GW returning to the organised play arena.

[Kirsten]

I want a tank ace badge, whatever it is for

[Mr Mystery]

Only if you attend dressed as Tank Girl, and acting in a suitably irreverent manner

[Kirsten]

fine

[Mr Mystery]

And all is right with the world.

[Path Walker]

So looks like rather than tournaments, we're looking at specific themed events, which is a cool.

[Mr Mystery]

I expect both, to be honest.

Themed events to get people playing locally, larger tournament type affairs to bring different groups and communities together.

[Path Walker]

As long as they don't focus too much on people "winning" their games, I think madness lies that way.

[Erik Setzer]

Contrary to claims, the gameplay is really solid, and far from simplistic. I've recently been comparing it to Space Marine in that regard. Fixed roles to hit and to wound in both, floating Initiative, IGOUGO combat.

No, no, it *is* simplistic. That's not a bad thing. Kings of War is simplistic, too. Can the strategies be more involved? Sure. But the gameplay is still simplistic. You described it right there. It's simple. That's one of its selling points to a lot of people, it's easy to learn.

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My money is on 'in-store' event packs for whomsoever wants to run it.

I like those. They remind me somewhat of the older RTT packs, but really even more of FFG's event packs. Exclusive buttons and stuff like that. If it's available to FLGS's, that'll help. I really hope they don't get silly and keep them GW-store-exclusive to try to draw people straight to their stores. Offering them to FLGS's will help rekindle those relationships and spread the range of players getting involved (which helps increase excitement, and drives sales further).

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I expect both, to be honest.

Themed events to get people playing locally, larger tournament type affairs to bring different groups and communities together.

It worked when they were building the customer base. FFG's shown it can work well even with something as casual as X-Wing. It's a good idea for this type of game.

[grimmas]

As long as they don't focus too much on people "winning" their games, I think madness lies that way.

This is my worry, I'd like to see something that aid's the game rather than becomes a way to warp it to someone's advantage. i think we'd also need someone with a very big stick to punish those who use the word "meta"

Erik I wouldn't say it's "simplistic" the rules are simple but the gameplay can be complex (obviously depending on the experience of the players).

[Erik Setzer]

Semantics. I still argue that when you say the rules are simple, that's the same as saying the gameplay is simplistic. Not talking tactics, just gameplay in general. And it is, and I see no trouble with that. I like KoW for that, I like this historical game I saw last weekend for that reason. In both of those cases, you can get all kinds of interesting tactics and such, but the gameplay is "simplistic."

It's just a semantics thing, though. I get that some people won't like saying that because it carries negative connotations, so whatever floats your boat, cool.


On a semi-related note... I got one of the weirdest rants last night from a GW manager, where he said things like "Of course AoS looks good by doing 4x what fantasy was in the past, fantasy was dead, 4x nothing is still not much," and "If the stuff doesn't sell, it's because we (managers) are to blame, not because anything's wrong with the game" (angry sarcastic tone). Also said the Start Collecting! sets were a North American based idea that popped up after awful Christmas sales as a way to get people buying stuff (if so, that worked pretty well). I was pretty amazed, because as negative as people might accuse me of being about GW, this GW employee actually sounded a lot more down on them.

Still didn't put me off from wanting to buy the Pestilens book and GS box... only reason I didn't is because of my PC accident and replacing a CPU and mobo wasn't cheap.

But it feels like things must be bad internally when even their own employees are getting frustrated. Granted, the former guy, who was really good (and got a much-deserved promotion for it), had his own gripes, mostly centered on the bunker mentality being so bad even the managers had no idea what was coming up (something they've changed). And after talking to some folks later in the evening, it sounds like the current guy hasn't got the most pleasant attitude. (Especially unhappy with anyone buying FW, which you can't do through a shop, or GW selling products through toy stores, because it means the company is "competing with itself.") So if you want to assume he's just angry because he's not making sales and might lose his job and isn't a reliable source, that's fair.

At least they seem to recognizing there's things they need to change. So that's a positive.