May be demoted at this point in time, yes, but still perfectly viable to play as mentioned above (rather than given profiles but no points values as, for example, AoS 'Legends' units had for a long time). It's not as if GW said 'Screw you, we're getting rid of these armies and not including rules for them in TOW full stop'.
For now.
As soon as the next edition of TOW drops, the legacy armies will be left in the dust. Even now they are already behind one Arcane Journal, which while not rendering them unplayable, is not exactly ideal either.
Moreover, GW change their minds all the time with regards to bringing things back, especially when it makes them money as reselling a load of older sculpts has proven to do. They directly stated a long time ago that Squats would never come back to 40K, and yet they've been revived as the Leagues of Votann. I no doubt imagine that they would have stated in 2015/2016 that the Warhammer Fantasy game and world would never see a return to the tabletop after they first brought in AoS and committed to it as one of their 'main games', and yet now it's here as TOW.
The future is absolutely not set in stone, and GW revoke their previous words whenever it suits them, especially with so many players continuing to campaign for these factions to return with the same support as the Big 9 and Cathay - they listened to us before when we wanted Warhammer Fantasy to come back, and it's in everyone's best interests for the 'Legacy' factions to return too... it's a no-brainer.
Though you're keen to try and use this to smear TOW's name, if I were you I'd keep watching and waiting for the very possible chance that I'll be proven right in time
.
Could GW change their mind? Sure, it is possible, but so are many other things:
- the next Disney Star Wars movie could be the greatest Star Wars movie of all time
- Canada might win the upcoming FIFA World Cup
- Elon Musk might give me enough money to buy GW outright, in which case I would cancel TOW for shits & giggles (and so that I could gloat)
All those things have a mathematical non-zero chance of occurring. However, just because something can happen, doesn't mean that it will happen.
I have
never stated that it is impossible that GW changes course and revives the legacy factions in TOW. You have every right to speculate, hope and wish. As for me though, I care more about the
facts, and currently the
fact is:
That is the current course that GW is on. Even if they were to deviate from it, how long will that be? 5 years? 10? They're not exactly the most nimble company when changing trajectory. They have things planned out fairly far in advance.
As for me waiting and keeping watch to see if your theory pans out, why would I? I have no vested interest in TOW. All I ever wanted was to obtain some previously discontinued Wood Elves models for my wife's 8th edition army, and that has been accomplished. The game has my blessing to live or die. You are committed to the game, I am not. I can extract equal benefit from its continued existence as I can from its death.
Said examples of units are Special or Rare choices that didn't even exist in Warhammer Fantasy before 8th Edition, and the Destroyer didn't even get an official model because AoS spoilt Warhammer Forge's party (such as it was... it was still very much a poor cousin to the 40K branch of Forge World). They are the very opposite of "mainline" (even if they were made strong/broken enough to be "mainline" choices in people's army lists). The amount of time those units have existed in Warhammer Fantasy's timeline is negligible (less than the 4 years of 8th Edition's lifespan as they were introduced some way into the Edition's duration, compared to the overall 32 year lifespan of Warhammer Fantasy plus the year and a half that TOW has existed), and they are hardly staples of the Warhammer Fantasy game and setting across its illustrious history. Moreover, in TOW's case this has been more than outweighed by a number of units for many factions from Editions prior to 8th making a return, and with the potential for many more new releases in the future. Different units have come and gone across Warhammer Fantasy's decades of existence, and no doubt that will continue to change.
By mainline units, I simply meant "regular" units as opposed to named special characters (who sometimes come and go). Whether they are core, special or rare choices is utterly irrelevant. Historically, units very rarely get dropped from one edition to the next. I don't recall it happening to any of the units from any of my armies going from 7th to 8th, they simply added more toys to the roster. This is a much newer trend by GW, who have begun deleting units from games.
As for the specific examples I named, I just listed those that I was sure about. I don't exactly follow TOW very closely. I'm sure there are other units as well. The Warshrine, Mutalith Vortex Beast and Slaughterbrute also come to mind. Even the Chaos War Mammoth (although that is a special case and very far from a "mainline" unit). I haven't bothered to crack open any of the books/pdfs for any of the other armies outside of the CD and WoC.
In regards to the added units making up for the removed ones, that is little consolation to someone (wishing to play TOW) who may have bought, assembled and lovingly painted discontinued models.
Again, it's not as if magic has been universally constant throughout Warhammer Fantasy's lifespan - the system you love first began in 6th, remained the same in 7th and was extrapolated and powered-up in 8th, yet the game additionally had the card system in 4th and 5th. I also have a copy of the ancient 3rd Edition rulebook, and a quick look through reveals the Magic system there is not dissimilar to TOW with regards to casting. Wizards in that version of the game had a number of Magic Points that could go up to 12, and reduced in number each time they cast a spell, and casting a spell was simply rolling 2D6 and comparing to the Wizard's Magic point total - if the result was less than or equal to the Wizard's Magic Point total, the spell was cast, otherwise it would fail. Essentially a Leadership test in a way (much like Psychic Powers in proper Editions of 40K funnily enough), just against a decreasing Magic Point stat - and not much different to TOW's 2D6 and comparing the result to the casting value of the spell. Technically, then, TOW's magic has a heritage far older than AoS and does indeed show resemblance to the Magic Phases of at least one Edition of Warhammer Fantasy
. Indeed I'm not surprised as some of the new Magic Lores - Elementalism, Necromancy, Battle Magic and Illusion - also come from at least as far back as 3rd Edition.
Bottom line, TOW is essentially running an AoS magic system. Simple and non-tactical. Perhaps intellectually demanding for some, but not for me. Mileage will vary.
Even if you can trace its origins back to something similar in 3rd edition, that is a massive regression. Those super early editions of the game were from the infancy of the company. Crude and rudimentary. It is not a natural progression of the game. What kind of edition update gives us a change like this 1 to 2... 2 to 3... 3 to 4... 4 to 5... 5 to 6... 6 to 7... 7 to 8 and finally 8 to 3?
and was extrapolated and powered-up in 8th
In some ways powered up (a couple of uber spells) and in other ways weakened (less guaranteed power dice, 12 dice limit).
Not really - given that it's a similar sort of naming convention to Warhammer: The Horus Heresy and Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, I'd say it was more intended purely as a new means to differentiate it from those games that have both emerged fully onto the stage since the End Times (and from GW's desire to rename their company as a whole to just be called 'Warhammer' to increase brand awareness).
Because those are all deviations (other games) to the one original, WHFB.
In fact, I'd more liken the TOW - WHFB relationship to something akin to Warhammer 40k and Warhammer: Horus Heresy. And if we (creatively) extrapolate, TOW could be considered to be Warhammer: The Fantasy Heresy.
(and let's be honest, before you were put off by some of the rules that you specifically weren't a fan of, you were as keen as I was to read the Warhammer Community articles prior to its release and compare and contrast it with earlier Editions of the game, as one could only do for an impending new Edition
).
Correction:
as one could only do for a potential impending new edition.
I am a fact based person, and there simply weren't enough facts available at the time. The speculation was fun and it was all we could go off of. Others and I clearly laid out the make or break criteria we had for the game.
IF the game turned out to be a fantastic edition update, I would have said as much. I gave it the benefit of the doubt, and only abandoned it when it turned out to be an inferior game. That's not exactly the "gotcha" moment that you're hoping it to be.
but as
@J.Logan correctly pointed out, I'm looking at it from the point of view of the wider legacy of Warhammer Fantasy as a whole.
Which was already acknowledged:
Because a link to 8th is also a link to 7th, is also a link to 6th, etc etc as far back as you need to link it to the previous edition you cared for. Or at least I assume that's the logic
That sounds like a reasonable explanation.
I am well aware that you are more of a 7th edition guy than an 8th edition guy.
Editions of a game can change more than simply building on what came before it, and if the existing system seems to have not worked out (as 8th seemed to have done in the eyes of many people I've seen on Facebook groups with a far less appreciative attitude toward it than yours)
Not exactly great evidence there. "I heard some guys on Facebook say". I've heard a lot of really stupid shit said on Facebook.
The NIGHTBRINGER cares not for the opinions and thoughts of lesser minds.
Editions of a game can change more than simply building on what came before it, and if the existing system seems to have not worked out (as 8th seemed to have done in the eyes of many people I've seen on Facebook groups with a far less appreciative attitude toward it than yours), it is perfectly reasonable to assess whether a better approach is to make more drastic changes. As mentioned above 6th Edition seems to have been the previous incarnation of that very concept - and TOW is doing it again. Indeed one could class it as the beginning of the next of the big 'Eras' of the game:
- 1st - 3rd: The era of custom armies featuring random units from many races, non-Wizard characters with Levels, the Magic Point Leadership Test system, the lost stats of Cool, Willpower and Intelligence, the sketchy 80s art styles and no army books
- 4th - 5th: The era of the first boxed games and army books condensing the playable races into specific factions, some races from the previous era being filtered out, bright cartoonish artwork and colour schemes, Goblin Green bases, limited monopose plastic models and the card magic system
- 6th - 8th: The era of the more muted and realistic artwork, brown and red books, the original reinvention of the world into a Low-Magic setting before 8th turned that on its head, a growing number of plastic models, the Power Dice magic system, a few more new armies added, global campaigns and lore advancements (culminating in the End Times
)
- TOW/9th onwards: The era of Arcane Journals and army list compendiums, blue books, re-examining a past theatre in lore, some older factions being given more limited support (hopefully temporarily), more new factions added, the 2D6 + Wizard Level/Power Level system and a return to Low-Magic
All the prior eras were brought to an end through a substantial change in the rules, presentation and game design philosophy that GW had at the time, and the previous big game-changers that were 4th and 6th Editions remain just as worthy of the accolade of 'An Edition of Warhammer Fantasy' in your eyes as any other - TOW has done the same thing as these aforementioned Editions have, and thus equally deserves said accolade.
I might agree if it were only rules changes. As stated before, TOW clearly borrows a lot from what came before. The rules deviation (other than the TikTok generation magic phase) is less of a jump than some of those earlier relic editions. I only presented the rules changes (specifically the magic phase) as a single point of evidence from among a larger and more important subset, including...
- scrapping nearly half the armies (see direct evidence from GW posted above)
- scrapping a bunch of units (including some with great modern models that have been ported over to AoS)
- changing the name of the game
I agree, and I could certainly discuss the merits of TOW by itself quite happily here
Probably a pointless exercise. Three things are guaranteed to happen:
- you won't convince me
- I won't convince you
- it will come down to a war of attrition, which I will (very easily) win
Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
I simply wish to link it as another chapter in Warhammer Fantasy's overall story
And I want to keep them distinct. Usually the lesser thing (TOW) wants to attach itself to the greater thing (WHFB) and not the other way around.
in comparison to your quite frankly desperate wish to try and convince others to play 8th instead of TOW and stem the flow of water into the sinking ship
I am quite content. I have fun playing, badgering and pestering in terms of "recruiting", but at the end of day, I don't really need anyone else to jump on board. Heck, there are far more 8th edition players on EEFL, but I very seldom (by my standards) post over there.
As for a sinking ship, TOW interest on the forum has cratered. The amount it has dropped in the last year is staggering. Even AoS had a better run on the forum than TOW and by a very wide margin.
But at least you've got Kings of War beat!
No other game comes close to matching WHFB in terms of overall content on the forum. It's no contest at all. AoS at least gave it a run; TOW didn't even manage to do that.
you're the one using bold text and exclamations, an indicator of emotion potentially linked to desperation, not I
:
I always use exclamation marks, bold lettering, font changes and font colours for emphasis. That is hardly new. If you are only noticing this now, then you haven't been particularly observant. Not sure how they do things in England, but those are hardly markers of desperation. They have a multitude of uses. If anything, I'm usually more inclined to use them once I've successfully built an advantageous position in a debate.
