I agree. It was not the sole cause of failure.
The practice was one (among others) intended to see the game succeed. But the game failed. (Or it was judged a failure.) Box sets did not sustain enough interest in the game to offset other problems. Box sets either didn’t help, or did not provide enough help.
Failed plan: box sets. Do something different.
I personally think it's very unlikely that the boxed game model was a cause of Fantasy's failure at all. GW's other games at the time (Middle Earth and the proper editions of 40K) both used this exact same model, yet they survived and are still around (albeit in a changed form) to this day.
However, I do agree that releasing one boxed game disappoints people who play neither of the two armies in the box. This could be mitigated to a degree if, once TOW has been launched and the initial boxed game revealed, GW then decided to periodically release a battlebox with all the rules and two factions different to the ones in the main starter box, like they've been doing with AoS and 40K.
I like that idea!
They could have a special start collecting box that includes the mini rule book (just as the old Starter boxes used to) and other potential goodies like custom dice.
Or more simplistically, make a combo where if you buy a Start Collecting box, you can pick up the rule book at a discount. Or if you buy a Start collecting box and a rule book at once, you get a package of custom dice for that race for free (even make it exclusive, so that the dice can't be purchased separately).
I like
that idea!
A start collecting box still isn't the best saving in the world if you still have to buy the rules separately at full price.
It would be a lot better if, as you say, the Start Collecting boxes contained a mini rulebook and dice (perhaps even a softback copy of the army book), because they should be specifically designed for new players to, well, Start Collecting. GW could also then release modern equivalents of the old Battalion boxes to appeal to existing players who want to get some more units for a discount, as selling the one box for two different audiences as they are doing at the moment is detrimental to both parties - new players would still have to buy their rules separately, while existing players would have to buy the character(s) in the box twice.
WFB back in the day was extremely poorly supported. Community interaction was non-existent, FAQ's weren't released in a timely fashion and the story was not progressed at all (until the End Times).
That said, other theories I've heard pin the blame on things like...
- GW being unable to copyright the generic names/factions
- rules bloat
- the game requiring too many models
- the game not being well suited for new players.
These reasons are a lot more likely explanations for Fantasy's execution.
Given that we now have regular FAQs and Warhammer Community, GW have certainly cleared up their act in the support department. TOW will most likely benefit from this like AoS and 40K have, which is great.
Story progression, on the other hand, isn't something that can really be done with TOW, as we already know what happens in the end (the End Times and the birth of the Mortal Realms). However, GW can still do something to keep it going once it has been released by releasing more factions - given that GW have already gone so far as release the controversial Ossiarch Bonereapers, releasing armies for new factions in Warhammer Fantasy (in PLASTIC, not damned Forge World Resin) would look like comparatively safe moves. Just like Ossiarch does appeal to a fanbase (not that big a fanbase given the negative backlash I've seen on here and other forums), these factions that currently exist only in lore but not in game would also appeal to similarly select fanbases. GW have already allowed The Creative Assembly to do this with Vampire Coast (a third Undead faction with a different feel to conventional Vampires and Tomb Kings) for Warhammer Total War, so why not do the same with The Old World a while after all the previously-supported factions have been released and TOW has settled in?
The fact that GW have changed the names of all the Fantasy races from the generic names to something that sounds similar but ultimately looked different for Age of Sigmar (and that they also did some of this when 40K 8th Edition came round - Drukhari and Aeldari were introduced to veer away from Eldar, which is also a Tolkien term) are obvious signs that they binned Fantasy in part to make a more copyrightable game, otherwise they would have kept them as they were in AoS.
While I certainly like the 8th Edition ruleset, there is a lot of stuff to remember - lots of charts, lots of tables, lots of clauses relating to particular cases where rules are different from normal, e.t.c. Luckily I was able to learn all of these rules during weekends and holiday times when I was not at school or college back in the day when I first got into Fantasy, but many people don't have all that time to learn those rules (my dad being just one of those - he doesn't have that much time off and when he does he's usually busy out in the garden, so when we play our games of Fantasy I often have to refamiliarise him with some of the rules he has forgotten). As a result, this daunting prospect most likely turned away some potential players, and was I imagine the chief reason why they made AoS so simple in comparison. I hope that TOW will certainly shake some of the cobwebs and bureaucracy out of the 8th Edition rules to make it easier to learn, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's what GW are planning with it, given that they've also streamlined 40K.
Historically Fantasy wasn't that bad a game in terms of model count, but I have to say this is a massive flaw of 8th because of the damned Horde rule. I honestly hope to the Gods that GW bins this rule when TOW comes out, as not only does it not really make that much sense (if you're in the front rank and being pushed forward by your mates at the back, while a few more of them may be able to hit something, you're going to have a lot less room to swing your own sword as you're being compressed between your friends and the enemy - that's partly how Boudicca failed miserably as a general at the Battle of Watling Street), but it's also not good for finances for people to have to buy loads of boxes of a single core unit just to make that unit supposedly viable in tournament play, and if you're having to paint that unit of 30-40 (or even more) blokes, that could come with a risk to your sanity. GW should have learned from the failure of War of the Ring that writing rules to 'persuade' people to buy larger quantities of the same miniatures to fill your pockets may work in the short term money-gain department, but is terrible for the long-term health of the game. Furthermore, this would have been another factor that would have driven new players away from the game - why spend loads of cash on units of 40 Empire State Troopers when you could simply buy a couple of squads of 10 Space Marines instead?
I feel it was the incompetence of the Tomb Kirby led GW that eventually did the game in.
Was this a typo or intentional? Because if it's the latter I like it
