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Tyel wrote:
It might be a reach, but I wouldn't be shocked if years ago they thought they'd be doing a Kislev/Cathay Starter set for TOW, and at some point this idea either died a death, or proved too much work.

If I was cynical, its perhaps that Warhammer 3 has been by far the least successful Warhammer Total War game - and GW may have thought (not unreasonably) people just wouldn't be overly interested in those two factions, versus hitting the nostalgia with Brets/TKs.

I never assumed they'd have been launch factions anyway but the reception to TW:W3 may have contributed to whatever decision this is, though I'm not sure I'd agree. Personally I don't think Kislev and Cathay are responsible for the response to TW3; there seemed to be plenty of interest in them prior to release and genuine excitement over exploring some completely 'new' forces and corners of the setting. It seemed poorly received, primarily because the main campaign structure was just a bit crap (plus some technical issues). Siege battles had undergone some unpopular changes and it was generally just jarring going from the incredibly expansive end-state of TW2 to the limited offering of TW3. TW2 likewise launched with a narrative campaign nobody really wanted to play, passed on to a different development team to implement updates (Mortal Empires) and create the DLC and grew into the broadly enjoyed, successful behemoth it did. TW3 probably should have been on a similar trajectory, despite CA not learning from their feedback and doubling down into an even more limited, banal, narrative campaign at launch but corporate decisions, poor fixes and limited DLC have just tanked the reputation of the game.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that, if GW's decision here is based on a perceived lack of interest in Kislev/Cathay as factions due to TW3's issues, then it's probably the wrong conclusion on their part. I'd have to imagine that there's a lot more to it, whether that be internal company politics (or even 'real world' politics and concern over optics), production concerns or any combination of factors (not to mention the potential for sheer stupidity or poor judgement). It does feel like TOW is going to have to fight with one hand behind its back for quite a while to be considered a 'success' but the sheer volume of interest in the product launch should (...should...) at least give the management a kick up the proverbial to see the potential they have.

seen it, and not really something new as the rumour (by the same source I think) was already going round some time ago

on other words, news today: GW shooting themselves in the foot regarding Warhammer Fantasy
news tomorrow: water makes stuff wet

chaos0xomega wrote:


snip


The absence of renders or photos of actual models is meaningless. I don't need to see those things to know that they are working on an Emperors Children army for 40k, or that there will be plastic mechanicum or mk2/4/5 kits for Horus Heresy, or plastic chaos dwarves or new skaven miniatures for Age of sigmar. These are all obvious questions of when, not if. Announcing Kislev and Cathay however many years ago put them in the same category. The new statement however moves them out of "when, not if" and into "if, not when". They aren't just denying that these factions are going to be released soon, they are denying that there's any plans to release them at all, and that's a pretty stark change from the previous messaging that they were being worked on for eventual release into the game.

You’ve got that backwards. Saying they’re in The Old World is meaningless UNTIL THEY SHOW THE MODELS IN SOME FORM. Yeah, new Emperor’s Children models are coming at some point, but UNTIL THEY SHOW THE MODELS the release could be anywhere from next year to 5 years from now. In fact, getting 30k Daemonic Fulgrim is a pretty clear indicator that the 40K EC release is not coming soon.

Let’s compare to something from AOS. Cities of Sigmar update was announced in May 2022 and had digital renders of the some sculpts shown at announcement. They officially came out last year. What’s the obvious differences here? Ding ding ding, they were shown because they intended to release them relatively soon. Just like we actually know that Orcs and Goblins are the next intended release, because they’ve already shown their core box, what models are returning, and their Arcane Journal.

Armies can exist within the setting without getting released right away. Yes, Kislev and Cathay are in the setting. No, they won’t be released any time soon, and you’re a fool for thinking otherwise without having seen the models in some form.

I think the writing was on the wall for a late Cathay/Kislev when GW announced they were going to relaunch multiple old model ranges at once. Yes some, like High Elves, are pretty new ranges; but some (Eg brets) have a lot of old stuff that even reworked is not going to stand up to fully modern sculpts.

So yeah any "new" fully new armies are going to be at least around 2 years away as GW covers all the old armies in one big go. We still have only two armies out there and I believe Orks are next, so there's still more than half to go just to cover the old stuff.

Old first then the new - the other way around would likely have seen the old armies get insanely bad sales because they'd be overshadowed.



Of course GW can sometimes take a VERY long time. We only just got a couple of the Tyranid special character models and that was after over a decade since they appeared in the codex. There's still several missing too!

 Dreamchild wrote:
Did y'all see this?

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerFantasy/s/1Pe4YbADfl

Wouldn't be the first time the higher ups fethed up.. wraithknight 7th ed anyone?
Or how the GW mainteam handled FW armies and units from 8th onwards (e.g. not at all).

I'm not saying there isn't conflict in GW - but this idea of "look, they were going to include all the factions because of the rules" is mega suspect to me and kind of undermines the whole rumour.

Mini release schedules are far more lengthy than rules writing.

This is where I think we can get arguments over GW's schedule. As said - Emperor's Children are almost certainly coming. We can therefore guess GW have earmarked them for either near the end of 10th or 11th. They have to fit in a schedule for all their other releases, which they have probably roughly mapped out to 3-5 years.

If however you believe that for rules, you have to imagine that 10th 40k was being drafted before 9th edition had been released. Or that End Times was being written up before 8th fantasy was released. Its not likely - and indeed we can see how rules evolve on much shorter time scales. (And how GW tie themselves up, because books are "completed" but can't take account of any changes GW subsequently makes in the next 6-9 months or so.) Pure digital rules can be on an ever shorter window between being complete and then issued.

I mean hands up - I didn't and don't find Kislev or Cathay especially interesting. I'd much rather have them bring back Skaven, Dark Elves, Lizardmen etc. I can imagine that they had some champion internally - and if that guy got sidelined, or left, just gave up the fight, other people may have gone "nah, ditch this, see how the initial wave of old factions goes, where we can bank on some nostalgia."

I think it's less a case of a champion in the studio and more a case of "We're designing these two factions already, may as well design them in a way that we have the option to release them as armies".

 Platuan4th wrote:
I think it's less a case of a champion in the studio and more a case of "We're designing these two factions already, may as well design them in a way that we have the option to release them as armies".

GW have shown time and again that they will give the minimum effort required, or less. Anything good is surely a result of individual developers' enthusiasm rather than any management decisions.

We've got 2 launch factions & then 7 other supported factions.

Presuming those come one per quarter (an optimistic thing to assume) then we're looking at launch + 2 years just to get the factions we know are supported back in production, a handful of characters each and maybe the odd new unit or two.

They are 100% not going to be talking about whatever it is they intend to do after that period now.

Jan 2026 releases have not become more or less likely to be Kislev or Cathay based upon what's in that total war article.

 Dreamchild wrote:
Did y'all see this?

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerFantasy/s/1Pe4YbADfl

Kind of reminds me of the chapter on Axis resource allocation in Why The Allies Won.

Vorian wrote:
We've got 2 launch factions & then 7 other supported factions.

Presuming those come one per quarter (an optimistic thing to assume) then we're looking at launch + 2 years just to get the factions we know are supported back in production, a handful of characters each and maybe the odd new unit or two.

They are 100% not going to be talking about whatever it is they intend to do after that period now.

Jan 2026 releases have not become more or less likely to be Kislev or Cathay based upon what's in that total war article.

Jan 2026 might not have any releases depending how the prior 2 years go.

So far they've sold out on Brets and TK - so if nothing else sales are beating what GW can supply.

I'm never going to believe in any power struggle between something named "The Main Studio" and this pygmy thing in Jersey. Also, the Heresy is very big and successful and GW have a clear policy of hamstringing it via the use of resin. They want clear water between their main lines and the pseudohistorical side games.

Also nice to see a bunch of shelf stackers over on reddit think they know GW's business better than them.

 Overread wrote:
So far they've sold out on Brets and TK - so if nothing else sales are beating what GW can supply.

Without knowing the scale of the production volumes that doesn't mean a lot to be honest. There's plenty of comments of people in here disillusioned with old world or not having anyone else in their group to play with having bought a box. Those are signs a game isn't going to maintain a player base or profitability.

JSG wrote:
I'm never going to believe in any power struggle between something named "The Main Studio" and this pygmy thing in Jersey. Also, the Heresy is very big and successful and GW have a clear policy of hamstringing it via the use of resin. They want clear water between their main lines and the pseudohistorical side games.

Also nice to see a bunch of shelf stackers over on reddit think they know GW's business better than them.

At this point multiple verified ex-GW employees have spoken publicly about the internecine conflict that has and does occur between different teams/departments (via Goonhammer, youtube channels).

If you "don't believe it" it's just because you're stubborn, misinformed, or stubbornly choosing to remain misinformed.

Dudeface wrote:

 Overread wrote:
So far they've sold out on Brets and TK - so if nothing else sales are beating what GW can supply.

Without knowing the scale of the production volumes that doesn't mean a lot to be honest. There's plenty of comments of people in here disillusioned with old world or not having anyone else in their group to play with having bought a box. Those are signs a game isn't going to maintain a player base or profitability.

Thing is if the customers are buying 100% of what GW is producing at launch and are keeping demand high as a whole, then that means it has to be meeting projections. It can't actually go any higher because GW isn't able to deliver any more than what's being asked for. Granted we don't know the totals to know if GW were under-producing in the extreme to start with; but in general if your product sells out then its at the very least hitting target goals that were setup.

Now in the fullness of time are those goals enough to keep the game around or keep investment high - that's a big question we likely won't know the answer to for a few years and GW likely doesn't know either. Esp with AoS also sitting in a similar spot in the market and fighting for identically themed armies on some fronts.

Is the demand keeping though? Most of the product line is back in stock and sitting. Only the standard bearer for TK is missing for them and the big boxes are missing. Assumedly because of the books.

Seems like after the initial fomo panic buying, it's levelled itself back out.

depends on the region I guess
see lot of people on reddit from the US complaining that they want to buy buy but cannot
the same time the local store has still stuff around and others complain that their orders from release have still not arrived

overall it looks much more like a distribution problem than a production problem for me
(also wenn books are back in stock for GW online shortly after they were sold out, looks like this as it is unlikely that a 2nd printrun would have been that fast)

Stateside the only thing available for Brets are the BSB on peg, Peg knights, and arcane journal.

Tomb Kings the only thing available is the Arcane Journal.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Is the demand keeping though? Most of the product line is back in stock and sitting. Only the standard bearer for TK is missing for them and the big boxes are missing. Assumedly because of the books.

Seems like after the initial fomo panic buying, it's levelled itself back out.

I can only say that all LFGS in my country are sold out and keeps selling out any restock in just a few days.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Is the demand keeping though? Most of the product line is back in stock and sitting. Only the standard bearer for TK is missing for them and the big boxes are missing. Assumedly because of the books.

Seems like after the initial fomo panic buying, it's levelled itself back out.

No, I don't think so. When I log in on the GW online shop (Europe), everything new except the plastic BSB it still out of stock.For the old stuff grail knights and Grail relique are still out of stock.

I am still waiting to buy the new resin Bretonnians.

With all the negativity i see around this thread, i just want to say that i think that the core of the rules for the Old World is the most fun I've had with warhammer since 7th (been playing since 4th). How they've brought it back or what's going on within GW internally isn't going to change that. Loved the Brets and can't wait for O&G (even if I've got everything that is being released for them besides the new models and a few old stone trolls).

It is weird how they are actively trying to keep AOS models and Old World models seperate. That really doesn't stop me from using the new plastic stone trolls...in fact I've been using them for years already....

 Altruizine wrote:

JSG wrote:
I'm never going to believe in any power struggle between something named "The Main Studio" and this pygmy thing in Jersey. Also, the Heresy is very big and successful and GW have a clear policy of hamstringing it via the use of resin. They want clear water between their main lines and the pseudohistorical side games.

Also nice to see a bunch of shelf stackers over on reddit think they know GW's business better than them.

At this point multiple verified ex-GW employees have spoken publicly about the internecine conflict that has and does occur between different teams/departments (via Goonhammer, youtube channels).

If you "don't believe it" it's just because you're stubborn, misinformed, or stubbornly choosing to remain misinformed.

Theres a difference between actual corporate politics and what someone who has never encountered corporate politics imagines them to be - the rumors sound like the latter much more than the former. The head of the "main studio" doesn't have the ability to just go and take over someone elses project because they suddenly realized that the game was going to be "very big and very successful". The "higher ups" who actually would have the ability to do that are, per other insiders, generally people who don't play the game at all, came up through the ranks of the business units, and generally won't give a flying feth about whether the game contains ratmen or not so long as it maximizes revenue at minimal cost. Those same higher ups are also the people who funded development in the game in the first place, likely after some pretty exhaustive planning and analysis of what this would all look like and how it would work. They knew exactly how "big" the game would be and how successful it would be before they ever gave anyone a single red cent to work on it - they would not have invested anything into it if they did not think it would make them money in the first place.

Now, this supposed head of the "main studio" who felt threatened by the game? Sure I buy that. But that persons options are limited, they don't get to walk in and reorganize the project or change its direction to suit their desires. Corporate politics is not generally that exciting or direct. Instead they scheduled internal meetings with various department heads, some of those aforementioned "higher ups" and had meetings discussing things like overlapping product lines, scheduling conflicts, brand confusion, resource allocations, production queues, and plenty of other relatively mundane concerns of corporate business operations. If that head of the main studio got their way, its because they made stronger arguments about business case than the guys running TOW did and convinced senior leadership to their POV, they didn't go in and say "ratmen mine, hands off".

But thats all irrelevant anyway, because all signs point to the idea that all of this was settled before GW ever even announced the games existence to us. Naming the game "The Old World" was not a coincidence. Showing us a map that showed *only* the continent of the same name and its immediate surroundings a couple months after telling us the name was also not a coincidence. That the map was set in a different period of the settings history was also *not a coincidence*. These were all pretty purposeful decisions that telegraphed that factions would be cut from the finished product very early on. And hell - the designers told us directly that they knew from the start that they would not be including VC or Skaven. They very directly stated in the designers round table interview that they knew that they would not be including those two factions (at a minimum) even before they knew that they were going to set the game in the Age of Three Emperors, and that when they did decide to set the game during that era it worked well for them because it narratively justified the removal of those two factions from the game, rather than the other way around. All that was decided basically 4+ years ago, so - we have pretty compelling and convincing proof that any claim that all these cut factions were originally intended to be in the game is absolute horsegak. Writing army rules would have been one of the last steps in the development process, after the core rules were relatively close to finalized. Most if not all of those army lists were probably written within the last year, they certainly have not been sitting on these army lists for four years now waiting to release them while seemingly doing basically nothing else at all. It seems pretty clear that at least some of the legacy army lists were written from the start with the expectation that they would not be part of the ongoing support for the game.

Plain and simple, these rumors are wishful thinking, cope, and sour grapes. Off the bat they sound a lot more like "I read all these convincing sounding theories on social media and synthesized them together to create a rumor for clicks" than it does "I have it on good authority that this is how it happened". Someone has too much of their identity wrapped up in WHFB, likely in opposition to AoS, and expected to see TOW come in and toss AoS to the curb. When that didn't happen and it became clear that TOW would not be the big ticket mainline game that they wanted it to be, they created fanciful delusions to justify and explain how their fave was kneecapped by unspecific bad guys within the company (who are obviously implied to have some relation to Age of Sigmar, otherwise theres no need to fear the potential success of TOW) out to prevent it from getting too big. And thats kind of all there is to it. The basic facts, as I indicated above, don't line up with some of the things we actually do know about the timeline of how things may have transpired. Some of the silliness of the release can be nailed down to basic incompetence more easily than malice, and while I dont doubt that there were some petty internal squabbles, I think most of those were probably settled long ago and early on.

I feel its far too soon for any discussion about whether TOW is a success or failure.

I know numerous people who may buy into it. But they aren't interested in TK or Brets. So unless they go scour ebay, they can't play. There's other people who would out armies - but again, the models aren't available.

I think the sentiment has been reasonably positive. But unless you are sitting on a substantial army that's ready to go (who cares about base sizes?) what are you going to do? I mean I have a mainly Goblin army that I can just push into place (not a fan on the night goblin limitations but eh...). But I bought most of that 15~ years ago? I know Grognards are strangely immortal - but for most people that's a lifetime ago.

I appreciate how upset some people are over the lack of Kislev and Cathay minis. As someone who waited 20 years for new Bretonnians, I feel the pain.

I feel there's an obvious route TOW could have taken, especially with Bretonnia as one of the first available factions. Even 20 years ago I thought GW was missing an obvious idea for Bretonnians, and with the army's popularity in the Total War games it seems even more obvious:

Bretonnians could so easily have been the Fantasy version of Space Marines.

Split the different Dukedoms into separate armies, each with their own characters, special rules, fluff, heraldry, different shoulder pads, shields, helmets, weapons, etc. etc.

It always felt like GW missed an opportunity.

and people are back on copium:
https://new.reddit.com/r/WarhammerFantasy/comments/1ay6ard/it_does_appear_they_are_aware/


and than there is this:
https://new.reddit.com/r/WarhammerFantasy/comments/1ay5rws/can_confirm_as_our_shop_will_not_receive_any/

I heard a couple weeks back that GW was telling retailers that they would not be getting restocked on the first wave of releases for some time, as GW is trying to backfill demand via their website first before they begin providing additional stock to retailers.

I dont fething know anymore. This entire release is a mess to me.

The release has been a big mess, I agree. I do think that they underestimated the demand. Perhaps that is also why they still haven't released the other stuff for Tomb Kings and Bretonnia, even though they've already spoiled O&G. Maybe they'll want to get their stock up on the rest of the TK and Bret models before they release them to avoid the debacle of the first wave?

chaos0xomega wrote:
I dont fething know anymore. This entire release is a mess to me.

GW are probably putting all production into the AoS4 release. Despite some places still having the AoS3 release box for sale.

I don't think they really estimated demand at all. I think they set an arbitrary production target based on anticipated release date vs available production throughput (you can only produce so many sets per hour/day, etc.) and said let's go. The delays to the LI release may have impacted their ability to initiate production on TOW and correspondingly cut the size of the first wave launch as a result.

As for the other stuff, with the exception of Bretonnian foot knights, the main reason that they aren't releasing the second wave kits is probably because all of those kits are needed for the TK and Bretonnia big boxes - they probably will not release standalone boxes of men at arms or skeletons until they fulfill all the wave 1 demand, etc because they are using all their production yields off of those molds to make army boxes.