Quote from: Shipyard Locked;876351I played 4e D&D avidly for most of its brief life and enjoyed it, so don't accuse me of edition warring.

Not at all! I was commenting on how between 5e Ascending and 4e Descending, whether one or the other looked "strong" depended so much on where the observer stood in the edition wars (or even the nature of that particular FLGS).

AKA, while I saw 4e Descend slowly at our FLGS, I haven't seen the supposed major 5e Ascent at the FLGS. It's played, but not notably more than Pathfinder while 13th Age keeps chugging along (but maybe that's just a local fanbase, I don't know).

I wasn't clear enough obviously.

Sorry for the confusion.

Quote from: SpinachcatI wasn't clear enough obviously.

Sorry for the confusion.

It's alright, I'm sorry I got so defensive. As you can see, the edition wars took their toll *looks grimly at the horizon.*

Quote from: Arkansan;876370However I don't care for the aesthetic of the new miniatures as much, it looks to close to 40k.

I think that's their attempt to make their fantasy property more distinct from others, right? I grew up on the look of old Warhammer so I love it of course, but I have to admit a lot of it is quite generic despite its excellent execution.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;876408I think that's their attempt to make their fantasy property more distinct from others, right? I grew up on the look of old Warhammer so I love it of course, but I have to admit a lot of it is quite generic despite its excellent execution.

Can it perhaps be so, that WHFB seems generic for the same reason D&D may seem generic, i.e., it is THE GAME that others are mimicking, and/or trying to compete with, and it have also been around longer than some who plays it?

If one looks at it closer, it is just as generic as D&D, that is, not at all.

Quote from: Spinachcat;876308Chaos Barbie.

Slaanesh Barbie?  A few beers and I'd jack off to that.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;840276Ahh, the tragic demise of Necromunda...

That is not dead which may eternal lie
And with strange aeons, even death may die

I simply can't afford GW. Heck, for the price of a GW platoon box, I can get two 6mm armies and a bit of landscape - and even paint and prep them in about the same time it would take me to do the 28mm platoon. :/

GW reminds me of this scene from an earlier season of Game of Thrones, and Varys's lesson about power.

GW is a major miniatures wargame company because people believe to be, and for no other reason. It's a very shit company casting a very long shadow.

Quote from: Premier;908226GW reminds me of this scene from an earlier season of Game of Thrones, and Varys's lesson about power.

GW is a major miniatures wargame company because people believe to be, and for no other reason. It's a very shit company casting a very long shadow.

I don't think that's true, and I say that as someone who hopes that GW goes under.

Sure, part of GW's success is market presence, which has a lot to do with people believing that GW is a big deal.  They also have a lot of money, and while you could argue that the monetary system is based on what people believe, I doubt that's what you meant.

Having dedicated game stores all over the place is a big part of GW's success.  Their marketing is very good, even if it could obviously be so much better in so many cases.  They are, hands down, better at recruiting new people into miniatures wargaming than the rest of the industry combined.

They've even started to smarten up recently, releasing stand-alone board games with loads of plastic minis that can be used in their flagship games, at a discount from buying those same models separately.  How many people got into 40k or Fantasy through games like Space Hulk or Warhammer Quest?  Because now they're doing that again, only in a much more intelligent way.

Their IP is worth a lot, too - they've gotten much smarter about how they handle electronic entertainment and novels, and there are more and more books and games coming out all the time.  The 40k universe has an undeniable appeal (as much as I want to deny it).  You should have seen how my 6-year-old son reacted when he saw the 40k display at the shopping mall.  He wants to learn how to paint miniatures and play 40k, even though I've tried to tell him that the game is shit and that we can't afford to remortgage our house to buy another 40k army anyway.

GW would be a lot less irritating if they actually were a shit company.  The fact is, they're still pretty successful even though they've managed to alienate a huge portion of their former customers.

I almost jumped into Age of Sigmar recently because I had purchased and been playing Warhammer Quest: The Silver Tower.  I've also toyed with the idea of getting into 40K for years.

But ultimately, I'm not interested in the hobby part of GW's equation.  I just want to play games.  Plus, I don't have any love for the communities surrounding the games.

I might be able to enjoy assembling and painting figures.  I could perhaps get into that investment.  However, the financial investment is simply too much for me to consider worth it.  There are other hobbies I'd rather spend my money on and I'd enjoy more.

Still, I love Space Hulk and Warhammer Quest: The Silver Tower.  I'm trying to decide if I want to pick up The Lost Patrol.

Please tell us more about Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower!!

Quote from: Ddogwood;908499I don't think that's true, and I say that as someone who hopes that GW goes under.

Sure, part of GW's success is market presence, which has a lot to do with people believing that GW is a big deal.  They also have a lot of money, and while you could argue that the monetary system is based on what people believe, I doubt that's what you meant.

Having dedicated game stores all over the place is a big part of GW's success.  Their marketing is very good, even if it could obviously be so much better in so many cases.  They are, hands down, better at recruiting new people into miniatures wargaming than the rest of the industry combined.

They've even started to smarten up recently, releasing stand-alone board games with loads of plastic minis that can be used in their flagship games, at a discount from buying those same models separately.  How many people got into 40k or Fantasy through games like Space Hulk or Warhammer Quest?  Because now they're doing that again, only in a much more intelligent way.

Their IP is worth a lot, too - they've gotten much smarter about how they handle electronic entertainment and novels, and there are more and more books and games coming out all the time.  The 40k universe has an undeniable appeal (as much as I want to deny it).  You should have seen how my 6-year-old son reacted when he saw the 40k display at the shopping mall.  He wants to learn how to paint miniatures and play 40k, even though I've tried to tell him that the game is shit and that we can't afford to remortgage our house to buy another 40k army anyway.

GW would be a lot less irritating if they actually were a shit company.  The fact is, they're still pretty successful even though they've managed to alienate a huge portion of their former customers.

The other big draw that Warhammer and WH40K have always had is this: It's where the network of players are. Well, were in the case of Fantasy. You can go into any game store that has space for miniatures and you'll find SOMEONE that'll play 40K or WHFB/AoS. The only comparable game is Warmachine/Hordes and Privateer put a LOT of effort in to building up that player network (In Germany, it seems to be Battletech that has the other big player network). Want to play Malifaux? Good luck. You might find one or two players. Flames of War, again a few players. Infinity? Battletech? You CAN find them but it's a very shallow pool to pull from.

And if they're NEW players how long do they stick with it? In my experience, not long.

And these are all games that are either cheaper, better, or BOTH than WH40K or WHFB. But no one plays. It's like trying to find a game of Rolemaster versus trying to find a game of 5E or Pathfinder. Sure, anecdotally you know a guy that runs a game. But in aggregate? Everyone plays D&D.

Quote from: Spinachcat;908741Please tell us more about Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower!!

About WQ: The Silver Tower...

I'll say mostly what everyone else does.  The models are of extremely high quality and detail, but the assembly of some of them is far more complicated than it needed to be.  The tiles are extremely nice.  They're not as good as the Space Hulk tiles, but head and shoulders above the thickness, gloss, and art quality of any other dungeon crawl boardgame currently available.  Also, the fluff in the Adventure Book is outstanding.

But there's bad too.  The game feels more than a bit light for $150 from a boardgaming perspective.  It's clear that GW is selling to people who want a model kit first and a cool game as a bonus.  Outside the miniatures, there are nowhere near the number of components this kind of game has been known for during the past decade.  The cards are not high quality, and are on borderline cheap stock.  The only cards with graphics are the character cards and the exploration cards.  To top it off, the game doesn't even provide reference cards, forcing flipping through the rulebook for monster info.  Bonus heroes are provided, but no character cards are supplied for them as the game once again asks players to simply flip through the rulebook.  It's just a lack of understanding what boardgamers expect.

The lack of components does have a silver lining.  The Silver Tower is remarkably free of sprawl, and that is extremely odd for this kind of game.  There are no components for the sake of components.  The board doesn't get drowned in chits.  It's very easy to set up and clean up afterwards, meaning it gets played more often.

To play you choose a quest from the Adventure Book.  An entry will tell you how to build the Exploration Deck for the scenario.

At the beginning of each player's turn they roll 4 dice.  Each die represents a potential action.  What actions the character can perform depend on the values of the individual dice.  Players spend the dice to perform those actions, such as moving, attacking, healing, etc.

Then the monsters go.  Each monster has a behaviour chart.  The player controlling the monsters rolls on the behaviour chart for each monster group to see what they will do.  This is really nice and makes the monsters feel different instead of all of them always bum rushing the characters for the same melee attacks round after round.

As characters kill monsters they earn XP.  Once you've earned enough XP in a scenario you can earn a Skill.  These are effectively the only advancement or growth characters get in the game.

The game self balances.  The more Skills characters have, the fewer rests they'll be able to take during quests.  Ambushes become more common as do random events in The Silver Tower.

The flavor of The Silver Tower is provided by the Adventure Book, which has tons of numbered entries which are read while exploring and encountering rooms or random events.  This is probably the best part about the game, because it makes things feel varied and definitely not just another room tile.  The Silver Tower is probably the most atmospheric of these types of games I've ever seen or played.

Sadly, The Silver Tower isn't a campaign system.  The game is simply a series of quests in the singular Tower location.  There are nine adventures to play here.  And, as previously mentioned, there isn't much real character growth, only skills to acquire.  Even equipment found in the tower is almost entirely disposable items and they disappear after adventures anyway.

It delivers a similar experience to the pre-Temple of Elemental Evil Dungeons & Dragons Adventure System games.  The differences are the flavor of the setting is vastly better and the price is three times as high.

It's definitely not the original Warhammer Quest.  It's its own thing.  It definitely leans harder to the boardgame end of the spectrum than say Heroquest or Advanced Heroquest.

Thank you!

Is it better, equal, worse or just vastly different from the original Warhammer Quest?

Quote from: Spinachcat;909059Thank you!

Is it better, equal, worse or just vastly different from the original Warhammer Quest?

It's vastly different.

I don't own the original WQ.  I foolishly thought it was nothing more than a reprint of Advanced Heroquest back in the day.  But from what I understand, the original WQ had extremely robust campaign play and a metric assload of content.

The Silver Tower is not a campaign system.  It's a single multi-part dungeon scenario.  I'm pretty sure there are no shared mechanics whatsoever.  There also aren't any rules for what happens outside of a dungeon adventure/in between quests like what the original had.

The only similarity between them is that they are dungeon crawling games.

Quote from: Spinachcat;909059Thank you!

Is it better, equal, worse or just vastly different from the original Warhammer Quest?

Inferior in gameplay overall. Its essentially the "basic" rules, the core of WHQ and little else. None of the wacky random random random of the outside the dungeon that WHQ has. So in that respect Silver Tower feels very lacking. Though its not as huge a loss if having everything dictated by a random table didnt interest you.

Also its lacking in out of the box diversity. The original had minis for orcs and skaven and various critters, not to mention archways to link the tiles which was a nice little embellishment. Silver Tower has mostly just Chaos units and no critters other than a familliar. Does though look like its exmandable with the existing minis. Though I quit out of the discussions so dont know how much.

It's a free skirmish game using the Warhammer fantasy miniatures.  That's it.