TL;DR - should i teach my friends WAP or 8th edition in a casual/narrative focused group sorry for the rant like structure of the post its fairly late for me and it was a long day at work so im a little drowsy atm while pondering this. i dont know a better place to ask than here tbh as yall are much more knowledgeable than i am in this TL;R - i want to get my friends into fantasy from 40k and ive enjoyed both WAP and 8th but i was thinking of getting them into WAP (older version with more GW stuff in it) since theres more unit/army options. for example, lizardmen have Culchans and Coatls which from my understanding haven't been something lizardmen got gameplay wise. and we also like is how WAP has books for armies that havent gotten love like vampire coasts, amazons, and kingdoms of ind. on the flip side 8th gets more coverage and seems to be easier to learn because of the amount of content there is for it and with so many people playing it theres army lists everywhere to help direct and teach army building and list balancing. and 8th may be a good gateway to learn TOW and help follow the more modern and updated rules. we'll be playing for fun and more narratively than competitively so im not concerned about balance as much as most people would and locally theres literally nobody who plays fantasy or even AOS anymore so theres no chance we'll ever be at an event. itll just be me, my friends and maybe my girlfriend and dad from time to time who'll be playing. my dad is more familiar with 6th edition so itll be something to learn for him too but he'll have some idea for either version i end up choosing to teach. basically i just want to know the pros and cons of learning either version for casual/narrative games. my friends have told me they dont mind which version i teach, i just want them to have a good time army building and narrative crafting thank yall in advanced!
Eight edition WHFB all the way. Why partake in a facsimile, when the real thing is readily available? 8th edition is such a solid system. A couple of points in favour of 8th: 8th has more internet/forum information for your friends to read and interact with. This is a huge plus, especially for new players. 8th has a bunch of campaign/expansion material to keep things fresh (T&T, Tamurkhan, Storm of Magic, etc.) 8th edition provides greater opportunity to recruit potential players in the future (even if it is only you, girlfriend and friends for the time being) 8th edition has professionally published books that your friends can pick up on Ebay for their armies
on this note if we do go with 8th and one of my friends wants to play say Vampire Coasts, would the WAP book be compatible or would it be to different to incorporate into 8th?
That I can't really help you with. I'm very much a person who sticks to official rulesets (hence my vote for 8th over WAP). Of course if everyone is okay with, then I'm sure your group can make it work. It might just require a bit of tweaking. Outside of rules, the next issue would be obtaining an army's worth of models. Could be a fun conversion project, but might be daunting for a new player.
If not doing TOW, 8th is fine, but amongst friends WAP can be cool. Just tons of opportunity for to branch out beyond the published factions alone. Really just comes down to what the group is cool with. If someone wants to play vamp coast, and there is no strong feelings one way or the other, go WAP. It's not like with TOW out many people, and no events, will continue with 8th, so real no reason to steer clear of WAP other than its not "official"
I'd definitely say either 8th or TOW, depending on your preference. If you're an existing 8th player then I'd still say give TOW a try, and if you like it then it'd be the better long-term decision to introduce that into your gaming circle, as, being the new supported game, it'll mean you'll be able to grow a bigger gaming group as more people will be drawn to the new game, but even sticking with 8th is fine if you prefer it. There are still a fair few 8th die-hards out there (just look at this forum ). As for WAP, it's still comparatively niche when placed against 8th or TOW, and especially now that the latter is in town and bringing more and more of the fractured playerbase together, WAP will only get all the more niche. Its time has passed. As they are the WAP books are no longer fully compatible with 8th, since Eliasson decided to write his own 9th Edition and arrogantly stopped distributing his 8th Edition content to try and get everyone to play his game. This means you'd have to go through the ones you want and write errata for them to tie them in with 8th or TOW, and by that point there becomes really no reason why you shouldn't just either look for another source of fan-made rulesets that caters for 8th Edition and/or TOW instead (I, for example, certainly am writing a few army lists for these games), or write some yourself. It's one thing (something that's often respected so long as the rules are balanced) to introduce fan-made army lists into official games that a lot more people know of and play, whereas it's quite another to introduce the burden of learning a completely new, unofficial and comparatively obscure version of the rules to your playerbase purely to add the option of playing those new factions, when you can just add them to the official games anyway, whether through someone else's rules or your own. Indeed, writing your own rules is a particularly fun activity and your gaming group will likely be particularly interested in work you yourself have written to supplement the game.