40k/wfb books as an option.

Players and stores will have digital copies that you will read on your iPads and phones.

Today the paper products are an additional income source; however, when the government's natural resource taxes get passed and start to kick in it will cost too much to make paper to make book printing a profitable option.

Just like nobody buys records, cassettes, or even CDs these days. Digital downloads have replaced the whole music industry. Newspapers are already a dying business model.... publishing is next.

Digital is awesome for gaming, in large part due to search functionality. Use them alot for our roleplaying nights and it's just so helpful to find rules in large books.

Knowing GW, they'll probably go Digital and still charge the same cost as if it was a printed book

I would love to see Digital books, it would give me the option to print what i want, or just look it up online.

I agree with Bill, going digital is inevitable. Amazon's bread and butter has been the printed page and they are migrating over to digital. But I suspect that GW will be the last of the major gaming systems to go over to digital.

Diosamblet if GW didn't make a good product you would never hear a peep or poop from this asshole. That's what's so frustrating (to me at least) about GW. If they charge a fair and profitable price and did not have absolute contempt for their customers, we would be living eden. In addition they make several other good products besides 40K and Fantasy (Blood Bowl, Warmaster) which they treat like a worthless step child.

Most importantly there are other companies that are successful that are catching up to and may eventually surpass GW (Privateer Press, Battlefront). They prove you can run a profitable company that doesn't think their customers are idiots.

GW will always be detached from the gamers, it's a corporate entity now that few gaming companies come close to. Their UK HQ alone has over 600 employees, and then you factor in the workers at their production facilities, GW stores, regional HQ's, regional sales reps, etc etc. While you look at other hobby game companies and they often will be less than 10 people, with some being 1 or 2 folks running the whole show. Closest thing to GW in the hobby market is Wizards of the Coast, and they are just as awful in many respects.

These are big companies that are about money, they have shareholders to answer to and suits pulling the strings. Companies like PP keep themselves small (relatively) and have a bit more focus towards the gamer. If PP continues to grow and expand, you can gaurantee they will be just as bad as GW and WOTC eventually.

GW's success is the worst thing to have happened to them. It has it's advantages of course that they are so big, but the customer loses out on many other aspects that you get with smaller companies that are struggling to make their way in the market.