One of the keys to this is that Warhammer fantasy players are more often just gaming with the armies they already have, whether recent minis or retro minis. While they were GW customers at one time or another, now Ebay and other trading places have made it easy to add additional troops to existing armies or start new ones while bypassing GW retail prices altogether.
No question that Warhammer fantasy is viewed as the more "mature" version of GW gaming. I have never once had the least bit of interest in 40k – ever. I can't stand it. I have never liked skirmish-sized forces, and I have no interest in the futuristic Warhammer universe.
They way 40k is marketed and packaged, it has the "feel" of being more of a magic the gathering or Xwing miniatures type-game.
At gaming clubs, I have seen younger players literally set up like three or four vehicle models per side for a 40k game, with NO terrain, NO table, and NO movement of the minis! They literally sat across from each other and played 40k like they were playing a game of poker.
I''m not saying that describes all 40k players, but there is no question that the huge appeal of 40k is simply that it's a lot less work to play, and you have more exciting "boom" and "crash" things happening. Big guns, big suits of mech armor, it's like GW's version of Fast and Furious.
By contrast Warhammer fantasy is like a grand chess match in which the playing pieces are brought to life through a great deal of color and effort.
Except for the fact that 40k minis are just as prohibitively expensive as fantasy minis are, 40k could very easily be played using nothing but gaming counters and a hex board, it's "closer" to that than fantasy is. Fantasy could be played that way as well, but it's less likely given the fact that for many gamers of fantasy and historical take great pleasure in the grand visuals of the gaming table, and less likely to settle for fielding unpainted minis and cardboard cutout terrain.
From a business perspective what GW is doing to fantasy is totally justified. They have no obligation to remain loyal to an old guard of fantasy players. They are a publicly traded company that must make a profit. Like them or hate them, making Warhammer fantasy more skirmish-like and making it closer to 40k makes huge sense and will probably succeed.
BUT, as I've said a hundred times(and this is what ticks me off about all of this), is that the only facet of Warhammer that a new edition truly impacts are the dreaded tournament players. I say dreaded because tournament Warhammer generally has to play the current edition, so for the tournament gamers, they are waiting for the new starter set so they can begin laser-cutting the new army lists apart and look at them with their dang accounting magnifying glasses so they can begin to build their spreadsheets and maximize every last drop of stat-blood from it….while sucking all the fun and fantasy out of fantasy gaming.
But as I said, GW has no obligation to remain true to tournament gamers or to old-guard Warhammer players. They are a business. I laugh when I see these kinds of blogs on Youtube and other places where gamers tell GW what they "think GW should be doing" with their business. GW could care less, and the truth is, if these keyboard warriors were given control of running GW's business, they would totally destroy it within a week. There's a huge difference between thinking what GW "should" do for its gaming community vs. what will continue to make them money.
Particularly the Youtube channels that say that GW "walked away from supporting tournaments" and is now "paying the price for it". They are? Last time I checked the company is still profitable. LOL. WHO EVER SAID that GW had any obligation to support tournaments??? Except tournament gamers saying it?
Warhammer 9th will attract new gamers into fantasy and will tick off many old-guard Warhammer players. GW needs new blood, pure and simple. They can't give away a new edition of one of their core games for free. They can't please everybody.
And as I said, the tournament scene players are the ones who have their b**ls tied when a new edition comes out, which is yet another great reason to not be a tournament gamer.
If you are free of the shackles of all that competitive nonsense, then you are still free to play 8th, 7th, 6th, or even 3rd edition of Warhammer. Or even make your own rules! GW supplies models and then supplies suggested rules to use. But ultimately you can do whatever you want! It's YOUR GAME.
GW isn't going to come bashing down your door because you're not buying and playing the current edition of their game!
snapped some photos of games he didn't get a chance to play in at Council of Five Nations.
