Warhammer

[Kail]

So, during the lockdown, when I had a bit more time and money and less to do with it, I ended up picking up some Warhammer stuff for the first time.  Seems pretty fun, I haven't actually played a game yet but I am enjoying the painting (though I suck at it).

One of the things that confuses me is the fluidity of the rules, though.  I picked up core books for both Age of Sigmar and 40k and both of them have had new editions since then, plus a mountain of other books.  I was watching some Youtube stuff to get a feel for the rules, and a lot of comments are talking about FAQs and erratas and different sourcebooks (Psychic Awakening, Warzone Charadon, General's Handbook, etc.) on top of the core book and all the codexes and codex supplements, I get the impression that there are rules updates scattered all through about a trillion books which aren't really super obvious about their contents.  Is there anywhere that tracks this stuff?  Somewhere with, like, one completely up-to-date set of stat sheets and rules?  Or do I seriously have to buy every single book they put out just in case there's some point cost change for one of my units, and frankenstein my stat sheets together from all of that?

[Trippy]

For building armies there are programs / apps that can help you put those together and many of them will include all the special rules for those units as print outs. For the general rules, yes GW expects you to spend hundreds of dollars to acquire all the relevant books made even more confusing by the fact for WH40K some armies have 9th edition rules and others still are on 8th edition. There's also an official app for 40K with an official army builder but it requires a monthly subscription and only includes the base rules (you can unlock codexes in the app if you own the printed codexes).

[Rendakor]

Army Builder is the program we used to use for Warhammer, but that was for WHFB 8th edition. You should be able to download the FAQ or errata somewhere on GW's site, and it should be available on a per-army basis.

[Kail]

Unless I'm missing something, the FAQs and errata are on a per-book basis, and they're written in that really awkward "Page 74: Replace sentence 107 with 'Select any allied unit wholly within twelteen inchometers'" style.  So, I'd still need all the books and then I'd need the errata for every book on top of that.

The Warhammer app would be ideal (minus the subscription, but I guess we gotta monetize every damn thing these days), but it's got an average user score of 1.8 stars, so I'm thinking there miiiiight be some problems.

Oh, well, I guess that's the benefit of playing a tabletop game rather than a PC game: I don't have to give a crap about keeping up to date unless I want.

[BobtheSomething]

Which game, specifically, do you want to play?  If you want to keep current and play pickup games, you’ll need to keep up with the latest rules.  If you want to play WHFB, or have a group willing to play older editions of 40k, you can get the rulebooks and codices for a specific edition—say, 5th or 6th for FB and 3.5 or 5th for 40k—and never have to worry about buying newer rules (or minis, I guess).  Or if you are okay using unofficial rules you can even go with One Page Rules or one of the many WHFB successors for a tiny fraction of the cost.

[Rendakor]

You only need the books for the armies you want to play, but, yea. When I was into it, most people only played an army or two so that's all you needed the info for. It was worth reading up on the other ones to be really competitive, but if you're just trying to have fun that's not something you'll need to spend money on.

[Sky]

Remember rule #1, you automatically forfeit if you have unpainted models on the table.

 

[Kail]

Which game, specifically, do you want to play?

Looking mainly at 40k and a bit of Age of Sigmar... haven't settled on an army yet, I just finished the starter set and am mostly painting cool looking randoms until I settle down.  I'm thinking I might just grab the current edition and stop there, since if I'm going to focus on a single edition the one currently in print seems like the easy route.

You only need the books for the armies you want to play, but, yea.

Oh, phew.  That's not so bad, then.  I was under the impression that I'd need all the peripheral books too (Psychic Awakening, Warzone Charadon, Imperial Armor, etc. etc.)

Remember rule #1, you automatically forfeit if you have unpainted models on the table.

 

At this stage, 3/4 of my force would consist of proxy Amiibos and chess pieces wearing GI Joe hats, so painting is the least of my worries. 

[HaemishM]

The thing you need to remember about any Games Workshop product (especially the core 40k and Age of Sigmar ranges) are that the entire game exists to sell you new rulebooks/codexes/army lists so that they can sell you new models every month, rinse repeat, 5 years later release a new version and start over again.

[Rendakor]

As Haemish said, GW is first and foremost a models company. The fact that people do things with the models other than paint them (with Citadel paints, obviously) is at best a happy accident for them.

Oh, phew.  That's not so bad, then.  I was under the impression that I'd need all the peripheral books too (Psychic Awakening, Warzone Charadon, Imperial Armor, etc. etc.)

Since you've name-dropped a bunch of books I've never heard of, I will once again stress that I only ever played Fantasy. For that, you wanted a core rule book (but there was a mini version that came with the starter box) and the rule book of whatever army you wanted. I have no idea if 40k is different in that regard.

[Comstar]

GW is now enforcing a total blockade of any fan made animations.

It's not hard for me right now (as I'm more interested in playing Napoleonic 18mm, Oathmark and Rangers of Shadowfell), but I will no longer be being buying any GW products. 

[Sir T]

I wont comment on the Models as some of them are genuinely quite good (or at least were when I played 20 years ago), but I tried looking at their paintbrushes when I did play, and their "Fine detail" brushes were something I would more likely use for painting large sections or drybrushing. I got my brushes from a proper model shop and the brushes were far better quality.

[BobtheSomething]

GW is now enforcing a total blockade of any fan made animations.

It's not hard for me right now (as I'm more interested in playing Napoleonic 18mm, Oathmark and Rangers of Shadowfell), but I will no longer be being buying any GW products. 

It has also come out recently how little they’ve been paying their game developers.  Lots of reasons to boycott GW now.

[Sky]

I got my brushes from a proper model shop and the brushes were far better quality.

Kolinski sable rounds from Winsor & Newton, Rosemary & Co, and DaVinci are all reliable (within the bounds of hand-assembled natural materials). I've used a 1 & 2 from W&N (not the 'miniature' line), and a 0 & 1 from Rosemary.

[Kail]

GW is now enforcing a total blockade of any fan made animations.

It's not hard for me right now (as I'm more interested in playing Napoleonic 18mm, Oathmark and Rangers of Shadowfell), but I will no longer be being buying any GW products. 

Yeah, I saw a video from Alfabusa about this last night, sounds... weird.  Presumably they're cracking down for the launch of Warhammer+, which is a service I 100% do not "get".  Like, they're going to launch a service that consists entirely of painting tutorials, battle reports, and short fan animations, and for this they are charging a subscription?  Like I'm going to pay half of a Netflix subscription but instead of watching Umbrella Academy or John Wick I get to watch the five minute Astartes short and maybe video of some people sitting around a table playing a board game?  And because the content is so ghetto they have to nuke their fan community because they'd be getting serious competition from random zero budget Youtube channels?   Not really selling me on this one.  Personally I'm not super bothered by it either way (not super invested in fan works generally), but the optics for the whole thing are just super dumb.

[Sky]

GW has always seemed like asshoe to me. That plan sounds 100% true to form.

When I was thinking about getting back into miniatures gaming, the most appealing to me was Infinity. They rebooted the line, and though the minis are still good, they're not as good as the originals were, so...I've never been much of a fan of GW's minis overall, but the newer stuff has some definite cool stuff, the undead in particular are cool af.

[HaemishM]

GW is now enforcing a total blockade of any fan made animations.

It's not hard for me right now (as I'm more interested in playing Napoleonic 18mm, Oathmark and Rangers of Shadowfell), but I will no longer be being buying any GW products. 

It has also come out recently how little they’ve been paying their game developers.  Lots of reasons to boycott GW now.

I've been playing or interacting with GW since the mid-1990's and there has NEVER in all that time, EVER been a dearth of reasons to boycott GW. They make some decent games but holy shit, they have always been just utter bastards as a company.

[HaemishM]

Presumably they're cracking down for the launch of Warhammer+, which is a service I 100% do not "get".  Like, they're going to launch a service that consists entirely of painting tutorials, battle reports, and short fan animations, and for this they are charging a subscription? 

From what I gathered from the initial press release, the service was going to give you access to all the Codices/Rulebooks/Fluff material in addition to all the other stuff you mention. That would make it "worth it" if you wanted to play the games, depending on the monthly price. I haven't investigated further to see what all is really in it.

[Kail]

Presumably they're cracking down for the launch of Warhammer+, which is a service I 100% do not "get".  Like, they're going to launch a service that consists entirely of painting tutorials, battle reports, and short fan animations, and for this they are charging a subscription? 

From what I gathered from the initial press release, the service was going to give you access to all the Codices/Rulebooks/Fluff material in addition to all the other stuff you mention. That would make it "worth it" if you wanted to play the games, depending on the monthly price. I haven't investigated further to see what all is really in it.

Yeah, I wonder why they'd even bother with the animation stuff then, seems like it would be a marketing win to just tack a free mini on to their existing app subscription rather than billing it as some kind of multimedia service which also incidentally includes updated rules.  That seems like the only part of it I'd be interested in, assuming they can iron out the technical issues with their app.

Checked in the store today for the new Thousand Sons + Grey Knights release.  The store listing for the preorder was added at 12:00, I checked at 12:10 and they were all sold out.  THANKS.

[HaemishM]

I assume the addition of animation and multimedia is in the hopes that some movie studio comes along and wants to buy the license to a movie franchise. Hell, even Mutant Chronicles got a movie (though not a good one) and that has never sold that well in any form.

[Kail]

New faction announced (April 1, but apparently not a joke) for Warhammer 40k.  Or, more like the return of an old one: the Squats are coming back.  Space Dwarves, basically.  Kinda excited for this one, to be honest.  Nothing to buy yet (except for the old Squat models for like, Necromunda or whatever) but the shots so far look pretty sweet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBFgZzYEr-8

[Trippy]

Rock and Stone!

[Teleku]

Lol, that is amazing.

[Kail]

So, the space dwarf thing is kinda turning in to a mess.

The promo box went live for pre-order on September 17, and sold out in something like four hours. Since this is a new army, that box is the only way to get any of these models.  On top of that, the new codex is so overpowered that tournament owners have been talking about banning the faction outright from competitive play, which is not something I've heard of being done, even when Harlequins were sitting at like 80% win rate.

So, GW puts out a statement that they're updating that balance so nobody panic, and now the people who DID get their hands on the pre-order box are pissed that their new codex is out of date just five days later.

Meanwhile, GW is still sold out of the one box which represents the entire faction, and most of the army still doesn't exist yet (the units which weren't part of the pre-order box aren't available separately or anything).

[eldaec]

GW new things are always a mess.

But lately they've been sorting things out reasonably shortly after launch.

[Kail]

Hopefully that's the case, I keep hearing rumors that 10th edition is just about to be announced.  Though I'm not sure I'll pick it up, I still haven't managed to convince anyone here to pick up the hobby with me, so the total number of games I've played sits at zero.  It's hard to justify spending this much cash on the rulebooks I never use, even though I really like the painting aspect of it (though I am pretty terrible).

[HaemishM]

I'm not sure that GW has ever put out a codex that wasn't insanely overpowered and unbalanced in the entire time I've been playing and/or following the system. It's just what they do.

[Sky]

I'm not sure that GW has ever put out a codex that wasn't insanely overpowered and unbalanced in the entire time I've been playing and/or following the system. It's just what they do.

Because it moves models for the new codex. All about the benjies, of course they could playtest it and get it in better shape before release, but why do more work for less money?

[Kail]

Warhammer 40k 10th ed. was announced yesterday, and I'm kind of excited for it, to be honest.

Some highlights:

• Character stats will now fit on a card (seems similar to Age of Sigmar's warscroll cards, doesn't seem mind blowing, aside from some named characters these are often fairly compact already)
• Army rules will fit on two pages (now THIS seems like kind of a huge deal, given how bloated things were getting)
• Army building is now just "pick a warlord, stay in your points budget, and don't bring more than three (six for battleline) units of the same type"
• The change I'm most interested in:  the rules will be free, there's an across the board rules/stats reset and all unit rules and datasheets will be available digitally at launch.  I might easily be reading this wrong, it SOUNDS really good, but then they say that "Codexes will return in time to replace free rules, but when they do the complexity of the game won’t increase, thanks to a one-in-one-out ethos for army and sub-faction rules." No idea what that means in practice.  Does the codex obsolete the free rules?  Or is it an alternate way to play, like the Armies of Renown, or what?  I WANT to believe that this means they'll be balancing the entire game holistically from the get-go, instead of trying to balance 9th edition Mechanicus against 8th edition Tau for two years and then getting all surprised face when the Tau codex drops with all new rules and suddenly the game balance is completely fucked overnight.  Ideally a codex would just be "the game has been out for a year, seems pretty balanced and stable, here's a printout of the current stats".  But it also might just mean "we're starting the edition by globally scaling some numbers down to revert some power creep, but there will still be massive balance changes any time a codex updates"

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/03/23/a-mindblowing-new-edition-of-warhammer-40000-is-coming/

[Trippy]

Yes they are saying some good stuff with 10th Edition so far but of course GW has plenty of time to mess up the execution.

GW has done indexes before and then screwed things later with the codexes so 10th could fall into that same trap.

The free rules will be nice and I'm kind of surprised they are going that route since they've been presumably making a decent chunk of money by spamming overpriced low content hard back rule books, codexes and supplements for some time now.