Warhammer: The Old World
"Only after disaster can we be resurrected"
- – Tyler Durden
"Soon"
- – /tg/'s reclusive soon poster
Warhammer: The Old World is a... "thing" GW is creating.
That's all we really know. It exists, it is set in the Old World and it should have square bases. We don't even know when it's coming but the Community site stated it will take a few years (3-5).
Most people have taken this news that Warhammer: The Old World will just be Warhammer Fantasy 9th edition with a fancy name, but it could be a brand new game type. The biggest hope being it revives and updates factions squatted during the End Times and Age of Sigmar, like the Tomb Kings, Bretonnia and Dwarfs.
It's unknown what brought this around, if it was the general hatred Age of Sigmar has never been able to lose, Total War: Warhammer and Vermintide doing so well, or some other reason, but for now, it looks like the sun will rise upon Warhammer Fantasy once again.
From what interviews and little hints that GW have released, it is implied that this incarnation of Fantasy will be framed as a prequel to AOS, with the End Times and everything after still being considered canon, with authors and developers stating in interviews that they wish to give it a similar treatment that 30K received during the run of the Horus Heresy series. This is coming at a time when the Horus Heresy series as a whole is beginning to wrap up with its final act in the Siege of Terra, which will begin to free up a significant portion of Black Library and GW staff to move on to the next big project. With this in mind, there is the possibility of not only the Old World to still be an active setting to be fleshed out and added to, but also the possibility of the End Times possibly being "cleaned up", or at least altered to not be as painfully atrocious as it was on release.
Reaction and the Fantasy player base
Now you would think that the (possible) reintroduction and re-support of Warhammer Fantasy would make all fantasy fans very excited and pleased, right? Well this is /tg/, where bitterness and contempt is the natural state of most of the people who frequent the board, and the announcement of Fantasy's return has caused a bit of disgruntlement in part of /tg/, mostly in the Warhammer Fantasy players.
At first this may seem confusing, as Fantasy players seem to be the target audience of this announcement, but there are a few factors to consider. 1) A lot of fantasy players have not forgiven GW for The End Times, and still consider it to be the greatest wrong GW has ever committed on their player base and while some people say that they should just "get over it", spending hundreds of dollars on an army and hobby, getting invested in the universe and then having the company kill/butcher your army, their fluff and the universe and then saying "buy it again" would leave most people feeling angry and betrayed. It's a bit like your asshole friend running over your childhood dog, telling you to deal with it, and then showing up 2 years later saying he will get you a replacement cat. 2) A lot of Fantasy players hold nothing but animosity for Age of Sigmar players. The two player bases do not get on at all, and this has been proven with the ill fated attempts to have a joint Warhammer Fantasy and Age of Sigmar general threads on /tg/, which would consist of both player bases telling each other and the op to fuck off, and a new threads being made for each game. The few grogs who "get along" with AOS players, are the one who were able to move on to AOS themselves, and where also the people most excited by the Old World announcement. There are also the people who are saying that Age of Sigmar was to thank for this, as it has done so well, which obviously rubbed a few people the wrong way.
And for plenty of Fantasy players who never stopped playing the game, all the Old World could offer is new models and with the price hikes and biased updates GW has been putting out lately, not all Fantasy players are particularly enthusiastic to having to pay $60 for a single box of Dwarves.
Now with all this being said some of the less bitter Fantasy players are excited or at least curious about The Old World, and most of the people on the /wfg/ are interested to see new Fantasy models (if for nothing else conversion bits and unit filler). Only time will really tell how this will play out, and if the game is supported properly it will probably do very well and if it can offer up good quality models for the old Warhammer factions it may even tempt the most bitter of grog to at least get some more units for his army. At the very least there won't be the huge confusion from Total War: WARHAMMER fans looking or the game its based on anymore.
-
Because you can't keep a good undead down (GW made this, by the way). -
GW made this too. Pandering, maybe. True, yes. -
The Grogs never forget, and they never forgive.
