Take a look at GW’s ongoing struggle to control Warhammer: The Old World as the game grows larger.
A few months ago I took a look at how GW was losing control of Warhammer: The Old World. In particular there were two key areas where I feel like they’ve lose control. The first was in the realm of army compositions and how events are using it, as well as FAQs to shape the game outside of GWs control. The second was in the area of Legends armies and how the player bases continues to fight them over their inclusion in the game.
Since I wrote that article there has been some major movement in this struggle, one that we don’t really see in other main GW games. So I wanted to go back and look at what’s been happening, and how the community has responded to it. So lets take a look a look at what’s happening.
Events and Comp – GW Strikes Back
Last time when we talked about how comp, and local FAQs, was getting very diverse I suggested GW might fix this by either putting out a big FAQ or some kind of Matched Play book. In fact they did both. This was in my eyes a major move to retake control of the game and get people playing a single more “official” version, especially at events. And by and large I think it has been a success. The FAQ/Errata has been very well received (despite a few questions we still have). A lot of events have announced they will, for now at least, use the Comp from the Matched Play Guide (or something very close to it). While missions remain diverse and interesting a lot of events are using the secondaries from the Guide.
Overall I think this is great. GW has managed to get some standardization of the game. Looking at what events are doing, at least in the US, it feels a lot more like we are all playing the same game. Now I do think events are going to add more comp. Especially as time goes on. But it does feel like they are using this to tone down a few abusive lists. No longer does it seem like events are trying to re-write the core rules. Events can be unique and we can all play the same game. Good on GW.
Legends Got Worse
This brings us to the second area that GW has started to lose control of the game. Here we are talking about Legends armies. While the FAQ/Errata were great at moving the “supported” game towards the same place, they made things even worse with Legends. Now this is an issue I’ve talked about before when it comes to these armies. As they are not getting any official GW support, the more the game changes, the more their rules are out of whack. The biggest issues with the latest FAQ is magic. Many spells got their casting values dropped. In addition a number of bound spells got their power level lowered. And on top of that several casting buffs got changed.
But none of that happened with Legends armies. As the game changes, but Legends don’t, some parts of them will get buffed and other nerfed, but in an uncontrollable manner. They are slowly but steadily moving out of sync with the rest of the game, and this is a real issue. Right now the changes are pretty minor. I don’t even want to think what would happen if there was some big change to points.
Fan Rules Strike Back
I talked before about how the people at Square Based have put together what they call the Renegade Legacy Pack. This is an, admittedly fairly restrained, attempt to update a few of the Legends army lists and make them more playable, and it does come from a place of love for the game. However I mentioned that as time went on it’s changes would grow. And since the big errata they have made a 1.5 version of the pack which changes even more things, in particularly updating magic. Nothing in it is really crazy, but fundamentally – this is a set of fan rules that a lot of events are using. And this pressures players into having to use fan-made rules.
And as much I don’t really want to play with fan rules, to a degree there isn’t a really good answer. You’ve either got to get rid of Legends for events (an unpopular choice, but one I think is better for the game) or accept and use some kind of fan made rules. Sure you could try using the base Legends lists, but as things keep changing they are going to rapidly become unplayable. In fact a few are there already.
Moving Forward
So the result here is that why GW has made major strides to regain control of the comp/game rules side of things, they’ve lost ground when it comes to fan rules and Legends. This has some knock on effects as we look forward. In particular where do we stop? And whose game are we playing?
Once you start using some fan rules and making up your own armies, it starts to get temping to “fix” other things in the game. For instance I’ve heard rumors that some events have considered banned Grand Cathay from being used. I know a lot are looking at limiting the number of Sky Lanterns you can use. This seems fair based on how bonkers they are. But straight up banning a brand new army is pretty crazy. I think if we get to a situation where legal armies are banned at events, but non-supported armies with fan rules are allowed… well then GW will have really lost control of The Old World.
And that’s not great for the game. Banning brand new armies is a great way to turn players away. Forcing players to learn several sets of rules to play an already complex game also keeps new players out. So at the end of the day I guess we are left hoping that GW has some kind of answer to the Legend’s issue. As it’s quickly becoming the defining issue facing ToW as it heads into it’s 2nd year.
Let us know what you think about the games issues, down in the comments!
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Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers Warhammer: The Old World, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe mourned over loss of WFB for its entire hiatus, but has been reborn like a gaming phoenix with Warhammer: The Old World.