Will Warmaster Ever Come Back?

[@AdamStephens]

I genuinely hope that GW never again touches Warmaster. The community is doing great, the game is MUCH better moderated with the rules committee, 3d printing offers sculpts that are miles better than what GW would pump out.

[@wolfie54321]

I dunno, I've never played Warmaster, but I do love small scale stuff and am currently building a few 1/2 scale Warhammer armies. I think there's a strong argument for not wanting GW to touch Warmaster, especially if it has a solid ruleset that people use (opposed to Epic which has a splintered community across multiple official and unofficial rules). GW have a tendency to mess up rules, I maintain that the first Aeronautica Imperialis had better rules than the second for example. And while there's no official models for sale, there is a growing availability of 3D printable models, to the point where for some armies there's multiple options! I worry that if GW restarts Warmaster, people selling 10mm Warhammer STLs might get taken down.

[@philipbowles5397]

As for other games of that scale, thanks to Warlord Games (essentially the old GW Specialist Games team and other former GW employees) a major part of the modern historicals market is built on Warmaster derivatives (while most gunpowder-era and later modern historicals are derived in some form from Epic 40,000). For the most part these are 28 mm scale games like Hail Caesar, but unlike GW games many historical rulesets are either fully scale-agnostic or - like the Warlord ones - have relatively minor concessions to scale differences that take account of units being modelled in blocks rather than as individual figures. Warlord's Pike & Shotte ruleset is similar to its Epic Pike & Shotte ruleset, while Waterloo is the Epic-scale version of Black Powder.

[@danbuman8422]

If the Old World release is successful, I think they may seriously consider bringing it back. That being said, they seem to be struggling with keeping the minis they already have in stock. On the bright side, Warmaster and Warmaster Revolution are solid games and there are lots of minis available (including 3D prints). These existing games stand well as they are :)

[@TabletopTom]

Absolutely - it’s already there if people are interested! Will check out a few other mini options over the weekend.😁

[@mrdelaney4440]

Ive heard gospal they are looking at bringing warmaster back at 15mm scale.

[@tabletopmika4349]

Excuse me, but how are new players who want to start with Warmaster stuck? There are models available for each of the 20+ factions of the Warmaster Revolution ruleset.

[@iainmstanding]

It never went away.

[@mrdelaney4440]

It evolved into something truely great.

[@nagashthegod]

I've said this elsewhere before, but for me it is an ideal way for GW to test the waters of licensed 3D prints. Offer a single plastic boxed set, Hel Fenn, 3rd Battle of Blackfire Pass, the Sundering etc. Then licence prints of units and different armies on top of that. HD scans of the old minis perhaps, AI adapted to be printable, who knows. If it works, bring 3D printing to 28mm. If not, little has been lost. Warmaster is probably the best balanced game GW have produced and is a delight to play to this day.

[@Philtopy]

Interesting talk and points you’ve made. We have to keep in mind though that unlike 40k epic, Warmaster has always had an active community that kept it alive, up to date and with 3D prints it’s more accessible than ever. I cannot think of any scenario where GW would actually improve the current situation. They are horrible at making game rules. They love rule bloat. They screw balancing with constant new releases. They force people into fomo. They are twice as expensive as the normal 3D market. They rewrite existing lore to fit their sales model. The only thing changing would be popularity of the game itself. But Warmaster seems to be pretty healthy without that PR anyways. Whoever wants to have a small scale epic fantasy wargame, is all but one google search away to find this game. Happened to me too. And looking at the upfront cost you can easily buy two armies at once for the price of half of ONE GW equivalent and invite friends to play.

[@philipbowles5397]

Epic 40k does have an active community. It's entirely possible that's part of the reason they went back to the less popular 2nd Ed. ruleset for Legions Imperialis - they aren't going to be attracting the E40k fanbase who already have a well-curated game with greater faction diversity, but almost no one still plays NetEpic, the fan-curated version of 2nd Ed. (Andy Chambers called it a niche within a niche community). And as much as fan communities dislike the idea of GW 'taking back control', it was greeted with the same horror by Blood Bowl's community but in the event the GW updates have been universally adopted and widely preferred to fan moderation. Modern GW is far better at writing rules than it used to be (Legions Imperialis is their first bad ruleset in almost a decade, and that only because it's almost entirely a copy-pasted ruleset from the early '90s) and in recent years only 40k has strongly suffered from most of the issues you mention (except the pricing), since 40k exists in GW's mind to be a cash cow and an IP first and a game second or third. The secondary games are frankly not marketable enough for that tactic to work as well there (though Underworlds suffers from rules bloat, this is mostly because they can't obsolete any rule that older cards refer to - at any given time the rules complexity is fairly static in practice) with releases being much more occasional. I've started picking up Warmaster models having inexplicably decided against it at the time despite lauding the gameplay. I know 3D printed models are both cheaper and better than the GW originals but I want to collect the originals for nostalgia reasons.

[@philipbowles5397]

I doubt it, all the moreso as I'm not optimistic Legions Imperialis will do well, but if so they should make an AoS version rather than rerelease the original. They don't want to compete with themselves given the existing 3rd party support for Warmaster Revolutions, and beyond that they have much more scope to 'go big' with units similar to Titans. Warmaster wasn't a success among the GW fanbase, only outside it, and there were complaints at the time that it didn't have the eyecatching giant monsters that fanbase wanted. The Warhammer World doesn't have the scope in lore for anything much bigger than the stuff already in WFB, but AoS has an essentially infinite variety of godbeasts and the lore flexibility to add bigger stuff than is represented in the main game.

[@Haroith]

No, please, god, no! We are all fed up 'official' rules. Stop dictating us how to play and what miniatures use. Stop trying to take all our money just for little plastic soldiers. $200 for just 'a starter' - it is not Epic. It is Epic Robbery! 3d-printed 10mm army in the most expensive source is about $200 - even in this case it will be twice larger. Typical printed 10mm army costs about $20-$50 if printed at home.

[@Kreated_by_khaos]

Epic will go to 40k if it sells well , as well warmaster ,

[@TabletopTom]

Agreed - GW will always follow the money 🤑

[@moosemoosington]

I was thinking the same thing

[@ValentineCorp]

@1:23 where is this image from?

[@TabletopTom]

It's from the front cover of the official Warmaster rulebook. Incredible piece of art. 😄

[@tomjordan7606]

I would prefer if they didn't, gw are constantly stating how yhey have limited tespurces and dont really want more resputces shared amoungst other games. The 30k community feel extremely let down by gw as it feels like they turned up, ruined our rules with a poorly balanced and barely playtested version of then game and then fucked off. HH 2.0 has the seeds zof greatness there but once again like many of the aspects of gw games these days, gw kill it before it is able to grow.

[@TabletopTom]

Yeah, I think that’s definitely a reason against it - they need to get all their existing games into a good space, with well-paced release timelines, before they try anything new. Here’s hoping, though. 🤞🏻

[@kmalm4776]

Maybe but most importantly. First.

[@TabletopTom]

😂