shinros
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Posts posted by shinros
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12 minutes ago, Overread said:
When you consider the world today the vast bulk of companies trade and work with China or companies run by them. GW is actually far less involved with China than many other larger miniatures producers, they produce the bulk of their product in-house and from what I gather they've even considered buying their own printing machines for paper product as well. I think the issue was that the costs are so great and whilst they have a high demand, its nothing like the output of the machines. Ergo it would sit quiet for a very long time so its just very hard for them to justify the long term costs of employees and skills staff to run a machine for what is ultimately small scale production.
As for lowering the price of entry, Gw have been doing a lot of that. Yes the model prices have not got cheaper, but they have introduced multiple methods of play and interaction that are cheaper through their various games. If you want cheap you can grab one box of Warcry or Underworld models and get to gaming right out of that. All the brushes and glue you can get from 3rd parties for cheaper if you desire. Meanwhile yes if you want a 40K or AoS full army you are looking at hundreds of £s; however that's never been different. Even in the past you were looking at some big values to get involved. Those really keen can use the secondhand market and local clubs can also work to help people on lower budgets get into the hobby - gifting models, selling cheap secondhand armies on etc... Heck a VAST number of gamers have too many boxes to build, they can easily welcome others from less affluent communities if they want to help them.
In the end lowering prices to get more customers isn't a simple thing; heck often as not you don't just magically get more customers with lower prices. You might well have to invest heavily into marketing to get enough people aware enough to want to be customers to make it work. This can lead to a trap where you end up, as a company, spending way more on marketing to drive the price down just to get enough market reach to maintain a larger casual market. That's a business approach that I don't think GW wants.
Well that's why I rather like GW because they do must of their production in-house. But when companies make statements like on the first page and still gladly do any sort of business with such a country in my eyes it's hypocritical. That's how I feel.
And on the lowering of prices? Of course it's not simple, they're doing better but the fact they have increased the prices again across almost 400 lines shows they are still a business. It's their right to do business.
But if their aim is to actually get more people into the hobby they have to look at their price points if they really mean what they say. Now this is anecdotal, but I've seen tons of minorities(even white people) enter the store, seem really interested to get started but walk out soon as they see the prices. Now I'm in a position where I can afford it thankfully, but there are huge swathe of people who can't. That's why the statement is just empty to me, I don't care.
The person behind the message I'm sure means well, but it's just a marketing gimmick being used in a troublesome time. That's how I see it.
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55 minutes ago, MaatithoftheBrand said:
Okay a few people are saying this so I will ask explicitly - what is it about seeing more types of "human" in Age of Sigmar that would push you away?
Let's go with baseline humans - let's say, tomorrow, GW put out a brand new Freeguild Soldiery box
Let's say 1 in 3 of the bodies/heads are in some way a minority (female, sculpted with non-European features, etc) - what about that would push people away? What about that erases or pushes away the identity of the core?Right, I told myself I won't post again but certain posts on this very page is making me shake my head. Here is the reason why I think certain individuals in this thread are afraid or concerned about GW's statement. Soon as GW posted that statement do you know what happened on the AOS facebook fanpage? A post popped up stating if GW cares about the message they should fire all the white people in the company and replace them with minorities, or not hire white people at all and only hire minorities until they are at a sufficient standard. That post got as many likes as the actual statement, the replies were a hellhole. The post rightfully got locked, but the likes were concerning to me. GW is trying to mean well with the statement but at the same time they are going to attract another spectrum that is just as toxic as the supposed people they are trying to push away.
I'm trying to be a writer, one day I might write from Black Library, that's the dream. But I don't want them to accept me just because I am a black man and they need more black people in the company. If they do such a thing it's an insult to the time I put in writing and those who may actually be better than me at the craft. I think such people are also toxic for the hobby and the fandom, that includes those who whinge at the sight of a minority playing the hobby. Both of them are problems. In my eyes BOTH are toxic.
Let's not forget GW does business with China, a place where actual minorities are killed and oppressed for being who they are. That's why I personally don't care for their statement. The individual workers in the company might care about certain issues, but the corporate entity itself doesn't care. It will never care. If they did they would lower the prices and and in turn lower the barrier of entry. I tried to say this on the 40klore reddit guess what happened? I was told that I hate myself, I'm not actually a black man but a white man trying to pretend. I also got down voted.
Again I stress out of all the companies I have seen, GW are actually handling diversity the best. They are placing it in areas where it makes sense and they are not compromising the lore or factions, at least in my eyes.
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3 minutes ago, Mwatts25 said:
Im not saying the sales weren’t bad, im saying they were bad because of gw’s marketing. With both Tk and brets, they were charging ridiculous prices for their unit boxes. 3 pegasus riders for 50 USD, vs 8 pistoliers on horseback for 40 USD. Tk had boxes of 3 ubshati golem guys similarly priced vs much larger unit counts in vampire counts equivalents too. These price point differences led to go to other vendors for higher quantities of cheaper units. All gw saw was dwindling sales, when in actuality they were losing sales to other companies. If the popularity for the armies wasnt high, the pricepoint on ebay wouldnt be as high as it is now on ebay.
Maybe the price point is so high on ebay at the current moment because the models aren't even in production anymore? Ever consider that? Funny enough the common complaint among fantasy players when it came to TK was the fact they aren't even fun to play. When I read their army book I got the distinct feeling the writer actually hated the army himself.
If an army is not fun to play people aren't going to drop money on already expensive models. Vampire Counts were basically TK +2. Anyway this topic is about mannfred, this is going to be my last post on the subject.
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18 minutes ago, Mwatts25 said:
You really should get your facts straight.
the sales for TK and brets weren’t down because of a lack of interest, they were down because of the ridiculous price point gw was putting on them, which led people to buying alternative minis from other companies, like tms, fireforge, etc. Gw saw this, and in a fit of pique, canned the lines
Bruh, it's well known TK was one of the poorest selling armies for fantasy. Vampire counts outstripped them by miles. People prefer gothic vampires and skeletons over Egyptian skeletons that were sucky to play. No one cared about Settra until end times. Because whenever he is mentioned you hear only the meme. Believe what you want mate.
Same thing with Bretonnia, Empire was far more popular than them. I even think an update wouldn't help them since TK models gathered dust on the shelves despite being updated first over vampire counts. In general fantasy sold poorly so they moved to AOS.
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15 minutes ago, amysrevenge said:
Speaking from my pulpit as a straight white dude, I am in no way pushed aside by the occasional, and by occasional I mean up to and including going over 50%, diverse miniature. And I'm reasonably upset at the suggestion that I might be so fragile that I would be bothered by increased diversity.
What should they do? Lots. More. So much more. Significant percentages of female models for any races that have sexual dimorphism.
What should they avoid? Yet another army of buff dudes. Anything that smacks of stereotypes or exaggerated racial features of RL groups.
Goddammit, this is my last post on the topic. I'll believe GW when I see it. In the new 40k trailer I saw a female guardsmen yet they haven't touched Imperial guard for years, but they seem to prefer to constantly update Space Marines because they sell. In my mind corporations only care for the money. It's why they also made that statement, for the money. I'm sure we are going to see more minorities in the hobby even with the price increase! >_>
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Oh here we go, as a black guy I will leave it at this. If GW wants to see more minorities in the hobby they need to adjust the prices. That's it. Also I'm not going to identify with any character in 40k considering no one is a hero in that setting since the Imperium is a satirical take on the worst parts of humanity. I like the stories in the setting and characters, but I won't identify with them.
Also I play death in AOS. Why? Because I like their models and their narrative. Also out of all the companies I think GW are handling diversity the best, the pencil pushers in the office seem to know what they are doing save the price increase. But what do I know? When I said this apparently I hate myself.
Also this topic is going to get locked. Fast. I do the hobby to get away from things like this. I hate politics, hate activists (either side) in this modern age.
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9 minutes ago, El Syf said:
End Times also turned Settra into the ultimate Badass with that one quote/meme. I certainly never remember anyone really caring about him before that.
I must confess I actually liked the end times novels (not the lore books that accompanied the rules books) and from the moment Manfred realizes he and Arkhan have returned Nagash to life rather than just harnessing his powers it was on the cards he was going to try and do something.
The start of the End times with Mannfred and Arkhan was pretty great in my opinion, but when it comes to Settra no one cared about him until the meme/quote as you said. If people loved Settra so much TK wouldn't be one of the worst selling armies next to Bretonnia even after they were updated. Don't get more wrong there were some small parts that were good but by large End times was rushed, hell the writers even forgot about characters.
Also personally I have a huge distaste over memes, largely 40k has done that.
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3 hours ago, sandlemad said:
Folks are interested in Vlad cos he's the archtype of the old order: he'll drain your blood but he represents order and stability, he drove out the bandits, protected the peasants, was 'respectable' and bore himself with a certain noblesse oblige. He was better than the previous counts of Sylvania and frankly many other empire nobles. Still a monster but with that 'cool dad' energy. Also as much as Isabella herself is pretty much a one-note cruel vampire lady, their relationship was always portrayed as earnest and was one of the few big love stories in WHFB.
That being said I like Mannfred and think he gains a lot simply by contrast with Vlad. Initially (i.e. in 6th ed, Liber Necris, etc) he's the nastier, more cunning, more magically adept, more realpolitik-focused dude compared to his at least mildly noble father figure, scheming and assassinating in a way that Vlad wouldn't. While Vlad represented a sort of break from the legacy of Nagash and had his eyes set firmly on the imperial throne, Mannfred both drew more from Nehekaran lore and aimed bigger. He was portrayed as ultimately a bigger threat than Vlad, which was part of that whole 6th/7th ed. buildup of various threats (Mannfred, Archaon, Grimgor, Malekith's latest plans). The Empire was able to defeat Vlad, barely, but oh no, now they have to deal with the guy who learned from all his father-in-blood's mistakes.
That changed somewhat when he became more of a Starscream-analogue but that only heightened the contrast: Vlad is the grizzled, charismatic, semi-honourable old veteran, whereas Mannfred is the seething, scheming, sarcastic ne'er-do-well. To my mind both of them were more distinct for the comparison.
Easy: where they sail they are accompanied by thick sorcerous fog, straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean. It blots out the sun sufficiently for the vampire captain to direct his crew from the helm, as long as he's got his huge pirate hat.
See here's the thing, the whole of the first paragraph largely is a misconception because of End times in my opinion that series was largely rushed and poorly written.
The whole protection of peasants thing was a front to push off attention as he prepared for his war. This is shown clearly in the vampire wars novel. Soon as he revealed he was a vampire he was putting peasants in cages, he also began slaughtering/eating the nobles who swore fealty to him at a party. Then he turned them into zombies. When the vampire wars started his get also started devouring peasants within Sylvania, it was basically chaos for them. In the end times he was only helping people out so once they all die he could rule the ashes, but all the other characters are wise enough to see he is a monster playing tricks. Especially Sigmar.
In the warhammer RPG it's made quite clear that Mannfred was the one who made the "modern" day Sylvania, instead of putting peasants in cages he turned them into cultists, they see vampires as gods essentially. They basically gave their blood freely through a tax, also as you said he drew more on the Nehekeran lore and aimed bigger than his vampiric father. Also he doesn't turn any random warrior he likes into a vampire, why? Because vampires like to betray one another. It happened to Vlad several times in the novel until Mannfred took a smarter route as you said. He tries to learn from mistakes, it's why he is bald. Literally.
Vlad is not an honourable figure in my opinion, that's a facade he uses to lure people in, then he reveals how monstrous he is, also let's not get into his an insane wife. It's why I was never invested in his story during the end times. Vlad is not a cool dad, that misconception came along because of end times, and it's telling when someone who has only read end times pops up stating how honourable he is.
In the end times it's outright revealed that many of the vampires don't even like Vlad or Mannfred because they are tired of the plans for world domination. Again this is just my observation/opinion after reading the books.
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Personally don't get the interest in Vlad he is a poor dracula rip off and he has a one dimensional wife who is insane. When I read the vampire wars and further fiction (liber necris, RPG.) I've found mannfred to be the far more interesting vampire.
Actually all of the three mortarch's are my favourite death characters.
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Best and most interesting Von Carstein, there I said it.
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10 minutes ago, Overread said:
Slaanesh still has mortals - they are the afore mentioned Hellstriders of which there are two kinds (basically two different weapons).
The Warcry teams are designed, lore wise, to be peoples who are just at the start of their journey into the depths of Chaos. Like Marauders they are very low on the pecking order. You really see this in the Warcry stories whereby when some make it to the Varenspire they go from being one of the top warbands (or at least top within their people at that time) to being right at the bottom of the pecking order. Bold and brazen but now way at the bottom compared to the likes of Chaos Warriors and such.
So the idea that some who make it into the upper ranks of the unified Chaos Army (or into mono-god armies) go down specific pathways is a neat lore nod. Personally I'd welcome updated Hellstriders with Splintered Fang style riders (their current ones always look rather too bulky for their steeds).I know, but hellstriders at the moment are basically bolted onto a clearly daemon battletome. Slaanesh doesn't have a mortal army like the other gods. The hellstriders likely come from the same tribe. Hence the similar apperance.
GW also tried to use the warcry warbands to placate the people who were asking where is Slaanesh's mortal army. (I remeber the salt on facebook) Then it came out that they aren't even battleline like marauders.
Slaves to darkness do not match the Hosts of slaanesh in terms of aesthetic. Their gameplay and points value as you clearly said screams buy more daemons/keepers.
Issue is if you go the host facebook group guess what you mainly see? Daemons.
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33 minutes ago, Still-young said:
Yeah that just reads to me like an in universe nod thing. Some splintered fang go on to join the hellstriders, rather than anything hinting to the Splintered Fang having much to do with Slaanesh in the actual game.
It could be a nod or a hint, but slaanesh has no mortals at the moment. Kinda strange for a warband to have almost the exact same aesthetics as hellstriders. This is the rumour thread after all.
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Found it. Here it is. They talked about the rest of the warbands in general terms but they dropped this on the end of splintered fang.
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1 hour ago, Still-young said:
Considering they mentioned in the lead up to Warcry about the warbands being not dedicated to specific gods, I think it’s possible you’ve misread something there. Which issue is that in? I imagine they just meant in-universe, Splintered Fang feed quite well into Slaanesh, rather than it being an actual hint for the future of the Slaanesh range. They don’t really do hints like that in White Dwarf.
I am not at home at the moment but I will dig it up. I made a post in this very thread.
Here is the page.
The image is gone due to the age of the post.
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18 minutes ago, willange said:
What was that hint? I completely missed it!
It was in the white dwarf when they were discussing the warcry warbands. They said slaanesh will be in their future.
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12 minutes ago, Grimrock said:
Well, could be a chicken/egg scenario. The keeper was always going to be redone, but maybe GW also wanted a faction that was primarily focused on heroes. So after the keeper was finished they put their energy into making more heroes rather than a new unit or two and figured that the upcoming slaves tome would eventually fill in the gaps. Hero-centric is certainly a unique concept for the tome and definitely has a valid place in the game. On the other hand I wouldn't be surprised at all if the overtuned nature of the summoning was due to a business decision rather than playtesting, but we don't really know one way or the other.
As far as the optimal bit... well this is a rumor thread so probably not worth digging too deep into. I will say however that from my experience keepers are incredibly unreliable. They're just as likely to do 2-3 damage as they are to nuke a monster in one swing (although people seem to only ever remember the time they were nuked and not the whiffs). Can't tell you how many times my keeper has activated twice and barely did anything. The summoning evened them out because even if you whiffed horribly and lost two keepers for nothing you'd be able to summon one right back and try again. With the increased summoning costs you can't really do that anymore, so it might be smarter to start looking at more consistent options.
The mistake GW made was releasing a daemon tome instead of a mortal/daemon tome. The point values and abilities basically scream buy more keepers please! It's glaring when slaanesh mortal wizards get only three spells to choose from (they all suck compared to daemons.) and some of command abilties and artifacts don't even work if you have a mortal hero since they can't use locus.
To go back to rumours at least GW hinted they are going to do something with the splintered fang.
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On 6/27/2020 at 9:43 PM, Overread said:
GW community reps are mostly stuck repeating the company line; if something people want isn't out the community repss can't change much, so they can note it and pass it along, but otherwise directing people are things like warcry was the right and only choice they've got. And lets be fair some of those warbands - like the Unmade - SCREAM SLAANESH from every oozing wound on them.
That said I fully expect to see Slaanesh get a chunky update at some stage - esp considering the other 3 gods have already got a good display of mortal followers. Then again I'd love them to revise depravity to make the tome more than "just take loads of those awesome keeper models"
Actually in the white dwarf they said the Splintered fang might have Slaanesh in their future when they were discussing the warbands. I do agree with you on the Slaanesh battletome though, it's why their topic on the forum has barely moved because all of the lists are largely the same with no variance.
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So apparently we are getting two AOS rts games? One from gasket and one from Frontier.
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Bloody hell, I thought I was the grouch. I think the new Aelves look pretty great, always felt they were going to put an AOS spin on them when it came to the elites and HQ's. To me that was obvious hence I was telling people around the net to curb their expectations since it's not going to be a 1 to 1 copy.
Anyway, I'm ready to MOOOO for Teclis!
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Nice a coloured version of ashqy, can't wait to see the rest of the maps updated in time. Chamon looks pretty nuts in the tzeentch battletome.
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35 minutes ago, CJPT said:
The attractiveness of WHFB to Creative Assembly is about more than the popularity of the setting. The Old World was a good fit for a Total War game: it's a well-defined, historical-feeling space with almost every corner of the map fleshed out and a clear sense of what can and can't happen. That puts it firmly within CA's wheelhouse, which had always been about adopting a particular moment in history and allowing players to move the pieces around. The irony is that this is also why it was becoming an increasingly burdensome IP to GW: the scope for new factions or changes to the status quo became more and more limited as the blank parts of the map got filled in. Over the years, WHFB effectively involved into a great worldbuilding foundation for a videogame (or roleplaying game)and a comparatively limited basis for an ever-expanding fantasy range, which is ultimately the business that GW is in. It made complete sense for them to build up Age of Sigmar as a tabletop game while allowing the Old World to live on in an environment that was much better suited to it.
Yup that's my view on it as well, WHFB is a great RPG/video game setting but as an expanding wargame? It just doesn't work, when they want to add new things it's normally arbitrary and weird. Aka varghiests, they went with they were always there! Line of storytelling
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An AOS rts game is being worked on by the devs of dawn of war 1 and 2.
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2 hours ago, Gecktron said:
I wouldnt call Warhammer Fantasy "extremly popular". The game was clearly on its way out back then. Completly dwarfed by 40K. A lot of people hyping up the old world online are mostly coming from Total War: Warhammer. Its hard to say how much this will translate into real players.
Those on the total war forum are upset at the time period since they have to buy new models. I'm suprised they didn't expect this GW weren't planning to just do 9th edition. At the moment people are waking up to the fact that it's not set in Karl Franz's time.
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4 hours ago, Koradrel of Chrace said:
Actually, in the book The Court of the Blind King, the Idoneth aren't really portrayed as hating Teclis. They're more in awe of/afraid of him. They realize that they are pretty messed up, and don't seem to blaim that on him.
I recommend not using that book for lore, It's inconsistent, stick to the tome in my opinion. David didn't even read two pages from the tome from the look of things.
How will Games Workshop push diversity in AoS?
in Age of Sigmar Discussions
Posted · Edited by shinros
Well this is where I respectfully disagree, actions speak louder. Their actions show me their covering themselves as a business. To me personally it's empty. If you want to lecture someone you better follow up. If they cancelled their incoming price increase around that time that would of spoken a lot more louder than whatever statement they want to slap on twitter or facebook for the wolves to circlejerk over.
Skirmish wasn't well supported and it's an unbalanced mess, Specialist games like warcry and killteam in my opinion are gateway products. GW wants people to buy into their mainline than stay with a squad of two. Just my opinion, again it's their right to do this as a business.
Also I think GW are keenly aware of how expensive the hobby is considering armies in 40k have gone up by about 20-30% in terms of point value for 9th edition. So games are going to be slightly smaller.
Edit:At the end of the day GW are at the mercy of shareholders. I doubt they would take it well if one day they say for the sake of diversity and inclusion we are going to lower the prices in their report.