This is honestly the most intelligent take I've heard on AoS, and honestly, GW as a whole so far.

Somehow this is also the old GW paradox. "It's so expensive! Only the 7 richest kings of Europe can afford an army!!" "Why isn't their a new release for my army ever week!?"

I found the section on the game value death spiral so interesting! I work in a boardgame shop in central London that's been open for 37 years and still run by the same people, and at this point they just have this laser accurate intuition for when games are going to start tumbling. They've never predicted wrong!

Thanks for the Keyforge shutout. Me and the 10 polish people that still play really appreciate it.

In 2009, South Africa, a Pigeon carried a 4gb harddrive, from one office to another, 50 miles away, in 68minutes. At the same time the computers had only transferred 4% data, because SA internet sux that bad, and thus a pigeon transfered a mere 4gb data Faster than the South African Internet could. This result, of course, caused alot of sour faces and finger pointing in high places, because they didn't like being exposed for being worthless. Today, 2024, SA have electricity for up to 6hours a day (yea, it's worse now, you can see documentaries here on YT about it).

Me. I’m the guy who played brettonians as a teenager not realising the undertaking that painting the regalia was on my undeveloped art skills and the investment that buying individual knight models was, luckily I saved money by not having to buy a new army book… ever

I think the wargamer spectrum should be more of a triangle than a line. For example i find myself right in between historical and casual but have never gone to a tournament

You left out one of the biggest issue for the killing of Fantasy. GW didn't owned a fuck ton of their armies IP, this is why they renamed everything in 40k and killed Fantasy for it was full of generic fantasy stuff they couldn't own. Example: Fantasy Dark Elf King Malekith became Malerion in AoS then in the new fantasy he stayed Malerion.

White Dwarf devolved into a monthly showcase of the latest 40k space marine release, every.single.month.

Even though I saw your face when we collabed, I still think of you as a small doggie

I just wanted to say that since the dissapearance of the AI dog, and the arrival of a talking head, your charisma and humour comes across much more! Really good video, your note about Stormcast being the 'engine' of AoS is really on point, cant wait for the next one!

"I know subscriptions are a vanity metric-but I'm a vain man. And if I don't get one of those KZfaq plaques... someone's gonna pay." 🤣🤣🤣

I love this humor. I wish I could be that funny - but unfortunately - I am from Germany.

If you like Warhammer, you always have a lot of things you would buy, no matter how many updates your army has.

I think there are two big fantasy tabletop wargames that people mentally gloss over when thinking about the downward sales history of Warhammer Fantasy: The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game and Warmachine/Hordes. The former was made by Games Workshop itself, the latter by Privateer Press. LOTR almost sold more than Warhammer 40k at points, while there's a fairly plausible timeline where Privateer Press overtook Games Workshop. (But of course, GW started to really improve itself leading up to Age of Sigmar 2nd edition and the run up to launching 40k 8th edition, while PP made some very, very bad decisions about what directions to go.) LOTR took up all the visual design language mental headspace of realistic low-fantasy models. Warmachine had big success with much more competitive focused rules and balancing, which GW started to really lean in with 40k 8th edition, and it shouldn't be a surprise that the Imperial Knights have a big resemblance to the warjack models. GW could make a hard plastic version of this model while PP could only do it in metal or resin. Yeah, it really is this fascinating topic to look at. Warhammer+ has back issues of White Dwarf issues going back to like 2003 or a bit earlier, but NOT the WD issues from when it went weekly. I'd really love to see how the magazine tried to sell The End Times and the launch of Age of Sigmar in it. Also, it is kind of heartbreaking and so interesting to read online discussions from The End Times and see reactions to it, what people thought the future of Warhammer Fantasy would be. It's like reading diary logs about the apocalypse from one of the Fallout games, these people were mostly blindsided.

I picked Chaos Dwarves, yeah, not the best pick back in the day.... Awesome hats though.

There's no way you just skimmed over those apocalyptic trash end times books. People hated the end of warhammer because the people that actually cared were insulted by some of the worst writing that series ever had.

'Temporarily out of stock'

The primary reason you gave, that once you own the models then you don't need to buy again, holds true for pretty much every miniature wargame out there, though.

Misses the success of Total War after the Old World was blown up.

22:49 I still think that Warhammer Fantasy may have been 'saved' - or at least rescued from that particular moment - if Games Workshop had waited another year. Barely a year after the End Times, Total War: Warhammer and Vermintide 1 would be released to critical acclaim; with many young people being introduced to the Fantasy setting, only to find Age of Sigmar in its stead. Btw, great video. I enjoyed it very much.

I feel point 2 is a bit disingenuous. Not only can you apply that to almost any army in any game system, 40k included, but not a lot of people buy a whole army in one year, owning every character, unit, and monster in its year of release. Most people spread out their army building over years due to cost and time to paint. Second, not a lot of people only buy one army. By the time our High Elf player has finally finished his army, he will have most likely gotten into the lore and models of another faction like Chaos or Dark Elves. Warhammer is just that addicting. It’s plastic crack for a reason. And finally, people will upgrade their old models. As someone who started in 2nd edition 40K, you’d better believe I got all the new 3rd edition Space Marines when they came out, despite already owning Tactical, Assault, Devastator, and Death Company Marines. No one in our hobby is ever content with what they have.

The Fantasy setting went from a unique thing to the testing ground for 40k rules. The witch elf thumb got my click. ;-)

You so frequently out do yourself in showing that this is one of the best GW channels on KZfaq! Kudos!

In 2014 I was working for a now defunct E-store for gaming stuff (The War Store if you were wondering) and we had the GW reps swing by. They painted a grim picture for WFB as it was being out sold by tools and paints so in reality GW had nothing to lose in blowing up the Old World.

The big problem with WFB was that GW was focused on selling models, which created two problems: 1. What models do you sell to someone who has a "complete" army? 2. How mych stuff a new player needs to buy to get started. People keep talking about models getting more expensive, but two things are often overlooked - in 4th edition, players would start with a 1000 point army, then add more units until they had a "full" 2000 point army. Beyond that, one might add more stuff up to 2500, or 3000 points, to play the occasional "big game", but when most games were 1500-2000 points, having 2500-3000 points available allowed for some variation - maybe you want to field more cavalry this time, or a bigger unit of witch elves, etcetera. All the while - 1000 points was fairly accessible for new players to get started, and for veterans, it allowed for branching out into a second army, or dipping their toes into 40k, or speciallist games like Necromunda, later Mordheim, etc. But then GW started pushing for bigger games. The White Dwarf batle reports went from being 1500-2000 points, to 3000 points. Right off the bat, new players entering the hobby were pressured to make a 2000 point army, and then get to 3k asap. But that wasn't all. With the 6th edition, the points cost for units dropped sharply. Corsairs used to be 12 points + 1 for extra hand weapons +3 for optional crossbows in 4/5e, now they were 10 points, and gone was the crossbow option. Dark riders were now 18 points down from 27 (25 for the rider +2 for spear), though the option for crossbows remained at 6 points per model. And this was happening across the board, along with significantly reducing the cost of characters, and magic items they could carry. As a result, a 2000 poing army from 4th edition, might be worth a mere 1400 in 6th edition. Combined with the pressure to play bigger games, players suddenly needed twice as many models, essentially forcing them to commit to one army instead of branching out, and focusing on making better terrain, etc. So WFB ended up with the problem of bloated armies that kept raising the entry bar to the point of becoming inaccessible to new players. And instead of revamping the game to go back to the old 3-4 regiments on the table, GW acted with the finesse of a sledgehammer, and nuked the setting to make it more like 40k. And 40k got hit as well - from playing a few squads and a vehicle, or two, to spamming tanks like they were on sale.

One may say that also “old” 40K is already dead and the “new” 40K took its place, but at a slow pace that we don’t notice it, with Primaris slowingly took over

Incident with a pigeon? I was living out in the wilderness with no internet then so i think i missed this... Love the video btw

IT would have been better if they didn't change the old world lore to seek a "Modern Audience"

8:35 the new unit you show when saying new units, was an alternate build for the Shadow Warriors you mentioned earlier.

I recall the problem with 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy was they introduced horde sized units and emphasized the use of big armies. The average game size went from 2,000 pts to 3,000 pts meaning you had to buy more models for all your existing units. This wasn't so bad for regular players but for new players looking to get into the game, it made collecting an army far more expensive, especially when GW sold plastic kits based not on how much plastic was in them but how good they were in game. For example, 10 Empire state troopers would cost 17 euros at the time whilst 10 Empire Greatswords cost 42 euros and 50 cents. To me, nothing seemed to further alienate potential new players for the game than increasing the price tag significantly

I like the video, but your timeline for a High Elf superfan could be easily put on to pretty much any 40k army that's not Space Marines as well, just look at armies like Eldar, Imperial Guard or Orks. They've gone whole editions with no new minis. I have found it's rare to find a player that only has one army or sticks to one system, and even going back to high elves, my mate back in the day who had a High Elf army spent a good portion of the late 90s getting the stuff so he could run a cavalry only list this was after already having more than 2k of stuff to field.

I was thinking oh no he's turning into the pool manager from The Day Today and then you dropped the pigeon reference

Hey Man, your content and background music is awesome! Also the through out explanation and lessons about consumer markets are really interesting and helpful I guess. Cheers and kudos! I subbed for more content and of course, to support you and no way out of fear you would one day make somebody pay if you don’t get a KZfaq badge. Anyway, Cheers and greetings from Germany

Great stuff mate, enjoyed this a lot!

Something almost nobody talks about with Fantasy is how byzantian and complex the rules were, I often got in long rules disagreements there werent easily accessible erratas for

This was an exceptionally well thought out video, and I just wanted to say I appreciate ditching the AI doggo art so much! Thank you

Not sure if the logic behind how the "High elf superfan" had years of "nothing new to buy" really works. That is, you could make the same argument for Eldar players in 40k. Most of their sculpts are still 20+ years old. Space marine players are kind of the only ones that really get new releases on a regular basis.

“Wow look at that large robot! Radical!” 🤣

we love a Keeping Up Appearances ref XD

As an Eldar player, all those years with resculps instead of new units sound kind of awesome actually.

I contend with the idea that it's good to have stormcast in every starter box like they do with space marines, hell, I even contend with the idea that it's good with space marines. Whilst you sell the idea that it was about replacing the old stormcast with a new look, that part is sort of true, but people were more split about the new design than you give it credit for. The fly in the ointment though is that the Dominion box set did not sell well, at all. A big issue was because it was stormcast again, and kruleboyz just didn't have the appeal of warhammer orcs. The big issue as well is it's unsustainable, you need to constantly cull the range otherwise it ends up absurdly bloated where stormcast have triple the amount of units of other factions, and that's even after a culling. Having a different set of armies in every box helps sell the range of different factions, and nowadays with spearhead and combat patrol boxes, there's always an easy way in if you don't like the two factions in the starter set.

Medieval fantasy miniatures simply look better neatly ranked on their squared bases. Great video, nicely paced, no annoying padding.

Games workshop got embarrassed that their Warhammer Fantasy IP wasn't quite dead despite their best efforts.

The hardest pill to swallow as a Historical Henry is that you're vastly outnumbered by Casual Christoph, and the things you like will never be widely played or supported. "Yes, you measure the range after you declare targets, it represents the uncertainty of war." "I'm going to go play something else, this is confusing " Casual Christoph isn't interested in a simulationist game. He wants something abstract and digestible that can be set-up and played within the same hour he decided to play.

The only thing I don't like about this channels is the slow frequency of uploads!

This might be your best video yet. Explained everything so well.

To paraphrase some guy in a series.. “The point is that you are under a misconception that we are a gaming company. We are not. What we are, really, is a miniature company. And the lore is not our most valuable asset. That would be our miniatures”. Which is why the GW business model is the way it is.. They have to tread a very fine line between generating income and not alienating their players. Now I’d say the lore plays a bigger role (the books are good etc) but they do change that in order to sell more minutes. Mentioning magic is funny as I also stopped playing that as I saw it just becoming a blackhole for my money - much more than Warhammer.

Also, one benefit to starting from scratch with AOS is that they established early on that the narrative can and will advance. This means that AOS (hopefully) won't be caught in the status quo purgatory the 40k and Fantasy settings are/were. This is compounded by the fact that with 8 whole realms, there is room to have something disastrous or miraculous occur in one of the realms and not have to worry about the cascading effects of this as much because there are still 7 other realms. This pleases an unmentioned minor archetype, Narrative Nicholas, who is giddy with the chance to update his 15-page lore document on his custom subfaction on how they are reacting to this change in the narrative every time it occurs. This is of course, countered by the lack of fluff lore that Old Fantasy was rife with, but I can see AOS being filled out eventually as the editions roll on and the different realms are focused on.

And here I tought it was gonna be lore

I didn't realise that they had already Primaris'd the Stormcast Eternals...

I would argue with the most GW products ive seen in the Bargin Bin are AoS products like dominion.

casual kristoff watching age of sigmar come out : that looks like a nice kitbash for my drukhari🗿

"It's Fantasy Battle, but everything has a trademarkable product identity version of the common English name."

GW at the time of Warhammer's death I think was more short sighted than modern GW, they just wanted to sink money into Space Marines as that's what was selling the most, and they weren't investing in diversifying with things like Necromunda, Epic, Mordheim, Adeptus Titanicus. I think a big thing that killed WHFB is the lack of range churn, they were holding on to everything which was great on the one hand, but meant you needed 15 square metres of shelf space to carry the whole range, a lot of which was old. They did need to do a bit of a slate-wiping to clear that old range and start a fresh one, but they didn't need to kill the entire world and swap to a completely different game.

This is the first of your videos I've seen. I really enjoy your style and the way information is presented. This space is starved for well-researched content. Keep up the good work.

I don't begrudge GW for bringing in Age of Sigmar, but I do absolutely begrudge the way they did it. They could have retired the Old World, simply moved it out of production, but they chose to destroy it entirely. I don't think I'll ever stop feeling a little spike of anger at that every time Age of Sigmar is mentioned.

I'm not sure how WHF could have been saved, maybe the Video games others have mentioned would have saved it, but still, I think the high model count, rank and flank, 90% of new releases for your faction being books and resculpts, and the "none of our faction names are trademarkable" problems I suppose the other option would be to only lightly damage the WHF setting, rather than kill it off entirely, killl of the game rather than the setting, no more rank and flank All this being said, much as I think parts of the AOS setting are super cool, I'm never going to be a fan of the sigmarines, they are boring, not that I'll really touch anything GW with a bargepole these days, I turned around one day and found that a squad of 5 wraithguard cost £40, no thanks It's funny that Warhammer fantasy started as a way to use your dnd minis in wargaming, I'd think something more skirmishy or at least in the 40k/AOS format would be better for that purpose, I suppose rank and flank historical wargaming was more in fashion in the late 70s

>Spend a fraction of 40ks budget on new products and advertising for Fantasy >Complain that a single box of marines outperforms Fantasy ?

Great context. Still made about how GW handled the transition to Sigmar. Will likely still be complaining about that to the staff of my nursing home in 30 years.

"Without cannibalising each other's playerbase" While on the whole this is fairly true, Games Workshop's own shortcomings kind of forced this to still happen to two subsets of players: Beasts of Chaos and Bonesplittaz. Because of GW's backwards-headed inter-department competition policies, they felt it more prudent to be able to keep track of which department was getting more sales for these kits than to maintain goodwill with their playerbase. If that lack of integrity prevails in a situation where two poorly-selling factions are regarded, they most certainly will do the same when it comes to real cash cow factions, which only portents even worse.

Actually a very nice view on the whole thing. I never burned my army (kept it in a box) but do enjoy the Old World. Never did got into AoS but like that you explained how things went there. Keep up the good work!

Generally concise and well explained, however, I've heard the "Fantasy Battle is a closed system so the lack of new options is what killed it" point a few times now and I really can't agree or see the logic to it. The Empire, for one, was repeatedly stated as having massive variations in its people and forces such that a Nuln army book, a Stir army book and an Averland army book could easily be as varied as a separate book for different Space Marine chapters, which was clearly an acceptable choice. Storm of Chaos showed how it could be done quite easily with the alternate Empire list in that. Also, Demons, for one, are exactly as open or closed a list in 40k as they are in the Old World, or for that matter Age of Sigmar, and yet they seem to have an acceptable level of support in those other systems. For that matter, GW have at various points clearly stated that Space Marines have rigid organizations and lack any sort of new tech, and they've also repeatedly retconned that to allow new elements and units in, while the Old World's viewpoint, Empire, are supposed to be in a state of constant invention, even moreso, for Fantasy Battle they've instead retconned the Old World being in the same universe as 40k and so able to have new tech fall through to it so we had Chaos Champions hefting Shuriken pistols to turn it into a closed world when it wasn't before. Honestly, having spent a long time playing Fantasy Battle alongside historical Henry 40k players, there's really not that much variation in how many units you do or don't have to buy as a long term player, if you choose, in either system. My main theory at the moment is far more along the lines that GW have, for whatever reason, never quite got their arms around an introductory version of Fantasy Battle. Border Princes and Warhammer Skirmish, even Battle Masters could all have gotten over that point where a player confronts the fact that to engage with one half of the store in any way shape or form means buying and painting a hundred models while the other allows you some level of engagement with five. GW is a funnel business, its very much focused on new players, and Fantasy Battle is a brick wall to new players. Even for long term committed players, you could have sold that High Elf player a different force over the time you mentioned, very few people are so hardcore committed to a single force as to be utterly unwilling to branch out, if not for the fact that considering even a secondary force in Fantasy Battle was an exhausting prospect for most people. One of the best things for Age of Sigmar is the fact that Warhammer Underworlds gets you some way towards playing it, in AoS first edition actually all the way towards playing it. 40k has variations that let you play with 5, 50 or 500 minis, Fantasy Battle has the option for 0 or 500, no other state. Its so irritating because Battle Masters, dumb as it maybe was, showed, as the book slightly to your left of your left earlobe has shown, that its totally possible to disconnect numbers of troops from numbers of minis, that you can play big rank and flank games with as many or as few minis as you like, so long as the unit sizes remain. I'm not sure if it was lack of vision or just being more willing to shoot the game through the head than admit you could play it with zero minis if you really wanted, but either way, that's what I think made it unsalvageable.

This is partly why people run more than one army, because not all the armies are getting updated often enough to just keep adding more to them, it would also get a bit too bloated if that happened anyway.

Rank and Flank as a term is new, rank and file being the historically correct phrasing. Did it start with AoS or Kings of War? As a Historical Henry, I wonder about it.

About model rotation: My 40K Eldar army still contains the metal howling banshees with samurai swords (3rd ed maybe). They are the best howling banshees. Fight me.

I dont see the release schedule as a problem. If a player only lasts two years-ish, releasing resculpts every two years seems like the way to go. The existing guy that has been a superfan for 11 years is the exception based on the data.

WFB rules were confusing AF, movement, canons, buildings ect. After 30 or so games of 8th ed WFB I still needed to reference the 200pg core rules. After 2-3 games of AoS (1st GHB) I was good, only needed to refference war scrolls.

In some ways 40k had it's own mini end times in the gathering storm and the changes from 7th edition to 8th, it's just that the new sits alongside the old until the old is phased out. you can interpret the Ynnari as an attempt to consolidate eldar into a single faction, but given that list of factions you showed at the end probably had them under the 'minor factions', that plan (if it was one) failed.

spearhead got me spending all my money again. I like the options and saw a lot of validity in your words.

Small Army rules, put out rules for small armies say 500 pts and 1K points with Commanders less than major hero generals, that way you can have three or four armies that you can lone out to other players and new players, also new players don't get overwhelmed with trying to build a 2K pt army first go. that's how you could have saved WHFB

People really don't understand how less frequent new models from GW were back in the days of metal minis. Most armies got new units once every few years. The good stuff was in horribly expensive Forge World resin. Some things got unit stats but no actual model - you had to kitbash it yourself (yes, they expected you to kitbash stuff for yourself, which I actually recommend to people, its quite liberating). There was no planning to release schedules, you'd see three Space Marines with different guns one month, and the next it would be squats in power armor. In other words, they acted like a small group of people just making whatever cool stuff they wanted to make and worried about retail afterwards. That said, I think this video paints Historical Henry in a bad light. Sure, he was finished his High Elf army and didn't have anything more to buy for years, but HH would generally be buying and painting new armies as he went along. It was just that it takes a certain kind of mindset to paint ranked up units of 30 spearmen versus a loose unit of Space Marine tactical squaddies. 40k was much quicker gratification than WHFBs could provide.

In fairness, the greatest value I got out of WFB was actually the army books for the lore. Had a load of high elves though...

I had your closing thought the other day. My realization is how few classic kits are running around out there for the big three factions in my area. These are Marines, Guard, and Orks. My little plastic army man brain goes, "Well if they were gunna Sigmar me 11th edition is likely the time to do it. Soon my tac squads, rhinos and devs will be gone and there won't be anything to remember."

I suggested to my GW store manager, that to save the Warhammer fantasy game, all they needed to do was release the new edition based around the commanders and subfaction idea, basically what they did eith Formations in 40k, you take an Empire White wolf commander, and all your knights of the white wolf get a bonus, but you are limited in your army choice, no handgunners or cannons for example. . Its a really simple idea, much the same as taking Belial in 40k and only being able to take Terminators, dreadnoughts and landraiders in your army. . It could have given people like myself, that had played since the 80s, a reason to buy new models, as personally I love the idea of themed armies, and a simple page in a rulebook would have made them appealing to a lot more players. . .one army book, could suddenly represent a dozen possible armies in some cases, I actually ran a pure Reiksguard knights, with Kurt Helborg, supported by lots of outriders and pistoliers for the last year of Fantasy, it was great fun beibg able to put a pure cavalry army on the table.

Listening to that High Elf release schedule makes me jealous as hell as a craftworld Eldar player.

This is all fine and dandy mind you, but if stormcast eternals sell so well, why the dominion boxes sold so badly that LGS couldn't sell those at 30%?

Great video, though the idea that the succession of the End Time followed by Age of Sigmar as a grand plan seemed like to me an overestimation of the acumen of the honchos at GW. But I agree that GW seemed to have done a good job with AoS since its release. Regarding the number of factions of 40k at the end of the video, I think that it's alleviated by how many are space-marine adjacent

I also wonder how the decline of LOTR played into this because it was basically the second main game system for most of the 00s and i guess as it started to wind down a bit it put more pressure on WHFB to be more successful, which it couldn't ever really live up to in terms of mass appeal.

Nice video! However one key thing you seem to have missed is that many players collected more than one army or played more than one GW game. So the “didn’t have anything to buy” wasn’t really true for most people.

absolutely was not expecting a The Day Today reference, nice one!

i sympathised with the dark elf man.

GW took so much time to put out new kits for the imperial guard and orks that i started to look elsewhere. Then i stopped buying from GW at all because i'm not playing anymore and found out small studios care more about their customers.

This is one of the best explanations of the history of age of sigmar I think I’ve ever listened to. Fantastic lesson.

The whole ‘they don’t have anything new to sell you’ hits literally every game they have eventually. The only reason that it didn’t hit 40K as hard is because they made Primaris as an excuse to sell the entire space marine range to people all over again with a new lick of paint. 6th also absolutely sold well. It just didn’t sell 40K numbers, which literally no one else ever has. I feel like there’s a lot of the usual mythology and double standards in this video - I do think AoS was more appealing to the middle ground, but I also think it ignores the converse arguments a lot too.

In 1991…no one died

Not sure, where he gets his data from. Basically he tells us, that Age of Sigmar and Old World are both selling great now. Something I never heard beforehand.

Having a Witch Elf in a thumbnail beats seeing a Space Marine.

I support your vanity. Subscription gladly given. I’m new to your channel and love the style

"Well, I would say this - I've been working here for 18 years. In 1975, no one died. In 1976, no one died. In 1977, no one died. In 1978, no one died. In 1979, no one died. In 1980, someone died. In 1981, no one died. In 1982, there was the incident with a pigeon. In 1983, no one died. In 1984, no one died. In 1985, no one died. In 1986... I mean, I could go on." - Steve Coogan, The Day Today, 1994.

Man, I feel this. When Lego brought Majisto the wizard into the Castle theme in 1993, I had to melt down my Crusaders, Black Falcons, Black Knights, and Forestmen. And that just a few years after I was forced to burn all my X-Men comics after Chris Claremont, ahem, got left.

This was a great video! I pretty much woke up after a 10 year nap, and this was a great explaination. You are gonna make me come back to the hobbie hehe

Thanks for explaining that. As someone who collected warhammer in the early 2000s and then left the hobby, I have been bemused at all this age of sigmar stuff.

I’m just getting back into the hobby after 20+ years and this video is so perfectly timed. Thank you!

I'm basically full casual. I get most of my stuff off facebook marketplace. Also, I dont care if it's a GW product

Nailed it! Where's the dachshund????

I would maybe like GW a lot more better if they actually stocked their online store properly and didnt have horrible predatory practices.

This channel scratches a particular itch for knowledge that I've been looking for foreverrrr

I wasnt around to see old fantasy , since I started getting into the hobby around 2022. Although AOS in all the stores around me take up around the same space as 40k did, I wonder if fantasy only took up like 25% of what 40k would. What I also find pretty cool about AOS is how it has evolved to the point that its visually distinct from what Fantasy used to be. Its also interesting to think about the philosophy of the two models in the game. AOS being dominated by several elite like units, with middle ground armies at 2k being like 20-40ish battleline units with some elite guys sprinkled in. While Fantasy you may have 1 or 2 big guys on big mounts, but you still own an army of guys. I prefer the old world to something like AOS, just because im a sucker for simplicity. I dont mean in the rules, but rather just how the models and the aesthetic of the game feels. AOS kinda runs into the issue of looking like every fantasy tabletop game known to man, with some really cool models but stuff like the artwork really blends into looking like everything else. Fantasy just has some standard fantasy guys and it is 100% confident that its enough to win people over without feeling bland. Its tricky to describe. Writing this comment, and spending some time with the product has made me realize though that I am easily won over by pretty pictures and cool box colors (that teal on the boxes looks amazing). I bought both starter boxes when they came out kinda because of this so I hope to God I continue to like the new Old World over AOS or else im gonna look real stupid.

"best design team in the world" : shows Jes Goodwin art. Hell yeah