"9th Age WHFB wargame: Sadly, a Slowly Sinking ship" Topic

Blog.

Summary:

How can a game be an ambitious rewrite of WHFB 8th ed. with a quite active tournament scene, and still be a ruleset on life support? Because of that. The project team has made several strategic errors – some irrepairable – that have turned the project – imho – in a Grailseeking quest. And although I admire the hard work, the great layout, the blood sweat and tears of T9A, I predict that 'The Ninth Age' will in the end be nothing more than a fringe movement in mass battle fantasy wargaming.

Not a dominant ruleset that attracts new generations.

The decline, actually, is quite sad. Non-profit volunteer games have my sympathy. I write this blog not because I hate 9th Age or fantasy battling, but because I wonder about a gamer's community that still dream that they are the world's next Games Workshop.(…)

So, will it die?

more here:

link

Blog.

Summary:

How can a game be an ambitious rewrite of WHFB 8th ed. with a quite active tournament scene, and still be a ruleset on life support? Because of that. The project team has made several strategic errors – some irrepairable – that have turned the project – imho – in a Grailseeking quest. And although I admire the hard work, the great layout, the blood sweat and tears of T9A, I predict that 'The Ninth Age' will in the end be nothing more than a fringe movement in mass battle fantasy wargaming.

Not a dominant ruleset that attracts new generations.

The decline, actually, is quite sad. Non-profit volunteer games have my sympathy. I write this blog not because I hate 9th Age or fantasy battling, but because I wonder about a gamer's community that still dream that they are the world's next Games Workshop.(…)

So, will it die?

more here:

link

This is solely my opinion, but I don't really give a damn about rules without the Old World background. I was mad about AoS and the End Times for killing the fluff, not for changing the rules.

If I want to play WHFB, I either use 6th edition or KoW now.

Also, the T9a team always gave off the vague impression that they were hoping to make money off the project. It just had this disingenuous feel to it for me. They shouldn't have been trying to compete with AoS, they should have been trying to give refuge to the players who wanted WHFB back.

I have never understood why it matters one iota about destroying the Old World. Nuigrim is playing games in the Old World still.

So can you.

It isn't like it actually existed in the first place.

Things that did exist, and went away, like the Roman Empire, still have people gaming in them.

The rules are even there for you to play games in the Old World with AoS if you want.

Pictors Studios +1

My 14 year old son and I love the lore of the Warhammer Old World and play Total War Warhammer together (the computer game) a lot.

8th Edition WFB had honestly become a big, cumbersome (not just the rulebook) and complex set of rules and we have been using Age of Sigmar rules (with lots of house rules to fill the holes).

With the recent release of AoS version 2 we are running a Campaign set in the Old World – The struggle for Axe Bite Pass – leveraging AoS II rules that seem a significant improvement.

The AoS lore has also been improved with version 2 – it was appalling for version 1 – and we are reading it but for the moment quite happy with the Warhammer Old World as our backdrop.

Pictors,

What mattered is the loss of new content. With the new WFRP coming out, that might be helped, but no new fluff sucks for someone like me. I don't need constant updates, but the fleshing out of details in the backdrop is something I am willing to pay for. I don't even need the game to "evolve". Just fill in some of the ridiculously large gaps in the timeline.

The background is the only thing that attracted me to Games Workshop lines in the first place, to be honest. Only two of their games have really attracted me with the miniatures, BFG and LOTR. The rest have been the background and world in which the games are played.

Pictors Studio +1.

We still play 6/7th Warhammer Fantasy with no end of the world in sight.
In fact, since there is no longer a rigid tournament system (or expectation of following one) in place, i've Enjoyed bringing back some discontinued 4th edition units that sat on the shelf for so long.

As far as settings, we don't follow the Warhammer World timeline anyway. Conveniently the Warhammer world resembles our own world and I create my own campaigns mirroring real world conflicts. There is an endless supply of inspiration out there.

They tried to stick to closely to 8th edition. While it has the best shooting rules – otherwise it was a ponderous monstrosity.

Likewise we would have loved to have gone back to classic Bretonian lists not the Monty Python versions but no avail.

I ended up doing an Olde World Expansion for Knights & Knaves so I could use my old collection (with a bit of rebasing). Working on a "Big Tray" version with attrition that will not require rebasing (and allow use of all those Song of Ice and Fire figures I just got).

Still might be room for a more traditional WH – say an improved 6-7the edition. And yeah just ignore the whole "end of times" nonsense.

Thomas J. Thomas
Fame & Glory Games

PS just attended a fantastic Perry Brothers seminar at Historicon – they to long for the days of classic Bretonian figuers.

Actually I'm an old WHF-roleplayer and that flexible system, with the Ctulhulistic background, powers behind the throne and enemies within was great, and less black-white than AD&D. I have fond memories. Never understood why the background was thrown away.
In my historical circles gamers play different rulesets. Sometimes Bolt Action, sometimes FoW, or other systems. I just don't understand why 8th ed./9th age should be so special and 'better'. A more modest and relaxed attitude would keep more veterans and maybe attract others. Try to change direction.
Anyway, the 9th-age community didn't like the message. I was immediately permabanned from their forums, link deleted for being 'toxic'.
I still hope they change direction. We'll see.

Pictors Studios +2

I mean, they have 30 some years of fluff out there already on the Old World. Have you read all of the Warhammer novels already?

There are something like 199 of them, including novellas, before any of the Age of Sigmar stuff. That doesn't include short stories or collections.

If you only figure 300 pages per that is something like 60,000 pages in just novels for them to flesh out the world.

If you've already read all of that then I don't know what to say, I guess they really did you dirty in destroying the Old World.

It seems a lot more investment in a fantasy world than almost any other person or organization has put into something without ret conning it. Maybe the only other thing would be Star Trek at this point but maybe there is more on Aliens and/or predator too.

Star Wars would be more but I think they ret-conned a lot of the old books.

And of course the comic universes get ret-conned all the time any more.

Cant see any need for 9th edition. But, I must be the only human on the planet that enjoyed games with WHFB 8th! (not a tournament person).
AoS 2 is looking really interesting. May actually rebase.

Still playing the Warhammer from the 1980s. Rogue Trader as well.