"What is Age of Sigmar?" Topic

Suddenly I see a lot of talk about it on the usual "Why I hate GW" or "Why I love GW" threads, but I don't have a clue what it is.

Please enlighten me.
I am not even going to guess but may ask for clarification.

There are some threads on Sigmar but they all seem to assume you know what is already.

The GW equivalent of New Coke.

In VERY simple terms 8th edition was due for replacement, and all assumed it would be the usual rehash with a new starter box. Until the End Times series began last year. Some suggested this was an optional campaign set, others thought it boded something more radical.

Then rumours began to fly that the new edition would be a radical change: round bases, skirmish scaled, and destroying the old background as players knew it. Most hoped against hope this wasn't the case.

Instead of announcing 9th ed. for the summer GW instead went with Warhammer – Age of Sigmar (AoS). Leaks progressively confirming it is a largely completely new game, and the background is so to speak, history.

Competitive gamers and fanboys alike are up in arms at their love-hate relationship finally being concluded. They are all whining like dumped boyfriends at the moment ;-)

Cautiously, the new game – promises to be essentially free – looks like it has potential, even if robbing the grave of several more recent rules systems for 'inspiration'. If it all holds out it could be a real winner, but nobody trusts GW enough to really expect that to be the case. Only time will tell; but AoS is it for the forseeable future and the idea of an ongoing edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles as people have know it for the last 20 years or so (4th to 8th ed.) is no more.

The GW equivalent of New Coke.

I'm not sure.. I have not followed a set of gw rules since they did a second edition.. Why!

I have heard that they are the stripped down super skirmish set that will replace fantasy rules, only four pages long and free to download… I'm thinking they might just be fun?

Ok.
What is End Times?

Over the last 30 years GW had essentially turned the battle for the old world in to good versus Chaos (bad). Eventually they decided that to reboot the system and leave room for a totally new background, Chaos should win.

To engineer the maximum money from this before they tried something new and to give – I guess – Warhammer the send off they thought fans might want, they created the End Times campaign, 4 (or 5, I can't recall) hefty tomes of rules, scenarios and background telling you how your favourite characters got killed off in really anticlimactic, unlikely or plain dumb ways. Alongside this were ranges of massive, glorious, overpriced, ridiculous models for chumps to buy. End Times was it seems designed to be unbalanced, and to mess with tournament players, it was also intended from the start to be a limited run and so priced to match…

End Times was sort of a rush job Apocalypse which shattered the Old World. Almost all of that is gone, with as I understand it, only drifting fragments of what once was remaining. These fragments occasionally collide or intersect and wars result.

All the old fluff is pretty much moot now. Many are worried the mass battle aspect of the game is gone. Others are angry or relieved that the fluff has effectively been wiped off the board. Fluff and mechanics are getting a complete reboot and no one is sure if this 'Hail Sigmar pass' will work or not.

The Warseer forums have more than you will want to read on the rumors and conjectures, and the new information is the first official information in some months. People are just now coming to grips with it. warseer.com/forums/forum.php

I haven't bought any of the End Times things but from what I have heard they are pretty well thought out, provide some very nice gaming material and scenarios. They do mess with tournament players but that seems to be something people critical of GW want, or at least they complain about the tournament mentality.

In short they have created a (fictional) story that you can play out on the table top. It, in that sense, is much like doing historical gaming.

Also I didn't think the new models were all that ridiculous or overpriced. I think the Glottkin model is one of the coolest looking fantasy models on the market right now. If I played Nurgle I'd be all over that thing.

With the strong indication that whatever is coming next is a skirmish based game, I'm wondering if it's going to be a variant of their Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game. The LotR game has had a good reception & with the movies over, GW will probably not be keeping the license. So it seems like a good opportunity to reuse the LotR rules.

These are reported to be a small smattering of the Age of Sigmar figures.

link

I'm not honestly all that impressed.

I would like to see the other factions, though, before finally making an opinion.

They look horribly like OTT 40K assault marines. Not one for me.

They do look a lot like 40K assault marines. Of course the marines look a lot like OTT medieval knights sci-fi'd up a bit so it almost like the whole fantasy-in-space thing that 40K is has come full circle.

I'm not overly enraptured with those figures either. It would be nice if they just did a redo of the rules and included it in the time when Sigmar was alive and forging the Empire. In that sense it would be neat if the pre-empire army was either a late roman looking thing or a straight up more Roman looking fantasy army.

Even a Saxon looking force would be good too.

With some arm swaps and backpacks, those would be some awesome space marines!

Yup, I have the new stormcast figure….

It's a Spacemarine with a hammer and a shield.

My opinion is that it's another moneygrab, they are killing off the old ranges to make way for more proprietary ranges that go beyond "Knights or Renaissance figures with skullz added" which will be incompatible with rival manufacturers. My guess is that with so many Historical sets becoming available and the impending release of Warlord Landsknechts, GW figured it was time to pull the plug on that racket. Also it should make lawsuits a lot easier with more clearly defined and trademarked designs, cf the multitude of new completely silly names rather than the hard to defend generic names like "Space Baboon" or "Imperial Nitwit."

I also expect that in the near future a single 32mm GW character model will end up costing about the same as a battalion box today … GW armies will be maybe a tenth of their former size and still cost about the same.

Part of the move was to shift to a more clearly defined and defended IP. Their main barrier has been to set entry level into WHFB so high. Supposedly this system will be more accessible. We'll see how it goes, but at the end of the day I don't anticipate that the leopard will change its spots, although they may paint them over for a little while.

The WHFB/40K universe isn't really my cup of tea at all, but it's always interesting to keep track of developments in GW. But the first thing I was thinking of, ignoring anything about rules, miniature designs, etc… is the title 'Age of Sigmar' doesn't exactly spark my imagination – it's obviously a reference to a character in the fluff that would trigger long-term fans, but it doesn't evoke anything to me really. I can see how 'Warhammer' as a title works – it's very direct and straightforward. But 'Age of Sigmar'? It hardly incites you to want to play it, and as an apparent new dawn in their hobby??

Is it just me?

A cynical analysis would state that they have no intention of lowering the plastic figure prices, and so they are reducing the "army" size so they look more affordable.

Not cynical- I believe that's very much a given. I can't see even the most ardent fanboy failing to admit that.

Sigmar is a Warhammer historical figure. He was the guy who united the states of the Empire (picture a Fantasy version of Bismarck) and defeated the evil Chaos Lord in the first good vs. evil battle.

If the "Age of Sigmar" harkened back to those early, formative days, it might be more interesting. But the fact that they are regurgitating him as some kind of immortal, post-apocalyptic savior of the human race tells you everything you need to know about the story line: nothing new, just recycled ideas from decades ago when GW actually had people on staff with creative ideas.

It feels like a Fast & Furious 14 or Rocky 7 movie.

Does one have to be a fanboy in order to simply enjoy playing a game?

I think its like The Age of Aquarius, only for Warhammer Fantasy Battles.

I think I'll just carry on playing 1st ed. Warhammer (C) 1983.

It is the latest from GW and it is the beginning of GW killing off WFB.

So what GW is doing is stealing from Marvel and creating Asgardian like forces to fight Chaos.

Oh and it appears that your current forces cannot be used in AOS.

Which is very believable since this is GW that we are talking about.

Normally I'm a kind civilized person, but I want to kill a certain group of people now…With all this even Mantic's Kings of war looks nice.

imgur.com/a/wKBMo#0

But the first thing I was thinking of, ignoring anything about rules, miniature designs, etc… is the title 'Age of Sigmar' doesn't exactly spark my imagination – it's obviously a reference to a character in the fluff that would trigger long-term fans, but it doesn't evoke anything to me really.

It is quite an obvious in-universe reference for those familiar with the setting. However, I must admit that it probably will not say anything to those not previously unfamiliar with the setting – and GW strategy presumably is to try to recruit lots of new customers into this game.

That said, it is a very distinctive, which must please their trademark lawyers.

Wow.

The minis are SO over the top. It's like their steroids are on steroids!

This just all looks like, 'hey, I'm parachuting out of an airplane, on a dirtbike strapped to a rocket-powered snowboard, while on fire! WOOOOOOO!!! "

It's a parody of itself.