End Times V: Archaon; The conclusion to the series, and 8th edition WH

[MM3791]

Anyone who hasn't been following the series, many well established heroes have been killed and nations destroyed.. and 30 something years of Warhammer fluff is receiving a massive reboot. The next edition of the game is expected to be extremely different, if not the 1st edition of something completely new.

The final book is due in March and will include a brand new bloodthirster, also usable in 40k.

[MM3791]

Some news that seems to be gaining a lot of traction on the web..the new Warhammer game is heavily rumored to be on round bases. It's also expected that all the current armies will cease to be supported and replaced with brand new armies that resembled the old ones. The new game is allegedly not a mass battle game, but a smaller, skirmish based one.. planned for May release

[RumHam]

My loathing for GW has reached a breaking point.

[MM3791]

Yea, I'm sure a lot of players will feel the same way as you. From what I understand, the current game was failing.. so GW decided to cancel it and replace it with a genre that they considered a better investment.

[shwnlyns]

A new, skirmish style game wouldn't be so bad, but it would be nice is GW told someone what was actually going on. It sucks that we have to try to discern rumors to have any idea what GW is up to. They try to sell the crap out of this end times stuff, but who knows if any of it will be at all useful in a few months. This kind of thing has lost me as a customer. I love the models and fluff and like the game, but I can't support GW anymore, and I don't think I'm alone judging by the lack of warhammer activity at Battleground over the past year.

[MM3791]

The lack of communication on GWs part is a valid complaint. Ultimately we don't know what will happen in a few months, so we'll see. I guess 5th ed WHFB (aka hero-hammer) was GWs most successful version of the game, so sounds like they're heading back in that direction. It's already visible in End Times with 1000 point heroes, elite infantry, and monsters.

[Bkyle]

I really enjoyed 5th but it certainly wasn't a balanced game.  Of course the internet opinion of warhammer wasn't as prevalent either so we never really thought about balance, just pushed those mega heroes forward.  8th has been my favorite edition so far but the idea of skirmish battles doesn't bother me.

[MM3791]

8th edition was definitely a very good rule set, especially for infantry. The problem was that it required new players to buy duplicate kits (3 or 4) just to field a single functional unit. That didn't really effect veterans because they likely already had the models, but it set a high entry bar for newbies.

Combine that with the fact that many fantasy kits are extremely old (by one or two decades), its tough to justify spending top dollar for models that are ugly as sin.

So I do understand why GW would purge the models and reboot the game.

[That One Guy]

Honesty, that high entry cost I felt was somewhat lessened when the end times rules let us take 50% of our points into Lords and heroes. It meant I could get some scar vets to lessen what I was otherwise putting in. But with more end times stuff coming, I'm just waiting until the next edition to come out before I buy more models

[MM3791]

New Bloodthirster picture (far right) as well new Khorne shock troops (bottom right)