I wrote an article in 2012 about how the Park Royal Games Workshop store was closing, and how it affected me. At the time I was melancholy, but hopeful for the future of my gaming club, CHOP!. It didn’t occur to me to write about the End of Warhammer Fantasy Battles until after I’d listened to Chumphammer episode 45, where Patrick used those exact words – “end of an era”. It hadn’t occurred to me, largely because my last game of WHFB was about a year ago. I’ve been watching and reading all of the drama around the Age of Sigmar, but aside from a little disappointment that I’ll probably never play my lizards again, it’s not really a big deal.
It’s interesting to watch the reactions of people. Some people have long since moved on (myself). Some people moved on when the first rumours of WHFB not being quite the same. I feel like some of these people moved on because they were bored, and others might have a little bit of prescience… Some people are raging about 15 years of loyalty lost. Some people are saying the new game isn’t that bad. Some people are saying they’ve given it a try, and it’s pretty good. Some people are saying they’ve given it a try and it’s pretty bad. Some people are in the process of figuring out where they might move to.
That’s a lot of variability! But I think what’s really important to note, is that no one I know thought “ah well, business as usual”. Everyone had to make a choice.
I started my decisions by selling my Brettonians, of which I have no photos here because the army was that old. I still have Orcs and Goblins, my Lizardmen and my brand new Daemons of Chaos. That’s a lot of models for a game that I don’t think I’ll ever play again.
Because that’s the thing for me – at least with WHFB, it was a game I’d once enjoyed, and I enjoyed the aesthetic of it, and I knew that if I brought an army someone would play with me. Now, with the community fractured and scrambling to figure out what the next big tournament game will be, it’s just another game that I own that no one I know really plays.
Which is why you see more Hordes on my painting table! Because a large group of my friends decided to play that game, which I have a few models for.
Anyway, this Era Ending isn’t a huge deal for me…but I thought it deserved writing about anyway.
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