Why is Warmaster dead?

[Woudschim]

I did another introduction battle today, with a guy who has played a lot of wargames in his life :P

1500 points Empire / Orcs.

Note to myself: Flaggelants in the flanks of boar riders are nasty.
another note to myself: always deploy goblins at the egde of a wood when threatened by cavalry. My unit was charged by Imperial knights, managed to inflict three! stand and shoot hits, took two hits, and retreated into the woods :P'

A great game, and next time we will play 2000 points dark elves/orcs.

[azraelezekiel]

Importantly, did you get him hooked?

[Woudschim]

I did!

At least he wants to play enough battles to understand the rules fully, to see what kind of game it really is. So that is great already.

[Lord Lucifer]

So I've got my brand spankin' new Black Orcs, two units of Savage Orc Boarboyz, a Character Pack, and the Battle of Five Armies Storm Giant.
My Orc army is growing, all is right with the world.

Unfortunately my chariots haven't arrived yet, but they should be getting here soon.


My club campaign is going great.
9 players: Two High Elves, one Chaos Mortals, one Dwarf, one Skaven, one Empire, one Lizardmen, one Dogs of War, and my Orcs.

Third round has been played, I finally got beaten by Dwarfs, because my ally brought along only one Commander and therefore couldn't move his damn army!
1,250 points of Orcs against 2,000points of Dwarfs, not a pretty sight.

At least I wasn't broken, though.
Got a few nitpicky rules arguments which kinda spoiled the fun. I need to print out and bring along the errata to smooth things over in the future

[azraelezekiel]

You are very lucky to have so many local players.
Around here there is one other chap who plays sporadically and then I pressgang my nephew to play.

[Gabacho Mk.II]

Well, let me see if my added inspiration helps...



I have decided to run my third WarMaster campaign, starting this November 3rd.


So far, my old buddies who gamed WarMaster have expressed a slight eagerness. Am trying to get all 7 back into the game again (last time we have a total of 14 players on the roster, but only 8 managed to show up regularly), but I don't know yet.

Any advice?

[Gabacho Mk.II]

Oh, concerning armies:

> I ran Empire last time, and Lizardmen the first campaign
> The following races are represented - Chaos, Bretonnians, 2 Khemri, 2 Orcs, 1 High Elves, 1 Empire and 1 Lizardmen (both being my forces)


> Am planning on a map campaign using the Mighty Empires release, but I haven't sat down to design the rules that will incorporate that... Might use a generic map like before.

[Lord Lucifer]

I'm running it under the Warmaster Mighty Empires campaign rules
Very easy, very effective

[Gabacho Mk.II]

I dont know, Mighty Empires rules-set is somewhat blah... My hope is that in the near future, GW will release additional support for WarMaster through the Mighty Empires system. There must surely be a single wise person in all of GW, no?


I will keep everyone updated as to the WarMaster campaign through this thread. Wish us luck.

[Lord Lucifer]

Is that the new Mighty Empires campaign set, or the rule set that appeared in WarMag, that you're referring to as blah?

Haven't even looked at the new rules, I like the WarMag 'Mighty Empires' rule set because it's simple, and easy, and guarantees everyone plays each game turn.
I've found simplicity to be very important in carrying out campaigns. Non-restrictive and easy to use.

[Minibull]

FYI (and I apologize if it has been posted before), GW has put the old Warmaster Mighty Empire rules on their web site as a free download:

http://us.games-workshop.com/games/w...es/default.htm

[yarrek]

WHY IS SPACE HULK DEAD?!!
Warmaster was the best strategy game. Space Hulk was the best board game.
WHY ARE THEY DEAD?!!
GW management is just plane stupid. We want to spend money on those games, but it looks like GW doesn't want our money, grrrrr...
Warmaster might be still available on mail order, but try to order something from here (I mean Australia). The cost, the loooooooong wait, why would I bother? On top of that, no one around is playing it. I hope my WM army will have a better chance, maybe in another world.
Recently I found the Hordes of the Things. Very easy to play and requires similar level of strategy thinking as Warmaster. You can use any figures. It's great for modeling and I've seen some great conversions around (I play high elves, I need beasts. What can I convert to high elf beasts?). The best of all, there are lots of HOTT players here, mostly playing 28mm scale.
I am still trying to get space hulk from e-bay, but all that's available are some heavily used second hand sets with missing parts, ugh..
GW just doesn't want my money...

[SON OF LION]

If you get people fired up about playing it then GW UK mail order isn't out of the question.

I"m in LL's campaign and five people have either bought a new warmaster army or added stuff to what they already have. There was another person who was keen as well but he couldn't get ready in time.

I actually think that the support for the specialist games to be pretty good. Yeah, there isn't much new releases and yeah, they really should do a mass shipment to GW Oz once a year to save on shipment costs if you want to buy a couple of things, but they have done really well with the living rulebooks (free!) and supporting fan sites of these games. GW doesn't want your money but they sure want you to keep playing.

[Lord Lucifer]

Lion, there's been HEAPS of new releases over the years.
They've added a host of new armies, so it's not a lack of progress.
There's new rules and new products being made fairly regularly for all Specialist Games.
It's just a pain to procure, and not widely advertised

[yarrek]

There is no support for specialist games in Oz.
Online store has only WH, 40k & Lotr, for everything else it will redirect you to UK or US online store, that's why the wait is sooo long.
I have to move back to Europe..

[azraelezekiel]

Wouldn't bother mate.
Looks like we are all going to be unsupported soon.
See SG forums.

especially with comments like this
'In order for SG to work they needed their own casting machine (which originally WAS the plan when SG was first formed). This would have allowed them to do their own lower production runs (much like a Crocodile Game, Heresy or Impact! does) with much less cost involved.

They nixed the seperate casting machine and honestly ... SG was pretty much doomed from the moment that happened (ie from the start). It just took several years for it be apparant the effect of being required to use Citadel for the miniatures run would have on SG's ability to operate.'

[Brandir]

I suspect that Specialist Games makes more money than many miniatures manufacturers in the UK.

Wouldn't it be a good idea if GW licenced out some SG IP so the games could continue to be developed and supported?

[scarletsquig]

I suspect that Specialist Games makes more money than many miniatures manufacturers in the UK.

Wouldn't it be a good idea if GW licenced out some SG IP so the games could continue to be developed and supported?

It'd be a fantastic idea, but I suspect that their iron grip on their IP means that they would rather see their games die rather than having another company do a much better job of it, despite the fact that they could make a lot of profit out of such a deal, by making the third party do all the work and simply coming along to claim the royalties from time to time.

GW knows that it's specialist games would be major competition to it's main line if another company ever got their hands on them.

[Mr Zephy]

Lion, there's been HEAPS of new releases over the years.
They've added a host of new armies, so it's not a lack of progress.
There's new rules and new products being made fairly regularly for all Specialist Games.
It's just a pain to procure, and not widely advertised

Really? what was the last thing made for Necromunda?

(because if there's been anything i've missed, i might like to buy it )

[memitchell747]

Really? what was the last thing made for Necromunda?

(because if there's been anything i've missed, i might like to buy it )

Probably the Goliath Bounty Hunter. The other BH's, including the Female one before that. Before that, updated Goliaths, Scavvies, Enforcers, and Ratskins and Enforcers. The Necro range is up to date and probably needed the least attention.

Mordheim is fully functional. Lot's of WFB crossover minis.

Blood Bowl is fine.

I don't know about Inquisitor, though I suspect many folks use 40K scale minis.

BFG probably does not have every race represented, only 10. Not a problem playing campaigns.

Epic is the problem child. They tried to redo everything, and they simply did not get it all done. I think they dropped the ball here. This should have been their top priority, and I think would have been the most lucrative SG. And, no, I don't play the game.

Warmaster is fully functional, though it does not have the 16 WFB armies. It is missing Wood Elves, Chaos Dwarfs, Dogs of War, and Ogre Kingdoms. But, it got Araby, a whole new army.

The big, unconfirmed rumor is that there won’t be any more releases for SG’s. Who knows, that sounds unlikely. It is more likely there won’t be a schedule of releases, just haphazard stuff. The miniatures needed to play all the games are still available, via mail order. WM is hardly affected if the rumor is true, unless you just have to have a Wood Elf or Chaos Dwarf army.

Oz is a perennial problem. The Ozzies perennial complain, and the impression is that SG is dead, and has been dead for years. Not true, and I sympathize with them.

It is true GW hardly promotes SG’s, and that has been the case for years. I don’t think that will change in our lifetimes.

I am just in the last two weeks trying to start WM for the first time. Finding willing opponents is not easy. It actually seems to work against me that their is a local WMA following, they are snobby about fantasy WM.