What the hell happened?

[almundis]

Right, so, what?

I used to play WHFB back when it was called that but then life slowly got in the way in between moving houses/cities/lifestyles I fell out of the hobby somewhat. Then today while rooting around in the attic (as you do) i came accross my old necrons and a carnosaur and a dragon and remembered my old money pit. Having sold of most of my armies during my student years i decided to check the website and see what sets were out and about and boy-howdy, i was shocked.

So WHFB is now age of sigmar and everything seems completely different. For one thing i used to play dark elves which are now called something like darklings and under the heading of 'alliance of order'. So this is obviously drastically different to the semi-chaos aligned druchii I once knew. So while i read through the new 3 page rule book I thought I would post on here to see if some helpful so and so could maybe give me an idiots guide to whats happened. What are the key differences? are battles tiny now? Where does one find warscrolls?

I am confuse.

[Beithir Seun]

Hey Al, nice to see you again...

Needless to say, the woods are pretty quiet these days. I'm not the best person to bring you up to speed with what's gone on and what's changed but the long and short of it is - the Warhammer world as we know it essentially blew up in spectacular fashion during the End Times storyline, ending the game of Warhammer Fantasy as we knew it in the process.

Now, it's become the Age of Sigmar, old allegiances have turned on their heads (basically, all elves are on the same side now...) and the worlds are now built around Realmgates based on the old lores of magic, or something like that. LIke I said, I'm not the best person to explain it as I've not followed anything to do with Age of Sigmar since it was released...

Unfortunately, when Warhammer Fantasy died, so did a lot of the forums, this one included As for Age of Sigmar, as far as I'm aware, all the stuff you need to play (Rules, Warscrolls etc.) are available for free on the GW website...

[almundis]

Hey BS, nice to see a friendly face. Managed to find the rules (they were fiendlishly hidden underneath the main rules, whoda thunkit) an it seems wierd. like a watered down 40k. But i guess my wallet can breathe a sigh of relief.

[Boskie43]

Hey,

The nearest thing we have to "old" warhammer to play is 9th Age - unless of course you and friends still have/want to play 8th edition!

All the rules for it are free on the website: https://www.the-ninth-age.com/

Game is ok. Not 100% warhammer itself anymore but it's the most similar of all rank/file systems.

And welcome back to arguably the most silent of all the old warhammer websites!

[Nicholas Nitro]

Age of Sigmar is pretty awesome. The game plays like a skirmish game, and tactics are based on movement and formations. Turn order is randomized with a dice roll, so players can take two turns in a row. Magic is streamlined and the game doesn't contain any nuke spells anymore. Stats are hard and streamlined, your ability to hit and wound will always be the same regardless of what you target, damage comes after the target makes a save roll. Wanderers (Wood Elves) have a few competitive build options. They haven't been represented in the narrative as other forces, but the rules are all updated online and points are adjusted as needed now.

Gamesworkshop has become an extremely open and receptive company that responses to questions on their facebook page within hours. Poorly written 'warscrolls' are replaced almost immediately. In the case of the Kharadron Overlords, one cheaply exploitable unit had it's warscroll rewritten and the issue fixed within a month of the original release, before most people had even started painting them!

It is really a shame this site died, because all of the complaints about the 'Old GW' have long since been addressed.

[Blackcat]

Turn order is randomized with a dice roll, so players can take two turns in a row. Magic is streamlined and the game doesn't contain any nuke spells anymore. Stats are hard and streamlined, your ability to hit and wound will always be the same regardless of what you target, damage comes after the target makes a save roll.

It is really a shame this site died, because all of the complaints about the 'Old GW' have long since been addressed.

I think the site died not because of gw (well not because of how they act) but because we lost our setting and it was replaced with a fractured mess. Our army's all became invalidated and the game system was completely changed.

AoS itself is an alright game, it's streamlined but it's a skirmish game as opposed to the rank and file of fantasy. I personally hate that you hit and wound on a fixed number. I dislike that it is a skirmish game when we already have that with 40k.

AoS just feels too "light" for me. It doesn't seem to have any of the tactical depth and is more about positioning your characters to maximise your buffs than actually fighting a battle.

[Kakapo42]

I warned them this would happen if they continued to meddle in the dangerous kinds of magic, I warned them, but they just wouldn't listen...

Much has been said on AoS's effect on the plight of Warhammer forums (this one has been hit particularly hard, but it's a problem everywhere), but I feel the biggest factor was its effect on the community. the ET series and AoS shattered the unity of the Warhammer community, and even amongst dedicated Warhammer loyalists there are now a wide range of factions - those who adopted 9th Age, those who continue with 8th, Oldhammer enthusiasts who stick to 3rd or 4th edition and Classichammer advocates like myself who went back to basics and took up 6th and 7th edition once more.

Thus, a lot of Warhammer forums have had their purpose thrown into question. Which group do they support? One, some or all of them? Even when the answer is clear, the fractured nature of the community means that very few of these groups are large enough to gain enough momentum to become widely vocal.

And so you get situations like this forum, where everyone sort of seems to huddle to themselves and not really talk about anything (besides, it's not like there's an awful lot to talk about if you're a Warhammer enthusiast), and many of the moderators have moved on to other things.

If you wish to help, start a discussion! Forum activity begets forum activity, the way I see it, so be the change you want to see.

[LiveWaaaaagh]

If you're interested in continuing to play or discuss 8th edition, there's an Eight Edition for Life forum that is pretty active. I myself rarely visit individual race/faction forums, but visit the EEFL on a daily basis:

http://eefl.freeforums.net/

[Rusty293]

I was unsure about age if sigmar when it dropped , particularly as it had no points values but following the release of the generals handbook I've got to say that I'm loving it as a system. I hadn't played Warhammer fantasy in years before so can't really compare it to that though. All said and done though Id say give it a go though. Granted most of the old wood elf units are in the compedium now and are likely to only get worse but that's not to say they aren't unusable. I'm running mixed order atm using a mix of wanders, compendium and Sylvaneth units and having great fun. Sure I don't get access to the individual faction special rules but I get to use all my old models, plus some of my really old ones like the wood elf Chariot through use of other order factions (Swift hawk agents).