I don't actually want to engage in the tedium that is building an army list or fiddling with positioning to perfectly obscure the requisite amount of units in order to get a cover save. It's nice that TW sort of handles or hides away a lot of that and just allows to bathe in what is actually engaging about WH, enormous skirmishes with quirky fantasy armies.
That's exactly what I want. I want to obsess over an army list, I want placement to really matter. I want proper turn based action. Total War is great but its not Warhammer when you get down to nuts and bolts. Different strokes and all that.
The forbidden nature of the straight 1:1 recreation is..a myth. A massive and overwhelming myth that makes me desperately wish GW would end up getting forced into it. Because despite all evidence to the contrary they are very clearly cling to an 80/90s mentality about such things.
Where as just look at the rise of 'buy in to keep playing" games. Of buying skins, or releasing expansions that add to the game. I mean if Magic the Gathering can have a 1 to 1 online version that's been going strong for 15+ years..and if the last thing I heard on it is to be believed makes them more pure profit then their print-medium..
Imagine, if you will. A way to play with the minis you own, online. Give us the 1 to 1 table top applications. Then go the 'toys to life' route. Put codes for exclusives skins in the boxed products. Tie off entire factions to buying core rule books. Or, you know, just charge similar prices for the off line version of the units.
There are thousands upon thousands of people who 'use' to play 40k. Or, like me, never had the money as a kid..and don't have the time to go play in person even though I now have the money. Potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars just sitting in my and many others bank accounts, because GW won't let me purchase shiny virtual minis to oogle over, bling out and, you know, crash into other people.
It doesn't take a genius to realize that the online audience and the r/l audience do not over-lap nearly as much as you'd think. The online experience is completely differnt then an offline one. Physical figures you can paint, collect, set on a shelf? Bring down and show off to other enhusists? No, that can't be recreated online. But guess what? I and lots and LOTS of other people who would like too, can't do that. Online doesn't pull as hard from the former group as it would bring in the one I'm a part of.
But of course, as the article mentions. The 'forbidden 1:1' is a thing for a reason. Backwards, stupid thinking. They could be as awful DLC/free to play sickening with such a system as they like..and people would still dump massive amounts of cash into it.
Alas. Until, as I said, GW goes under or has some major crisis/shake down..we are never gonna get what people really want. And that sucks.
Actually I think that now WHFB is a dead game we might actually end up with a decent 1:1. They seem to be OK with those once a game is dead, Bloodbowl and Mordheim are pretty faithful recreations for example.
Its terrible business practice and ignore synergy like a mother fucker but its possible in a decade I'll be able to buy electronic packs of minis for WHFB, maybe that I can only "paint" once for electronic armies to battle online.
If they were really wanting to rake in the money they could even sell DLC army books and editions.
I know I'd prefer 7th, 6th or even 4th to 8th.
I really like Total War Warhammer but all its really doing is making me itch to play real WHFB. The combat isn't the same in Total War. Too bad my local scene took a hit with 8th and completely disappeared with AOS. Now its all 40K, X-wing, or Warmahordes.
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