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Aeronautica Re-release
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Author:  elsmore01 [ Tue Aug 27, 2019 10:24 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Aeronautica Re-release

Nice models. It seems inevitable ground troops and tanks will come out at some point in the future, meaning some kind of 'Epic' game. Using the TBolt as a guide a LR will be just over 4.2cm in length, compared to around 3.5cm for Otter equivalents.

I hate to be a doomsayer, but I believe GW will finally kill off classic Epic(s) over the next few years with these shiny new toys.

Author:  Stormwind [ Tue Aug 27, 2019 7:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Aeronautica Re-release

Yeah I mean - I am hugely surprised that AI has been bumped up the queue of releases - with boxsets, accessories, the full works, all in plastic... I would have thought that BFG was the most obvious thing to come in terms of a 'flat' gaming mat game.

Author:  Kyrt [ Tue Aug 27, 2019 7:40 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Aeronautica Re-release

I still think infantry and tanks is much harder at army scale, I can see a few select units making an appearance as part of one of the other games (e.g. flak tanks for AI as there were before, super heavies in AT2018)

Author:  Armiger84 [ Tue Aug 27, 2019 7:57 pm ]
Post subject:  Aeronautica Re-release

elsmore01 wrote:
I hate to be a doomsayer, but I believe GW will finally kill off classic Epic(s) over the next few years with these shiny new toys.


I’d still say that’s debatable. GW is slowly working through their three-year-old pledge to reboot most of the Specialist Games, and while AT & IA we’re both on that list, Epic wasn’t.

There’s also the scope thing - AI is meant to be a 1 hour skirmish game, 8mm Shadespire sort of, and AT already has aircraft and infantry incorporated into the game, something that probably won’t be iterated upon without a significant mechanics overhaul. Yes I’ve seen what BlackLegion’s put together - which is cool, but frankly more durable IMO than armor & infantry should be when scaled into AT18 (still, it’s fan rules and people should absolutely play the games they want the way they want, so more power to him!)

As far as they were concerned, GW killed off Epic almost a decade ago, and they haven’t given any indication they want to support that scale or scope again. The only thing that’ll really kill off gamers playing (Net) Epic (UK/Armageddon/40,000/Space Marine) in 6mm would be gamers choosing not to play it / not play it in 6mm anymore at this point.

These are just more models being sold in 8mm explicitly to try to keep the grognards (myself included) buying new stuff instead of replaying their old models, same as literally everything else GW has done since Age of Sigmar went live. No reason to panic or worry about rapidly descending chunks of sky ;)

Author:  Thinking Stone [ Wed Aug 28, 2019 3:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Aeronautica Re-release

Oo indeed! Very shiny! And I think it was inevitable that the planes be on the same scale as the AT titans—it’d be foolish to make them close but not exact, methinks! I find it interesting that Artdeconautica Imperialis was next, too, but perhaps that surprise was the plan? BFG is a bigger project, too, and I think @Armiger84 is right to think about other aspects of these games like the length of play and scale of interactions.

As to whether 8 mm pushes out 6 mm: I think I’m on the same track as @Armiger84. Considering how easily GW can push aside old things in the Fantasy/AoS and 40K worlds, any crossover material in new games is really a lot more fan-service than I’d expect. They gave us many great games over the years, but they have no obligation to recognise those games are still being played.

Some manufacturers are already making models at a similar scale to 8 mm anyway, with true-scaled Marine-esques for infantry, and the exact scale for small things isn’t so important when you play your own games anyways. And though it’s a pain, as @moredakka suggests, independent manufacturers are probably the most flexible to rescale auxiliary models like flyers (it is unfortunate that the non-GW world of 6 mm has just hit its stride as GW looks to get back in, in a way, though).

No, I think the biggest threat to the old scale and indie manufacturers is if GW makes excellent plastic miniatures and couples them with a game—plastic has a lot of strengths for modelling, and an actively-supported, big-company game will surely get more players (that’s where many of us came from, after all!). But even if GW does that, their current pricing is pretty uncompetitive. A manufacturer with good designs, high-quality, lots of variety, ranges that are close enough to be alternatives, fair prices, community involvement and engagement, multiple scales (e.g. 6 mm and spaceships), and loyal customers is well-placed, methinks. And branching out into new directions, like 3 mm or unexplored spaceship designs can only help!

Perhaps also ensuring a healthy tournament/gaming league culture separate from GW-only events is important, too, kind of like with the Great British Hobbit League. They have engagement with GW (and it’d be great if GW peeps were involved in Epic!) and put GW events on their calendar, but they also have the freedom to run events on their own terms. For Epic, the ability to use mon-GW miniatures is a particular drawcard. (Thinking about all this, it’s interesting how different GW Specialist Games communities have diverged over the years!)

Author:  Blip [ Thu Aug 29, 2019 1:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Aeronautica Re-release

I really cant see what the incentive people see for GW to rescale their whole range to 6/8mm when people are happy to play massive EA-sized games (and spend massive amounts if money) using 28mm minis. Apocalypse IS the new epic. But rather than £3 a tank they can charge £40. Rather than £1 a stand people will pay £20.

AT and AI are leveraging design investment which has gone into the titans/aircraft, which although usable in 40kA, are a little rich for all but the privileged few. Wait 12 months, sell as many 28mm versions as possible to collectors and then down scale for the masses. But i doubt they will do standard 40k stuff in small scale as it would eat sales of 28mm. My main concern is that if doing 40kA in 6mm catches on in a big way it will give them reason to close down 3rd party 6mm miniature makers with “similar” designs.

Additionally i think these specialist games are designed to cover every genre niche so no one has to go outside of the GW ecosystem for different type of game (and therefore be exposed to what else is out there). To that end i see AI as the response to blood red skies, xwing etc. While AT is aimed at the rerelease of Battletech, heavy hitters, several arena fighting type board games and perhaps even Armada (in terms of crunchyness of rules). Looking at microscale scifi there doesn't seem to be a particularly big market and those that are out there mainly cater to the epic community as i see it. Dropzone has seen pretty lacklustre market penetration (with almost no competition) and planetfall died. The relatively minor interest in Dropzone and armada might also be putting them off rereleasing BFG incase it becomes another Dreadfleet.

The only chance for epic i can see is if GW needed to fight back against a resurgent FoW/Team Yankee or Dystopian Wars, but neither of these seem to have the following that they once had. Skirmish and miniature board games are what the market wants nowadays outside of the big name games.

Author:  schoon [ Thu Aug 29, 2019 5:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Aeronautica Re-release

As odd as it may sound, I believe Apocalypse may be the gateway drug into a new "8mm mass battle system."

Here's why: assuming that Apocalypse is popular, it will show that GW's customers are hungry for warfare on an epic scale, but price of 28mm models will be a barrier to entry.

So, knowing there is demand, it would make sense to lower the price by reducing the scale of the minis.

Author:  GlynG [ Thu Aug 29, 2019 5:55 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Aeronautica Re-release

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Author:  Thinking Stone [ Thu Aug 29, 2019 11:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Aeronautica Re-release

Blip wrote:
I really cant see what the incentive people see for GW to rescale their whole range to 6/8mm when people are happy to play massive EA-sized games (and spend massive amounts if money) using 28mm minis. Apocalypse IS the new epic. But rather than £3 a tank they can charge £40. Rather than £1 a stand people will pay £20.

AT and AI are leveraging design investment which has gone into the titans/aircraft, which although usable in 40kA, are a little rich for all but the privileged few. Wait 12 months, sell as many 28mm versions as possible to collectors and then down scale for the masses. But i doubt they will do standard 40k stuff in small scale as it would eat sales of 28mm. My main concern is that if doing 40kA in 6mm catches on in a big way it will give them reason to close down 3rd party 6mm miniature makers with “similar” designs.

Additionally i think these specialist games are designed to cover every genre niche so no one has to go outside of the GW ecosystem for different type of game (and therefore be exposed to what else is out there). To that end i see AI as the response to blood red skies, xwing etc. While AT is aimed at the rerelease of Battletech, heavy hitters, several arena fighting type board games and perhaps even Armada (in terms of crunchyness of rules). Looking at microscale scifi there doesn't seem to be a particularly big market and those that are out there mainly cater to the epic community as i see it. Dropzone has seen pretty lacklustre market penetration (with almost no competition) and planetfall died. The relatively minor interest in Dropzone and armada might also be putting them off rereleasing BFG incase it becomes another Dreadfleet.

The only chance for epic i can see is if GW needed to fight back against a resurgent FoW/Team Yankee or Dystopian Wars, but neither of these seem to have the following that they once had. Skirmish and miniature board games are what the market wants nowadays outside of the big name games.


I’m agreed on the leveraging of AT/AI/8 mm design investment—though I am surprised Aeronautica has appeared so quickly! I’m also agreed on the idea of GW targeting different gaming niches. AT and AI are both things that are hard to do with 28 mm, and these competitors to Battletech and X-Wing can be seated within the safe haven of ancillary games to 40K.

I think you’re probably right about Apocalypse taking the role Epic used to have at GW (and now they actually have proper bespoke rules!). I could see two avenues for small scale armies, though: adding support armour and infantry to AT (if AT is big enough in uptake), and extremely huge battles (with rules in the same direction as 3E Epic 40K). Not saying they’re likely, buy possible. If we’re lucky, the community will make such good rules for infantry, planes, and armour in AT that we won’t need GW anyways :P

To be fair, too, Epic (after the exclusively-titan times) was always the choice for doing bigger 40K battles in the old days, up until it became feasible post-3E 40K to build large 40K armies. In the current absence of 6/8 mm offerings, there are a lot of benefits to being able to use your 28+ mm scale miniatures at three distinct levels of gaming (as well as looking pretty), so there’s understandably a lot more ‘market inertia’ than there was when Epic first appeared.

I don’t think they can shut down the independent market, except for those who already have been targeted (but still continue to operate). They haven’t enforced trademarks, and Vanguard, Onslaught &c. are simply not GW Epic. People use them for Epic, sure, and they were inspired by GW’s inspirational Generic Scifantasy, but they are not Warhammer 40K.

The apparent disappearance of non-GW games is strange. I see hardly any mention of Flames/Yankee anymore, (a little more Team Yankee, but maybe that’s just a sign others are following me in getting interested about modern/near future historicals), or Warmachine. I’m not really sure why. Is it because GW has resurged! Is it because of mismanagement of the other games? Is it just a perception because the online world is no longer centred around multi-game forums and most discussion now happens on Facebook or the Chans in game-specific places? I think also the Lord of the Rings SBG and BFG communities might be good ‘bellweather’ games because of their survival after years of GW neglect—LotR:SBG was declining, but has become much more stable again, and BFG is certainly much smaller but invigorated by 3D printing.

As for Dropcommander games: I think Dropfleet has a healthy community for the size of the game’s development (and would probably be bigger if economic times were better). Dropzone has had some issues, especially from edition mismanagement and from the pains of switching company. I wonder, though: is no competition for Dropzone more a sign of low market demand than poor management? Dropzone, of course, is also a departure from 6 mm. It would have been interesting to see if the Epic community would have picked it up had the scales been more compatible.

Author:  Nitpick [ Fri Aug 30, 2019 7:05 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Aeronautica Re-release

Very few are prepared to put the effort in painting loads of 6 mm minis. That’s why AT18 ”works”. That’s why the Aeronautica will work too. I would be tremendously surprised if they attempt to include infantry. Few big models in games that cater to the same aesthetics and hobby doctrine they push with the main games is what I assume they are aiming for.

Author:  Kyrt [ Fri Aug 30, 2019 1:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Aeronautica Re-release

Unless they can figure out how to make infantry and tank models work like titans (one body + options) I can't see it happening to any great degree, there are far too many SKUs needed to satisfy people, and at that point it is a huge time sink for modellers that competes directly with 40K for wallet-share, as Nitpick says.

Also AT + support I can just about see in a limited form, but mass-combat is a totally different kettle of fish. The level of game detail for AT18 is far higher than E40K, so to get close to the scale of any of the editions of Epic you're talking another set of streamlined rules. If GW were considering doing that, I can imagine them asking themselves what would stop people hating it for the same reasons they hated it last time... [Personally I think the situation is different as people were comparing directly to 2nd ed last time, and if they want more detail then both AT and Apoc are options. But risking 40K sales it is one hell of a bold move]

Author:  semajnollissor [ Fri Aug 30, 2019 8:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Aeronautica Re-release

I think that they would just adjust the most recent rules from 40K apocalypse- which happened to be heavily based on Epic: Armageddon. The apocalypse rules allow more granularity than the current E:A rules. On top of that, I’d say that the apocalypse rules have some interesting solutions to the issue of balancing the output of infantry vs the output of war engines.

Author:  GlynG [ Fri Aug 30, 2019 9:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Aeronautica Re-release

If they redo Epic surely it'll be Horus Heresy Epic?

As in the box consists of two armies of identical marines, just like AT Grandmasters has two identical armies that just get painted differently to differentiate them as loyalists or heretics. It would be a much more manageable range of models to produce then. This seems a lot more likely to me than a full 40k era Epic.

Author:  Thinking Stone [ Fri Aug 30, 2019 10:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Aeronautica Re-release

I’ll have to find out some more about the new Apocalypse rules; I got the gist of it from the early promos, but not much more!

I think Heresy superheavies => vehicles/walkers => Tactical Marine infantry (and maybe Terminators) is the most sensible option they have if they wanted to expand AT like that, and I think the rules would be increasingly simple the lower you go. Now I think about it, superheavies would presumably be like Knights, but infantry would have to shake the game up a bit because they’d probably be best used as objective scorers (like in Dropzone) that can enter buildings/rough terrain—probably no more than expensive counters that can remove each other (maybe they turn into Rhino models for long-distance travel). That’d probably mean most ordinary vehicles would be a bit useless except for Dreadnoughts (unless Heresy Astartes suddenly get Sentinels!). Still a substantial shift from Knights/Superheavies, so I can see that being a very late GW invention. The thought I postulated about doing a huge-scale battlegame is beyond that again (and probably beyond this current philosophical mindset of GW’s).

The big issue for full Epic is not so much 40K’s market share I reckon, though. I think the design cost and game niche are much greater factors (and the small uptake it’d have as a niche game). The only way I can see a unique enough playstyle is huge, streamlined battles, far beyond Apocalypse.

I think the streamlining pain of Epic 2E -> 3E is a small historical anomaly that probably wouldn’t be reborn—from what I’ve seen people say (I was doing far more important things at the time, myself, pre-wargames :P), 2E Epic was essentially what people played today’s typical 40K to Apocalypse scale games with, with 2E 40K being smaller scale skirmishes. It may be harsh to say it, but I suspect the current GW teams probably don’t care, except as a memory for a few of an interesting blurple.

Author:  Blip [ Sat Aug 31, 2019 8:08 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Aeronautica Re-release

As Glynn says, the outside chance is 30k Epic. Identical armies help investment costs and projected sales, and arguably it follows the same logic - all the 30k stuff is becoming more distanced from 40k marines (LR and rhino's days are numbered in 40k as I see it), and the 30k 28mm models are mainly available only in expensive resin. "8mm" versions might bring those designs to mass sales too.

I don't see it happening, but then who would have thought 5 years ago we would see necromunda / AT / AI / BB / LoTR all thriving again and a host of new specialist games...? I'd be very happy to be proved wrong! :D

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