‘Warhammer: The Old World’ – GW Made The Right Call Nixing Legacy Armies
Games Workshop has gotten a lot of flak for their treatment of the “Legacy” armies for The Old World, but here’s why they made the right call.
After four years of waiting, The Old World is about to hit tables around the world. Indeed, the first rule books are now in some player’s hands, and battles are being waged. Not all of these battles however are taking places on the tabletop. Some of the first battles of the Old World are being fought among fans over aspects of the game. One of the big topics of discussion, which has raised a lot of ire online, is how GW has treated certain “Legacy” factions. So today, let’s take a look at this treatment and why GW made the right move.
What Is A “Legacy” Faction
At the time of its demise, Warhammer Fantasy Battles was a large and mature game. It had a large number of factions and a huge number of units. Of games at the time, really only 40K could compete with it for the variety of factions. There was, at the time, something like 15-16 main supported factions (depending on how you count Chaos Dwarfs who never had a proper release). Over the years there had also been a number of minor factions. Some of these were sub-faction of others. Others only really showed up for brief stints, such as the Vampire Coast Pirates or Kislev. Going back into the deep past of WFB, you can find at least another half dozen, if not more, armies who lost support over the years and editions.
When GW decided to bring back the Old World, they made the controversial choice not to fully support all armies. This choice was made quite some time ago and publicly announced well before the game’s release. Nine of the old armies have been designated “core” factions and are getting full support. Seven of the armies are now “Legacy” factions. These will get a one-time PDF rules drop, but after that there are no plans to update them. They are also not legal to play in tournaments. White a hard call to make, doing this was the right call.
Stocking And Production
Putting out a new game, and the Old World is a new game, is a lot of work. Looking past design issues, you hit the simple reality of producing enough product and having stores stock it. Launching a game with nine full factions is a major undertaking. In fact, it’s pretty rare to see any new game launch with anywhere close to that many. Many games never even get that many years after hitting the market. From this perspective, limiting the number of core factions at first makes a ton of sense. Games Workshop has already been struggling to meet demand with their current lineup of mainline games like 40K and AoS. Trying to add hundreds of units for a new game adds to that inventory pressure.
There are also very real limitations as to how much product any store can, or will, carry and afford to stock. Cutting the initial buy-in to the game, and production, down to “just nine armies” helps with this a lot. As it stands, we don’t even know how long it will take for just these core armies to come out. It could take a year or more just to get the core factions into people’s hands. I think saying “these armies aren’t supported” is honestly better than saying “these armies will be supported in two years when we get around to it.” The reality is that for the game to come out, they needed to limit things.
The Balance Issue
Cutting down on the number of armies also has another major effect. It helps with game balance. Balancing a multi-faction game is… not easy. The more units and factions and rules you add the harder it gets. Let’s be honest, GW doesn’t have the best track record with this. Look at the recent 10th Edition Warhammer 40K launch. Starting from scratch should have let them make a balanced game, instead, and due in part to the huge number of units/factions, it was a mess. I’ve said before that the only way to really balance 40K is to get rid of about half the units. And effectively, that’s what they did with the Old World and WFB. Slimming things down is a major step towards a balanced and fun game at launch.
If GW isn’t going to keep them updated and balanced, making them non-tournament legal is also the right move. If you’ve played a GW for long enough, you’ve likely had the unpleasant experience of getting blindsided in a game by some artifact of a rule pulled out of an old White Dwarf or outdated book. These tend to be perfectly legal but have hung around long enough that the game has changed, and they’ve gone from fine to broken. Keeping the tournament-allowed rules clean and updated helps a ton with balance.
They Didn’t Kill Any Armies
OK, so there are some good reasons to limit the factions right now. But isn’t it a bit unfair that GW has just killed off some armies? Well, lets just be clear here, GW hasn’t killed any armies. The Old World is a brand-new game. Old WFB has been defunct for eight years. There was never any reason to think every last army would be valid in the new game. On top of that the armies that are now Legacy are all well supported in Age of Sigmar. You can play them there. Maybe you’ve kept one of these old armies on square bases for eight years, like I have with Vampires Counts, hoping for WFB to come back. If you have, well, I mean, yeah, it does sting. But GW doesn’t owe us anything here.
You could argue that since a lot of the units are being made for AoS it would be easy to add these armies as there are no production issues. However I don’t think that is true. You’d still have to re-box all the units with square bases. You’d have to bring back those units, or even older models depending on how you wanted to do it, that are no longer in AoS. There would be issues with units and their options on the models. It would still eat into production a bunch.
Support With No Models?
We might also ask if GW couldn’t just support the factions without releasing models for them. Just keep updating the PDFs/army rules and keep them legal. Now in theory they could do this, but you’d run back into the balance issue. This would simply complicate the game and make it harder to balance. There is also the simple questions of… why would GW do this? Why would they produce and maintain multiple army lists, and the time it takes to make and update them, for factions they have no immediate plans to sell anything for? Sure you could get some models from AoS, and convert the rest, but its not really rewarding for GW to do this. And these armies would be very, very niche. Most players wouldn’t play an army that didn’t have minis available for several years. They would wait.
Room For New Things
Another great reason, and benefit, of cutting some of the armies is that it allows for new things. People were really excited about the idea of Kislev and Cathy getting full faction releases. People also want to see new and updated Old World models. The less old factions you have to spend time bringing back and producing models for, the sooner we can get new stuff. It also lets them add in new stuff without bloating the game as much. Cutting the Legacy factions loose for now makes it far more likely we actually see a Kislev force, or something else new.
The Future
Look, I’ve played Vampire Counts for over twenty years now. I have thousands of points of them built and painted on square bases in my attic. On a personal level it sucks that they aren’t going to get real support. But I think from the large-scale point of view, for very practical reasons such as release schedules and balance issues, cutting the game down makes a lot of sense. It was the right, if hard, move to make. It also doesn’t mean it’s going to be this way forever. Should The Old World do well, there is nothing saying these armies won’t be brought back in the future. If we ever make it to the Great War Against Chaos I’m pretty sure daemons will be there. We could also see armies come back in new forms. Maybe instead of Vampire Counts, we get a Vampire Coast list for example Overall GW’s restraint and prudence in this matter gives me more, not less, hope for the game.
Let us know how you feel about the legacy armies, down in the comments!
