Well I would say WAB and the method in which it was handled for the old
guard is a bitter pill. Those folks are obviously disgruntled and rightly
so given the investment of time and energy over the years championing WAB.
---------> WAB is and was a fun game. Folks championed it because the other ancients gaming crowd poo pooed it and made it out like folks were looney or degenerate to switch to another game system-- schisms and rancor being the methodology of change in the "other system's" world. People believe that ancient's gaming should have only one style- one true path- like religion. You are either gaming heavenly or in hell, or worse in purgatory playing WAB- a 1970's game with buckets of dice-- what is wrong with those people???
WAB players responded by having more fun, presenting better armies and figuring out how to have fun with a historically inspired game rather than be shackled by hanging on every phrase or word of the creator. The other systems were tired and in their 'reconstruction phases".. i.e. they were changing and modifying their system to let other stupid armies win at the expense of the solid armies that actually were famous in ancient combat.... so those EIR armies left the old systems and were replaced by world beaters such as Beja tribesmen, Tupi Warriors, and Portuguese mercenaries.......
WAB never really got to that phase, although one could say that the EIR army- though solid in WAB has never had a fair shake in the true tournament environment... but what I can say is that EIR has always been a fun army to play in tournamanets against all comers, be it Indians, Mongols, or Normans-- so that means WAB is a winner, because it is fun. It is even fun across periods- even though it's better when not crossing time zones. Certainly EIR vs. Dacians is where the Roimans shine, and I wouldn't force that match on anybody all the time, just for historocities' sake.
The new crowd has to find WAB. Forgeworld has written off the US business with their marketing 'strategy'. They have decided that they can make enough business to sell to the die hards that will mail order the books here in the US, and can support their effort and profit by selling at British cons and in Europe. That's a bad business decision for me, since I am at the ends of the earth when irt comes to wargaming... a California market that has a small gaming population to start with (not enough snow-- snow on the ground has a direct correlation to wargamers.... sun and surf and bikinis... well one can figure out that conflict:)
As for me I am done with WAB as an official promoter. I feel I cannot support a company that does not support me or my colleagues here. We have to play at the local game store and that is by the grace of the owner who lets us take up space for a game that he cannot make any money off of.. other than the occaisional purchase of CA Zap a Gap, or a magazine, or the odd WFB figure picked up to complete a range..... It is ridiculous of me to say I can develop a game that few in my area can even buy, and fewer play... my small group of testers has been great help over the years, they have made it seem like they were more, but it's gone now for the most part.... but it's just ridiculous and arrogant of me to even say that wat I have is or would ever be thoroughly tested anymore.
Even across the world, my testing groups involved have diminished in interest- reducing the validity of my efforts. It's a good thing the Successors will not see the light of day... finished in 2007, it is now way out of date... the new updates for WAB2 don't fix the outdated text. When the Successors was going to be a 168 page paperback, it was chock full of details that were only available elsewhere in out of print books... now a lot of that has changed. So the Successors will not happen, as i envisioned it. I won't re-edit it to fit the new bloated Forgeworld format... I wanted to release the lists to everybody, but FW said no that I could not do that ... sadly it's only the gamers that lose out in all this bickering...
The new round of WAB if it happens will be by a new crowd. My role is to remain an insurgent, I play, and I do my thing, paint figures when I can. I think it is only natural that people remain upset at what happened to WAB, but if they can turn it around that will go away. After all WAB wasn't all that well supported even when it was being 'well supported', but even back then it was better supported than now with FW's bloated and over priced hard cover books, and their secretive impersonal style.
Supplements drive the game- not only does it promote new gamer's interests, but they get new players interested in the rules and the game, which revitalizes the old timer's too. This creates interest on the baords, gets player to revisit armies, complete armies, etc.... it's called excitement- something apparently foreign to ForgeWorld unless it can be made out of resin and sold for 150$.
There has not been a WAB supplement in..how long??? Three years, four years? The WAB 2.0 rules with errata are a mixed bag. My own feeling is they got a lot right, but also a lot wrong, my preference is to play WAB2 but dump a bunch of the less successful ideas- like cavalry coutner charge distances and stubborn revisions..... but's that's why I am at the insurgent fringe. I can play the game at that fringe, and I can play at a convention with the actual rules. Either way is ok... but I cannot reccomend that anybody buy the rules.
The new secret AoA revision will do something... I'm not sure what for WAB... maybe it will actually inspire the new crowd to get into it... that would be fine. I just don't think that new crowd is going to come from WFB 8th rejects and deserters, and it's certainly not going to just spring up in the USA- since players will actually have to see a game being played to actually see the rules. I see many trying to reconstruct WAB interest in LA, hats off to them. But LA is not a convenient place for me to go.
One of the most common questions of onlookers at cons and at the hobby store has always been "Where did you get the rules for WFB ancients?".... that still remains the same issue.
So as Hank says, any good con with well thought out scenarios will still attract players to the game, even in the USA. Armies need not shed their skirmishers because of WAB2... that is a myth... I played just fine with 30-40 skirmishers in my Persian army and 24 in a Roman army..... they play more like they should play... in the past they were abused because they had too much power in WAB, now they act like skirmishers, not liek speed bumps. I do not shed a tear for players who have left because their favorite skirmisher army got nerfed.... but then again, I dont anybody that had such a thing. If people feel bad their Thracians were nerfed, too bad.
Now we live in a period where all the things (evil things) that the poo-pooers said would happen because of GW have happened, we have abundances of really nice 28mm figures, we have plastic hoplites, Romans, etc.... all those things were symptoms of the impending GW taking over the hobby... to their credit (or discredit) they did none of that (directly although Renedra can certainly be seen as a highlight of GW megalomania causing good things in the hobby).
Back in the day I was one of those.. GW isn't all that bad... and if they are-- WE will show you that we are not them.. WAB is WAB, not GW. I think we all did that. Unfortunately GW, being GW turned me into the bitter chap who chimes in and says don't do business with them because they are jackwads..... but I try to stay away from that kind of talk. So yes, insurgency is a bitter pill.
Hail Caesar, move forward with Impetus, or any of the other bazillion new rules contenders that might actually try to support their gamers! What I hate the most is being the grumpy emaciated old senator that yells out "shut your pie hole" to the young Caesar's and Pompey's .... and if.. just if FW turns around WAB then I can simply pass on into the shadows... but while ForgeWorld continues to fuck it up by being so retarded and only supporting the local British market*.. I will be here to be an insurgent. But Cold Wars has it's own problems... mostly it's Cold :)
JJ
(*inventors of wargaming they tell us from Nottingham central )
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