I look into the Fantasy Battle Orb and espy... the future of Warhammer gaming in the 2010's...
It might sound a bit dull but I don't actually expect huge changes, providing the company continues under the current management and sticks with their gameplan.
Afterall, the game concept and the Warhammer world is still very much like it was 20 years ago. Dwarfs are still grumpy and grudge bearing, elves are still the snooty ones, humans continue to swing between good and evil (depending on where the money, women, excitement is), the greenskins never change and Chaos still hasn't managed to take over the world. Although, we have seen the introduction of proper army lists for some races like Vamps, Tomb Kings and Ogres which was nice.
Over the 20 years, the concepts might not have altered but the game itself has been greatly improved. It is now much more balanced than it ever was, it is more accessible and better supported with affordable plastic miniatures. The production quality of all the Fantasy Battle material is now top notch and everything has a polished feel to it.
It's difficult to see how the above can be improved upon. So I'm not anticipating any major changes in the next 10 years. However, please feel free to come back and post here if I'm wrong ;)
For what it's worth, here's what I think might happen:-
- Continued improvement in plastic miniatures and fewer metal miniatures. I suspect metal might eventually be phased out altogether.
- Fewer shops, more support for local gaming clubs / competitions and more online selling.
- Probably some new armies (I bet there's a new Sea based army, someone at GW must be thinking about it - I have been for the past year ! Also, I wouldn't be suprised if Orcs and Goblins weres split into 2 separate books and there was a new race of flying creatures)
- Personally, I think GW will try to keep it as simple as possible in the long run, I'm not expecting a rush of new games / systems.
- I don't think there's any major threat from online gaming or computer / console gaming. If there was then GW would have been dead and buried many years ago.
- I wouldn't be suprised to see another gaming system rise up and challenge Fantasy Battle. I'm hearing more and more about certain other games and any game which can offer similar enjoyment at a lower cost (ie fewer and/or cheaper miniatures) could challenge GW's dominance if the gaming system were to become well known.
One last thing... I wonder whether Warhammer will ever appeal to the Chinese and the Indians ? I think it actually fits in quite well with some Chinese mythology.
Well, Happy New Year everyone. It's good to be back - my pc died before Christmas and I was without for 2 weeks :(
Things should be back to normal now I have a new "rig" - as Yaji, one of our forum members, likes to call it.
I don't have any proper news at the moment so please settle for the latest pics from our forum members (if you haven't joined us yet, why not ?!)
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