So I guess I was so stunned and turned off when GW announced that they were releasing 7th so soon after 6th was released, it kinda killed my interest in keeping up with GW. But I've checked out some things here and there from time to time, and it looks like 40k is still going strong. Has 7th been a major improvement?
Some people seem to be really enjoying it. Others not so much.
There have been a lot of stories of gaming groups moving to other systems, and people being put off by the rapid release schedule... but it's really hard to put them into any sort of context, as it's impossible to say how many others there are out there playing the game to death and loving it.
I'm ignoring the formation rules, and have given up on playing in tournaments and game clubs... but other than that it's ok with a few rules changes here and there.
7th is the best thing to happen to the game since rogue trader in my opinion. I would say it is going strong locally, but there are quite a few people who disagree, and have just outright tossed the game out the window out here for a number of fairly irrational reasons.
This edition has the most diversity in armies fielded (outside of ITC type tournaments) that I have seen in decades, and I don't know how that can be considered a bad thing.
7th edition has been terrible. The core rules took the bad things about 6th edition and made them worse without really improving anything, and GW's idiocy with making the game unbound in all but name is just inexcusable. I honestly can't think of a single good thing about 7th compared to previous editions.
7th's a blast! My psykers are gimped, my flyers can't land and assault, formations let me play Unbound But Not Really, Lords of War are now an authorized part of this balanced breakfast, CADs suck, allies are broken, Eldar gets two Codex releases before I get one, and it's been 3 years since I've seen a new one!
Well, the game is still enjoyable.
But it became more lengthy due to magic phase and maelstrom objective counting.#
Moreover, in friendly games here, we see more and more use of the LoW slot.
7th is super fun whrn you include everything and have a conversation before hand. It starts to get unbalance when you exclude portions of it, which oddly enough seems to be the source of most of the gripping.
KTG17 wrote: So I guess I was so stunned and turned off when GW announced that they were releasing 7th so soon after 6th was released, it kinda killed my interest in keeping up with GW. But I've checked out some things here and there from time to time, and it looks like 40k is still going strong. Has 7th been a major improvement?
And that being said, any word on an 8th yet? Lol
In general, 7E is increasingly a "sandbox" game, think of it as "Apocalypse" at any points level.
Stuff that once was purely bad internet hyperbole is now reality (e.g. 1+ FNP rolls, 2++ rerollable Invul saves, armies composed entirely of superheavies, 35pt T6 Fearless infantry with D weapons, etc)
Some people love it, as the game basically lets you do whatever you want (or at least for some factions). However, ultimately, 7E is inccreasingly frustrating for any sort of reasonable "pickup" play, tournaments and events have more houserules and changes than ever (especially relative to say, 5E).
Basically, 7E works if you've got a small group of like-minded players who are willing to play with a large number of self imposed restrictions. Aside from that, it's a gigantic mess.
Vaktathi wrote: Basically, 7E works if you've got a small group of like-minded players who are willing to play with a large number of self imposed restrictions. Aside from that, it's a gigantic mess.
Vaktathi wrote: Basically, 7E works if you've got a small group of like-minded players who are willing to play with a large number of self imposed restrictions. Aside from that, it's a gigantic mess.
I wouldn't even be that charitable. Having a group of like-minded players that don't abuse the balance issues helps, but it still leaves idiotic design problems like wound allocation or the excessive randomness in warlord traits/psychic powers/etc.
Between GW´s horrible mind numbing decisions and blatant cash grabs (thanks for possessed and tomb blade taxes in the new detachments for example), theres stil a nice game to be found.
My friends and I are having great fun with 7th Ed. I started with Necrons and I´m currently building up my second Army (Khorne Daemonkin). You definitely need to forge some narratives house rules now that GW isn´t doing any FAQS anymore or make agreements with your opponent.
Like no garguantuan/superheavies in games below 1.5k point games or restrict the use of flyers if the enemy hasn´t any (or any suitable defense).
Disclaimer: I started at the end of 6th Ed so excuse me if my bitternes hasn´t fully set in
Rules-wise, 7th Edition is improvement over 6th edition. It is what 6th edition should have been from the get-go. Wording is better and magic phase speeds up those armies with loads of Psychic powers. My only signifant gripes are vehicle damage table, and wound allocation - it is faster than horribly cumbersome 5th edition wound allocation, but remains abusable.
However, I am not big fan of the Codex design trends. Too many formations, too many 'invisible' special rules hanging on top of the gaming table, too many Monstrous creatures.
I very much like 40k in its current form, but I could understand why people would think otherwise.
Without some form of agreement on how you and your opponent see the game (comptitive/non-competitve), gak's gonna hit the fan.
Balance is not a factor in the game and if you both do your best to make a good list, chances are pretty big you could tell who would win before you've even started.
That said, I am a gamer aswell and the games I play are rather 'serious' so I like the fact that 40k is more laid back and random compared to the micromanagment I need to put to the table for gaming.
In my local group, we have no self-imposed restrictions or house rules. We started in 5th and things are same they have ever been: people bring the models they have, game is played, sometimes the armies don't match up well and we're like "heh, well that was unbalanced lol" and sometimes they do. It's no different to what it ever was.
However, in tournaments I have seen a big change. Most 5th edition tournaments were "straight outta box", the game was played 100% according to BRB rules and codex, sometimes only using BRB missions. There were no complex comps like in WHFB or whatever or restrictions. You sure don't see that much anymore, tournament rules are almost as thick as the main rulebook nowadays.
It did not kill my community like escalation almost did, but it stoped growing for sure. Zero new players, and not just because of the rules or cost problems, because there are people spending a lot of cash on infinity or warmahordes . No idea what it is though. Can't be the players, because all w40k players the other games, can't be the shops, because we play in the same shops. Maybe other systems are just more fun, although what is fun, is rather hard to pin point.
Vaktathi wrote: Basically, 7E works if you've got a small group of like-minded players who are willing to play with a large number of self imposed restrictions. Aside from that, it's a gigantic mess.
Kinda like AoS, then.
On a more serious note - rampant inbalances not being checked along with ever increasing prices will never help a game, regardless of what GW thinks.
Things here are slowly declining, and Wmh is gaining a lot of players.
Heard from my online store when it released that Dystopian Wars 2.0 outsold it 7 to 1 when it released a week later. I think that kinda said a lot about how Australia felt about a new edition 23 months after the last and all this unbound/summoning shenanigans.
More locally even the hardcore 40k fans seem to be playing Warmachine alongside 40k these days. 40k is still around though, which is more than what can be said for Fantasy/AoS.
Arkaine wrote: 7th's a blast! My psykers are gimped, my flyers can't land and assault, formations let me play Unbound But Not Really, Lords of War are now an authorized part of this balanced breakfast, CADs suck, allies are broken, Eldar gets two Codex releases before I get one, and it's been 3 years since I've seen a new one!
I have given up playing totally in 7th. I play mostly pick up games and pregame negotiations started to get tense and way too long. All I want to do is slap my orks down on the table and have a reasonable chance to have a fun game. But more and more I had to beg people to not spam some units or change up horrendously unfun net lists. I have a huge collection of ork models to choose from but I often just want to play a simple list.
The game is already long, I do not feel like negotiating and most likely hurting some ones feeling cause I told them that they couldn't bring that huge new model.
For me 7th is a wash. Back to painting and conversions for me until the next release.
The outcome of another thread here was that 40k is only playable in a group with similar minded players, but no longer at a large scale like chess or WMH.
7th is a mess. I proposed to my friend that we should make our own rules. They're not willing to though, they are frequent users of GravSpam, Thunderdome, Invisiblity, 2++ re-rollable, unit spam, etc, etc.
I'm wanting to play 5th. I've not played it (left in 4th, came back in 6th) but I've heard that was when 40k peaked.
Vaktathi wrote: Basically, 7E works if you've got a small group of like-minded players who are willing to play with a large number of self imposed restrictions. Aside from that, it's a gigantic mess.
I wouldn't even be that charitable. Having a group of like-minded players that don't abuse the balance issues helps, but it still leaves idiotic design problems like wound allocation or the excessive randomness in warlord traits/psychic powers/etc.
Agree with both, to a degree. I have the luxury of playing within a relatively small group of like-minded players, where issues with the game can be usually talked about without problems. That said, the game is such a mess that we still face challenges from time to time. From an absolutely practical point of view, perhaps if GW decided to release a new "Age of Draigo" game and completely scrap 40k, it could be the best thing to happen to the game, as the community would be forced to get its hands on the game. At such stage things could only get better, because no matter how hard people tries, they won't do as bad as GW rules designers.
Backfire wrote:Rules-wise, 7th Edition is improvement over 6th edition. It is what 6th edition should have been from the get-go. Wording is better and magic phase speeds up those armies with loads of Psychic powers.
I don't understand how wording can be any better, since most of the rulebook is a blatant copy/paste from the 6th edition one.
jonolikespie wrote: Heard from my online store when it released that Dystopian Wars 2.0 outsold it 7 to 1 when it released a week later. I think that kinda said a lot about how Australia felt about a new edition 23 months after the last and all this unbound/summoning shenanigans.
More locally even the hardcore 40k fans seem to be playing Warmachine alongside 40k these days. 40k is still around though, which is more than what can be said for Fantasy/AoS.
Was the The Combat Company? TCC have had issues with GW stuff over recent years and I think made the concious decision to move 40k and WHFB out of the limelight (or maybe it was just not performing so they moved it out of the limelight, I tend to think the former though because they barely even advertise new release 40k any more where they used to in the past and they do advertise other games).
IMO the game peaked in 5th and has only been declining since then.
Whilst not without its issues, 5th at least had a solid ruleset and allowed for a pretty tactial game.
6th fixed virtually nothing, and instead added a lot of nonsense like flyers, Riptides and WKs that belonged in Apocalypse, starting the War of Escalation that has yet to end. It then proceeded to bog down the game with a load of random nonsense and random tables. Oh, and allies were basically added as an extra pay-to-win feature. I don't think they even bothered trying to conceal it with fluff - it was just 'have you run out of slots to take the most broken units in your army? Well now you can take broken units from other armies, too!
I'm presuming that 6th was poorly received, as GW quickly brought out 7th to replace it. So, what did GW do to fix 6th? Well, they added more 6th, of course!
Instead of adding overly large units to armies, they just made all the Apocalypse units legal. Hope everyone really loves playing against those really massive units. Also, did we hear people saythat they didn't like random tables? Well here's even more random tables! In fact, here's an entire set of missions designed around just randoming stuff! Finally, did someone say that allies were broken? And that people sometimes had to take troops before they could take broken units? Well we'll just add Unbound and Formations - take only the most broken units, and we'll throw in some free bonuses! Also, are you upset that your big units can't score, and you have to actually still make use of infantry to win games? Well not to worry - now everything can score!
I guess if you like all that stuff, 7th is the edition you've been waiting for.
Either way, GW's steadily declining profits (in spite of slashing production costs and firing numerous staff), would seem to indicate that 7th hasn't been a great success. I look forward to 8th, when GW looks at what didn't work and then proceeds to add more of it.
Eh, it's very dependent on your LGS. At mine, it's a blast and most Friday nights are packed with players. But we mostly just play with each other, with cheese levels varying, and the occasional LGS tournament. I haven't risked going to a true "tournament".
7th is preventing me moving to 5th again, as nobody seems to want to give up their oh-so-pretty fliers, grav cents, psychic phases, formations and general wacky cheeses.
7E is just a massive pain in the arse, and left all the good armies in the dirt (IG, CSM).
The worst part about 7th edition is that it is not fun. It gives you a lot of options about how to make a list but only 2 kinds of list actually work. Broken formations and abuse of Death-star units. In my eyes the game is all but dead. I refuse to spend any more money on it and I only play with close friends who feel quite the same way I do about it - "we have to play this game don't we? we spent several thousands on it."
I think the community could do a much better job of making 8th edition 40k than GW ever could.
FW might be able to make a balanced ruleset. I've not played HH, but I've heard it's balanced. My one problem with it is that I'm primarliy interested in playing Xenos, so the fluff never appealed to me.
There are definitely things I like, the tactical objectives are fun for normal games to keep things from getting stale. Though most people I know use the house rule of it was impossible at the beginning of the game you can redraw. that minor change seems to eliminate a lot of complaints.
I really wish they would ditch the corner deployment, it is just a pain.
@Frozocrone: My theory is that HH is better balanced specifically because of the lack of xenos. Rather than balancing horde armies vs non-horde armies and all-psyker armies versus no psyker armies and take into account toughness 3 and 4 and MCs and so forth, you pretty much just have to deal with marines (and daemons?). There are less variables to balance against one another. I'm in the same boat though. Horus Heresy sounds great! I'm just not excited enough about humans to buy and paint that much power armor.
@OP: Like every edition before it, 7th edition is the worst edition ever. If and when 8th edition comes out, it will then be the worst edition ever.
More seriously, 7th edition has its fair share of problems, and it's specifically unappealing to tournament-style players because things like formations and superheavies are difficult to balance against one another in a competitive environment. Personally though, I'm really enjoying it. I see room for improvement everywhere, but 7th edition has me energized. I was already a fan of pre-game negotiation (no I don't want to face your draigostar or long fang spam thanks very much), so talking to your opponent in advance and trying to make lists that are balanced against one another doesn't bug me.
In our local group, we've seen a few people switch to Warmahordes, but we've also seen quite a few new people start showing up. In the last two months alone, we've had about 5 or 6 new people start to show up at the local stores.
7th edition strikes me as an edition of cool ideas that need more polish. Warlord traits are cool, but being random stinks. Formations are theoretically a great way to make unpopular options better or to let you field a fluffy army not represented by a combined arms detachment, but their execution has been a mix of unuseful, powerful without drawbacks, and just right. The psychic phase is a neat gimmick, but the balance isn't quite there.
Many of the complaints I hear about 7th make me scratch my head:
"Fifth edition was the golden era!" Then why was everyone complaining about fifth edition when it was a thing and talking about how third edition as the golden era?
"Seventh edition is all about death stars and formations!" Fifth edition was all about death stars and parking lots. A certain type of player will always be drawn to whatever the most powerful option is. The solution is to talk to your opponent and bring lists that will be fun to use against one another.
"The release schedule of 7th is ridiculous!" You... You don't have to buy every book. I know it's nice to have a copy of the other guy's rules, but he should theoretically be bringing one that you can look over. Or just trust him not to cheat. Is mine the only group that likes to chat about what changed between books so that you have a pretty good (if vague) idea of what to expect?
"Seventh edition is terrible for tournaments!" It's hard to phrase rules that put tournament lists on the same level, granted, but tournaments have always seemed a bit silly to me since I started. 40k has never really been a pillar of balance. Fifth edition was all about repainting your marines to match the latest codex. As far as I can tell, codex creep has been a thing every edition except the early part of 7th. Unless you have a away of forcing tournament lists to be very similar in power level, just expect people to bring ridiculously strong stuff.
Frozocrone wrote: I think the community could do a much better job of making 8th edition 40k than GW ever could.
FW might be able to make a balanced ruleset. I've not played HH, but I've heard it's balanced. My one problem with it is that I'm primarliy interested in playing Xenos, so the fluff never appealed to me.
We have started playing HH. Its much more balanced than 40k. Its a smooth with all the Marine armies. No xenos involved so far. How cares about xenos in HH?
jonolikespie wrote: Heard from my online store when it released that Dystopian Wars 2.0 outsold it 7 to 1 when it released a week later. I think that kinda said a lot about how Australia felt about a new edition 23 months after the last and all this unbound/summoning shenanigans.
More locally even the hardcore 40k fans seem to be playing Warmachine alongside 40k these days. 40k is still around though, which is more than what can be said for Fantasy/AoS.
Was the The Combat Company? TCC have had issues with GW stuff over recent years and I think made the concious decision to move 40k and WHFB out of the limelight (or maybe it was just not performing so they moved it out of the limelight, I tend to think the former though because they barely even advertise new release 40k any more where they used to in the past and they do advertise other games).
T'was them. In fact the other week I went back through their Facebook a whole year and didn't see them posting a picture of any new GW stock. I've also been keeping an eye out on their newsletters, they mention things I've never heard of like Rise of the Kage but they never made a mention of AoS.
I LOVE the do what you want edition… we have very few pickup game days here at the store, mostly little Saturday events. We are even growing and pushing MTG out of their Friday night time slot.
The owner is happy because he is turning more profit than the card games and are self-managing. The shelves are 1/3 40k merch now, compared to just the painting display a year ago.
Not going to lie, it’s a ton of work. Everything is run by the community and we have to form a club to handle building and maintaining as much as 7, 40k tables… but it’s worth it.
Wyldhunt wrote: @Frozocrone: My theory is that HH is better balanced specifically because of the lack of xenos. Rather than balancing horde armies vs non-horde armies and all-psyker armies versus no psyker armies and take into account toughness 3 and 4 and MCs and so forth, you pretty much just have to deal with marines (and daemons?). There are less variables to balance against one another. I'm in the same boat though. Horus Heresy sounds great! I'm just not excited enough about humans to buy and paint that much power armor.
@OP: Like every edition before it, 7th edition is the worst edition ever. If and when 8th edition comes out, it will then be the worst edition ever.
There is certainly some truth to this. 3rd edition was also heralded as the worst edition ever upon its release.
I think the volume of these complaints have increased quite a bit however. The sales figures somewhat support this.
More seriously, 7th edition has its fair share of problems, and it's specifically unappealing to tournament-style players because things like formations and superheavies are difficult to balance against one another in a competitive environment. Personally though, I'm really enjoying it. I see room for improvement everywhere, but 7th edition has me energized. I was already a fan of pre-game negotiation (no I don't want to face your draigostar or long fang spam thanks very much), so talking to your opponent in advance and trying to make lists that are balanced against one another doesn't bug me.
If you enjoyed pre-game discussion and cooperative list building, I can see why you like this edition. In other editions, those things were not only uncommon, they were viewed openly with scorn (at least the list building).
However, I think that 7th hurts both tournament players and narrative players. It is very hard for my friend's emperor's children to face an Iyanden army, despite it being a very fluffy matchup. A swarm of nids or genestealers have a tough time against an Ultramarine army as well. The lopsided strength of the codexes, which is now greater than ever, makes narrative game a chore.
I would say that 7th edition firmly supports fans of house rules, and actively punishes everyone else.
In our local group, we've seen a few people switch to Warmahordes, but we've also seen quite a few new people start showing up. In the last two months alone, we've had about 5 or 6 new people start to show up at the local stores.
7th edition strikes me as an edition of cool ideas that need more polish. Warlord traits are cool, but being random stinks. Formations are theoretically a great way to make unpopular options better or to let you field a fluffy army not represented by a combined arms detachment, but their execution has been a mix of unuseful, powerful without drawbacks, and just right. The psychic phase is a neat gimmick, but the balance isn't quite there.
I'll agree with this. A lot of 7th editions ideas are good, but their execution is terrible.
This is not unique to a new edition of 40k. I thought fliers were cool (why wouldn't modern armies have fliers?) but the execution was just god awful at their inception.
Many of the complaints I hear about 7th make me scratch my head:
"Fifth edition was the golden era!" Then why was everyone complaining about fifth edition when it was a thing and talking about how third edition as the golden era?
I honestly don't remember this. The biggest complaints about 5th edition were mainly;
Transports were way too good.
GK needed to be toned down.
Wound allocation needed to be reworked (this has almost always been a problem in most of the editions...or tanks. Or both).
I have a hard time thinking anyone thought 3rd was a golden era unless they played BA or one of the...sub factions (Biel-Tan or similar). I certainly didn't see it being brought up much as a golden era, the game had a lot of problems and was very spammy.
"Seventh edition is all about death stars and formations!" Fifth edition was all about death stars and parking lots. A certain type of player will always be drawn to whatever the most powerful option is. The solution is to talk to your opponent and bring lists that will be fun to use against one another.
Well, there were relatively few deathstars as compared to now. The parking lots were certainly a thing.
Deathstars today are very different from deathstars back then. Take the Ulthwe from 3rd. They had a re-rollable 4+ invul save, and that made them one of the best deathstars of their time. Their firepower, outside of mind war, was bad and they mainly relied on CC. Now it seems it's about 2++ re-rollable with really good guns and very good CC abilities. Outside of GK, 5e didn't have many OP deathstars and when it did, it mainly resulted from the would allocation rules which were pretty bad.
I don't think you can claim that 7th is more balanced than 5th, the deathstars have gotten much worse.
"The release schedule of 7th is ridiculous!" You... You don't have to buy every book. I know it's nice to have a copy of the other guy's rules, but he should theoretically be bringing one that you can look over. Or just trust him not to cheat. Is mine the only group that likes to chat about what changed between books so that you have a pretty good (if vague) idea of what to expect?
Some people are just bad with rules, and others only have a vague idea of what units do (see how many people get markerlights rules wrong on these forums, for example). The game having a rule bloat makes it difficult, and to play the game effectively, you really need a good idea of what everything on the table does. Owning the rules helps.
That said, usually this is more in reference to a single army. Eldar have had, I think, 4-5 codexes since 3rd. 2 of those came out in the last few years (2? 3?) while the others took a much longer time to come out. My rules stayed relevant longer, so I wasn't forced to go out and buy a very expensive codex every other year. It was more like 1 every 5 years, and Eldar have had a decent release schedule. For marine players, it can be a lot worse.
This also refers to the main rulebook switching over very quickly and not a lot having changed (and it's a very expensive rule book), and a lot of micro transactions being added in as well.
I'll say that, from 3rd to 5th, our group would not allow downloaded rule books unless you owned the original. Now only 2 of us own paper copies, and not for every army we own.
"Seventh edition is terrible for tournaments!" It's hard to phrase rules that put tournament lists on the same level, granted, but tournaments have always seemed a bit silly to me since I started. 40k has never really been a pillar of balance. Fifth edition was all about repainting your marines to match the latest codex. As far as I can tell, codex creep has been a thing every edition except the early part of 7th. Unless you have a away of forcing tournament lists to be very similar in power level, just expect people to bring ridiculously strong stuff.
The problem is that the "really strong stuff" nowadays just makes a 3rd, or more, of factions worthless. Before, at least every army had 1-2 strong builds they could throw on the table and expect a game.
Tournaments also used to be actively supported by GW, so while you may have found it silly, the company and the players did not.
While 40k has always had bad internal balance, the external balance between codexes has grown in disparity by leaps and bounds.
oftenwrong wrote: I LOVE the do what you want edition… we have very few pickup game days here at the store, mostly little Saturday events. We are even growing and pushing MTG out of their Friday night time slot.
The owner is happy because he is turning more profit than the card games and are self-managing. The shelves are 1/3 40k merch now, compared to just the painting display a year ago.
Not going to lie, it’s a ton of work. Everything is run by the community and we have to form a club to handle building and maintaining as much as 7, 40k tables… but it’s worth it.
No xenos in hh? Odd, what was that elder game I had last week? Must be my imagination, he most certainly wasn't using the age of darkness foc, like me, hmm odd.
Sarcasm aside, hh does have xenos armies, the same ones as 40k, if what they mean is that no fwhh specific units for xenos have been created, then yes, that's true.
Also hh has an abundance of geq, auxila, imperial auxiliaries and traitors, large chunks of mechanicum if you want it, plenty of options to horde up if you want.
I chatted with one of the employees at my FLGS recently. It's a big store, with 30+ tables in the game room for various events, and shelves of terrain. They have a dedicated 40k night, some regular 40k players, but it's not well attended (sometimes 0 games, sometimes 3+ concurrent games). They stopped hosting 40k tournaments a while ago, and have no plans to host a 40k tourney in the future. There's just not enough interest. By contrast, KoW, WM, Star Wars and Infinity are gaining ground. Magic, D&D, and other games are popular here too.
There is a tournament in December I am looking at going to, they are also doing an xwing tournament and a warmachine tournament, so far there are 0 xwing signups and 3 warmachine signups posted. 40K has around 20 and I know of at least 3 more people going.
Individual FLGS aren't a great metric for how a game is doing as a whole. The store where I live doesn't do 40k events because the owner doesn't want to stock the product, but there are plenty of 40k players around.
Backfire wrote:Rules-wise, 7th Edition is improvement over 6th edition. It is what 6th edition should have been from the get-go. Wording is better and magic phase speeds up those armies with loads of Psychic powers.
I don't understand how wording can be any better, since most of the rulebook is a blatant copy/paste from the 6th edition one.
Yes it's mostly same as 6th Edition, but fixed (most) of the unclear rules issues which necessited a massive FAQ/Errata. 7th is basically 6th+Errata+Psychic phase. 6th Edition felt like it was quickly rushed out before it was complete, probably because it was quickly rushed out before it was complete.
Overall, I prefer 7th over 5th, 6th vs 5th was a toss-up.
It's worth noting that during 5th edition there were massive complaints from 4th edition veterans how Mech spam, Kill points and TLOS had completely ruined the game and how it was the worst edition ever...
It's worth noting that during 5th edition there were massive complaints from 4th edition veterans how Mech spam, Kill points and TLOS had completely ruined the game and how it was the worst edition ever...
Well then I guess it's a good job 7th came along and fixed... none of those.
Yes it's mostly same as 6th Edition, but fixed (most) of the unclear rules issues which necessited a massive FAQ/Errata. 7th is basically 6th+Errata+Psychic phase. 6th Edition felt like it was quickly rushed out before it was complete, probably because it was quickly rushed out before it was complete.
There are certainly quite a few areas where 7th edition has improved wording. Others, of course (Blasts, Psychic Units) where it really, really hasn't.
It's worth noting that during 5th edition there were massive complaints from 4th edition veterans how Mech spam, Kill points and TLOS had completely ruined the game and how it was the worst edition ever...
Not from me. 4th edition was the edition that saw me go back to Necromunda for a few years to wait it out, in the hope that the next edition would be fun again...
Kill Points were widely unpopular... so most people just ignored them.
And most of the complaints about TLOS came from people who had been playing LOS wrong in 4th edition and so thought it was a substantial change.
They way Maelstrom missions make you play feels like a MASSIVE improvement to me, forces you to be ready for anything
However the gangantuans, superheavies and a good many of the formations are simply to good, i think most formations need an additional points costs for ones without 'taxes'.
Biggest issue now is i have to turn down games, never once did that for the entirety of 5th edition because i always felt almost all my models could do htings vs theirs, but if you bring knights etc to 1k points then i can't play most my forces vs them and won't play, that feels sad to me
7th was what finally kicked me out of 40k after 20 years.
I loathed unbound.
I didn't like Mealstrom at all as it made no sense in a narrative way.
I didn't like the allies system.
I hated the all or nothing psychic phase.
I really didn't like huge things in the game.
Fliers....ugh.
Deamon summoning for loyalists. It's small, I know, but a sign to me that GW no longer understands its own game.
I was a firm supporter of GW until 7th hit and then it was like a magic bubble burst and I saw the emperor for what he was.
I'm actually rather enjoying 7th edition, sure the addition of hull points is irritating as a guard player, but maelstrom makes for a lot more varied games.
MWHistorian wrote: 7th was what finally kicked me out of 40k after 20 years.
I loathed unbound.
I didn't like Mealstrom at all as it made no sense in a narrative way.
I didn't like the allies system.
I hated the all or nothing psychic phase.
I really didn't like huge things in the game.
Fliers....ugh.
Deamon summoning for loyalists. It's small, I know, but a sign to me that GW no longer understands its own game.
I was a firm supporter of GW until 7th hit and then it was like a magic bubble burst and I saw the emperor for what he was.
I feel much the same, though I can't say I was a firm supporter of GW until 7th because 6th was a bit "meh" to me as well, but 7th was the nail in the coffin.
Combine that with AoS (again with 8th being a bit "meh" and then AoS being the final but sudden death) GW have fallen off my radar completely.
Vaktathi wrote: I'm most saddened that Kill Points have continued on through subsequent editions
I don't mind Kill points. They discourage annoying and unrealistic suicide tactics and MSU. Problem during 5th edition was that many older armies were not designed for them and played with a huge handicap.
But they don't discourage msu. armies that have good msu and have powerful deathstars or LoW, run msu and those. Kill points hurt armies like IG the most, where there are no deathstars , there is tons of kill points per army and no LoW.
1: Formations (at least some of them) are just plain silly in how OP they are
2: Summoning .... just stupid .... more free models .... more free models....
3: Battle company ... free obj secured ..... come on
4: Physic phase often dominating the game , not adding flavor
5: Eldar jet bikes .... really
6: Maelstrom is a lot of fun
7: Price increases are reaching absurd
8: 2 up re-roll ... yes that`s how I want to win ....
Jervis Johnson is useless..... Play testing is gone .... As time goes on it will be the gaming community that will have to make increasing tweaks and adjustments to make the game playable (or at least fun)
Haldir wrote: Jervis Johnson is useless..... Play testing is gone .... As time goes on it will be the gaming community that will have to make increasing tweaks and adjustments to make the game playable (or at least fun)
GAdvance wrote: They way Maelstrom missions make you play feels like a MASSIVE improvement to me, forces you to be ready for anything
To me it just makes me think we might as well flip a coin at the beginning of the match to determine the winner.
On the narrative front, all I can think of is that my commanding officer has a piece of shrapnel in his skull and is just shouting gibberish. "FLYER! PSYKER! THERE! NO, THERE! YES, THERE! NO, GET THAT! CHALLENGE HIM, CHALLENGE HIM! GET THE SEAGULL! GET THE SEAGULL!"
GAdvance wrote: They way Maelstrom missions make you play feels like a MASSIVE improvement to me, forces you to be ready for anything
Ready for everything. This is simply impossible. Some bad draws and the game can be gone. Maelstrom is too random in a tournament setting. In our RTTs, we played Maelstrom one of three games.
Our local events dropped Maelstrom entirely, there was too much record keeping and too many things being forgotten and too many games where one side racked up an insurmountable advantage by turn 3 due to favorable rolling.
The ITC's modified Maelstrom is better, but still suffers from many of the problems at the core concept.
Vaktathi wrote: I'm most saddened that Kill Points have continued on through subsequent editions
I don't mind Kill points. They discourage annoying and unrealistic suicide tactics and MSU. Problem during 5th edition was that many older armies were not designed for them and played with a huge handicap.
I don't think there's much that they adapted really in subsequent editions, the problems are still there, I just think most people accepted them and moved on. We still have the fundamental problems of something like a Knight being worth just as much as a Drop Pod, or a squad of guardsmen worth as much as a full brood of Carnifexes.
Unlike GW though, the ITC are actively looking for input into their missions to make it better.
GW is more 'here is the game, play it.'
Did you win? What worked well? Here is a box I reserved for you to buy so that you can have even greater success!
Did you lose? Unlucky! Why did you lose? Against that unit? Well this unit would really help against that unit and lucky for you I reserved a box for you to buy!
I look at 40k as something to play because my friends aren't willing to change gaming systems. These are the same guys that have arms of money to spend on models.
Vaktathi wrote: We still have the fundamental problems of something like a Knight being worth just as much as a Drop Pod, or a squad of guardsmen worth as much as a full brood of Carnifexes.
Kill Points tend to be an auto-lose for my Dark Eldar.
Maelstrom is a good idea on paper but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. It's almost absolutely random so a string of good/bad luck drawing the cards can make you win or lose a game regardless of how you are playing. Also while it's meant to force static gunlines to move their asses, it can still allow for very conservative strategies, you can bring your gunline, sit your ass around two objective markers and then shoot everything to death. Between points from the objectives you're holding and points from shooting things out of the table you're still likely to get a win.
Unless there's a lot of terrain on the table. Of various heights. Which should be mandatory in every single game.
GangstaMuffin24 wrote: Can we get a line in the Dakka Code that states whether or not you like 7th or 40K in general? I think that would save a lot of time.
Seriously. Also, loving how every thread on 40k immediately turns into "this game sucks and this is why you shouldn't play it". Bad enough they already have one for AoS, can we make a "General AoS discussion for AoS optimists " thread for 40k too?
vipoid wrote: Indeed. What a horrifying concept it must be to have people disagreeing with you over the quality of a game. And on a forum of all places.
Hey, it's as rational as leaving a game you hate, saying you're leaving a game you hate, continuing to come on forums telling people you hate said game, for years.
I left World of Warcraft right before Cataclysm. Do I go on Mists of Pandaria or whatever crappy sequel they're on forums and continue to badmouth said game? Nope. :
6E really hurt the game with my group (11 of us, everyone having at least one 40K army), mostly with complaints of wound allocation during shooting really slowing down the game and killing the beer-and-pretzels vibe.
7E pretty much killed it, mostly due to the disgust from expensive rulebooks being negated so soon, and a lot because of Unbound & Formations. Since 7E came out only four of the group have played 40K at least once, and one of those said to hell with it after the Eldar codex being replaced after less than a year (not an issue with changes in power creep, just money wasted on rules).
As a group we've replaced it with Bolt Action, and are very happy about it.
jreilly89 wrote: Hey, it's as rational as leaving a game you hate, saying you're leaving a game you hate, continuing to come on forums telling people you hate said game, for years.
Has it ever occurred to you that people might still like some parts of the game? e.g. the background, the characters, the characters they've made, the models, their armies etc. What they want are for the rules to improve. And, I just don't see the issue with them sharing those views.
vipoid wrote: Indeed. What a horrifying concept it must be to have people disagreeing with you over the quality of a game. And on a forum of all places.
Hey, it's as rational as leaving a game you hate, saying you're leaving a game you hate, continuing to come on forums telling people you hate said game, for years.
I left World of Warcraft right before Cataclysm. Do I go on Mists of Pandaria or whatever crappy sequel they're on forums and continue to badmouth said game? Nope. :
Even though Dakka might have once been a 40k forum (in the grim dark days before I joined), these days it's more of a general wargaming forum.
If you kept visiting the dedicated WoW forums to complain about it then sure, it'd be a bit crazy. But if you still frequented a general MMO forum and occasionally posted how WoW has gone down the toilet in the WoW section of the forum... I'd say that'd be quite rational.
vipoid wrote: Indeed. What a horrifying concept it must be to have people disagreeing with you over the quality of a game. And on a forum of all places.
Hey, it's as rational as leaving a game you hate, saying you're leaving a game you hate, continuing to come on forums telling people you hate said game, for years.
I left World of Warcraft right before Cataclysm. Do I go on Mists of Pandaria or whatever crappy sequel they're on forums and continue to badmouth said game? Nope. :
Even though Dakka might have once been a 40k forum (in the grim dark days before I joined), these days it's more of a general wargaming forum.
If you kept visiting the dedicated WoW forums to complain about it then sure, it'd be a bit crazy. But if you still frequented a general MMO forum and occasionally posted how WoW has gone down the toilet in the WoW section of the forum... I'd say that'd be quite rational.
Keyword "occasionally". There's tons of threads that have nothing to do with analyzing the state of the game, just people saying they enjoy it, before people come in to start spewing about how GW is terrible, 40k is terrible, and anyone who plays it is dumb.
jreilly89 wrote: Hey, it's as rational as leaving a game you hate, saying you're leaving a game you hate, continuing to come on forums telling people you hate said game, for years.
Has it ever occurred to you that people might still like some parts of the game? e.g. the background, the characters, the characters they've made, the models, their armies etc. What they want are for the rules to improve. And, I just don't see the issue with them sharing those views.
If it stopped there, sure, that'd be okay. Namely, the vapid amount of 40k hate I see here is nonsense. I have seen people calling others dumb simply because they still enjoy 40k.
At this point, I'm just convinced half these people hopped on the anti-GW bandwagon as opposed to having a legitimate grievance.
Thank goodness there are all the GW fanboys to set us straight with how GW is mankind's best hope for survival, and how 40k is the best game ever made in the whole of human history, and that anyone who doesn't enjoy it is dumb.
Its fine for me. I play with friends and none of us are "try hards" or have any meta tournament lists. Its just all about drinking beers, eating food, and rolling dice.
vipoid wrote: Thank goodness there are all the GW fanboys to set us straight with how GW is mankind's best hope for survival, and how 40k is the best game ever made in the whole of human history, and that anyone who doesn't enjoy it is dumb.
Ah, straw manning are we? K. Was trying to make a point about how 40k has a toxic community outside the game, but sure, I'm the bad guy.
OT, I'm having a blast with 7th. Is it broken? Sure, but it gives me joy and I get to play with little army guys going "Pew pew!"
vipoid wrote: Thank goodness there are all the GW fanboys to set us straight with how GW is mankind's best hope for survival, and how 40k is the best game ever made in the whole of human history, and that anyone who doesn't enjoy it is dumb.
Ah, straw manning are we? K. Was trying to make a point about how 40k has a toxic community outside the game, but sure, I'm the bad guy.
OT, I'm having a blast with 7th. Is it broken? Sure, but it gives me joy and I get to play with little army guys going "Pew pew!"
Yes, because it's the player's fault...
I'll make you a guarantee, almost 100% of the people you accuse of being 'toxic' will have at some stage or another thought that 40K was awesome.
People want, or wanted, to like and enjoy the game, and the constant tinkering by the makers with little or no regard for the quality of experience they were generating has actually prevented them from doing so. I it any wonder they're annoyed and frustrated?
Personally, I have no issue with people struggling to understand how people continue to enjoy playing 40K, when there's a wide variety of alternatives from companies who are successful while simultaneously doing all the things GW doesn't do. Playing any one of the multiple games out there that are more affordable, better balanced, are created by people who engage with a wider community (and not just fans that are willing to attend their own events,) and (purely subjectively, of course) are more fun really makes it hard to overlook the massive flaws in 40K.
vipoid wrote: Indeed. What a horrifying concept it must be to have people disagreeing with you over the quality of a game. And on a forum of all places.
Hey, it's as rational as leaving a game you hate, saying you're leaving a game you hate, continuing to come on forums telling people you hate said game, for years.
I left World of Warcraft right before Cataclysm. Do I go on Mists of Pandaria or whatever crappy sequel they're on forums and continue to badmouth said game? Nope. :
Thing is playing WoW on a private server costs nothing. Playing w40k costs 700$ or more, and everyone wants their money back. I would totaly leave the game, If I could sell my army. I am not the best w40k player in the world, so am still looking for other people advice how to make my army work.
jreilly89 wrote: Was trying to make a point about how 40k has a toxic community outside the game, but sure, I'm the bad guy.
And my point is that undeserved praise for 40k and GW is just as toxic.
Please point out where in this thread I said/did that. My point was bagging on other people's fun is stupid. If people have fun with 40k, no matter how broken/overpriced/flawed it may be, why pick on said person's fun?
vipoid wrote: Thank goodness there are all the GW fanboys to set us straight with how GW is mankind's best hope for survival, and how 40k is the best game ever made in the whole of human history, and that anyone who doesn't enjoy it is dumb.
Ah, straw manning are we? K. Was trying to make a point about how 40k has a toxic community outside the game, but sure, I'm the bad guy.
OT, I'm having a blast with 7th. Is it broken? Sure, but it gives me joy and I get to play with little army guys going "Pew pew!"
Yes, because it's the player's fault...
I'll make you a guarantee, almost 100% of the people you accuse of being 'toxic' will have at some stage or another thought that 40K was awesome.
People want, or wanted, to like and enjoy the game, and the constant tinkering by the makers with little or no regard for the quality of experience they were generating has actually prevented them from doing so. I it any wonder they're annoyed and frustrated?
Personally, I have no issue with people struggling to understand how people continue to enjoy playing 40K, when there's a wide variety of alternatives from companies who are successful while simultaneously doing all the things GW doesn't do. Playing any one of the multiple games out there that are more affordable, better balanced, are created by people who engage with a wider community (and not just fans that are willing to attend their own events,) and (purely subjectively, of course) are more fun really makes it hard to overlook the massive flaws in 40K.
It's the player's fault when someone starts a thread with "I'm trying to start *insert army here*" and people flock to the thread to scream "Choose another game, 40k sucks/is overpriced/broken. That doesn't scream wrong to you?
Please point out in this thread where I said that. I never said 40k is perfect, I said that it's dumb people pick on people who have fun playing 40k.
Thing is playing WoW on a private server costs nothing. Playing w40k costs 700$ or more, and everyone wants their money back. I would totaly leave the game, If I could sell my army. I am not the best w40k player in the world, so am still looking for other people advice how to make my army work.
So piece it out on eBay? Sorry, guess what. Games change, if it's that bad and you want out, cut your losses and sell your stuff at any price.
The point isn't about how much it costs to play X game, the point is coming onto a forum to bitch about said game you played years ago and rage about how its changed is childish.
Please point out where in this thread I said/did that.
Please point out where I said you did.
jreilly89 wrote: My point was bagging on other people's fun is stupid. If people have fun with 40k, no matter how broken/overpriced/flawed it may be, why pick on said person's fun?
But, by the same measure, forums are places for discussing all views - not just negative ones. The knowledge that many people dislike the current rules really shouldn't ruin your own fun in any way. Unless of course you're not having as much fun as you've convinced yourself you're having.
And, in any case, I'm sure many people appreciate being able to share their dislikes about 40k, and probably feel better for doing so. So, why should they be forced to stop just because you don't want to see differing opinions?
jreilly89 wrote: Was trying to make a point about how 40k has a toxic community outside the game, but sure, I'm the bad guy.
And my point is that undeserved praise for 40k and GW is just as toxic.
Please point out where in this thread I said/did that. My point was bagging on other people's fun is stupid. If people have fun with 40k, no matter how broken/overpriced/flawed it may be, why pick on said person's fun?
vipoid wrote: Thank goodness there are all the GW fanboys to set us straight with how GW is mankind's best hope for survival, and how 40k is the best game ever made in the whole of human history, and that anyone who doesn't enjoy it is dumb.
Ah, straw manning are we? K. Was trying to make a point about how 40k has a toxic community outside the game, but sure, I'm the bad guy.
OT, I'm having a blast with 7th. Is it broken? Sure, but it gives me joy and I get to play with little army guys going "Pew pew!"
Yes, because it's the player's fault...
I'll make you a guarantee, almost 100% of the people you accuse of being 'toxic' will have at some stage or another thought that 40K was awesome.
People want, or wanted, to like and enjoy the game, and the constant tinkering by the makers with little or no regard for the quality of experience they were generating has actually prevented them from doing so. I it any wonder they're annoyed and frustrated?
Personally, I have no issue with people struggling to understand how people continue to enjoy playing 40K, when there's a wide variety of alternatives from companies who are successful while simultaneously doing all the things GW doesn't do. Playing any one of the multiple games out there that are more affordable, better balanced, are created by people who engage with a wider community (and not just fans that are willing to attend their own events,) and (purely subjectively, of course) are more fun really makes it hard to overlook the massive flaws in 40K.
It's the player's fault when someone starts a thread with "I'm trying to start *insert army here*" and people flock to the thread to scream "Choose another game, 40k sucks/is overpriced/broken. That doesn't scream wrong to you?
Please point out in this thread where I said that. I never said 40k is perfect, I said that it's dumb people pick on people who have fun playing 40k.
Thing is playing WoW on a private server costs nothing. Playing w40k costs 700$ or more, and everyone wants their money back. I would totaly leave the game, If I could sell my army. I am not the best w40k player in the world, so am still looking for other people advice how to make my army work.
So piece it out on eBay? Sorry, guess what. Games change, if it's that bad and you want out, cut your losses and sell your stuff at any price.
The point isn't about how much it costs to play X game, the point is coming onto a forum to bitch about said game you played years ago and rage about how its changed is childish.
Little defensive are we?
I didn't say you were overlooking the flaws in 40K, you'll notice the word "personally" at the start of that whole paragraph.
Should give you a clue to my intent.
No, it isn't the player's fault if they're so pissed off they act the way you say (I think you're being a tad hyperbolic, but whatever) the root of that cause is the issue. In this case a company who should be really worried their actions generate that sort of negativity in their potential or former customers.
So piece it out on eBay? Sorry, guess what. Games change, if it's that bad and you want out, cut your losses and sell your stuff at any price.
The point isn't about how much it costs to play X game, the point is coming onto a forum to bitch about said game you played years ago and rage about how its changed is childish.
I don't have a bank account, so I can't sell or buy stuff online. Also I don't see eldar or sm armies being suddenly unplayable. But maybe if my army was good for 5-10 years and now sucked, it would take it better. But I play w40k for less then 3 years and the army was good for about 9 months of it. And while my army "new" book removes all the options and extra nerfs it for a new edition, marines or eldar get update after update , so I think I do have stuff to bitch about.
Just want to point out that if you aren't actually playing the current edition, your opinion on the current edition doesn't matter. Gripes about Maelsrom which you never play is useless input, complants about large models or formations you never play are useless input.
Yes, its great to have an opinion, and to voice that opinion. But if your opinion is uninformed because you don't bother to actually gain any form of experience with the subject at hand, your opinion has no weight, its just being negative because you can. Now, if you are actually playing the game, and you want to voice your opinion on its bad points, feel free. If not, then please understand that no one cares about your assumptions on how bad you think it really is.
Points people hate, yet actually fix the game:
Maelstrom > fixes the game by breaking peole out of stale tactics
Formations > uses suboptimal units in optimal ways
Psychic phase > removes the confusion of when to use which power by consolidating all powers used into a single phase
Large models > grows the game by adding a new dimension (vertical) to our tactics. This includes flyers, GCs, and SHWs.
Things GW flubbed on:
Terrain < proper terrain fixs the game to balance out gunlines with melee, tall models with small models. Poorly pasted rules from the previous edition leave many complainers unable to think through the problem, leading to 7th Ed games played with 5th Ed terrain with all the problems associated.
Ambiguous Rules > this appears to be intentional, due to an industry wide concept that ambiguous rules lead to player interest via arguing over what those rules are trying to convey. Which is to say GW may be doing this on purpose rather thsn through incompetence. However, its generally more accurate to attribute to incompetence rather than to malice, I'm just willing to make an exception for GW based on their track record.
Non-issues:
Price gauging > while kits are more expansive, you are getting more for your money in kits these days in comparison to older kits dosn the years. Sorry Australia, GW is still F'ing you. : (
Assuming its a game > its a business, not a game. You pay to play. Complaining about it is just voicing your own childish ignorance on how economy works. If you don't like this specific financial model, don't sornd your money on. Vote with your wallet. Want things to change? Start by sprnding your money and time on the things you like.
That said, 7th Ed is in a good place. The 40k community is in a bad place, due in part to player expectations having drifted from the game's core concepts. Not every game is 'Ard Boyz. You are playing with someone, not against someone. The cancer is in the community mind set, not GW's bad business practices.
I actually still love 40k. The models, the background, heck the memories. Nope I don't play 7th anymore, doesn't mean I don't get to have an opinion on the game. Besides I still paint and model quite a bit.
There was always negotiations before a game in 40k, but 7th just brought it to a ridiculous level for me. Before 7th the normal questions were: okay what army do you plan on fielding, causal/tournament list, points, mission? Then you were playing. One of the last games of 7th I had was going to be against Eldar. Even with pre-negotiations on facebook, opponent still arrived with a full on netlist army. I play Orks, so I had to explain that it would not be a fun game with his scat bikes and wraith knight, among other units he had. This upset him quite a bit, and understandably it was a nicely painted army that he had put alot of effort into. So after an hour of trying to come up with lists that worked for a fun game, we just gave up. As I was about to leave another person asked for a game, he had a decurion Necron list. Sigh, why do people think it is fun to pull out a green tide or bully boy army (had both with me) just to turn around and put them away again.
I don't think the rules are the problem. I have split my ork army into two parts and played against my friends on a few occasions and those were some very fun games with very little rules problems.
jeffersonian000 wrote: Just want to point out that if you aren't actually playing the current edition, your opinion on the current edition doesn't matter. Gripes about Maelsrom which you never play is useless input, complants about large models or formations you never play are useless input.
Yes, its great to have an opinion, and to voice that opinion. But if your opinion is uninformed because you don't bother to actually gain any form of experience with the subject at hand, your opinion has no weight, its just being negative because you can. Now, if you are actually playing the game, and you want to voice your opinion on its bad points, feel free. If not, then please understand that no one cares about your assumptions on how bad you think it really is.
Points people hate, yet actually fix the game:
Maelstrom > fixes the game by breaking peole out of stale tactics
Formations > uses suboptimal units in optimal ways
Psychic phase > removes the confusion of when to use which power by consolidating all powers used into a single phase
Large models > grows the game by adding a new dimension (vertical) to our tactics. This includes flyers, GCs, and SHWs.
Things GW flubbed on:
Terrain < proper terrain fixs the game to balance out gunlines with melee, tall models with small models. Poorly pasted rules from the previous edition leave many complainers unable to think through the problem, leading to 7th Ed games played with 5th Ed terrain with all the problems associated.
Ambiguous Rules > this appears to be intentional, due to an industry wide concept that ambiguous rules lead to player interest via arguing over what those rules are trying to convey. Which is to say GW may be doing this on purpose rather thsn through incompetence. However, its generally more accurate to attribute to incompetence rather than to malice, I'm just willing to make an exception for GW based on their track record.
Non-issues:
Price gauging > while kits are more expansive, you are getting more for your money in kits these days in comparison to older kits dosn the years. Sorry Australia, GW is still F'ing you. : (
Assuming its a game > its a business, not a game. You pay to play. Complaining about it is just voicing your own childish ignorance on how economy works. If you don't like this specific financial model, don't sornd your money on. Vote with your wallet. Want things to change? Start by sprnding your money and time on the things you like.
That said, 7th Ed is in a good place. The 40k community is in a bad place, due in part to player expectations having drifted from the game's core concepts. Not every game is 'Ard Boyz. You are playing with someone, not against someone. The cancer is in the community mind set, not GW's bad business practices.
SJ
I'm actually not sure if you are being serious or attempting satire but are being too subtle
I'm not going to address all your crazy points because I'll assume for now that it's satire
"I'm not going to address all your crazy points because I'll assume for now that it's satire"
He likes the game. I hate it. There's no point in arguing about it. I still maintain terrain is a non-fix for poorly pointed units. But whatever.
I've always had the impression that his play group lets him set up the board the way he likes and never adapt to his play style, letting him baby seal club everyone to death with GK. I could be totally wrong, but that's just the impression I get from his L2P NOOB! posts. And the claims of things that fix the game but actually just break it more.
jreilly89 wrote: Hey, it's as rational as leaving a game you hate, saying you're leaving a game you hate, continuing to come on forums telling people you hate said game, for years.
Has it ever occurred to you that people might still like some parts of the game? e.g. the background, the characters, the characters they've made, the models, their armies etc. What they want are for the rules to improve. And, I just don't see the issue with them sharing those views.
Anytime someone takes to social media or just has a discussion about what they don't like about a show, inevitably the haterade crew will pop up with their insightful remarks. "You're just a hater. If you don't like it, don't watch it." This misses the point entirely. A more dramatic reading of this is like saying if your kid does something foolish and pisses you off, you should kick them out since you don't like them. That's not what's happening at all. It's precisely because you do like a show or a movie that you get frustrated when dumb-fethery is afoot. You're emotionally invested in the characters and storyline and it upsets you, even if it's a little silly to say so, when the characters are subjected to something idiotic.
Sub in "show" for "GW" and/or "40k" in that sentence and you're golden.
Wurfelrolle wrote: 6E really hurt the game with my group (11 of us, everyone having at least one 40K army), mostly with complaints of wound allocation during shooting really slowing down the game and killing the beer-and-pretzels vibe.
7E pretty much killed it, mostly due to the disgust from expensive rulebooks being negated so soon, and a lot because of Unbound & Formations. Since 7E came out only four of the group have played 40K at least once, and one of those said to hell with it after the Eldar codex being replaced after less than a year (not an issue with changes in power creep, just money wasted on rules).
As a group we've replaced it with Bolt Action, and are very happy about it.
That's how life goes. We started HH. The game is more smooth with only Marines to play.
Well, in a nutshell, having a ton of 40k models because of prior rule sets makes me rather invested in the game, agreeing to new editions or not.
I happen to keep slugging away at building and painting them since they only look more "pretty" as the hordes increase.
My "like minded" friends allow the game to be fun for me despite the "terrible" rules.
I am somewhat disappointed how much choice is replaced with random events.
I cannot, shall not, play the game with strangers: never ends well.
I depend on other systems for pick-up games for sufficient balance to get a "good" game in (X-wing, Armada, Battletech)
If you play the game competitively (take the rules to the max!) and play someone like-minded it can be incredibly funny and "nasty" to watch.
Two players who know each other with no holds barred can demonstrate how the game can be forced to work.
If you like to play fluffy, I would suggest crafting scenarios.
jeffersonian000 wrote: Just want to point out that if you aren't actually playing the current edition, your opinion on the current edition doesn't matter. Gripes about Maelsrom which you never play is useless input, complants about large models or formations you never play are useless input.
Yes, its great to have an opinion, and to voice that opinion. But if your opinion is uninformed because you don't bother to actually gain any form of experience with the subject at hand, your opinion has no weight, its just being negative because you can. Now, if you are actually playing the game, and you want to voice your opinion on its bad points, feel free. If not, then please understand that no one cares about your assumptions on how bad you think it really is.
Points people hate, yet actually fix the game:
Maelstrom > fixes the game by breaking peole out of stale tactics
Except it's random to the point where tactics don't really matter, or they're just not "tactical" in the first place."Cast a psychic power" doesn't really involve any tactics, it just requires you to have a Psyker.
Formations > uses suboptimal units in optimal ways
In a handful of cases maybe, but doesn't in the majority of cases, and goes about doing so in probably the worst way possible from a game design issue.
Large models > grows the game by adding a new dimension (vertical) to our tactics. This includes flyers, GCs, and SHWs.
There is no "new dimension", There's nothing new about having to fight T8 big creatures or armies composed heavily of AV13/14 units, they just inflate the scale of the game. You fight a Baneblade the same way you fight a Leman Russ, just as you fight a Wraithknight the same way you typically fight a Wraithlord, the tactics of dealing with these units aren't any different, they just require a greater concentration of firepower and incur a greater level of firepower back in return.
Price gauging > while kits are more expansive, you are getting more for your money in kits these days in comparison to older kits dosn the years.
Two points on this one. First, no, in many cases you're not (e.g. Dire Avengers getting reboxed from $45 for 10 to $535 for 5, Land Raiders goin from $55 to $75 in 6 years, all IG tanks losing the Accessory sprue that they now have to pay $15 for, guardsmen getting reboxed from $35 for 20 to $30 for 10).
Even if you can accept that you're getting more "stuff", you can't really make use of it. Sure the new Fire Warrior kit looks neat with all those extra gubbins to make multiple units, but you're only able to build 10 models instead of 12, and you can't actually make multiple units, the overwhelming bulk of that extra stuff just goes straight into a bitz bin.
Assuming its a game > its a business, not a game. You pay to play. Complaining about it is just voicing your own childish ignorance on how economy works.
It's a game. Yes, there's a business behind it, but they're selling a game. Ultimately, no other game has the same aspects in anything near the same degrees that GW does in this regard, and they're also made by companies to generate revenue. The fact that GW's revenue is down to an 18 year low (adjusted for inflation) tells us that people *are* voting with their wallets.
That said, 7th Ed is in a good place. The 40k community is in a bad place. due in part to player expectations having drifted from the game's core concepts. Not every game is 'Ard Boyz. You are playing with someone, not against someone. The cancer is in the community mind set, not GW's bad business practices.
SJ
If the cancer is in the community, you can blame GW. It's their community. They are the ones that have shut down every non-sales communication channel with the community, and seem to constantly put out things neither asked for nor cared for by the community and allow major longstanding issues to stand by and fester unaddressed. The community, being their customers, should be what GW listens to and responds to, that's how market forces work. They're not, and their sales numbers reflect this. Blaming "the community" is absurd in this light, when the community got the way it did because GW basically cut off all interaction that didn't involve a sales transaction. If you look at other game systems, they run their own forums where they often solicit feedback, they have active FAQ & Errata, they put out Designers Notes, and many are growing (Dropzone Commander, Malifaux, Warmahordes, etc) while GW is shrinking.
6th edition was fun. People still had to make lists using their smarts, we had some new shiny toys, etc.
7th edition has turned the game into apocalypse battles, where the person with the most super heavies or power formations wins (spend more, win more!). It seems things slowed a bit when 7th edition came out so close to 6th (people were mad about having to buy another edition rule book). Things slowed even more after the re-release of several codex books that were 1-2 years old.
Our few flgs used to have 40k tournaments every weekend. This went to bi-week tournaments, which were still very well attended. Then Spring 2015 hit and no one holds tournaments anymore and a person is more likely to see folks playing x-wing on the tables than 40k.
As for the cancer comment above, GW created it. They created it by:
1: raising prices (hit their ceiling a while ago, thus falling sales)
2. changing editions and codex books in less than 2 years
3. formation hammer... spend more = win more
4. nothing if free
I remember GW used to have eavy metal paint tutorials, post free rules, give significant deals with armyboxes, etc. They cared about and listened to the community. It is clear that everything is just a money grab now - LE terrain, minis, books, pay for a 4 page pdf, releases take a month (so you buy a white dwarf for the rules you will get with the future codex). Greed = downfall.
jeffersonian000 wrote: Just want to point out that if you aren't actually playing the current edition, your opinion on the current edition doesn't matter. Gripes about Maelsrom which you never play is useless input, complants about large models or formations you never play are useless input.
I see. So things like "I love the setting, but maelstrom missions ruined the game for me" are useless input? You can only dislike things about 40k if you still like the game enough to keep playing?
Maelstrom > fixes the game by breaking peole out of stale tactics
No it doesn't. It replaces player decisions with random rolls. If anything Maelstrom removes strategic depth because the game tells you what objectives you need to focus on. Which requires more thought, figuring out which objectives are worth fighting for or drawing "cast a psychic power" and rolling some dice in the psychic phase?
Formations > uses suboptimal units in optimal ways
And they also use optimal units in even more optimal ways. But even if we grant your assumption that formations are primarily about making weaker units better they're still terrible. If you know that a particular unit is weak then fix the unit itself. Don't make a formation that requires you to use that unit in one specific way while keeping it useless in every other way.
Psychic phase > removes the confusion of when to use which power by consolidating all powers used into a single phase
There was no such confusion if you bothered to read the rules for your units. And even if you assume that consolidating everything into one phase is a good idea the execution of the idea is still horrible, even without considering the incredibly poor balance of the psychic powers themselves.
Large models > grows the game by adding a new dimension (vertical) to our tactics. This includes flyers, GCs, and SHWs.
Not really. A LRBT squadron and a Baneblade require the same tactics from the opponent, and replacing "wounds on a 2+" with "kills your whole unit on a 2+" isn't really a lot of additional depth. Flyers had the most potential to add new tactics, but GW just made them conventional units with a couple of special rules. Adding "can only be hit on 6s" to a fast skimmer is not a fundamental change in tactics.
Ambiguous Rules > this appears to be intentional, due to an industry wide concept that ambiguous rules lead to player interest via arguing over what those rules are trying to convey.
...
This has to be a joke. Even ignoring the sheer insanity of the idea that arguing over rules makes a game more interesting (it really doesn't) other companies don't do this. When I play a game of X-Wing I don't have to argue about the rules, and when there are rule issues FFG is pretty good about fixing them. And yet somehow none of the people I've talked to feel that something is lacking in their game because there are no rules to argue about, while everyone who used to play 40k complains about how much less fun it was because of the rule arguments.
Price gauging > while kits are more expansive, you are getting more for your money in kits these days in comparison to older kits dosn the years. Sorry Australia, GW is still F'ing you. : (
This only works if you compare GW prices to past GW prices and ignore the rest of the industry. GW's prices are a joke compared to plastic model kits outside of their tabletop wargaming niche, and the quality of their kits is mediocre at best.
Assuming its a game > its a business, not a game. You pay to play. Complaining about it is just voicing your own childish ignorance on how economy works. If you don't like this specific financial model, don't sornd your money on. Vote with your wallet. Want things to change? Start by sprnding your money and time on the things you like.
Err, lol? Are you really defending GW with "it's a business" and ignoring the fact that, as a business, GW is experiencing major problems?
You are playing with someone, not against someone. The cancer is in the community mind set, not GW's bad business practices.
No, you're playing against someone. 40k is a zero-sum game, you win by making your opponent lose. And you can call that a cancer, but I could say the same about "casual at all costs" attitudes like yours, where people are shamed for caring "too much" about winning or bringing the "wrong" lists.
Azreal13 wrote: Yes, because it's the player's fault... I'll make you a guarantee, almost 100% of the people you accuse of being 'toxic' will have at some stage or another thought that 40K was awesome. People want, or wanted, to like and enjoy the game, and the constant tinkering by the makers with little or no regard for the quality of experience they were generating has actually prevented them from doing so. I it any wonder they're annoyed and frustrated?
In a way, it is actually. This is a psychological issue tied to the effects of addiction and commonly explored in AA meetings, rehab centers, and group counseling. If you know the organizers of such groups, you'll learn quite a bit from them. Take the tinkering for instance... there's a horde of college students who are acclimated to ForgeWorld usage because they didn't experience the days before it or the stigma associated with its use. Likewise, they're thoroughly enjoying the game in its present state because for them nothing has changed, this is how 40k has always been and always will be until it isn't. With youth also comes adaptability, they can transform their opinions to accept any changes. So yes, when some players are having a hard time accepting how the game is and calling it terrible, the player is at fault. It's your own perspectives that are causing the distress, similar to how players who have played World of Warcraft since launch become increasingly more frustrated by the changes while players new to the game see it as a wonderful experience. I mentioned addiction counseling because 40k is effectively like World of Warcraft or any other mania-inducing element -- it's a drug that feeds a player's needs. When anyone first starts using a drug, it's a positive experience to them, affecting their mind in new ways and keeping them happy with the feelings they produce. However, as time moves on, the dosage needs to be increased. More and more is expected from an addict. New expansions, new card sets, new models to buy, more of the drug he craves. As long as there is some level of consistency in the product and service, the addict continues to purchase increasing amounts to satisfy a higher tolerance and greater need for them. Warhammer 40k being reusable greatly aids the financial element since you can continue to use old models, but even that eventually grows dull to an addict who will eventually desire more. The fact that 40k's meta changes and incorporates a growing model count is a boon to feeding his addiction, reinforcing it as a core need in his life and possibly even replacing others, like how some folks will abandon their social lives to play video games.
Essentially, the quality of the experience doesn't deteriorate, in fact it only gets better over time as more is added to the game and the rules are polished. What diminishes is the addict's enthusiasm regarding his drug of choice and the unfulfilled need for more and better, a stronger high than his last fix which new rules cannot deliver by altering the core foundation of his expectations. Each edition is like pushing a new drug upon him when all he wants is the same one he's already hooked on. Eventually the addiction will wane and he'll quit the game for whatever contrived reason and either rejoice in his newfound life and past memories of "good times" or become a salty SOB who mourns the time he has wasted addicted to a substance that abandoned him later in life. Totally his own fault, not the game's. Granted that GW is the worst company ever but addicts shouldn't be trying to pin the blame on them as is typical behavior of addicts seeking a scapegoat for their own actions or state of mind.
Arkaine wrote: Essentially, the quality of the experience doesn't deteriorate, in fact it only gets better over time as more is added to the game and the rules are polished.
That would only be true if in the course of that 'polishing' the game remained essentially the same or got better.
The fact that each edition doesn't just refine rules but outright changes things around makes this not the case. In the change from 5th to 6th/7th, the 'quality of the experience' most certainly did change.
Azreal13 wrote: Yes, because it's the player's fault... I'll make you a guarantee, almost 100% of the people you accuse of being 'toxic' will have at some stage or another thought that 40K was awesome. People want, or wanted, to like and enjoy the game, and the constant tinkering by the makers with little or no regard for the quality of experience they were generating has actually prevented them from doing so. I it any wonder they're annoyed and frustrated?
In a way, it is actually. This is a psychological issue tied to the effects of addiction and commonly explored in AA meetings, rehab centers, and group counseling. If you know the organizers of such groups, you'll learn quite a bit from them. Take the tinkering for instance... there's a horde of college students who are acclimated to ForgeWorld usage because they didn't experience the days before it or the stigma associated with its use. Likewise, they're thoroughly enjoying the game in its present state because for them nothing has changed, this is how 40k has always been and always will be until it isn't. With youth also comes adaptability, they can transform their opinions to accept any changes. So yes, when some players are having a hard time accepting how the game is and calling it terrible, the player is at fault. It's your own perspectives that are causing the distress, similar to how players who have played World of Warcraft since launch become increasingly more frustrated by the changes while players new to the game see it as a wonderful experience. I mentioned addiction counseling because 40k is effectively like World of Warcraft or any other mania-inducing element -- it's a drug that feeds a player's needs. When anyone first starts using a drug, it's a positive experience to them, affecting their mind in new ways and keeping them happy with the feelings they produce. However, as time moves on, the dosage needs to be increased. More and more is expected from an addict. New expansions, new card sets, new models to buy, more of the drug he craves. As long as there is some level of consistency in the product and service, the addict continues to purchase increasing amounts to satisfy a higher tolerance and greater need for them. Warhammer 40k being reusable greatly aids the financial element since you can continue to use old models, but even that eventually grows dull to an addict who will eventually desire more. The fact that 40k's meta changes and incorporates a growing model count is a boon to feeding his addiction, reinforcing it as a core need in his life and possibly even replacing others, like how some folks will abandon their social lives to play video games.
Essentially, the quality of the experience doesn't deteriorate, in fact it only gets better over time as more is added to the game and the rules are polished. What diminishes is the addict's enthusiasm regarding his drug of choice and the unfulfilled need for more and better, a stronger high than his last fix which new rules cannot deliver by altering the core foundation of his expectations. Each edition is like pushing a new drug upon him when all he wants is the same one he's already hooked on. Eventually the addiction will wane and he'll quit the game for whatever contrived reason and either rejoice in his newfound life and past memories of "good times" or become a salty SOB who mourns the time he has wasted addicted to a substance that abandoned him later in life. Totally his own fault, not the game's. Granted that GW is the worst company ever but addicts shouldn't be trying to pin the blame on them as is typical behavior of addicts seeking a scapegoat for their own actions or state of mind.
I don't even know where to start with that.
Aside from making a tenuous point based on a shaky comparison, it makes GW a lousy dealer if they can't keep making a product that keeps everyone on the hook.
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Brennonjw wrote: Doom and gloom, it's the end of the hobby, I mean, back in MY day, when everything was tinted rose for some reason, it was all great!
No, it wasn't. 5th was probably the best it's been (with personal experience to some degree or another back to RT) but it still wasn't perfect. But rather than evolve it, they decided to breed something different, and, IMO, inferior.
You can mock, but everything I see, in GW accounts, on here and IRL suggests to me that things are closer to that point than ever.
Brennonjw wrote: Doom and gloom, it's the end of the hobby, I mean, back in MY day, when everything was tinted rose for some reason, it was all great!
No, it wasn't. 5th was probably the best it's been (with personal experience to some degree or another back to RT) but it still wasn't perfect. But rather than evolve it, they decided to breed something different, and, IMO, inferior.
You can mock, but everything I see, in GW accounts, on here and IRL suggests to me that things are closer to that point than ever.
I agree to a point about some issues (power creep and the like), but having never been a tournament player, most of the major rules issues are minor as it's not about winning the tournament.
Beyond my own biases, your comment kind of goes on to prove my point; you like 5th more and you have, probably to a smaller degree then most judging by your comment, nostaliga for it (not a bad thing)
Really, all this argument could go to is "NO! the Legend of zelda that came out when Iwas 12 is the best!"
The game has flaws, yes, it always has and always will. But I honestly feel like most of those issues are mitigated when you play more for fun (things like scenario games, uneven point costs, etc.) the game is much more enjoyable.
The thing is though, there also seem to be a large number of people who think that all change must automatically be positive. There's this weird idea that change always equals progress, and that everyone has to move with the times, even if the changes are negative ones.
Brennonjw wrote: [But I honestly feel like most of those issues are mitigated when you play more for fun (things like scenario games, uneven point costs, etc.) the game is much more enjoyable.
A couple of things there -
- For one, most tournament players do play for fun. I'm honestly not sure why else people think that anyone plays a game. It's not like there are massive prize money packages on the line... It's a game of toy soldiers. For most tournament players, all that the tournament format brings to the game is a guaranteed change to get in a number of games against different opponents in a weekend.
- For two, rules issues hurt casual players just as much, if not more than tournament players. In a tournament, you (ideally) have a tournament FAQ, and a judge you can call over for anything that crops up mid-game. If you're playing at home with a regular group of like-minded friends, you have a similar ability to iron out rules issues as you go... but for the casual pick-up player, you're left either playing the game and hoping for the best, or wasting time before every game establishing with your opponent whether or not you're both actually playing the same game.
That was one of the things that made me drop the game for a time back in 4th edition... There were just so many rules conflicts and grey areas, that playing anyone I didn't know well was just painful and tedious.
- And for three, limiting where the game can be played is hardly a positive thing. In 5th edition, I was playing in regular tournaments, I was playing pick-up games at a local gaming club, and occasional games at home with a couple of family members who are just starting out. 6th edition killed the first two for me, and 7th edition just went further in the wrong direction... so the end result is much, much less 40K happening.
Martel732 wrote: "I'm not going to address all your crazy points because I'll assume for now that it's satire"
He likes the game. I hate it. There's no point in arguing about it. I still maintain terrain is a non-fix for poorly pointed units. But whatever.
I've always had the impression that his play group lets him set up the board the way he likes and never adapt to his play style, letting him baby seal club everyone to death with GK. I could be totally wrong, but that's just the impression I get from his L2P NOOB! posts. And the claims of things that fix the game but actually just break it more.
Its not satire, just a point of view from someone active in the game. My local meta went through an adjustment phase of excluding more and more of the things people didn't like until the game was unplayable. We started over fresh, found that LoS blocking terrain was key, found Maelstrom forced people to think (which is why most people seem to hate it), and ended up embracing the edition as an overall improvement. Games are more fun now that we moved past 5th Ed paradigm. Personally, I'm enjoying the game more today than I did with RT when I started. It has the same feel, the same nostalgia, yet takes an hour and half instead of all night to play.
jeffersonian000 wrote: found Maelstrom forced people to think (which is why most people seem to hate it)
No, most people hate it because it's bad design. And, if anything, maelstrom makes you think less for two reasons:
1) It tells you what to do. Let's say I have a tactical squad. It can run closer to an objective, shoot its main guns, or shoot its bolt pistols and charge. In a normal mission I have to think about what the best choice is. In a maelstrom mission I just look at whether I score VP from shooting, melee, or claiming objectives, and do what the random dice tell me to do.
2) It removes long-term planning. In a normal game you have to create and execute a plan over several turns, while adapting to your opponent's attempts to destroy your plan. In a maelstrom game you have much less ability to plan beyond the current turn because all of your objectives could be completely different next turn. So instead of an extended battle of move and counter-move leading up to the final objectives you just roll dice to see what you need to do this turn and pay little attention to the future.
Martel732 wrote: "I'm not going to address all your crazy points because I'll assume for now that it's satire"
He likes the game. I hate it. There's no point in arguing about it. I still maintain terrain is a non-fix for poorly pointed units. But whatever.
I've always had the impression that his play group lets him set up the board the way he likes and never adapt to his play style, letting him baby seal club everyone to death with GK. I could be totally wrong, but that's just the impression I get from his L2P NOOB! posts. And the claims of things that fix the game but actually just break it more.
Its not satire, just a point of view from someone active in the game.
From some people who are active. I still play, and don't view the game the same. We are slowly coming around to house ruling pretty much everything.
I really can't say why we were fine with house ruling mordenheim so much but seem hesitant to do it with 40k though.
We started over fresh, found that LoS blocking terrain was key, found Maelstrom forced people to think (which is why most people seem to hate it), and ended up embracing the edition as an overall improvement.
I think the bolded part is why people are taking offense to what you're saying.
For the record, I found the opposite with the Maelstorm missions. Some of them are absurdly easy to do (Cast a power if your army can do so is pretty much automatic) while others are flat out impossible (destroy a flyer if the enemy lacks them).
Granted, you can toss cards that are impossible out, but you still have the problem of them being worth random values. It feels weird when casting a power is worth more than winning a challenge. The victor becomes random.
We are currently debating heavily house ruling the missions. We are including the obvious discard rule that everyone uses. Also, thinking about assigning values to some of the cards instead of rolling. It's a good idea, but the execution as written is poor.
Games are more fun now that we moved past 5th Ed paradigm. Personally, I'm enjoying the game more today than I did with RT when I started. It has the same feel, the same nostalgia, yet takes an hour and half instead of all night to play.
SJ
Fun is subjective. We had more fun with 5e but we believe skimmers, as written, wouldn't work in 5e (if you remove jink they are over costed, including jink with the old tank rules makes them absurdly good, a nice catch 22) and a lot of us play eldar and tau. Fliers and some other things don't really work in 5e. I would go back if I didn't have to re-write the dexes, and to be fair, some of the dexes that are new are very good, internally. Probably the best they have ever been.
Arkaine wrote: Essentially, the quality of the experience doesn't deteriorate, in fact it only gets better over time as more is added to the game and the rules are polished.
That would only be true if in the course of that 'polishing' the game remained essentially the same or got better. The fact that each edition doesn't just refine rules but outright changes things around makes this not the case. In the change from 5th to 6th/7th, the 'quality of the experience' most certainly did change.
Change isn't the same as deterioration. It's a given the game will change... but to deteriorate means to become progressively worse. That's the essential crux of the post. The game certainly improves in model count, variety, depth of special rules (like adding flyers and D weapons and super heavies), so it's only a matter of subjective opinion whether each edition is Better or Worse than the last. I only say it's getting better because More = Better in this example. You can always cherry pick what you like or don't like (such as people already do by banning Titans).
Azreal13 wrote: Aside from making a tenuous point based on a shaky comparison, it makes GW a lousy dealer if they can't keep making a product that keeps everyone on the hook.
Somewhat, I'd say. GW is worse than others because their business practices tend to be anti-consumer. But every type of game cycles regularly through new customers and becomes popular by drawing the crowds, not by retaining veterans for 10+ years. Blizzard has lost millions of WoW players over time and the amount of Magic the Gathering players that played 4th edition are dwindling to non-existence. Yet both grew immensely in popularity simply by picking up as many or more players than they lose. Games based around collections and addiction thrive on new blood. It's even the core of how the Free to Play model works, the very essence of the addiction model. Games Workshop even believes in the value of new blood based on how their employees are trained to offer substantial assistance to beginners looking to buy models then forgetting about them or any other veterans shortly after. They're in the model selling business, after all. No need to focus on your cultists, only on preaching to gospel to new ones.
Brennonjw wrote: Doom and gloom, it's the end of the hobby, I mean, back in MY day, when everything was tinted rose for some reason, it was all great!
No, it wasn't. 5th was probably the best it's been (with personal experience to some degree or another back to RT) but it still wasn't perfect. But rather than evolve it, they decided to breed something different, and, IMO, inferior.
You can mock, but everything I see, in GW accounts, on here and IRL suggests to me that things are closer to that point than ever.
I agree to a point about some issues (power creep and the like), but having never been a tournament player, most of the major rules issues are minor as it's not about winning the tournament.
Beyond my own biases, your comment kind of goes on to prove my point; you like 5th more and you have, probably to a smaller degree then most judging by your comment, nostaliga for it (not a bad thing)
Really, all this argument could go to is "NO! the Legend of zelda that came out when Iwas 12 is the best!"
The game has flaws, yes, it always has and always will. But I honestly feel like most of those issues are mitigated when you play more for fun (things like scenario games, uneven point costs, etc.) the game is much more enjoyable.
Funny, the long list of reasons I gave for not liking 7th ed was from a very casual player's point of view. In over 20 years of war-gaming, I've never been to a tournament and have never had interest in doing so. Many of the rules break my narrative immersion.
I have mixed feelings regarding 7th edition so far.
I didn't like how GW changed editions so soon, but 6th edition was just a mess. Escalation and Stronghold Assault ended up splitting the community. Allies were absolutely broken with the combos that you could pull off (remember Taudar?). Flyers were broken too until everyone got effective forms of AA. The rules were just as much of a mess as they are today. Say what you want about 7th being bad, but 6th edition was just as bad if not worse.
The game has much the same problems that it did back in 6th edition. The rules are a mess, there are still broken combos allies can pull off, there's terrible balance between codexes,and power creep has gotten awful once GW changed their design philosophy with the Necron codex.
While the release schedule has made life more difficult and exposed GW's venality and laziness for all the world to see, we have also gotten entirely new factions added to the game. Imperial Knights and Admech/Skitarii have been great additions to the already established factions. Harlequins are their own army again, as are the Inquisition.
With all that said, I am still having fun and enjoying playing 40k in 7th edition. I play in somewhat casual metas, so a lot of the broken stuff only turns up for the tournaments. Even then, only a couple of players run the really nasty lists. Everyone else just seems to play for fun. I'm having fun with the game, but there are plenty of other games on my radar now that I'm more experienced with tabletop wargaming.
I won't be looking forward to 8th edition next year. GW could either adapt the game to the Horus Heresy rules, which I hear are pretty balanced, or have the game go the way of Age of Sigmar and throw balance out the window. In the first case, I'll definitely still keep playing. In the second case, I will probably play occasionally, but it will no longer be the only game I play.
Arkaine wrote: It's a given the game will change... but to deteriorate means to become progressively worse.
And that's a pretty good description of what the game has done.
The game certainly improves in model count, variety, depth of special rules (like adding flyers and D weapons and super heavies)
Seriously? Adding D-weapons is your idea of an improvement?
You can always cherry pick what you like or don't like (such as people already do by banning Titans).
Which results in fragmenting the community, people who are unhappy about not getting to use their perfectly legal armies, and extensive pre-game arguments about what should be allowed. Remember that "FW in tournaments" argument you were just involved in? If that's happening in a game then it is NOT a good thing.
But every type of game cycles regularly through new customers and becomes popular by drawing the crowds, not by retaining veterans for 10+ years.
This is simply wrong. New players pay the bills, but it's the veterans that make people want to buy the game. Just ask yourself this: which is a better argument for buying 40k, a newbie with a poorly-assembled gray plastic battleforce army, or a veteran with 5000+ points of beautiful models who is eager to help a new customer get to that point with their own armies?
And no, your other examples aren't very accurate. Are there fewer people from MTG's 4th edition? Sure, but that was 15-20 years ago! Of course you're going to have turnover when you look at that kind of time scale. But if you look at shorter definitions of "veteran", such as 3-5 years, you have a very different picture. And, just like in 40k, it's the veteran players that make the game appealing. Consider EVE Online for an MMO counter-example to your WoW ideas: nobody plays the game because they like farming newbie-level NPCs, they pay their $15 a month because they hear awesome stories about things the veterans are doing and want to be a part of that. EVE and MTG would be dead games if they had to rely on their newbie populations alone.
Games Workshop even believes in the value of new blood based on how their employees are trained to offer substantial assistance to beginners looking to buy models then forgetting about them or any other veterans shortly after. They're in the model selling business, after all. No need to focus on your cultists, only on preaching to gospel to new ones.
And this attitude is arguably one of the reasons why GW is in serious financial trouble. They're so obsessed with meeting today's sales quotas that they're willing to throw away the established veterans that are their biggest source of advertising. This is a really stupid way to run a company.
Arkaine wrote: I mentioned addiction counseling because 40k is effectively like World of Warcraft or any other mania-inducing element -- it's a drug that feeds a player's needs.
40k: Not even once
On-topic, I can't really comment that much as 7th is the only edition I know and I'm not interested in or a player of any other wargames.
Arkaine wrote: I mentioned addiction counseling because 40k is effectively like World of Warcraft or any other mania-inducing element -- it's a drug that feeds a player's needs.
40k: Not even once
On-topic, I can't really comment that much as 7th is the only edition I know and I'm not interested in or a player of any other wargames.
There really are some amazing games out there that you should give a chance. Now is a golden age of gaming.
It's going alright. Then again I have a good dex. I can imagine I wouldn't be so happy if I mained DE for example.
My army to start my 40k journey came down to Tau and DE and I chose TE because I seen how little support DE was getting. Then their new dex hit and sadness happened.
I now have DE codex and have a battleforce I need to start on when I get some spare spare time or finish Tau.
jeffersonian000 wrote: found Maelstrom forced people to think (which is why most people seem to hate it),
This is very definitely not the problem with Maelstrom, in fact it's largely exactly the opposite. They're reactive directives, with lots of "auto-score" and "impossible to score" objectives, largely based on nonsensical mandates (kill something in close combat, cast psychic power, etc), even the objective ones are forced and artificial (I just need someone to walk over to point X? They don't have to hold it or anything?). More to the point, they actively preclude any sort of planning en execution, the heart of strategy, as a result of their randomness.
Yeah, I was totally on auto-pilot trying to set up assaults with BA in the age of Skyhammer, scatbikes, DKs, Riptides, and GMCs. I was just totally phoning in my games before maelstrom.
Even in 5th, the BA were tricky to play because you had to move cleverly to take advantage of furious charge. The BA haven't had an autowin button since 3rd. So don't even go there with me.
LOS blocking terrain is as likely to hurt as help any kind of list that feature both assault and shooting like BA. It is NOT a balancing factor in a game with 80 S6 shots for 540 pts.
" Games are more fun now that we moved past 5th Ed paradigm. "
I'm glad you are having fun. But many aren't. And putting in a few more walls doesn't make it so Eldar don't completely run over my list. Or most lists, for that matter. Adding an IK to my list would actually make my list WORSE off against Eldar, because of ranged D.
Arkaine wrote: It's a given the game will change... but to deteriorate means to become progressively worse.
And that's a pretty good description of what the game has done.
Subjective opinion. One I agree with, but an opinion nonetheless and irrelevant when expanding the spectrum to the entire 40k fanbase. One man's trash is another man's treasure. You are free to leave so long as someone else takes your place in this business model.
The game certainly improves in model count, variety, depth of special rules (like adding flyers and D weapons and super heavies)
Seriously? Adding D-weapons is your idea of an improvement
Remember that FW thread you were just involved in? It was a common position that More Stuff and variety is a good thing for a game. Again, you can always isolate what you dislike.
You can always cherry pick what you like or don't like (such as people already do by banning Titans).
Which results in fragmenting the community, people who are unhappy about not getting to use their perfectly legal armies, and extensive pre-game arguments about what should be allowed. Remember that "FW in tournaments" argument you were just involved in? If that's happening in a game then it is NOT a good thing.
And yet that's exactly what happens in a game like Magic or HeroClix or Warmachine/Hordes which have different formats that allow/disallow different elements of the game. You're actually one of the only people I know complaining about that. Everyone else embraces the formats they love and doesn't play the ones they dislike. With all the overlapping players, it actually doesn't divide the community, especially when the majority of them play all of the formats.
But every type of game cycles regularly through new customers and becomes popular by drawing the crowds, not by retaining veterans for 10+ years.
This is simply wrong. New players pay the bills, but it's the veterans that make people want to buy the game. Just ask yourself this: which is a better argument for buying 40k, a newbie with a poorly-assembled gray plastic battleforce army, or a veteran with 5000+ points of beautiful models who is eager to help a new customer get to that point with their own armies?
Likewise, you only need 1 veteran per flock of newbies and Games Workshop took care of that personally by setting up stores across the world to do precisely this: showcase armies and the games they're involved with.
Peregrine wrote: And no, your other examples aren't very accurate. Are there fewer people from MTG's 4th edition? Sure, but that was 15-20 years ago! Of course you're going to have turnover when you look at that kind of time scale. But if you look at shorter definitions of "veteran", such as 3-5 years, you have a very different picture. And, just like in 40k, it's the veteran players that make the game appealing. Consider EVE Online for an MMO counter-example to your WoW ideas: nobody plays the game because they like farming newbie-level NPCs, they pay their $15 a month because they hear awesome stories about things the veterans are doing and want to be a part of that. EVE and MTG would be dead games if they had to rely on their newbie populations alone.
EVE runs on a different model from a game where Cash can buy power. In EVE character progression is Time-based. There are a few cash buyable implants that shave off percentages of that, but ultimately you progress through real-time training. All of the expensive in-game ships are elements of Alliance power which isn't the draw if you want to do the awesome things the veterans are doing because the veterans have More Skills and Better Ships than you do.
Games Workshop even believes in the value of new blood based on how their employees are trained to offer substantial assistance to beginners looking to buy models then forgetting about them or any other veterans shortly after. They're in the model selling business, after all. No need to focus on your cultists, only on preaching to gospel to new ones.
And this attitude is arguably one of the reasons why GW is in serious financial trouble. They're so obsessed with meeting today's sales quotas that they're willing to throw away the established veterans that are their biggest source of advertising. This is a really stupid way to run a company.
It's how a lot of companies are run so it's tricky to say whether it's a dumb method until you see the profit margins both ways. Catering to veterans who already own a sizable army has a cost associated with and if the return isn't as great as pandering newbies then devoting those assets to making a quick buck off the soon-to-be-addict who just picked up your product for the first time and has thousands of dollars left to spend may actually be the right call. One thing is for sure, almost every Free to Play game operates on this principle. The games are not expected to survive and thrive for years, but seduce as many people as possible into spending as much upfront cash as they can be convinced to. When those players quit a month later because the game is utterly terrible, the company has made maximum return for minimal investment. GW clearly isn't that bad as players stick with the hobby for many months or years before reaching this point. Don't even bring up the costs involved as you'd be fascinated to know some people have spent more than a 40k army's price on the facebook game Farmville.
vipoid wrote: Indeed. What a horrifying concept it must be to have people disagreeing with you over the quality of a game. And on a forum of all places.
Hey, it's as rational as leaving a game you hate, saying you're leaving a game you hate, continuing to come on forums telling people you hate said game, for years.
I left World of Warcraft right before Cataclysm. Do I go on Mists of Pandaria or whatever crappy sequel they're on forums and continue to badmouth said game? Nope. :
I like to equate it to someone giving you gak for being pissed at a sports team you follow and expecting you to quit being a fan. I want the team to do well, but the manager and coaching staff are gak and miss every good draft opportunity. It's a dumb feth thing to do.
Arkaine wrote: Subjective opinion. One I agree with, but an opinion nonetheless and irrelevant when expanding the spectrum to the entire 40k fanbase. One man's trash is another man's treasure. You are free to leave so long as someone else takes your place in this business model.
So if it's justifiable to say "the game is getting worse" then your whole absurd rant about 40k addiction and how it's really that we're just not getting enough out of our addiction falls apart completely.
Remember that FW thread you were just involved in? It was a common position that More Stuff and variety is a good thing for a game. Again, you can always isolate what you dislike.
Is this supposed to be a joke? Adding low-quality content does NOT make a game better. 40k would not be a better game than it is now if GW added 40,000 pages of "roll a D6 and then ignore the result" just for the sake of having more stuff.
And yet that's exactly what happens in a game like Magic or HeroClix or Warmachine/Hordes which have different formats that allow/disallow different elements of the game. You're actually one of the only people I know complaining about that. Everyone else embraces the formats they love and doesn't play the ones they dislike. With all the overlapping players, it actually doesn't divide the community, especially when the majority of them play all of the formats.
Are you serious? Have you even playedMTG? That's a game with huge problems with having a fragmented community. Some people like kitchen table EDH, some people like competitive tournaments, and the two groups often can not play together without people having bad experiences. The only difference is that, unlike GW, WOTC recognizes that they have a split community and caters to all groups instead of declaring that the "casual at all costs" crowd is the only group that matters.
Likewise, you only need 1 veteran per flock of newbies and Games Workshop took care of that personally by setting up stores across the world to do precisely this: showcase armies and the games they're involved with.
No, you need way more than one veteran per horde of newbies. And GW's retail stores are irrelevant in the US, one of their largest markets.
EVE runs on a different model from a game where Cash can buy power. In EVE character progression is Time-based. There are a few cash buyable implants that shave off percentages of that, but ultimately you progress through real-time training. All of the expensive in-game ships are elements of Alliance power which isn't the draw if you want to do the awesome things the veterans are doing because the veterans have More Skills and Better Ships than you do.
What's your point? This is a debate about the role of veterans vs. newbies, not sensible game design vs. free-to-play-pay-to-win games. EVE is a clear example of the importance of veteran players in driving a game's success.
Catering to veterans who already own a sizable army has a cost associated with and if the return isn't as great as pandering newbies then devoting those assets to making a quick buck off the soon-to-be-addict who just picked up your product for the first time and has thousands of dollars left to spend may actually be the right call.
The point you're missing is that if you don't cater to the veterans you won't have the soon-to-be addicts. 40k without the veteran community providing a "look at how awesome the game is" example and encouraging their friends to start playing is a dead game.
One thing is for sure, almost every Free to Play game operates on this principle. The games are not expected to survive and thrive for years, but seduce as many people as possible into spending as much upfront cash as they can be convinced to. When those players quit a month later because the game is utterly terrible, the company has made maximum return for minimal investment.
The difference is that a facebook game requires very little investment. You play it, have some fun, and then move on to the next thing. A game like 40k, on the other hand, demands thousands of dollars and countless hours of effort. That's not something you get into expecting to have a bit of fun for a weekend and just move on. GW attempting to use this business model would be financial suicide.
Don't even bring up the costs involved as you'd be fascinated to know some people have spent more than a 40k army's price on the facebook game Farmville.
They're a tiny and irrelevant minority, like the Russian billionaire who dumps tons of real-life cash into his EVE alliance. And remember how you were talking about the key to success being lots of new players? That's the exact opposite of trying to make money off a tiny handful of the most obsessed and wealthy players.
Peregrine wrote: So if it's justifiable to say "the game is getting worse"
No, because as stated that's a subjective opinion. The post was examining the suspected origin of said opinion.
Peregrine wrote: Is this supposed to be a joke? Adding low-quality content does NOT make a game better.
Players have been commenting on the high quality of the latest models, certainly an improvement over the 2nd edition stuff, but you're arguing the rules. Your idea that they are low-quality is also an opinion that can and will differ according to whom you ask. Your personal truths about GW are, in a word, personal.
Peregrine wrote: Are you serious? Have you even playedMTG? That's a game with huge problems with having a fragmented community. Some people like kitchen table EDH, some people like competitive tournaments, and the two groups often can not play together without people having bad experiences. The only difference is that, unlike GW, WOTC recognizes that they have a split community and caters to all groups instead of declaring that the "casual at all costs" crowd is the only group that matters.
For many years since middle school. Your experiences are quite different from mine as our area runs the gambit of Commander, Draft, Modern, Legacy, Standard, and casual play and all are attended in overwhelming numbers with more than half of the community involved in all of the formats. Between this, FW issues, and other criticisms, your local neighborhood community appears to be the common issue, not the games.
Peregrine wrote: No, you need way more than one veteran per horde of newbies. And GW's retail stores are irrelevant in the US, one of their largest markets.
If you say so... I disagree. Moving on...
Peregrine wrote: What's your point? This is a debate about the role of veterans vs. newbies, not sensible game design vs. free-to-play-pay-to-win games. EVE is a clear example of the importance of veteran players in driving a game's success.
The point illustrated that EVE runs on a different business model. It is not an addiction based spend-all-your-money game but a community building sandbox. Next you'll be pointing out how veterans are important to the Dallas Cowboys and I'll be scratching my head searching for the correlation.
Peregrine wrote: The point you're missing is that if you don't cater to the veterans you won't have the soon-to-be addicts. 40k without the veteran community providing a "look at how awesome the game is" example and encouraging their friends to start playing is a dead game.
Disagree. MMOs regularly release expansions that reset and invalidate all veteran progress. As if GW announced that when 8th edition hits the market, you must throw out all of your models and buy new ones to keep playing. Catering to veterans isn't required for an MMO to thrive as some will come along for the ride anyway while new players will see the new edition as a point to chase the dragon. While GW doesn't use such direct measures (usually... 30k and Age of Sigmar do have their own factions), more and more of our core armies have been replaced with newer and better models/rules. Which again, MMOs mimic by releasing a new Raid which raises the soft cap and allows both veteran and newbie to chase the same dream. The core ideologies behind the designs are transparently homogeneous.
Peregrine wrote: The difference is that a facebook game requires very little investment. You play it, have some fun, and then move on to the next thing. A game like 40k, on the other hand, demands thousands of dollars and countless hours of effort. That's not something you get into expecting to have a bit of fun for a weekend and just move on. GW attempting to use this business model would be financial suicide.
And yet they already do. It's something I am sure has cost them countless players due to discontent but they're still around as a company. They're making enough money despite giving us all the finger.
Peregrine wrote: They're a tiny and irrelevant minority, like the Russian billionaire who dumps tons of real-life cash into his EVE alliance. And remember how you were talking about the key to success being lots of new players? That's the exact opposite of trying to make money off a tiny handful of the most obsessed and wealthy players.
Ah, but that's precisely why hoards of new players are so important to a game like Farmville. Only a tiny percentage get seriously addicted but with enough new players, you tag the ones that sink in the wealth. Catering to veterans deprives that opportunity and reduces the amount of fishing attempts. The game must be barely fun enough that you can sell them a little more fun for $59.99 plus tax.
Arkaine wrote: Players have been commenting on the high quality of the latest models, certainly an improvement over the 2nd edition stuff, but you're arguing the rules. Your idea that they are low-quality is also an opinion that can and will differ according to whom you ask. Your personal truths about GW are, in a word, personal.
Sigh. Did you even read what you wrote? You said that adding ANY content to a game is a good thing, because if you don't like it you can always just remove it. So by your own argument adding 40,000 pages of basic tactical marines that cost 10,000 points per model would be improving the game.
For many years since middle school. Your experiences are quite different from mine as our area runs the gambit of Commander, Draft, Modern, Legacy, Standard, and casual play and all are attended in overwhelming numbers with more than half of the community involved in all of the formats. Between this, FW issues, and other criticisms, your local neighborhood community appears to be the common issue, not the games.
Alternatively, since I've experienced the same problems in a wide variety of groups and locations, you're just lucky enough to have a community that likes to play a lot of different formats. Of course the fact that you're talking about how my community is different just proves my point: having different formats to argue about splits the community.
If you say so... I disagree. Moving on...
You seriously think that one veteran per horde of newbies can keep a game going? What happens when that veteran moves away?
The point illustrated that EVE runs on a different business model. It is not an addiction based spend-all-your-money game but a community building sandbox. Next you'll be pointing out how veterans are important to the Dallas Cowboys and I'll be scratching my head searching for the correlation.
Lol? You used WoW as an example to support your claims, and WoW uses the same business model as EVE. So if EVE is irrelevant then so is your own attempt to "prove" your claims.
Disagree. MMOs regularly release expansions that reset and invalidate all veteran progress.
What's your point? Being a veteran of a game involves more than just your character stats. People don't wake up on patch day and discover that the company broke up their guild and banned everyone from talking to each other, or put someone else in charge and banned the former leader from organizing community activities.
As if GW announced that when 8th edition hits the market, you must throw out all of your models and buy new ones to keep playing.
An act that would instantly end 40k as a game, and GW as a profitable company.
And yet they already do. It's something I am sure has cost them countless players due to discontent but they're still around as a company. They're making enough money despite giving us all the finger.
No. GW IS FAILING AS A BUSINESS. They're losing sales volume, they're losing market share, profit is stagnant, and they're forced to borrow money to pay dividends to their investors. Meanwhile the rest of their industry is growing, thanks in large part to GW self destructing. GW only exists as a profitable company right now because they started from such a dominant position and it takes time for a company like that to fail. A smaller company that copied GW's failures would be dead by now.
Peregrine wrote: Sigh. Did you even read what you wrote? You said that adding ANY content to a game is a good thing, because if you don't like it you can always just remove it. So by your own argument adding 40,000 pages of basic tactical marines that cost 10,000 points per model would be improving the game.
It'd certainly be an improvement to the variety of tactical marines, yes. Remember, I'm not arguing from my own point of view. Someone somewhere out there would love 40,000 pages of tactical marines. If they cost 10,000 per model they wouldn't see much play, but the game hasn't suffered from their existence. I'm going to repeat this once more than ignore you entirely on this subject -- it is your opinion that such hypothetical additions do not improve the game. Like all opinions, someone will disagree with you so it's not our place to judge what is a Right or Wrong addition, only to offer our own opinion. Take solace that we share one as I, in my entirely personal opinion, wouldn't like having so many pages of marines!
Peregrine wrote: You seriously think that one veteran per horde of newbies can keep a game going? What happens when that veteran moves away?
Zero and One are different numbers. You're no longer arguing the same point.
Peregrine wrote: Lol? You used WoW as an example to support your claims, and WoW uses the same business model as EVE. So if EVE is irrelevant then so is your own attempt to "prove" your claims.
WoW doesn't use a real-time XP system that limits the ability of players to buy their way into power. The impact of this decision on the community is what makes EVE so popular, though not unique as it's done in other sandbox games. Additionally, the persistent world of alliance war means you can lose the Time you put into building up your forces in EVE. In WoW, you hit the respawn button and try again. LOL if you actually think they're the same.
Peregrine wrote: What's your point? Being a veteran of a game involves more than just your character stats. People don't wake up on patch day and discover that the company broke up their guild and banned everyone from talking to each other, or put someone else in charge and banned the former leader from organizing community activities.
The rest of the section you didn't quote describes my point. Your claim was that failing to cater to veterans would lead to a lack of soon-to-be-addicts and I debunked this. You can certainly thrive on games designed to reset the system and cater to newbies and casuals. Veteranship in terms of community exists in MMOs the same way it exists in 40k and neither do what you claim to destroy the communities, yet what does that have to do with not needing to cater to veterans to support the model? Nothing, that's what, you're putting forth a red herring when it's unrelated to the point you're disputing.
Peregrine wrote: No. GW IS FAILING AS A BUSINESS. They're losing sales volume, they're losing market share, profit is stagnant, and they're forced to borrow money to pay dividends to their investors. Meanwhile the rest of their industry is growing, thanks in large part to GW self destructing. GW only exists as a profitable company right now because they started from such a dominant position and it takes time for a company like that to fail. A smaller company that copied GW's failures would be dead by now.
And yet they haven't died yet. Star Wars Galaxies died, Legend of the Five Rings died, VS System just came back for round two, lots of games and companies fail yet GW apparently has the IWND special rule. Expecting this to lead to their own destruction is merely a doom prophecy, like the claims the world would end in 2012. Until it happens, it's merely a trend and they can still turn it around, not necessarily by doing what you want them to.
Arkaine wrote: It'd certainly be an improvement to the variety of tactical marines, yes. Remember, I'm not arguing from my own point of view. Someone somewhere out there would love 40,000 pages of tactical marines. If they cost 10,000 per model they wouldn't see much play, but the game hasn't suffered from their existence. I'm going to repeat this once more than ignore you entirely on this subject -- it is your opinion that such hypothetical additions do not improve the game. Like all opinions, someone will disagree with you so it's not our place to judge what is a Right or Wrong addition, only to offer our own opinion. Take solace that we share one as I, in my entirely personal opinion, wouldn't like having so many pages of marines!
Sorry, this is just getting absurd. If you seriously think that the value of adding 40,000 pages of content that nobody is ever going to use is just a matter of "subjective opinion" then I don't really know what to say. You're so hopelessly wrong that I don't think any discussion of the subject is possible.
Zero and One are different numbers. You're no longer arguing the same point.
...
This is not hard to understand. If you have a single veteran anchoring a community then you're in an incredibly vulnerable position because it's very easy to go from one veteran to zero. Therefore it's in the best interest of the game company to have more than one veteran, even if only to ensure that the loss of one doesn't kill the community before someone can replace them.
WoW doesn't use a real-time XP system that limits the ability of players to buy their way into power. The impact of this decision on the community is what makes EVE so popular, though not unique as it's done in other sandbox games. Additionally, the persistent world of alliance war means you can lose the Time you put into building up your forces in EVE. In WoW, you hit the respawn button and try again. LOL if you actually think they're the same.
Game mechanics =/= business model. Both games exist on a business model of providing an online game for $15/month, with a side bonus of cash shop items (character transfers, etc). Please stop trying to move the goalposts.
The rest of the section you didn't quote describes my point. Your claim was that failing to cater to veterans would lead to a lack of soon-to-be-addicts and I debunked this. You can certainly thrive on games designed to reset the system and cater to newbies and casuals. Veteranship in terms of community exists in MMOs the same way it exists in 40k and neither do what you claim to destroy the communities, yet what does that have to do with not needing to cater to veterans to support the model? Nothing, that's what, you're putting forth a red herring when it's unrelated to the point you're disputing.
Did you even read what I wrote? What it has to do with needing to cater to veterans to support the business model is that the game caters to veterans. You claimed that there's a reset button that removes everything veterans try to build, I pointed out that this is not the case.
And yet they haven't died yet. Star Wars Galaxies died, Legend of the Five Rings died, VS System just came back for round two, lots of games and companies fail yet GW apparently has the IWND special rule. Expecting this to lead to their own destruction is merely a doom prophecy, like the claims the world would end in 2012. Until it happens, it's merely a trend and they can still turn it around, not necessarily by doing what you want them to.
Sorry, but this is just laughably wrong. We don't have to wait until GW actually files the bankruptcy paperwork to say that their business model is not working and all of the trends are pointing in the wrong direction. Trying to equate this to end of the world prophecies is just plain ignorant of the realities of GW's financial state.
Peregrine wrote: Game mechanics =/= business model. Both games exist on a business model of providing an online game for $15/month, with a side bonus of cash shop items (character transfers, etc). Please stop trying to move the goalposts.
Ah, so you're only arguing semantics and word choice now. Gotcha. I stated that in EVE character progression is Time-based and associated it with the business model, in doing so I am discussing mechanics as they pertain to the company's income. The importance of veterans in driving a game's success was the point of contention and remains so because despite the "business models" you called out appearing identical, they are actually not. The price per month is not a business model, that's a revenue stream. EVE developers aim at the goal of hooking players long term using mechanics that encourage loyalty while releasing free expansions. That is their business model, long term community-driven funding by a devoted niche fanbase. WoW aims less at month to month gains with PAID expansions by stretching out repeating content just enough to be bearable and mixing up balance every few months, along with a dedicated minority of subscribed hardcore raiders and fanatic PVPers to tide over between releases. Many players actually quit a few months into any expansion but return to WoW each new large update or expansion out of sheer content addiction, that is their business model and it's similar to the EverQuest one, centered around selling box content expansions periodically with a DECAYING interim stream of revenue and the subsequent shockpaddle revival of a dying community with a new release coupled with the return of long gone addicts looking for another taste of the latest Mega Dungeon Ride. EVE's revenue stream is a non-decaying type, meant to hook players for life with no pause. They accomplish this by allowing XP training even while you are not playing the game or taking a break AS LONG AS YOU REMAIN SUBSCRIBED!
Fyi, check the definition of a business model next time.
(A business model is an "abstract representation of an organization, be it conceptual, textual, and/or graphical, of all core interrelated architectural, co-operational, and financial arrangements designed and developed by an organization presently and in the future, as well as all core products and/or services the organization offers, or will offer, based on these arrangements that are needed to achieve its strategic goals and objectives.")
Alternate: (The plan implemented by a company to generate revenue and make a profit from operations. The model includes the components and functions of the business, as well as the revenues it generates and the expenses it incurs.)
Peregrine wrote: Did you even read what I wrote? What it has to do with needing to cater to veterans to support the business model is that the game caters to veterans. You claimed that there's a reset button that removes everything veterans try to build, I pointed out that this is not the case.
Actually no, it doesn't and no you didn't. You mentioned community and I presume how it is not reset or destroyed yet in no way does that correspond to the game catering to veterans. That's like arguing that because I see the same guy at Dunkin Donuts every morning, the corporation that owns Dunkin Donuts is catering to community building. GW doesn't even host its own tournies or provide us with better official formats and rules, contradicting itself illogically with updates and leaving us to sort of which matters and which doesn't. WoW does not cater to community development either with its increasing ease of solo play, ability to farm for end game gear without joining a guild through the token system, cross-world dungeon queue systems, and other business decisions that - for the record - are blasted on its forums for actually DESTROYING the community. How's that for a reset button?
Peregrine wrote: Sorry, but this is just laughably wrong. We don't have to wait until GW actually files the bankruptcy paperwork to say that their business model is not working and all of the trends are pointing in the wrong direction. Trying to equate this to end of the world prophecies is just plain ignorant of the realities of GW's financial state.
Whatever you say, Nicodemus. Don't drop your tin foil hat on the way out of the thread.
Peregrine wrote: Sorry, but this is just laughably wrong. We don't have to wait until GW actually files the bankruptcy paperwork to say that their business model is not working and all of the trends are pointing in the wrong direction. Trying to equate this to end of the world prophecies is just plain ignorant of the realities of GW's financial state.
Whatever you say, Nicodemus. Don't drop your tin foil hat on the way out of the thread.
Adjusting for inflation, GW is making less profits every year while the market grows around them. Denying that they are losing the market is like trying to deny the Titanic is sinking because the water is only waist high.
the Signless wrote: Adjusting for inflation, GW is making less profits every year while the market grows around them. Denying that they are losing the market is like trying to deny the Titanic is sinking because the water is only waist high.
You might want to read the post prior to that. I did not deny they are losing the market, I specifically said there's time to turn it around. The ball is GW's court to adjust to the fluctuating needs of its consumers, yet that doesn't make our resident Doomsayer correct in his forecast.
Arkaine wrote: You might want to read the post prior to that. I did not deny they are losing the market, I specifically said there's time to turn it around. The ball is GW's court to adjust to the fluctuating needs of its consumers, yet that doesn't make our resident Doomsayer correct in his forecast.
Lol, really? Your best counter-argument to the claim that GW is dying is that GW is dying, but if they stop doing what they're doing they could avoid dying? Seriously?
Arkaine wrote: You might want to read the post prior to that. I did not deny they are losing the market, I specifically said there's time to turn it around. The ball is GW's court to adjust to the fluctuating needs of its consumers, yet that doesn't make our resident Doomsayer correct in his forecast.
Lol, really? Your best counter-argument to the claim that GW is dying is that GW is dying, but if they stop doing what they're doing they could avoid dying? Seriously?
LOL no, my counter argument was Economics 101 - Businesses have Trends, both upward and downward. Trends =/= Death Sentences. Keep up the doom and gloom though, Halloween's tonight and we need more of it decorating the forum!
Arkaine wrote: LOL no, my counter argument was Economics 101 - Businesses have Trends, both upward and downward. Trends =/= Death Sentences. Keep up the doom and gloom though, Halloween's tonight and we need more of it decorating the forum!
And you know what happens if a downward trend continues too long? THE COMPANY DIES. Seriously, "GW could change everything" is not a counter-argument to the fact that GW is in serious trouble. If GW needs to change to avoid death then you've just conceded my point that GW's business model is not working, because if GW had a working business model then they wouldn't be in their current financial situation.
PS: your optimism about GW reversing their downward trend is pretty hilarious given that GW is showing no signs of acting to reverse the trend, doesn't appear to realize that they have problems, and brags to their investors about the things that any sensible observer should be horrified by.
Peregrine wrote: And you know what happens if a downward trend continues too long? THE COMPANY DIES.
Yep! I'm so glad you're our official PSYCHIC and know the outcome. This will be what... the fourth time GW has died? At least it is if you look at the community reactions to past editions. How many of them did you predict exactly? I'm guessing three.
Arkaine wrote: Yep! I'm so glad you're our official PSYCHIC and know the outcome. This will be what... the fourth time GW has died? At least it is if you look at the community reactions to past editions. How many of them did you predict exactly? I'm guessing three.
I have no idea what you're talking about. Do you even know? This has nothing to do with "OMG THE NEW EDITION IS GOING TO KILL GW" and everything to do with GW's own financial information combined with bad business decisions that have been going on for longer than a single edition of 40k.
And, in case you forgot, the whole "GW is dying" thing came up because you tried to make an argument that GW is making a bunch of money therefore the people who are complaining must be wrong. Even if GW doesn't actually die as a result the fact that they're in serious financial trouble right now rather conclusively disproves your idea that GW is running their business the right way.
Peregrine wrote: PS: your optimism about GW reversing their downward trend is pretty hilarious given that GW is showing no signs of acting to reverse the trend, doesn't appear to realize that they have problems, and brags to their investors about the things that any sensible observer should be horrified by.
Oh this has nothing to do with optimism. Remember what this was originally all about? You claiming that the way described is a stupid way to run a business and putting forth HYWPI, as though you know anything about running a corporation or generating millions of dollars in revenue. Yet it's quite the successful model followed by many companies, GW included. You're truly in no place to ascertain whether their business practices are making them less money than the ones you feel they should be following. Keep thinking otherwise though, oh wise wizard.
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Peregrine wrote: And, in case you forgot, the whole "GW is dying" thing came up because you tried to make an argument that GW is making a bunch of money therefore the people who are complaining must be wrong. Even if GW doesn't actually die as a result the fact that they're in serious financial trouble right now rather conclusively disproves your idea that GW is running their business the right way.
No, it came up because you tried to declare you know how to run a company better than them. Totally not buying that load. Here it is in case you forgot:
Arkaine wrote: Games Workshop even believes in the value of new blood based on how their employees are trained to offer substantial assistance to beginners looking to buy models then forgetting about them or any other veterans shortly after. They're in the model selling business, after all. No need to focus on your cultists, only on preaching to gospel to new ones.
And this attitude is arguably one of the reasons why GW is in serious financial trouble. They're so obsessed with meeting today's sales quotas that they're willing to throw away the established veterans that are their biggest source of advertising. This is a really stupid way to run a company.
Arkaine wrote: You claiming that the way described is a stupid way to run a business and putting forth HYWPI, as though you know anything about running a corporation or generating millions of dollars in revenue.
I don't need to know how to run a corporation to know that GW is not doing a good job of running a corporation. I just need to be able to read financial reports. I can see that GW has raised prices, aggressively cut costs (even to the point of reducing the quality of their products), and vastly accelerated their release schedule. I can see that despite doing these things which should lead to growth GW's revenue and profits are both stagnant or even declining. And I can see that the industry as a whole is doing just fine, so GW can't blame their failures on overall market trends.
Yet it's quite the successful model followed by many companies, GW included.
Really? How many successful companies brag to their investors about how they refuse to do market research?
PS: GW is not a successful company.
You're truly in no place to ascertain whether their business practices are making them less money than the ones you feel they should be following.
You're right, I can't conclusively say that my ideas would work better. But it would be very hard to do worse than what GW is currently doing, so the odds are in my favor. And whether or not my ideas are the right ones it's indisputably true that GW's current ideas aren't.
the Signless wrote: Adjusting for inflation, GW is making less profits every year while the market grows around them. Denying that they are losing the market is like trying to deny the Titanic is sinking because the water is only waist high.
You might want to read the post prior to that. I did not deny they are losing the market, I specifically said there's time to turn it around. The ball is GW's court to adjust to the fluctuating needs of its consumers, yet that doesn't make our resident Doomsayer correct in his forecast.
Agreed, there is time to turn it around. There's been time for a while now, and will be time for a while. The ball has been in GW's court for a while now. That doesn't make our resident doomsayer wrong, either.
the Signless wrote: Adjusting for inflation, GW is making less profits every year while the market grows around them. Denying that they are losing the market is like trying to deny the Titanic is sinking because the water is only waist high.
You might want to read the post prior to that. I did not deny they are losing the market, I specifically said there's time to turn it around. The ball is GW's court to adjust to the fluctuating needs of its consumers, yet that doesn't make our resident Doomsayer correct in his forecast.
While true, they do have time to turn it around, they've also wasted a lot of time, this is not a recent thing for GW, it's been a pretty constant trend for over a decade now and they've regressed nearly twenty years in terms of Real revenue, they haven't been as small as they are since 40k was in its 2nd edition.
More to the point, they keep consistently seeming to miss, or willingly refuse, to respond to their customerbase. There's been a clamor for CSM Legion books/rules/etc for 8 years now. It would be a license to print money for them. What do they do instead? Come out with a Black Legion supplement (when the basic CSM book is *already* effectively a Black Legion book) that largely just offers a single FoC swap with Abaddon, a new "renegade" faction nobody asked for, and the KDK book which, while not terrible in concept, wasn't really what anyone was looking for either. Forgeworld does their HH thing that caters to that desire, and suddenly that explodes and GW is apparently blindsided by this.
So yes, while GW has time to adjust and isn't going to go belly-up next week, between their long term track record and recent actions, it really doesn't seem like they're getting the point, and there's not a whole lot of hope that anything is going to change any time soon.
The question is whether GW will continue to go down and collapse or if they level out to a much lower and stable level.
I can't predict that, but either case isn't good for GW.
MWHistorian wrote: The question is whether GW will continue to go down and collapse or if they level out to a much lower and stable level.
I can't predict that, but either case isn't good for GW.
It's an interesting question, to be sure. They've done well with their cost cutting measures, but how much revenue can they lose before the cost cutting measures no longer cut it?
MWHistorian wrote: The question is whether GW will continue to go down and collapse or if they level out to a much lower and stable level.
I can't predict that, but either case isn't good for GW.
It's an interesting question, to be sure. They've done well with their cost cutting measures, but how much revenue can they lose before the cost cutting measures no longer cut it?
I have no idea, but either way GW won't last as the market leader. Unless they drastically change what they do. And I don't see that happening.
MWHistorian wrote: The question is whether GW will continue to go down and collapse or if they level out to a much lower and stable level.
I can't predict that, but either case isn't good for GW.
It's an interesting question, to be sure. They've done well with their cost cutting measures, but how much revenue can they lose before the cost cutting measures no longer cut it?
I have no idea, but either way GW won't last as the market leader. Unless they drastically change what they do. And I don't see that happening.
Do you really think GW will loose market leadership anytime soon?
I guess not. AoS was a short time opportunity to sell more fantasy models than normal. The same holds for HH.
Torga_DW wrote: It's an interesting question, to be sure. They've done well with their cost cutting measures, but how much revenue can they lose before the cost cutting measures no longer cut it?
Or before the consequences of their cost cutting start to be felt. For example, their one-man stores are a joke in the US. They're barely open, they're usually in random strip malls in the middle of nowhere to keep rent prices down, they have virtually no gaming space, and service quality suffers from the fact that there's only one person in the store. A half-decent independent store provides a much better experience, along with a full range of products instead of just GW stuff. So yeah, GW has cut the cost of that one-man store, but only by bringing its quality down to a point where nobody wants to go there. And eventually the money they saved by cutting store quality will be offset by the sales lost as a result.
It depends on what you call the market, i think. I've always heard that historicals had larger playerbases than the relatively new fantasy/sci-fi ttmg market. Take that as you will.
edit: i really need to quote people more.... but i wont, i'm just lazy like that.
wuestenfux wrote: Do you really think GW will loose market leadership anytime soon?
I guess not. AoS was a short time opportunity to sell more fantasy models than normal. The same holds for HH.
It could happen faster than you might think. GW is quickly becoming a single-product company with the end of the LOTR license and the utter failure of AoS. 40k is their only real product line, and all it takes is an AoS-style shift to an alternate system to cripple GW. And a lot of 40k players are only continuing to play (and buy!) because it's the only option for a large-scale scifi game. But how long will that be true? If, say, Infinity releases an expansion that adds tanks/aircraft/etc and increases the model count to 40k levels will people continue to buy 40k?
Now, this isn't going to happen overnight because there's no real competition for 40k yet. But GW could go from market leader to bankruptcy in a very short time if a serious threat ever appears.
Peregrine wrote: I don't need to know how to run a corporation to know that GW is not doing a good job of running a corporation.
Even WoW, EVE, or Magic won't last forever and this game's been around since 1987; D&D is even older and their company (WotC) is losing veterans as well, making up some of it with new blood, new editions, a new way to play (online tabletop), and completely new rules that barely resemble past editions. You won't see any downward trend though because it's the same company that owns Magic the Gathering. All of these companies made billions but all things eventually die. Smart business plan or no. It's a game, a popular one, but still just a game. People get bored of a game and move on to new shinier ones to continue feeding the addiction.
GW could be the best company or the worst company and there would still come a day when they stopped being a company. You know, unless they invent a new highly addictive product line... or they could just whore out the IP to board and video game developers like they're currently doing (Nov 14th for Horus Hersey; Eternal Crusade now in Closed Alpha). GW definitely doesn't do everything perfect but there are worse companies with more success. You should see the reports EA, Ubisoft, or Activision put out along with how poorly they treat their customers, how inferior their products are, how horrible their support lines can be, yet at the end of the day -- stupid amounts of money. Not by catering to veterans either, those they piss off royally and frequently make enemies of. Just by putting out the same old garbage rehashed different ways because *NEW* and *SHINY* things appeal to people.
Like Lucas did with Star Wars, they're pushing the brand. What they could use now is Space Marines the movie. Currently all we have is Imperial Guard vs Tyranids with Starship Troopers.
Warhammer the Card Game!
Warhammer the MMO!
Warhammer the Phone App!
Warhammer the RPG!
Warhammer the TBS!
Warhammer the RTS!
Warhammer the Board Game!
Warhammer the T-Shirt!
(All of these already exist; in multiples too)
wuestenfux wrote: Do you really think GW will loose market leadership anytime soon?
I guess not. AoS was a short time opportunity to sell more fantasy models than normal. The same holds for HH.
It could happen faster than you might think. GW is quickly becoming a single-product company with the end of the LOTR license and the utter failure of AoS. 40k is their only real product line, and all it takes is an AoS-style shift to an alternate system to cripple GW. And a lot of 40k players are only continuing to play (and buy!) because it's the only option for a large-scale scifi game. But how long will that be true? If, say, Infinity releases an expansion that adds tanks/aircraft/etc and increases the model count to 40k levels will people continue to buy 40k?
Now, this isn't going to happen overnight because there's no real competition for 40k yet. But GW could go from market leader to bankruptcy in a very short time if a serious threat ever appears.
It's about putting all your eggs in one basket, isn't it? GW is slowly but surely putting everything into 40k. It only takes a big hiccup to lose their business, which will amount to one thing. I'm speaking as to the company that is, and not the individual responsible for this course (who will retire a very happy man).
Torga_DW wrote: It's about putting all your eggs in one basket, isn't it? GW is slowly but surely putting everything into 40k. It only takes a big hiccup to lose their business, which will amount to one thing. I'm speaking as to the company that is, and not the individual responsible for this course (who will retire a very happy man).
They may actually be building the brand up to sell. Wouldn't that be the best!? Selling the whole IP or company to a bigger, better, smarter company.
Torga_DW wrote: It's about putting all your eggs in one basket, isn't it? GW is slowly but surely putting everything into 40k. It only takes a big hiccup to lose their business, which will amount to one thing. I'm speaking as to the company that is, and not the individual responsible for this course (who will retire a very happy man).
Exactly. If one of FFG's games dies it's probably a big loss, but the company still has other product lines and will probably survive. If GW's only game dies then that's it for GW as a company.
Torga_DW wrote: It's about putting all your eggs in one basket, isn't it? GW is slowly but surely putting everything into 40k. It only takes a big hiccup to lose their business, which will amount to one thing. I'm speaking as to the company that is, and not the individual responsible for this course (who will retire a very happy man).
They may actually be building the brand up to sell. Wouldn't that be the best!? Selling the whole IP or company to a bigger, better, smarter company.
I call dibs on Disney.
Yeah, in theory land. The whole IP being 40k, though. The question i always ask but never get a solid answer to is: who exactly is going to buy gw? The closest to an answer i've ever gotten is maybe hasbro. Why? What makes 40k a valuable (in any sense of the word) IP that 'someone' is going to 'snap up'?
Arkaine wrote: \]Even WoW, EVE, or Magic won't last forever and this game's been around since 1987; D&D is even older and their company (WotC) is losing veterans as well, making up some of it with new blood, new editions, a new way to play (online tabletop), and completely new rules that barely resemble past editions. You won't see any downward trend though because it's the same company that owns Magic the Gathering. All of these companies made billions but all things eventually die. Smart business plan or no. It's a game, a popular one, but still just a game. People get bored of a game and move on to new shinier ones to continue feeding the addiction.
You're confusing "will inevitably die" with "will inevitably die in the foreseeable future". Obviously every game will die eventually because nothing survives the heat death of the universe. But there's no reason to believe that 40k's problems are some kind of inevitable life cycle of a game and not poor decisions made by GW. If 40k is failing it's because it's a bad game.
You should see the reports EA, Ubisoft, or Activision put out along with how poorly they treat their customers, how inferior their products are, how horrible their support lines can be, yet at the end of the day -- stupid amounts of money.
Yeah, but see that key difference there? Those companies are making stupid amounts of money. GW is barely avoiding bankruptcy.
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Torga_DW wrote: Why? What makes 40k a valuable (in any sense of the word) IP that 'someone' is going to 'snap up'?
Established fluff, a whole product line ready to go, and customers that are already buying it. It might not be the most valuable IP in the world but it's clearly one that can make a profit in the right hands with very little work. Even a small amount of guaranteed profit is still more than zero. Of course this is assuming that GW sells before they finish running the game into the ground. If GW succeeds in killing 40k and diminishing that value then it's going to be a lot harder to find a buyer.
Arkaine wrote: \]Even WoW, EVE, or Magic won't last forever and this game's been around since 1987; D&D is even older and their company (WotC) is losing veterans as well, making up some of it with new blood, new editions, a new way to play (online tabletop), and completely new rules that barely resemble past editions. You won't see any downward trend though because it's the same company that owns Magic the Gathering. All of these companies made billions but all things eventually die. Smart business plan or no. It's a game, a popular one, but still just a game. People get bored of a game and move on to new shinier ones to continue feeding the addiction.
You're confusing "will inevitably die" with "will inevitably die in the foreseeable future". Obviously every game will die eventually because nothing survives the heat death of the universe. But there's no reason to believe that 40k's problems are some kind of inevitable life cycle of a game and not poor decisions made by GW. If 40k is failing it's because it's a bad game.
You should see the reports EA, Ubisoft, or Activision put out along with how poorly they treat their customers, how inferior their products are, how horrible their support lines can be, yet at the end of the day -- stupid amounts of money.
Yeah, but see that key difference there? Those companies are making stupid amounts of money. GW is barely avoiding bankruptcy.
EA got twice voted worst company in america. They've been having problems too. Mind you, they operate their business in a different way (eg they don't run their own stores).
Torga_DW wrote: Why? What makes 40k a valuable (in any sense of the word) IP that 'someone' is going to 'snap up'?
Established fluff, a whole product line ready to go, and customers that are already buying it. It might not be the most valuable IP in the world but it's clearly one that can make a profit in the right hands with very little work. Even a small amount of guaranteed profit is still more than zero. Of course this is assuming that GW sells before they finish running the game into the ground. If GW succeeds in killing 40k and diminishing that value then it's going to be a lot harder to find a buyer.
So basically, it's established. That's what it has going for it. Still doesn't answer the question of who? though.
Peregrine wrote: You're confusing "will inevitably die" with "will inevitably die in the foreseeable future". Obviously every game will die eventually because nothing survives the heat death of the universe. But there's no reason to believe that 40k's problems are some kind of inevitable life cycle of a game and not poor decisions made by GW. If 40k is failing it's because it's a bad game.
Why not? D&D started failing some time after 2nd edition arrived and they ending up selling the company to Wizards. Nothing really spectacular has been done with it since, yet the IP remains alive through rapid release schedules that saturate the market with product for its addicts to buy. Not just the single box of the new Space Marine gizmo you buy once every year or two. They've been releasing new stuff rapidly, might be the beginning of a similar model.
Peregrine wrote: Yeah, but see that key difference there? Those companies are making stupid amounts of money. GW is barely avoiding bankruptcy.
Between those and WotC, they're making money by diversifying and spamming new products. GW has only the one product. Of course it gets hit the hardest. Either it'll all end when someone holding up the line retires or it'll go the way of TSR and get sold to a bigger company that will continue the brand with accelerated release schedules. In both cases, I think all those things we want and would pay for would begin to actually arrive. It's not over yet!
Peregrine wrote: You're confusing "will inevitably die" with "will inevitably die in the foreseeable future". Obviously every game will die eventually because nothing survives the heat death of the universe. But there's no reason to believe that 40k's problems are some kind of inevitable life cycle of a game and not poor decisions made by GW. If 40k is failing it's because it's a bad game.
Why not? D&D started failing some time after 2nd edition arrived and they ending up selling the company to Wizards. Nothing really spectacular has been done with it since, yet the IP remains alive through rapid release schedules that saturate the market with product for its addicts to buy. Not just the single box of the new Space Marine gizmo you buy once every year or two. They've been releasing new stuff rapidly, might be the beginning of a similar model.
The fall of tsr is an interesting one, and the whole rapid release schedule was a key indicator (in hindsight) of it's collapse. Adopting a similar model might be good for the next company to acquire the 40k license, but it doesn't do much good for the current company.
Peregrine wrote: Yeah, but see that key difference there? Those companies are making stupid amounts of money. GW is barely avoiding bankruptcy.
Between those and WotC, they're making money by diversifying and spamming new products. GW has only the one product. Of course it gets hit the hardest. Either it'll all end when someone holding up the line retires or it'll go the way of TSR and get sold to a bigger company that will continue the brand with accelerated release schedules. In both cases, I think all those things we want and would pay for would begin to actually arrive. It's not over yet!
It's a good question. Wizards of the coast already have a game of their own, and it's doing considerably better than 40k is. Why would they want to pick it up, when they could just concentrate on their own better-performing game? I ask this as a hypothetical investor not a gamer, because honestly.... why?
Have those companies indicated they'd be wanting to buy?
I think the 40k IP isn't worth very much. It's not worth nothing, but the total sum of active 40k players isn't significant enough to, say, make a movie and expect it not to flop even if every 40k player went to watch it.
Torga_DW wrote: It's a good question. Wizards of the coast already have a game of their own, and it's doing considerably better than 40k is. Why would they want to pick it up, when they could just concentrate on their own better-performing game? I ask this as a hypothetical investor not a gamer, because honestly.... why?
\
To kill the game that takes up part of market. Wouldn't be first time that a company was bought, and then closed short time later.
I'd have said GW's IPs were valuable and people would want it, but looking at AoS and recent 40k codexes, not to mention what BL has become, I can't help but think it might be too late on that.
The Space Wolf codex was the last time I stopped and had a good look at getting back into 40k. I bought a few space wolves and was in the process of building them. Then the new codex came out of nowhere with murderfang murdering people with his murderclaws because of his murderlust on planet homicide. Plus the sleigh thing.
GW seems intent on running their own IP into the ground before anyone else can get a hold of it.
jonolikespie wrote: I'd have said GW's IPs were valuable and people would want it, but looking at AoS and recent 40k codexes, not to mention what BL has become, I can't help but think it might be too late on that.
The Space Wolf codex was the last time I stopped and had a good look at getting back into 40k. I bought a few space wolves and was in the process of building them. Then the new codex came out of nowhere with murderfang murdering people with his murderclaws because of his murderlust on planet homicide. Plus the sleigh thing.
GW seems intent on running their own IP into the ground before anyone else can get a hold of it.
Until I looked at GW I never thought someone would willingly kamikaze their IP just for an extra fiver this month. Shame really.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I think the 40k IP isn't worth very much. It's not worth nothing, but the total sum of active 40k players isn't significant enough to, say, make a movie and expect it not to flop even if every 40k player went to watch it.
Halo was doing it and they're not exactly in the hundreds of millions either. Any attempt at a movie would be marketed to draw in new crowds, not appease the fans (who let's face it will see it as a lore-breaking travesty with six million inaccuracies anyway). Fans read the book then say it was better than the movie.
The biggest issue isn't even with the rules. It's with the fluff. The entire Warhammer universe is not exactly "kid friendly" and relies on adults. Working adults with well-paying jobs and enough lack of a life to paint.
GW have taken over £1,200,000,000 of revenue in the past 10 years, most of it from 40K and WHFB. There's no way there isn't value in the IP. While sales have been declining for several years, that reflects problems with the rules and pricing structure, not the fundamental popularity of the game universe.
For sure, it's never going to rival Star Wars, but there's no reason to think it can't be a profitable line for someone.
Kilkrazy wrote: GW have taken over £1,200,000,000 of revenue in the past 10 years, most of it from 40K and WHFB. There's no way there isn't value in the IP.
I think the GW IP has value in the wargaming context... at least for now (the more they destroy it the less value it has). But in the wider context, I don't think there's more than 100-200k followers of 40k. I can't remember the number I calculated previously, but there was an reasonably large poll on how much people spend on 40k (in the last 6-12 months) and I remember the amount spent per person was quite high, meaning the number of people responsible for GW's revenue wasn't all that large in the grand scheme of things (compared to stuff like AAA video game sales figures or movie sales figures).
Basically GW's revenue is largely a small number of people spending a large amount of money, which is why I don't think the IP has a great value outside of wargaming and its wargaming value diminishes with each year that GW flog it for all it's worth.
Kilkrazy wrote: GW have taken over £1,200,000,000 of revenue in the past 10 years, most of it from 40K and WHFB. There's no way there isn't value in the IP. While sales have been declining for several years, that reflects problems with the rules and pricing structure, not the fundamental popularity of the game universe.
For sure, it's never going to rival Star Wars, but there's no reason to think it can't be a profitable line for someone.
The thing is though, any buyer is going to look at the declining sales figures, as well as how many customers GW has annoyed, alienated and/or pushed away (you know, the actual market research GW never does).
The question is whether a potential buyer will be willing to put in the effort required to get 40k back into the limelight. Moreover, they might well be wondering whether all those customers who left will ever come back. Even if they do make all these changes, many customers might have already moved on and found other systems they're happy with.
To put it another way, potential buyers might well feel that, whilst 40k was once a good IP, GW have simply done too much damage to it (and their customer base) to make it a good investment.
Kilkrazy wrote: GW have taken over £1,200,000,000 of revenue in the past 10 years, most of it from 40K and WHFB. There's no way there isn't value in the IP.
I think the GW IP has value in the wargaming context... at least for now (the more they destroy it the less value it has). But in the wider context, I don't think there's more than 100-200k followers of 40k. I can't remember the number I calculated previously, but there was an reasonably large poll on how much people spend on 40k (in the last 6-12 months) and I remember the amount spent per person was quite high, meaning the number of people responsible for GW's revenue wasn't all that large in the grand scheme of things (compared to stuff like AAA video game sales figures or movie sales figures).
Basically GW's revenue is largely a small number of people spending a large amount of money, which is why I don't think the IP has a great value outside of wargaming and its wargaming value diminishes with each year that GW flog it for all it's worth.
This is basically what I think. There's not nearly enough main stream appeal for a company like Disney to buy.
Have those companies indicated they'd be wanting to buy?
I think the 40k IP isn't worth very much. It's not worth nothing, but the total sum of active 40k players isn't significant enough to, say, make a movie and expect it not to flop even if every 40k player went to watch it.
Its not so much that those two have shown interest, its that GW's change in business model last year appeared to be in line with an potential buy out by an unnamed toy company, of which Hasbro was the modt likely candidate. The only other toy company with Hasbro's buying power that is also in the acquisition game is Disney. That pretty much cover "all" the posible players, seeing as Lego (#1 toy producer) has shown no interest in the Warhammer brand to date.
Have those companies indicated they'd be wanting to buy?
I think the 40k IP isn't worth very much. It's not worth nothing, but the total sum of active 40k players isn't significant enough to, say, make a movie and expect it not to flop even if every 40k player went to watch it.
I agree. Wargames are too niche to warrant attention from the big boys. X-Wing exists because Star Wars sells. D&D minis existed because D&D exists. Warhammer... has nothing really big backing it up. I don't see nor Hasbro or Disney even interested in buying GW.
Have those companies indicated they'd be wanting to buy?
I think the 40k IP isn't worth very much. It's not worth nothing, but the total sum of active 40k players isn't significant enough to, say, make a movie and expect it not to flop even if every 40k player went to watch it.
Its not so much that those two have shown interest, its that GW's change in business model last year appeared to be in line with an potential buy out by an unnamed toy company, of which Hasbro was the modt likely candidate. The only other toy company with Hasbro's buying power that is also in the acquisition game is Disney. That pretty much cover "all" the posible players, seeing as Lego (#1 toy producer) has shown no interest in the Warhammer brand to date.
SJ
So... basically you have no fething idea and thought it'd just be cool to throw out names like Disney and Hasbro
Kilkrazy wrote: GW have taken over £1,200,000,000 of revenue in the past 10 years, most of it from 40K and WHFB. There's no way there isn't value in the IP.
I think the GW IP has value in the wargaming context... at least for now (the more they destroy it the less value it has). But in the wider context, I don't think there's more than 100-200k followers of 40k. I can't remember the number I calculated previously, but there was an reasonably large poll on how much people spend on 40k (in the last 6-12 months) and I remember the amount spent per person was quite high, meaning the number of people responsible for GW's revenue wasn't all that large in the grand scheme of things (compared to stuff like AAA video game sales figures or movie sales figures).
Basically GW's revenue is largely a small number of people spending a large amount of money, which is why I don't think the IP has a great value outside of wargaming and its wargaming value diminishes with each year that GW flog it for all it's worth.
I agree. I don't it has any value outside wargaming. However within wargaming, I think there is a lot of goodwill and heritage that GW have wasted, which could very easily and quickly be brought back, and sell a lot of product.
For example, one of my biggest gripes with 6th/7th edition, is the inclusion of Forts, Apocalypse, Flyers, Allies, Formations, Etc, in the main rules. These could easily be put into optional rules, and then I would be happy and so would the people who like FAFAFE would also be happy. Everyone would be happy together, and sales would go up rather than down. GW could do this themselves, actually.
Kilkrazy wrote: For example, one of my biggest gripes with 6th/7th edition, is the inclusion of Forts, Apocalypse, Flyers, Allies, Formations, Etc, in the main rules. These could easily be put into optional rules, and then I would be happy and so would the people who like FAFAFE would also be happy. Everyone would be happy together, and sales would go up rather than down. GW could do this themselves, actually.
Sadly the whole point of 7th edition was to include things as Super-heavies in the main rules just to encourage players to buy them more. I don't know to how extent it has driven up sales though, as even WAAC hardcore tournament players have to contend with the house rules most tournaments implement, which typically aim to put limits on the use of such things.
And remember, rules are cheap. Manufacturing is expensive and GW already has that covered. So you have an IP that's already profitable despite poor management, and the things that need to be fixed are some of the easiest and cheapest parts of running a business. That's a textbook case of making a modest investment in a purchase and seeing easy almost-guaranteed returns. Even if the almost-guaranteed profit isn't huge it's still easy money.
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Kilkrazy wrote: For example, one of my biggest gripes with 6th/7th edition, is the inclusion of Forts, Apocalypse, Flyers, Allies, Formations, Etc, in the main rules. These could easily be put into optional rules, and then I would be happy and so would the people who like FAFAFE would also be happy. Everyone would be happy together, and sales would go up rather than down. GW could do this themselves, actually.
Honestly, I think that was one of the few good things about 7th. Get rid of the splits in the community and all the arguments about what should or shouldn't be legal, and have everyone play the same game. The problem was the shamefully bad execution of a good idea. If those new unit types hadn't been introduced with utterly broken rules then I think we would have seen a lot fewer complaints.
Have those companies indicated they'd be wanting to buy?
I think the 40k IP isn't worth very much. It's not worth nothing, but the total sum of active 40k players isn't significant enough to, say, make a movie and expect it not to flop even if every 40k player went to watch it.
The 40K IP is by far the most valuable thing GW owns, way above and beyond any physical infrastructure or anything else, and is probably what constitutes the majority of their value. It's worth a lot. Anyone with even limited introduction to "geek culture" has some familiarity with 40k even if they've never played the tabletop game (much like most people could see a Gundam or a Zaku and recognize them for what they are even if they've never seen a Gundam show), it's a highly recognizable IP, and aside from the tabletop game, it's got hundreds of novels & comics, dozens of videogames, and large numbers of 3rd party products.
It might not be Star Wars vluable, but it's a valuable IP nonetheless that lots of different places would pick up in a heartbeat if it were up for sale.
If GW did go under, I wouldn't be totally surprised to see the tabletop game disappear or be relegated to an insignificant backburner, but the IP live on, much like Battletech/mechwarrior,
Have those companies indicated they'd be wanting to buy?
I think the 40k IP isn't worth very much. It's not worth nothing, but the total sum of active 40k players isn't significant enough to, say, make a movie and expect it not to flop even if every 40k player went to watch it.
The 40K IP is by far the most valuable thing GW owns, way above and beyond any physical infrastructure or anything else, and is probably what constitutes the majority of their value. It's worth a lot. Anyone with even limited introduction to "geek culture" has some familiarity with 40k even if they've never played the tabletop game (much like most people could see a Gundam or a Zaku and recognize them for what they are even if they've never seen a Gundam show), it's a highly recognizable IP, and aside from the tabletop game, it's got hundreds of novels & comics, dozens of videogames, and large numbers of 3rd party products.
It might not be Star Wars vluable, but it's a valuable IP nonetheless that lots of different places would pick up in a heartbeat if it were up for sale.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree. I think a large company like Disney or Hasbro would sooner create their own IP and pay for the advertising to make it more recognisable than 40k ever is. The average advertising campaign for a movie generates more mainstream knowledge of an IP. Such an advertising campaign is expensive and out of the realm of most wargaming companies, but I think big companies would rather just pay to market an IP than buy any of GW's IPs.
The 40k IP is more of a wet dream for smaller companies than large ones IMO.
If GW did go under, I wouldn't be totally surprised to see the tabletop game disappear or be relegated to an insignificant backburner, but the IP live on, much like Battletech/mechwarrior,
I think that entirely depends how much GW run it in to the ground before they go under. In a couple of years the WHFB IP is likely going to be worth a fraction of what it was a few years ago thanks to AoS, I wouldn't discount GW doing something to ruin the value of the 40k IP as well.
Doesn't Hasbro only go after successful companies it can pick up, change very little about, and reap the rewards?
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AllSeeingSkink wrote: I think that entirely depends how much GW run it in to the ground before they go under. In a couple of years the WHFB IP is likely going to be worth a fraction of what it was a few years ago thanks to AoS, I wouldn't discount GW doing something to ruin the value of the 40k IP as well.
I'd already say the Fantasy IP is worth basically nothing and that if 40k gets a similar reboot it's value will disappear too. The reason to buy Fantasy as an IP was for the 30 years of history behind it, AoS just launched and it's only value is in the names of a few special characters at this point. It would be way easier and cheaper to make your own mildly original high fantasy setting than buy AoS.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I think we'll have to agree to disagree. I think a large company like Disney or Hasbro would sooner create their own IP and pay for the advertising to make it more recognisable than 40k ever is. The average advertising campaign for a movie generates more mainstream knowledge of an IP. Such an advertising campaign is expensive and out of the realm of most wargaming companies, but I think big companies would rather just pay to market an IP than buy any of GW's IPs.
But "recognizable" and "popular" are two very different things. Disney could dump tons of money into a marketing campaign and make everyone aware of their new IP, but there's no guarantee that people would like it. History is filled with failed IPs that never went anywhere after the initial marketing budget ran out. With 40k, on the other hand, Disney/Hasbro/whoever would a popular IP with an existing fan base. There's no worrying about whether the financial investment in marketing is going to pay off because even if they can't add any new customers at all the existing fan base is sufficient for the IP to make a profit. And that kind of guarantee is worth something.
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jonolikespie wrote: Doesn't Hasbro only go after successful companies it can pick up, change very little about, and reap the rewards?
Which is what makes 40k appealing. There's really very little that needs to be done: a new edition of the rules (easy), advertising and market research (something any decent company already knows how to do), and new management (guaranteed if you buy the IP from GW). It's a strong IP with a lot of potential that is being held back by spectacularly bad management, get rid of GW and it should turn around very easily. And remember, even with GW's current failures they're still making a profit.
I'd already say the Fantasy IP is worth basically nothing and that if 40k gets a similar reboot it's value will disappear too. The reason to buy Fantasy as an IP was for the 30 years of history behind it, AoS just launched and it's only value is in the names of a few special characters at this point. It would be way easier and cheaper to make your own mildly original high fantasy setting than buy AoS.
I don't think the two IPs have that much in common. WHFB faced tons of competition because the market is saturated with generic fantasy miniatures and there usually isn't much difference between brands. So if you take away the community's loyalty to WHFB (by making AoS, for example) there's really no reason for a new customer to pick it over KoW or whatever. But with 40k there's no competition. Nobody has a full line of models with the same aesthetic, and nobody makes a large-scale 28mm game with tanks/aircraft/etc. So with 40k you're taking over a monopoly instead of just one brand among many.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I think we'll have to agree to disagree. I think a large company like Disney or Hasbro would sooner create their own IP and pay for the advertising to make it more recognisable than 40k ever is. The average advertising campaign for a movie generates more mainstream knowledge of an IP. Such an advertising campaign is expensive and out of the realm of most wargaming companies, but I think big companies would rather just pay to market an IP than buy any of GW's IPs.
But "recognizable" and "popular" are two very different things. Disney could dump tons of money into a marketing campaign and make everyone aware of their new IP, but there's no guarantee that people would like it. History is filled with failed IPs that never went anywhere after the initial marketing budget ran out. With 40k, on the other hand, Disney/Hasbro/whoever would a popular IP with an existing fan base. There's no worrying about whether the financial investment in marketing is going to pay off because even if they can't add any new customers at all the existing fan base is sufficient for the IP to make a profit. And that kind of guarantee is worth something.
I don't think 40k is actually that popular. It's popular for a wargame, but I reckon it's still only about 100-200k customers world wide.
That's fine as a wargame.... but in the context of a big company like Disney the audience is still small enough that they'd have to see the grim darkness having a wider appeal and frankly I don't think it does have a very wide appeal.
I'm not saying I think the 40k IP is worth nothing... I'm saying I don't think the IP in and of itself is worth a whole lot outside of wargaming and even there the appeal is contingent on GW not fething it up like they are doing with WHFB and AoS.
Hasbro bought Wizards of the Coast not too long after Wizards bought TSR. That puts D&D and GI Joe under the same company. Disney bought Marvel, including all of Marvel's toy and game licensing. If GW was interested in a finacial backer, and acquisition by Hasbro makes sense. Disney's acquisition of Lucas Films and Marvel show an trend of diversifying into mature content, something Warhammer falls into.
Just saying. Was simply answering the question of which companies could purchase GW if it was an option. If GW wants a blockbuster "Space Marine the Movie", Disney has a pretty good track record.
i feel hat they are trying to make things to serious, think back to 2nd 4th and even 4th edition where they used to give you diy terrain tutorials, i never used them but they were fun.
jonolikespie wrote: Doesn't Hasbro only go after successful companies it can pick up, change very little about, and reap the rewards?
...
GW fits that bill. It's making good profits, has a legion of loyal fans, and could do a lot better if action were taken to reverse its recent decline in sales, by recruiting back the lapsed fans.
The WHFB IP isn't worthless or there wouldn't be a computer game about to launch (Total War:Hammer.) GW certainly ballsed up by canning the tabletop version of WHFB before the digital version could start to recruit new players.
That is the kind of error Hasbro could reverse after buying GW. All the artwork, moulds, text and everything you would need to reprint WHFB exists in GW's store rooms. I doubt it would take more than six months to make a 9th edition.
40K certainly has more than 200K customers, or DakkaDakka would not have 90K users, and GW would not have £110,000 K sales.
FFG is the largest threat GW faces. Right now? It's much smaller than GW, but in a short time span it's clever usage of license (star wars in particular) is allowing it to grow at an increasingly rapid and even exponential rate.
In a short period of time they've started gaining ground on GW. It could be as short as 5-10 years they could be in a position to buy up GW, and they have an interest in it. While their 40k line is not the bread winner it used to be now that Star Wars has fallen into their laps it is still their second most profitable line and it doesn't compete with the same target demographic of Star Wars.
FFG would be in the perfect position to try and buy up GW. Granted a lot can happen in 5-10 years, but if GW stays the same and or keeps shrinking then this is easily possible.
Kilkrazy wrote: 40K certainly has more than 200K customers, or DakkaDakka would not have 90K users, and GW would not have £110,000 K sales.
How many of Dakka's users are actually real people and active?
I'm trying to find it now but there was quite an extensive poll (someone polled several forums and there was a lot of responders) and if I recall correctly it put the average spent in a year around the 800 mark, which for 120M revenue puts the sum of current GW customers around the 150k mark (and that was considering a lot of people who spend almost nothing).
My googling is failing and I can't find that poll now
But we also have Chapterhouse case numbers, GW sold $1.3M worth of 5th edition rulebooks over 3 years and $0.9M worth of 4th ed Space Marine codices over its life. Weren't codices $30 back then? So you're only looking at ~30k people buying the Space Marine codex over its life and about ~20k people who bought the 5th edition rulebook. Obviously not all 40k players are Space Marine players, but it's got to be a decent chunk and I know you didn't have to buy the 5th ed. rulebook to play but you'd still have to imagine a decent chunk of people bought it.
Have those companies indicated they'd be wanting to buy?
I think the 40k IP isn't worth very much. It's not worth nothing, but the total sum of active 40k players isn't significant enough to, say, make a movie and expect it not to flop even if every 40k player went to watch it.
The 40K IP is by far the most valuable thing GW owns, way above and beyond any physical infrastructure or anything else, and is probably what constitutes the majority of their value. It's worth a lot. Anyone with even limited introduction to "geek culture" has some familiarity with 40k even if they've never played the tabletop game (much like most people could see a Gundam or a Zaku and recognize them for what they are even if they've never seen a Gundam show), it's a highly recognizable IP, and aside from the tabletop game, it's got hundreds of novels & comics, dozens of videogames, and large numbers of 3rd party products.
It might not be Star Wars vluable, but it's a valuable IP nonetheless that lots of different places would pick up in a heartbeat if it were up for sale.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree. I think a large company like Disney or Hasbro would sooner create their own IP and pay for the advertising to make it more recognisable than 40k ever is. The average advertising campaign for a movie generates more mainstream knowledge of an IP. Such an advertising campaign is expensive and out of the realm of most wargaming companies, but I think big companies would rather just pay to market an IP than buy any of GW's IPs.
The 40k IP is more of a wet dream for smaller companies than large ones IMO.
40k is an incredibly recognizable IP, it's part of why GW *can* get away with not doing any external advertising. The tabletop game is niche, yes, but the IP itself is astoundingly well known. Of everyone I know that's at all into *anything* "geek" related, everyone at least knows of Warhammer and 40k. Anyone who's been through a scifi section at a book store, anyone who's played any other tabletop wargame or RGP, anyone who's played just about any RTS or MMO, or who's into any sort of Fantasy or Scifi in general has at least heard of GW's IP's. The great thing with an IP like Warhammer or 40k is that a new owner wouldn't have to do any advertising, and 40k is already astoundingly recognizable.
Also, it wouldn't need to be another tabletop gaming company that buys the IP, there's plenty of non-tabletop value in the IP. As I said, I could see the tabletop game basically disappearing if someone else bought the IP. If GW went under, and someone like EA, Bungie, Gearbox, Blizzard, Bethesda, etc picked it up just to use for video game franchising, much the way CCP bought out White Wolf when they wanted to make a Vampire: The Masquerade game (never panned out, but they had planned to for a long while). The IP has value, and tabletop gaming is probably the least of it.
The last number I saw for 40k game sales for THQ, which was over four years ago in 2011 mind you, was 6.5 million units, it's probably safe to say that's probably around 10 million now with additional games and further time, so you're looking at video game sales over the last decade of anywhere from a quarter to a half billion dollars on that IP, and that's not even getting into things like books, FFG's 40k-based boardgames and RPGSs, comics, etc. Going onto Steam and just running a search for "Warhammer" returns a gargantuan number of titles, and that's only relatively recent stuff, not counting any of the 90's era videogames.
I think that entirely depends how much GW run it in to the ground before they go under. In a couple of years the WHFB IP is likely going to be worth a fraction of what it was a few years ago thanks to AoS, I wouldn't discount GW doing something to ruin the value of the 40k IP as well.
That's entirely possible, and unfortunately the quality of their background has notably declined in recent years for 40k as well, but that's not something we can account for really.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I'm trying to find it now but there was quite an extensive poll (someone polled several forums and there was a lot of responders) and if I recall correctly it put the average spent in a year around the 800 mark, which for 120M revenue puts the sum of current GW customers around the 150k mark (and that was considering a lot of people who spend almost nothing).
Sure, but $800/year is from people actively buying stuff. A person who finishes an army and doesn't buy anything for a while is still a 40k player and a potential customer. So it's about 150k active customers based on those numbers, and it could easily be 2-3 times that many involved in the hobby to some degree and potentially open to buying new stuff in the future. And if you cut that average purchase to $400/year you're now talking about 300k active customers and possibly a million total.
But we also have Chapterhouse case numbers, GW sold $1.3M worth of 5th edition rulebooks over 3 years and $0.9M worth of 4th ed Space Marine codices over its life. Weren't codices $30 back then? So you're only looking at ~30k people buying the Space Marine codex over its life and about ~20k people who bought the 5th edition rulebook. Obviously not all 40k players are Space Marine players, but it's got to be a decent chunk and I know you didn't have to buy the 5th ed. rulebook to play but you'd still have to imagine a decent chunk of people bought it.
But that's just purchases. That's not counting people who share a rulebook, people who bought the cheap starter set rulebook, people who just pirate everything, etc. And I suspect that the percentage of people pirating stuff is pretty high, so rulebook sales aren't the best guide.
Kilkrazy wrote: 40K certainly has more than 200K customers, or DakkaDakka would not have 90K users, and GW would not have £110,000 K sales.
How many of Dakka's users are actually real people and active?
I'm trying to find it now but there was quite an extensive poll (someone polled several forums and there was a lot of responders) and if I recall correctly it put the average spent in a year around the 800 mark, which for 120M revenue puts the sum of current GW customers around the 150k mark (and that was considering a lot of people who spend almost nothing).
My googling is failing and I can't find that poll now
But we also have Chapterhouse case numbers, GW sold $1.3M worth of 5th edition rulebooks over 3 years and $0.9M worth of 4th ed Space Marine codices over its life. Weren't codices $30 back then? So you're only looking at ~30k people buying the Space Marine codex over its life and about ~20k people who bought the 5th edition rulebook. Obviously not all 40k players are Space Marine players, but it's got to be a decent chunk and I know you didn't have to buy the 5th ed. rulebook to play but you'd still have to imagine a decent chunk of people bought it.
There are 8000 people browsing Dakka right now. If you believe 4% of the global GW customers are reading Dakka at this moment, you're grasping at straws. Also, there is no chance in hell a regular customer spends 800 pounds per year on plastic. That's two armies' worth of models. It's diehard territory.
As for the number of rulebooks, 1) not everybody buys a rulebook, some use their friend's, others pirate; 2) there's a rulebook in the starter set, and some buy it second-hand.
But that's just purchases. That's not counting people who share a rulebook, people who bought the cheap starter set rulebook, people who just pirate everything, etc. And I suspect that the percentage of people pirating stuff is pretty high, so rulebook sales aren't the best guide.
10-12 years ago if you were interested in a codex you simply went to the store and bought it. They were affordable enough to own as many as you liked. Nowadays, after the insane price hike that used the hardback change as an excuse? Not so much.
Even the non-advertised return to softback does little to alleviate this, as 33€ for a softback codex is still like twice as expensive as it should be. We're talking about something they mass-produce in China (despite what some GW fanatics seem to believe).
-DE- wrote: There are 8000 people browsing Dakka right now. If you believe 4% of the global GW customers are reading Dakka at this moment, you're grasping at straws. Also, there is no chance in hell a regular customer spends 800 pounds per year on plastic. That's two armies' worth of models. It's diehard territory.
As for the number of rulebooks, 1) not everybody buys a rulebook, some use their friend's, others pirate; 2) there's a rulebook in the starter set, and some buy it second-hand.
Maybe my estimates are way off.... I did admit you don't have to buy the rulebook to play... but only 20k rulebooks sold, I would be surprised if it was much less than 1 in 10 or maybe 1 in 20 active 40k players bought the rulebook or the SM Codex (and this was back in 4th when it wasn't so expensive). Unless I'm totally underestimating communities for which piracy is the norm (can't say I know too many people who didn't own the book for the army they collected even if they'd pirated all the others).
The figures I've seen mostly points to not many people buying a crap load of models rather than a huge fan base buying small amounts.
I'd also be interested to know how accurate those numbers of people reading Dakka is, it says right now 6000 online, 350 of which are registered users. I do wonder if most of those connections are actually unique people. Also I think it goes without saying a lot of Dakkites aren't active 40k players.
Oh never underestimate how much piracy goes on the internet, but at the same time there is nothing you can do but focus on the loyal customers you have and trying to offer stuff the pirates can't.
Look up Steam, Valve, and the history of PC piracy to know what I'm talking about.
Even to to his day every PC game sold there is probably 500+ people pirating it. However when you start to crack down on the loyal paying customers sit will only inconvenience them since pirates will ALWAYS find a way to pirate something.
No security measure (even Steam or always online) has ever stopped them completely.
So I don't doubt there is way more pirated books in circulation at all times than legitimate copies.
The other aspect is that with something like 40k, you really don't want to make people feel that they're being blatantly ripped off in terms of what they pay for rules.
Otherwise, they're much more likely to pirate them. Loyalty goes both ways - if you want your customers to stay loyal, then you can't just treat them like magpies with bottomless wallets.
Humble Bundle, Steam and GOG are the main reasons I have not downloaded a pirated game in years. I simply don't need to. I've been always unwilling to spend large amounts of money on videogames, and nowadays I simply don't need to. It's only a matter of having a bit of patience and waiting until any game I want is on a decent enough discount and I'll gladly buy it.
Other companies though, seem to believe that discounts somewhat make their products lose value, so they do not offer discounts, and since I find their products too expensive for what they are, they don't get my money.
Gamgee wrote: Oh never underestimate how much piracy goes on the internet, but at the same time there is nothing you can do but focus on the loyal customers you have and trying to offer stuff the pirates can't.
Look up Steam, Valve, and the history of PC piracy to know what I'm talking about.
Even to to his day every PC game sold there is probably 500+ people pirating it. However when you start to crack down on the loyal paying customers sit will only inconvenience them since pirates will ALWAYS find a way to pirate something.
No security measure (even Steam or always online) has ever stopped them completely.
So I don't doubt there is way more pirated books in circulation at all times than legitimate copies.
Well, Diablo 3 is still currently uncracked but that's because of the always-online with content held server-side, much like an MMO, route they took.
Which also annoyed a lot of gamers as it meant the game was physically impossible to play at all without an internet connection. Which, for a game with a single player mode, is very annoying if you do just want to play it on your own and have limited access to the internet.
vipoid wrote: The other aspect is that with something like 40k, you really don't want to make people feel that they're being blatantly ripped off in terms of what they pay for rules.
Otherwise, they're much more likely to pirate them. Loyalty goes both ways - if you want your customers to stay loyal, then you can't just treat them like magpies with bottomless wallets.
This is true.
Edit
Diablo 3 is one of the few exceptions and like I said. It had to inconvenience users greatly for that security and suffered for it. The infamous launch errors and inconvenience of always needing a connection even for singleplayer.
Gamgee wrote: FFG is the largest threat GW faces. Right now? It's much smaller than GW, but in a short time span it's clever usage of license (star wars in particular) is allowing it to grow at an increasingly rapid and even exponential rate.
In a short period of time they've started gaining ground on GW. It could be as short as 5-10 years they could be in a position to buy up GW, and they have an interest in it. While their 40k line is not the bread winner it used to be now that Star Wars has fallen into their laps it is still their second most profitable line and it doesn't compete with the same target demographic of Star Wars.
FFG would be in the perfect position to try and buy up GW. Granted a lot can happen in 5-10 years, but if GW stays the same and or keeps shrinking then this is easily possible.
FFG is not an independent company, they're subsidiary of larger gaming company Asmodee, which in turn is owned by Eurazeo investment fund. So FFG's not going to buy GW, but Eurazeo might. They could easily do it right now (the fund's assets are over 5 billion euros).
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I don't think 40k is actually that popular. It's popular for a wargame, but I reckon it's still only about 100-200k customers world wide.
Wow, what made you change your opinion so drastically in less than a year? A new edition released without my knowing? Don't you recall the last estimate? VVV
AllSeeingSkink wrote: That places the total number of players between 350,000 and 770,000.
It's actually one more in line with what I've seen calculated. Up to a million Warhammer players with even more fans that don't buy into the game anymore or only read the fluff. That's about the numbers for a popular subscription MMO besides World of Warcraft and FFXIV which have only millions. Only this game costs way more than $15/month to play.
vipoid wrote: IMO the game peaked in 5th and has only been declining since then.
Whilst not without its issues, 5th at least had a solid ruleset and allowed for a pretty tactial game.
6th fixed virtually nothing, and instead added a lot of nonsense like flyers, Riptides and WKs that belonged in Apocalypse, starting the War of Escalation that has yet to end. It then proceeded to bog down the game with a load of random nonsense and random tables. Oh, and allies were basically added as an extra pay-to-win feature. I don't think they even bothered trying to conceal it with fluff - it was just 'have you run out of slots to take the most broken units in your army? Well now you can take broken units from other armies, too!
I'm presuming that 6th was poorly received, as GW quickly brought out 7th to replace it. So, what did GW do to fix 6th? Well, they added more 6th, of course!
Instead of adding overly large units to armies, they just made all the Apocalypse units legal. Hope everyone really loves playing against those really massive units. Also, did we hear people saythat they didn't like random tables? Well here's even more random tables! In fact, here's an entire set of missions designed around just randoming stuff! Finally, did someone say that allies were broken? And that people sometimes had to take troops before they could take broken units? Well we'll just add Unbound and Formations - take only the most broken units, and we'll throw in some free bonuses! Also, are you upset that your big units can't score, and you have to actually still make use of infantry to win games? Well not to worry - now everything can score!
I guess if you like all that stuff, 7th is the edition you've been waiting for.
Either way, GW's steadily declining profits (in spite of slashing production costs and firing numerous staff), would seem to indicate that 7th hasn't been a great success. I look forward to 8th, when GW looks at what didn't work and then proceeds to add more of it.
While I agree with some of this I disagree in regard to randomizing the missions. I think that was meant to help out with keeping armies more TAC oriented. Yeah, it failed but with Maelstrom especially you can see how a more balanced list with a blend of offense, defense and mobility was supposed to work better than all-all-out war lists.
Yeah, it failed but with Maelstrom especially you can see how a more balanced list with a blend of offense, defense and mobility was supposed to work better than all-all-out war lists.
And it doesn't work at all if GW "forgets" to give your army those 3. It works well for marines and eldars with their cheap transports and bikers, and deathstars suddenly turning in to 5 or more units in last turn of game.
Yeah, it failed but with Maelstrom especially you can see how a more balanced list with a blend of offense, defense and mobility was supposed to work better than all-all-out war lists.
And it doesn't work at all if GW "forgets" to give your army those 3. It works well for marines and eldars with their cheap transports and bikers, and deathstars suddenly turning in to 5 or more units in last turn of game.
Yeah, it failed but with Maelstrom especially you can see how a more balanced list with a blend of offense, defense and mobility was supposed to work better than all-all-out war lists.
And it doesn't work at all if GW "forgets" to give your army those 3. It works well for marines and eldars with their cheap transports and bikers, and deathstars suddenly turning in to 5 or more units in last turn of game.
Gamgee wrote: FFG is the largest threat GW faces. Right now? It's much smaller than GW, but in a short time span it's clever usage of license (star wars in particular) is allowing it to grow at an increasingly rapid and even exponential rate.
In a short period of time they've started gaining ground on GW. It could be as short as 5-10 years they could be in a position to buy up GW, and they have an interest in it. While their 40k line is not the bread winner it used to be now that Star Wars has fallen into their laps it is still their second most profitable line and it doesn't compete with the same target demographic of Star Wars.
FFG would be in the perfect position to try and buy up GW. Granted a lot can happen in 5-10 years, but if GW stays the same and or keeps shrinking then this is easily possible.
FFG is not an independent company, they're subsidiary of larger gaming company Asmodee, which in turn is owned by Eurazeo investment fund. So FFG's not going to buy GW, but Eurazeo might. They could easily do it right now (the fund's assets are over 5 billion euros).
Not actually true.
They merged, they weren't bought, so they're not a subsidiary, and being owned by an investment fund doesn't mean much, technically GW is controlled by several similar organisations, collectively speaking.
I would agree that 5th was when 40k peaked. 6th edition had a decline due to the vast changes that were made (many being more complicated changes), however it was still a good edition. 7th edition started a vast and quick decline due to more expensive large units, broken formation and psychic stuff, and the addition of more rules to overcomplicate the game.
The number one reason I saw people flee from this game in 7th was the quick turnaround with the core rulebook and several other rulebooks (that were either $50 for a normal copy or $100 for a LE copy). That really peeved me... even though I continue to buy units and some LE codex books. I guess I continue on (disgruntled though) with a select few in this edition.
timetowaste85 wrote: I've noticed that most people who enjoy 7th in my area are children. Couple adults, but mostly children. Makes sense.
So now we're passive-aggressively insulting people for having an opinion?
I think it's time to lock this thread down.
That was passive aggressive and rude. And inaccurate.
I dislike 7th for many many reasons, but the reasons I dislike it may be the very reasons that others do. Everyone has different tastes and what not. No one's less of a person for liking or disliking something.
Except for steamed okra. No one should like steamed okra.
7th edition has been great for my very small, long-standing group that plays narratively, attempts to achieve a balanced, combined-arms approach to our armies and gaming, and enjoys the hobby and Black Library books. We usually don't play in stores. I think we play the game as an excuse to drink beer, cut-up, and relax.
themonk wrote: 7th edition has been great for my very small, long-standing group that plays narratively, attempts to achieve a balanced, combined-arms approach to our armies and gaming, and enjoys the hobby and Black Library books. We usually don't play in stores. I think we play the game as an excuse to drink beer, cut-up, and relax.
Unfortunately I think that's the only way it can be enjoyed.
themonk wrote: 7th edition has been great for my very small, long-standing group that plays narratively, attempts to achieve a balanced, combined-arms approach to our armies and gaming, and enjoys the hobby and Black Library books. We usually don't play in stores. I think we play the game as an excuse to drink beer, cut-up, and relax.
Unfortunately I think that's the only way it can be enjoyed.
Sad, but true. 7th is very much the edition for us beer and pretzel types. Not so much for those who want a semi-decent rule set.
themonk wrote: 7th edition has been great for my very small, long-standing group that plays narratively, attempts to achieve a balanced, combined-arms approach to our armies and gaming, and enjoys the hobby and Black Library books. We usually don't play in stores. I think we play the game as an excuse to drink beer, cut-up, and relax.
Unfortunately I think that's the only way it can be enjoyed.
Sad, but true. 7th is very much the edition for us beer and pretzel types. Not so much for those who want a semi-decent rule set.
Here, here. The thing that has become a pain is game setup and teardown. It's a function of getting older I think.
themonk wrote: 7th edition has been great for my very small, long-standing group that plays narratively, attempts to achieve a balanced, combined-arms approach to our armies and gaming, and enjoys the hobby and Black Library books. We usually don't play in stores. I think we play the game as an excuse to drink beer, cut-up, and relax.
Unfortunately I think that's the only way it can be enjoyed.
Sad, but true. 7th is very much the edition for us beer and pretzel types. Not so much for those who want a semi-decent rule set.
Here, here. The thing that has become a pain is game setup and teardown. It's a function of getting older I think.
An interesting experiment would be to try having the game group meeting just to drink beer, cut-up, and relax without playing any wargames. See how their enjoyment differs.
The Space Marine codex sales figures revealed in the Chapter House case were for North America only. The NA market at that time comprised about 30% of the total world market.
themonk wrote: 7th edition has been great for my very small, long-standing group that plays narratively, attempts to achieve a balanced, combined-arms approach to our armies and gaming, and enjoys the hobby and Black Library books. We usually don't play in stores. I think we play the game as an excuse to drink beer, cut-up, and relax.
If the rules sections like the Apocalypse stuff and Flyers were optional supplements, would you be able to to play narrative combined arms games?
I ask this because I gave up 40K because I don't like those rules, but I recognise that other people do like them, and making them optional supplements would seem to be a good way of satisfying both groups of customers.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Average sales by GW are about £120 million a year over the past few years (it has been going down and is less than that now.)
Supposing there are 200,000 customers, each must be spending £600 a year on average.
Does that seem a realistic figure? You could be a customer and buy only a couple of boxes or books a year. OTOH there could be people spending a lot more than £600.
Kilkrazy wrote: The Space Marine codex sales figures revealed in the Chapter House case were for North America only. The NA market at that time comprised about 30% of the total world market.
I thought the person who collected the data said that it was global. But maybe it was just NA.
But whatever, at the end of the day I still don't think the 40k IP is worth a hell of a lot outside of wargaming and within wargaming it's dependent on how well GW manage it before someone wants to buy it.
We actually had a thread a couple of years ago and Sean_OBrien gave his insight which I think, as a rough estimate, isn't too bad in terms of active GW customers....
Sean_OBrien wrote:Back in 2008, a former employee of mine worked for a company who did a contract for GW regarding their website...
At that time, he had said the target was around 400,000-500,000 active customers in total. I was lead to believe that that number was based off from the sales figures of their core rulebook for both games and starter sets (with cross over between the two). That meshes well with information I had gotten from retailers regarding average spending per GW customer per year and their top line sales figures in their annual reports. The figure was needed for determining load balancing and server requirements for the new GW website (yes - that monstrosity).
Take it for what it is - third hand information from an anonymous source that is several years old.
Sean_OBrien wrote:I would say that 800,000 is a very, very generous estimate of GW players...not just 40K players.
Trying desperately to stay on topic...
That document in the CHS thread has the sales figures for the 40K rulebook (4th Edition - $1.5 million covering the whole lifespan...5th Edition - $1.6 million covering the whole lifespan) and Battle for Skull Pass starter set ($1.3 million covering the whole lifespan) and the 7th Edition Warhammer Rulebook ($648K covering the whole lifespan...pretty sure it is 7th...though I don't follow WFB enough to know for sure). You can work some math...poke some numbers...do some estimates and come up with a pretty tight range that will tell you what is what.
First the estimate - is it retail values or is it GW revenue? It should be retail value based on other cases I have had to provide similar information in. So, if we take the $1.5 million in 4th Edition books sold and divide that by the $50 cover price we get a number...30,000 copies. I think 5th started at $50 as well...though it bumped up somewhere along the way IIRC...still that gives us another number 32,000 copies. The other end of the spectrum would be if all of those were at wholesale (which we know they are not) lets simply double the number. 60,000 and 64,000 respectively. Lets go ahead and double it again for the small rulebook from the starter sets (although there is no 40K starter listed that I recall - there is the WFB starter which sold twice as much as the rulebook...and cost about twice as much too - soooo...happy, simplification and assumptions). Realistically though, since the split for sales is about half through independents and half through GW - you get about 45,000 copies sold.
Worsed case reasonable guess of the 40K community at large would be 60,000 or so. Best case would be 120,000 or so. Realistic best case would be about 90,000. WFB is about half that. In the US of course - could extrapolate further using financial report numbers and the segment break down information to determine how large it is globally...just a quick speedball puts the North American market at 25% of GW total sales...to times by 4.
So, we have a range of 240,000 to 360,000 40K players and maybe another 200,000 to 300,000 WFB players (WFB being more popular outside the US...I would tend to fudge the numbers upwards even though it only put up numbers less than half what 40K did in the US). Total GW customers - 440,000 to 660,000.
Also, keep in mind...this is off memory pretty sure those numbers are close. Will double check tonight when I get home to a regular computer as opposed to using the silly tablet thing.
The Sean O'Brien educated guesstimate is more like what I would expect if GW were able to define a customer and enumerate them. Basically around about 500,000 people.
That means a spend of about £240 per head per year. This sounds reasonable to me, as it covers the case of someone buying a couple of boxes (£70 value) balanced by a big spender buying most of an army (£400.)
Despite this large number of customers, and ex-customers, (if correct) I don't believe the IP has much value outside wargaming. It doesn't look and feel like a good SF or Fantasy universe for fiction. The vast bulk of GW's revenue has always come from tabletop sales, for what that is worth as an indicator.
Yeah, it failed but with Maelstrom especially you can see how a more balanced list with a blend of offense, defense and mobility was supposed to work better than all-all-out war lists.
And it doesn't work at all if GW "forgets" to give your army those 3. It works well for marines and eldars with their cheap transports and bikers, and deathstars suddenly turning in to 5 or more units in last turn of game.
Please name the armies that don't have all three.
SJ
IG does poorly on Mobility, and has far lower Defence than necessary. Not to mention that a few armies have much higher Defence than the IG's Offensive output...
Yeah, it failed but with Maelstrom especially you can see how a more balanced list with a blend of offense, defense and mobility was supposed to work better than all-all-out war lists.
And it doesn't work at all if GW "forgets" to give your army those 3. It works well for marines and eldars with their cheap transports and bikers, and deathstars suddenly turning in to 5 or more units in last turn of game.
Please name the armies that don't have all three.
SJ
IG does poorly on Mobility, and has far lower Defence than necessary. Not to mention that a few armies have much higher Defence than the IG's Offensive output...
CSM has naff all for all three.
I'll also nominate DE - they have mobility down, but their defence is virtually non-existent, and as for their offence... let's just say they're a glass cannon minus the cannon.
vipoid wrote: I'll also nominate DE - they have mobility down, but their defence is virtually non-existent, and as for their offence... let's just say they're a glass cannon minus the cannon.
This is a major flaw in your argument - glass can still be potent. Just break it into little pieces and then you supplement your Craftworlds army with it! weeps in corner
Yeah, it failed but with Maelstrom especially you can see how a more balanced list with a blend of offense, defense and mobility was supposed to work better than all-all-out war lists.
And it doesn't work at all if GW "forgets" to give your army those 3. It works well for marines and eldars with their cheap transports and bikers, and deathstars suddenly turning in to 5 or more units in last turn of game.
Please name the armies that don't have all three.
SJ
CSM seem to be missing all three.
Obliterators cover all three conditions, as you can Deep Strike a pair on to an objective. And that's just one unit.
Yeah, it failed but with Maelstrom especially you can see how a more balanced list with a blend of offense, defense and mobility was supposed to work better than all-all-out war lists.
And it doesn't work at all if GW "forgets" to give your army those 3. It works well for marines and eldars with their cheap transports and bikers, and deathstars suddenly turning in to 5 or more units in last turn of game.
Please name the armies that don't have all three.
SJ
CSM seem to be missing all three.
Obliterators cover all three conditions, as you can Deep Strike a pair on to an objective. And that's just one unit.
Our deepstriking isn't very accurate and isn't guaranteed to happen on Turn 1. So the earliest you'll see the oblits is turn 2, maybe. It also takes more than 2 oblits to blow up a tank or kill an MC, which is what you really want them for. Attempting to coordinate enough firepower to accomplish something with deepstriking for CSM is a struggle.
Not only that, but oblits are only useful at anti-tank every other turn since they can't use the same weapons. They are about as tough as terminators, unless you take MoT or MoN. The problem with those marks is the unit becomes even more expensive and the enemy will likely use the whatever weapon is most effective (So plasma guns against MoN, or bullet spam against MoT).
You are better off using Bikers (with MoN) than oblits to capture objectives.
So really, oblits are not mobile, have some offense, and some defense. Compare them to units that do well in many categories (bikers, wraiths, wolves) and you'll see they come up short. Very short.
The DE face similar problems. The firepower a fast skimmer can put out is relatively small for how fragile they are. They are good against certain targets but fail against a larger majority of unit types.
It's very easy to lose all your skimmers by turn 2, and be regulated to a relatively slow force. Compare this to a WS, which is most likely to last until T4 quite easily, and you can see why DE fall behind.
Just pointing out the box your thinking is stuck in. The counter arguments are more justifications for narrow thinking than actual problems within a codex.
Two Oblits are extremely accurate when Deep Striking, as they have a tiny positional foot print, and carry enough firepower as well as a 2+ save to bully enemy units. Remember, my point was on taking objectives.
DE are already fast MSU by default. Failure to understand that and utilize them to their fullest is on the DE player, not their opponent. They have mobility and offensive punch, while defense occurs via multiple small units seeking cover. Objective grabbing is their thing if you avoid open ground clustering.
IG players are still stuck in Leafblower mode, when the game has moved past static gunlines. A 50man blob behind a Chimera wall won't die to a single turn of shooting, will weathe an assault, and can knock an opponent off an objective. Yet, they are unwieldy. Veterans gravshutting out of Valks are an excellent bully unit, with enough low AP firepower to clear an objective. Add in all their artillery gor softening targets before pushing, and IG has no issues winning objective missions. If they bother to try.
Yes...nobody has bothered to try new tactics in the 3 years since 5E tactics stopped working (which only worked for 3 years to begin with). Nobody at all...
Vaktathi wrote: Yes...nobody has bothered to try new tactics in the 3 years since 5E tactics stopped working (which only worked for 3 years to begin with). Nobody at all...
If by nobody you mean the above posters, based on their posts its a yes.
themonk wrote: 7th edition has been great for my very small, long-standing group that plays narratively, attempts to achieve a balanced, combined-arms approach to our armies and gaming, and enjoys the hobby and Black Library books. We usually don't play in stores. I think we play the game as an excuse to drink beer, cut-up, and relax.
Unfortunately I think that's the only way it can be enjoyed.
Sad, but true. 7th is very much the edition for us beer and pretzel types. Not so much for those who want a semi-decent rule set.
Here, here. The thing that has become a pain is game setup and teardown. It's a function of getting older I think.
An interesting experiment would be to try having the game group meeting just to drink beer, cut-up, and relax without playing any wargames. See how their enjoyment differs.
Have done it many times. I've known these guys for over twenty years. Sometimes we do everything but pick up dice. I will say, however, when we're hanging out just shooting the breeze, there's always an itch to play some kind of game even it's just a card or simple board game. It's hard to get gaming out of your system when you hang out with gamers.
jeffersonian000 wrote: Just pointing out the box your thinking is stuck in. The counter arguments are more justifications for narrow thinking than actual problems within a codex.
We could say something similar about the opposing view point. So far it's been a lot of "you guys are doing it wrong, git good" without any useful examples of what is decent in either codex.
So far, this hasn't changed.
Two Oblits are extremely accurate when Deep Striking, as they have a tiny positional foot print, and carry enough firepower as well as a 2+ save to bully enemy units. Remember, my point was on taking objectives.
I specifically addressed taking objectives. 2 oblits are not that hard to take out, and CSM deep striking is some of the worse deep striking in the game. Units that tend to deepstrike quite often usually can do so from turn 1, are extremely accurate, or have an absurd amount of firepower. Oblits, or really any unit that can deep strike in CSM outside of combi-weapon termies, don't really fit any of the above criteria.
How do oblits have accurate deep striking when compared to a pod?
To re-iterate;
Oblits are not defensively tough. 2 guys with 2+ saves is not going to bully anyone but the weakest armies.
Oblits do not have enough firepower. What exactly is 2 oblits accomplishing?
Oblits do not have accurate deep striking. No CSM unit does.
You are much better off taking bikes with MoN for objective grabbing. They can compete turn after turn, are tough, are fast, and are decent in CC. With a lord in there with the flamer, they can put out some good damage. Slaanesh with the FnP ability is also not bad, but its hard to say no to T6 bikers.
DE are already fast MSU by default. Failure to understand that and utilize them to their fullest is on the DE player, not their opponent. They have mobility and offensive punch, while defense occurs via multiple small units seeking cover. Objective grabbing is their thing if you avoid open ground clustering.
The problem is they currently don't have offensive punch. Most of the DE units just don't do enough damage for how fragile they are, with few exceptions. Cover is also becoming a worse and worse defense, as many units don't care if you get a save (scat bikes) or ignore cover (Tau). Granted, if you are facing a low tier dex like orks, you seem to have an offensive punch and relying on cover is fine. But against the top tier armies, DE don't do enough damage and fall over. De against necrons, eldar, tau, or SM is just painful for the DE player, especially with their awful anti-tank.
Even with MSU, you are still taking transports and those points do add up. Grabbing objectives may work for the first 2 turns, but by T3 (T2 against eldar/Tau), you can expect to have lost all your transports against a decent opponent.
IG players are still stuck in Leafblower mode, when the game has moved past static gunlines. A 50man blob behind a Chimera wall won't die to a single turn of shooting, will weathe an assault, and can knock an opponent off an objective. Yet, they are unwieldy. Veterans gravshutting out of Valks are an excellent bully unit, with enough low AP firepower to clear an objective. Add in all their artillery gor softening targets before pushing, and IG has no issues winning objective missions. If they bother to try.
SJ
IG are incredibly slow. The valks aren't bad, but a 50 man blob will die against Tau, necrons, or eldar without accomplishing too much. Killing 50 GEQs is possible in 1 turn for many competitive armies, and easily done in 2 turns by most. The 50 man blob with a wall of chimeras also eat up a fair chunk of points, for a unit that won't accomplish anything in melee until turn 3. Many melee units will knock that unit down without trying to hard (striking scorpions, wraiths, possbily MoN bikers, thunder wolf calvary) due to their WS 3 and S/T of 3.
Forget about scat bikes just unloading into the GEQ. Heck, even another IG player managed to wipe them out in a few turns using a fraction of the points. I'd hate to see what equivalent points in fire warriors with markerlight support would do.
Vaktathi wrote: Yes...nobody has bothered to try new tactics in the 3 years since 5E tactics stopped working (which only worked for 3 years to begin with). Nobody at all...
If by nobody you mean the above posters, based on their posts its a yes.
SJ
Tactics are only useful if they grant a meaningful mathematical advantage.
" Most of the DE units just don't do enough damage for how fragile they are
Same for BA. Same for Orks. Same for all the bad codices. Tactics can't fix this.
Kilkrazy wrote: The Sean O'Brien educated guesstimate is more like what I would expect if GW were able to define a customer and enumerate them. Basically around about 500,000 people.
Of course that's 500,000 active customers buying from GW. Even if we assume that number includes sales through independent stores (which wouldn't count for website load) it doesn't include people buying used models. So the guy who starts 40k by buying some models on ebay doesn't count at all in that 500k, even though they're a potential customer. Nor does a person who bought some stuff a few years ago, plays occasionally, and sometimes thinks about maybe buying another army in the future if they see something they like. So I would guess that the total pool of people that are involved in the hobby at some level is significantly larger than 500k.
Yeah, it failed but with Maelstrom especially you can see how a more balanced list with a blend of offense, defense and mobility was supposed to work better than all-all-out war lists.
And it doesn't work at all if GW "forgets" to give your army those 3. It works well for marines and eldars with their cheap transports and bikers, and deathstars suddenly turning in to 5 or more units in last turn of game.
Please name the armies that don't have all three.
SJ
CSM seem to be missing all three.
Obliterators cover all three conditions, as you can Deep Strike a pair on to an objective. And that's just one unit.
DE are already fast MSU by default. Failure to understand that and utilize them to their fullest is on the DE player, not their opponent.
Yes, they are MSU by default, but you don't seem to appreciate why. It's because they're so fragile (i.e. the opposite of durable) that it's not *worth* adding extra models or upgrades or even sergeants.
Well, alright, that and Venoms have a transport capacity of 5.
jeffersonian000 wrote: They have mobility and offensive punch, while defense occurs via multiple small units seeking cover.
Except that they don't have offensive punch - that's the whole problem.
Also, MSU does not equal durability. It just means you have a lot of fragile units.
jeffersonian000 wrote: DE can saturate Lance weapons, that's a pretty good offensive punch. They can have Haywire. They can do poison.
SJ
Lance spam is expensive and ineffective. The problem in the current edition is that dedicated anti-tank weapons have difficulty destroying tanks unless they are spammed, and DE have a hard time spamming lances considering how expensive their platforms are.
Hay wire is their best bet, and in their last codex you saw wyches taken exclusively for this use. Sadly this is no longer an option, and the current haywire platforms.
Take a look at Eldar. They do not uses lances (you don't even see them get mentioned) since dragons, guard, or hawks are much better at killing heavy tanks. Light tanks are better off being taken out by Str 6 spam.
De don't have these options.
Poison is very good against MC spam but falls short against GEQ and even MEQ. It's a very match up dependent ability, and it's why DE can't go up against Tau or Eldar and win.
jeffersonian000 wrote: DE can saturate Lance weapons, that's a pretty good offensive punch.
No it isn't. Lance weapons are overpriced and ineffective. There's a damn good reason you never saw bright lances in Eldar lists, even before they got access to D-weapons and such.
They weren't even great in 5th, and that was before they got completely screwed over by the new vehicle damage rules. As well as other races getting vastly superior firepower.
Single-shot haywire guns are certain not what I'd call 'good offence'. They're mediocre at best, and that's even before you take into account that only 2 units in the entire army can take them.
It was decent in 5th, but that was a long time ago. Before other armies got massive buffs, before many units got upgraded to GCs with nigh-immunity to poison, before other armies got Grav and such that *vastly* out-perform poison etc. Moreover, this is an edition where armies can consist of nothing but vehicles - which really doesn't bode well for a weapon that can only hurt infantry.
Sorry but you really are vastly overestimating the offensive ability of Dark Eldar.
No, its you guys that are vastly underestimating the tactical use of terrain to limit engagement to allow "underperforming" weapons to shine. A Raider with Lances and passengers with Blasters have more than enough "rate of fire" to murder TDA in isolation. Two of the same Raiders can kill a Knight Titan, or a WaithKnight. And by isolation, I don't mean in a vacuum. I mean between terrain to limit the engagement to just those units. Its exactly the way Podded Melta works, only on turn 2 instead of turn 1.
Also, taking an objective rarely mean killing a SH or GC. My point was about winning Maelstrom, not tabling a GC formation.
jeffersonian000 wrote: No, its you guys that are vastly underestimating the tactical use of terrain to limit engagement to allow "underperforming" weapons to shine.
You really can't admit you're wrong, can you?
Tactics do not make bad weapons good. I can't believe I'm having to say this. At best, good tactics can go some way towards compensating for bad weapons. That still doesn't make them good. Also, what happens if an opponent with better weapons also uses tactics? Then you're back to square one because your weapons are objectively worse.
jeffersonian000 wrote: A Raider with Lances and passengers with Blasters have more than enough "rate of fire" to murder TDA in isolation. Two of the same Raiders can kill a Knight Titan, or a WaithKnight.
Okay, let's try this.
2 Raiders with Dark Lances, each containing 5 Trueborn with 4 Blasters. Hell, let's add a Dracon with a Blast Pistol to each squad as well. Since obviously 6" range and a target that can move twice as fast as you is nothing tactics can't overcome.
So, 14 Darklight shots. 9.3 hits. 4.66 wounds. 3.11 wounds after FNP.
Under the most optimal conditions possible, your two squads have taken off only half the WK's wounds. And, these two squads cost 200pts each (215 if you want Night Shields). That's 800pts to kill the WK in one turn, and that's assuming that it has no cover or shield, and that you can get all 4 squads within 6" of it.
Frankly though, I see no point in continuing this. You've provided nothing but demonstrably fallacious arguments, coupled with L2P ones that make it clear you haven't a clue what you're talking about. Well, I'm done arguing with you. Welcome to my ignore list. I hope your stay is a pleasant one.
jeffersonian000 wrote: No, its you guys that are vastly underestimating the tactical use of terrain to limit engagement to allow "underperforming" weapons to shine.
Doubtful. One of the reasons good units are good, and oblits are not, is because they are fast enough to utilize terrain due to their better speed.
If you are speaking about Raiders, it's hard to hide as many raiders as you are likely to field, considering the size of the tank. Many of the better anti-tank units are dropping in or are extremely fast as well. I don't know how you would hide 4-5 raiders from bike squadrons or drop pods.
A Raider with Lances and passengers with Blasters have more than enough "rate of fire" to murder TDA in isolation.
I...don't really know what this is in reference to. TDA without some sort of re-rollable invul save is pretty bad. Nobody takes termies.
We were discussing how 2 oblits are fragile, you don't need a raider to kill them. RoF from small arms will do it without some sort of re-roll.
Two of the same Raiders can kill a Knight Titan, or a WaithKnight. And by isolation, I don't mean in a vacuum. I mean between terrain to limit the engagement to just those units. Its exactly the way Podded Melta works, only on turn 2 instead of turn 1.
First off, 2 raiders don't fire enough lances to kill a knight of either variety. The blaster is a close range gun, that is inferior to the melta, you may not get to fire it. Knights are incredibly fast and have great long range fire, they can eliminate the raiders pretty easy (2 hull points).
Drop pod meltas pump out 3 superior anti-tank shots for similar points to a raider squad and can target rear armor trivially. And can do it turn 1, before the unit can fight back (though really you want 2 pod units min for a knight).
If you see the two as equatable then I don't think we can have a conversation. Drop pod meltas are superior in most ways to raider lances.
Also, taking an objective rarely mean killing a SH or GC. My point was about winning Maelstrom, not tabling a GC formation.
SJ
Taking an objective can sometimes involve killing something, which 2 oblits can't do, or moving where you need to be quickly.
Oblits can't do either of these things, which make them bad objective grabbers.
MoN bikers are much better. Both are inferior to marine bikers to objective grabbing.
This discussion of 7th edition seems to have bogged down in the minutiae of Dark Elves for some reason.
Is it possible to relate this back to the main topic? I am sure we all recognise that imbalance, weak units and weak codexes are hardly a new feature introduced by 7th edition.
Yeah, it failed but with Maelstrom especially you can see how a more balanced list with a blend of offense, defense and mobility was supposed to work better than all-all-out war lists.
And it doesn't work at all if GW "forgets" to give your army those 3. It works well for marines and eldars with their cheap transports and bikers, and deathstars suddenly turning in to 5 or more units in last turn of game.
Please name the armies that don't have all three.
SJ
IG has no mobility , 0 defenses compering to other armies and no offense compering to other armies. Ah and it is impossible to build a Deathstar too.
IG players are still stuck in Leafblower mode, when the game has moved past static gunlines. A 50man blob behind a Chimera wall won't die to a single turn of shooting, will weathe an assault, and can knock an opponent off an objective. Yet, they are unwieldy. Veterans gravshutting out of Valks are an excellent bully unit, with enough low AP firepower to clear an objective. Add in all their artillery gor softening targets before pushing, and IG has no issues winning objective missions. If they bother to try.
A 50 man blob arrives on an objective on turn 2, maybe 3. By that time the opposing player burned through half the mission deck and is wining so much throwing the game is more viable. Vets come turn 2 and are one unit and struggle to kill anything, but the most basic stuff. They can't kill a deathstar, there are too many msu units for one vet unit to do any impact and they do nothing to armies with super durability like Necron. And the clearing part is not even that easy. One unit of vets to kill a transport and 5meq that went down or a jinking bikers may not be enough. Ah and the unit of vets costs a lot more then all msu units. And I don't know what artilery part is suppose to mean. Wyverns are ok vs armies that aren't played horde non meq lists. All other artilery units die to marine alfa strikes and stuff like scater bikes. Plus they cost an arm and a leg for what they do. Two lemman russes cost like a WK and bring two battle cannons that do nothing.
Crimson Devil wrote: Well, It is incumbent on you to explain said logic chain since you just made it up.
Incorrect. I questioned which armies lacked mobility, offensive punch, and defensive resilience, because all armies have all three. This as in response to Maelstrom. What follow with others explaining how DE and IG can't kill a WraithKnight, which of cource has absolutely nothing to do with Maelstrom. If you note in my posts, I kept pointing out that my responses were to winning Maelstrom, although I did address how the same units can be use to counter Knights.
Crimson Devil wrote: Well, It is incumbent on you to explain said logic chain since you just made it up.
Incorrect. I questioned which armies lacked mobility, offensive punch, and defensive resilience, because all armies have all three. This as in response to Maelstrom. What follow with others explaining how DE and IG can't kill a WraithKnight, which of cource has absolutely nothing to do with Maelstrom. If you note in my posts, I kept pointing out that my responses were to winning Maelstrom, although I did address how the same units can be use to counter Knights.
SJ
That's a pretty gross misrepresentation of what is being discussed.
We discussed why CSM lack mobility. All they have is bikers, because their deep striking is pretty bad (you had mentioned oblits). We also discussed their lack of offensive punch/defensive abilities as well, since 4 wounds in TDA isn't anything to write home about in today's meta.
We discussed why DE also lack offensive and defensive punch. You claimed 2 raiders could kill a knight. We then discussed why this is very hard for the raiders to do.
Since you have to capture objectives in maelstorm turn after turn, you need units that will survive and be mobile turn after turn.
This makes units like MoN bikers, regular Bikers, Teleporting CentStars, Scatbikers, Wave Serpents, wraiths, and destroyers pretty good at it. These units also have a decent offensive punch (except for the MoN bikers), so they can contribute to the battle.
Raiders are mobile, true, but it's not uncommon to lose all of them turn 3 barring a LoS blocking terrain heavy battlefield. They lack offense and defense, meaning de, despite their speed, aren't well suited for maelstorm when compared to Eldar.
Not every objective will be under a Knight Titan or WraithKnight. DE, IG, and CSM have units that are fast enough to reach objectives while being shooty enough to take them and resilient enough to hold them if needed. All the discussion provide was that in a vacuum, posters fear change, fear big models, and don't play with enough LoS blocking terrain.
TheAvengingKnee wrote: You have mentioned the MoN bikers a few times as worse is this because they don't get grav weapons or is there another reason?
edit:undoing auto correct
I'm going to assume you were referring to me.
There are several reasons why MoN bikers are worse than regular bikers in SM.
1) T6 isn't as good as it used to be.
With many higher strength weapons in the game (Str D, Str 6 has become quite common as well, or Grav Weapons) not caring about high T, the T 6 isn't that much better than a T 5 anymore. T6 used to be amazing because it was immunity to most small arms, since they needed a 6 to wound and got to then deal with a 3+ save on top of that. The T6 was expensive but worth it.
Now it's not nearly as good due to these new weapons. Grav is pretty common sadly considering how popular marines are, and Riptides can delete a unit of bikers as well. Might as well make them cheaper. The way wound allocation works, regular bikers can have a disgusting combat lord who is absurdly tanky in the front absorbing shots. MoN bikers can't compete.
2) Their offense output is bad, relatively speaking.
When they first released, their offence was good, since a few special weapons and bolters was considered standard for a squad. They also were pretty good in CC and could fire and assault.
Now other bikers have scat guns, grav weapons, hit and run chapter tactics, or are something disgusting like Wraiths/Blades/TWC. Out of the bikers you still see getting taken, they are probably the weakest offensively now. The SM lord's equipment makes a mockery of anything Chaos can take.
Tl;dr
Their toughness isn't as relevant anymore and their offense is subpar.
Jeffersonian,
The problem is they have some units that are fast, some units that are tough, and not a lot of units that have offensive output (Though IG do have some).
Raiders are fast, but die to a stiff breeze and don't have the best firepower. It's not bad but it certainly isn't great. They can capture objectives in the first part of the game but will often be trivially (basic infantry can do it in most armies) removed from the game.
MoN bikers are tough but lack offensive output. They are weak against the high strength templates/grav weapons you see commonly these days.
IG have...I don't know what IG have that are fast. I imagine drop troops of some kind, though they suffer from their inability to capture objectives turn after turn.
TBH, the wraithknight doesn't care about LoS blocking terrain. It's insanely fast and is tall. If any model is going to ignore LoS blocking terrain, it'll be that creature. Slow moving IG tanks and oblits care a lot more about having fire lanes blocked than a jumping GMC.
Martel732 wrote: "and don't play with enough LoS blocking terrain. "
Some battlefields, indeed many in history, are legitimately rather wide open. Not every general will choose to fight in a clogged area.
Game balance shouldn't revolve around something as arbitrary as terrain. Ie, I shouldn't have to cower behind a wall to have a chance.
We'll have to agree to disagree here Martel.
I do wish GW had better examples of tables, and better terrain/LoS rules. I find that, especially in my specialist games, this becomes a bit of a headache. We've had to basically allow each player to set up terrain in turn to get around it, and it still becomes a bit of a challenge to deal with.
I think I prefer WMH, where certain people (because they are incredible generals or mages) can place extra terrain on the board. It'd be pretty cool if more redeployment/terrain placement was allowed by people who are supposed to be excellent generals.
Akiasura wrote: No lol.
The idea that terrain can't be used for balancing. Other games manage it, but GW needs to incorporate terrain into the rules better.
It CAN be, but shouldn't HAVE to be. Big difference. Armies shouldn't auto lose to Eldar or Tau on sparse maps. If that's how you intend to balance, then assault armies need to have built-in terrain requirements, which would be very bizarre.
7th is pretty fun if your playing Eldar, space marines, tau, or necrons! If you don't play any of those armies or don't wish to ally into one of them then your better off not playing in this edition. I'd recommend playing 5th ed or just putting 40k off until a new edition comes out or your army gets the same type of codex the big 4 have (not likely).
I can tell you what we IG have that is fast and can capture objectives:
Nothing
Nope
Jack diddly squat
Feth all
Still nothing
They said we have a fast attack section around here..... But all I can find are slow walkers and massively overpriced cavalry....
Still nothing over here
Elites here - we have some one use tissue paper infantry that can deepstrike... Provided you dont mind paying through the nose for them.
This corner is barren too
They blow up if an Eldar farts too close to them. A 12/12/10 tank the requires you to get right up in your opponents face but has no real defensive measures and too little damage output to clear enough of the enemy to prevent the inevitable assault is dead in this current meta. They also cost absurd amounts too. [Edit] Oh, and I nearly forgot, they are not scoring units either (thankyou Gdubs for that one).
master of ordinance wrote: They blow up if an Eldar farts too close to them. A 12/12/10 tank the requires you to get right up in your opponents face but has no real defensive measures and too little damage output to clear enough of the enemy to prevent the inevitable assault is dead in this current meta.
They also cost absurd amounts too.
[Edit]
Oh, and I nearly forgot, they are not scoring units either (thankyou Gdubs for that one).
12/12/10 is actually far more efficient against Eldar than any marine tank. There's a chance a 5 man scatbike squad fails to kill it. That's $$. AP 3 torrent ignores cover is also $$.
master of ordinance wrote: They blow up if an Eldar farts too close to them. A 12/12/10 tank the requires you to get right up in your opponents face but has no real defensive measures and too little damage output to clear enough of the enemy to prevent the inevitable assault is dead in this current meta.
They also cost absurd amounts too.
[Edit]
Oh, and I nearly forgot, they are not scoring units either (thankyou Gdubs for that one).
12/12/10 is actually far more efficient against Eldar than any marine tank. There's a chance a 5 man scatbike squad fails to kill it. That's $$. AP 3 torrent ignores cover is also $$.
Only the AP4 is torrent. The AP3 requires me to quite literally face feth the target to get any real hits.
Elysian Drop Troops are fast, but like Tyranids, I don't want to be shoe-horned into playing a certain type of list just to compete (even though Elysians are the only part of the AM that I like).
I don't like static gunlines, but I can see the appeal to them for some players and they shouldn't be punished just for liking something.
7th went vertical while neutering charges vis random distance and pulling models from the front. Line of sight blocking terrain fixes these issues by screening melee units until they can close the distance. Maelstrom fixes static, dull play by forcing players to plan out how to achieve specific objectives in order to win, which favors mobile units. Combined, proper terrain and Maelstrom style missions force players get into one on one engagements between units rather than half the armies invalidating the other half because you are playing on an open battlefield. Not playing Maelstrom and not using proper terrain leads to pretty much every complaint against 7th.
Yes, GW fubbed it on their poorly pasted terrain rules. That doesn't mean go back to 5th Ed thinking while complaining about all these overpowered formations; it means noting that this edition requires vertical thinking, planning to move, anf hugging cover.
It's funny that you think the game requires thinking, vertical or otherwise.
Once the lists are written and the models deployed, there's next to no thinking required. Far too many random rolls, far too few options (move or don't. Shoot or assault, maybe) Barring statistical improbabilities, most experienced players could look at two deployed armies and more or less accurately forecast a turn by turn breakdown of what will happen.
GW is afraid of drawbacks and remove player choice in favour of random rolls at any given chance. Outside of list building there's next to no thought needed.
Azreal13 wrote: It's funny that you think the game requires thinking, vertical or otherwise.
Once the lists are written and the models deployed, there's next to no thinking required. Far too many random rolls, far too few options (move or don't. Shoot or assault, maybe) Barring statistical improbabilities, most experienced players could look at two deployed armies and more or less accurately forecast a turn by turn breakdown of what will happen.
GW is afraid of drawbacks and remove player choice in favour of random rolls at any given chance. Outside of list building there's next to no thought needed.
jeffersonian000 wrote: All I can say is that most likely your problems with the game are due to your lack of thought in playing it.
SJ
He might have that? Or it might be due to this not actually being a game but a platform for GW to force the sales of models. Overpowered stuff doesn't necessarily exist solely by accident. Nerf this, buff that, make X amazing, it all drives sales. Balanced games don't move as much product as power creep.
So... how is 7th doing?
A long, slow, circling of the drain.
It is still here, a little chewed but still active.
The other new games are chewing at their market share but increasing model kit selling price has been a stopgap... for now.
Made to order formations are the new method of minting money.
Luthon1234 wrote: 7th is pretty fun if your playing Eldar, space marines, tau, or necrons!
I play Necrons, and no, it isn't.
Want to compare your not fun to the not fun people like IG or orcs have?
He might have that? Or it might be due to this not actually being a game but a platform for GW to force the sales of models. Overpowered stuff doesn't necessarily exist solely by accident. Nerf this, buff that, make X amazing, it all drives sales. Balanced games don't move as much product as power creep.
Then why don't they make all units at least good? They almost manged it with eldar and am sure their models sell nice. In the case of some armies people are limited to 2-3 types of units. GK for example use terminators, NDKS, draigos who probably everyone proxies with a terminators, libies who are terminators too and that is it. Unless they run ally other units types are not realy worth buying. I am sure it would help GW sells figures a lot, if suddenly dreadnoughts or land raiders were something useful.
Realy? necrons get a powerful decurion and more then a few good units, which get even better with the said decurion. And DE get what , spikes on models?
Makumba wrote: Realy? necrons get a powerful decurion and more then a few good units, which get even better with the said decurion. And DE get what , spikes on models?
Pretty much.
Bear in mind, I'm not saying Necrons aren't powerful, just that they're not fun.
I find their mechanics dull and (ahem) lifeless, with nothing interesting or involving. More importantly though, every time I play them it's cler that my opponents aren't having fun. I know full well that not being able to kill anything makes for a dull game, and that basically sums up the new Necrons.
jeffersonian000 wrote: All I can say is that most likely your problems with the game are due to your lack of thought in playing it.
SJ
Nope. Insulting much?
Nope. Responding to the suggestion that the game involves little thought. People stating that the game is both unbalance and not mentally challanging seem to be missing to parts that balance the game by making you think.
Makumba wrote: Realy? necrons get a powerful decurion and more then a few good units, which get even better with the said decurion. And DE get what , spikes on models?
Pretty much.
Bear in mind, I'm not saying Necrons aren't powerful, just that they're not fun.
I find their mechanics dull and (ahem) lifeless, with nothing interesting or involving. More importantly though, every time I play them it's cler that my opponents aren't having fun. I know full well that not being able to kill anything makes for a dull game, and that basically sums up the new Necrons.
I have no idea what ones own fun has to do with others having fun, but powerful and unfun seems like a paradox, something like unhappy rich people.
Azreal13 wrote: It's funny that you think the game requires thinking, vertical or otherwise.
Once the lists are written and the models deployed, there's next to no thinking required. Far too many random rolls, far too few options (move or don't. Shoot or assault, maybe) Barring statistical improbabilities, most experienced players could look at two deployed armies and more or less accurately forecast a turn by turn breakdown of what will happen.
GW is afraid of drawbacks and remove player choice in favour of random rolls at any given chance. Outside of list building there's next to no thought needed.
Judging by most of the questions asked in the Tactics and army list forums, I'm convinced most of the posters on Dakka (and on other forums) still play eternal war missions. Their lists will either stay in their deployment zone and pew-pew, or just run at their opponent in an attempt to punch them. No great thought given to the missions until turn 4/5.
Maelstrom (despite it's many faults) make's the game a lot more interesting and requires the player to think from turn 1.
I have no idea what ones own fun has to do with others having fun, but powerful and unfun seems like a paradox, something like unhappy rich people.
Maybe it's because I play with friends? And it's not fun making them miserable.
But I play with friends too and with family. I have yet to see any person give up their own fun for someone else to have it for free, and there is no return mechanic in w40k, as the next time you play you and your opponent have exactly the same models.
Maelstrom (despite it's many faults) make's the game a lot more interesting and requires the player to think from turn 1.
But it is only true for some armies. If my opponent is not another IG list and does 3 missions turn 1, and I do 1 or non, then the game is more or less over, sometimes it is ever when we roll missions and even that we have house ruled to be more user friendly.
Maelstrom (despite it's many faults) make's the game a lot more interesting and requires the player to think from turn 1.
Except that it doesn't. It requires far less thought than EW, because there's no need whatsoever to plan ahead. You don't need to think about reaching objectives on the other side of the board by the end of the game. You don't need to think about which objectives to abandon (temporarily or otherwise), and which to protect. You don't need to think about whether it's worth trying to claim an opponent's objective, or whether to just try and shoot him off it.
Instead, your decisions are practically made for you. Moreover, there's no requirement for long-term commitment. If you're asked to hold an objective, then you only need to hold it that turn and can hop right off it next turn with no penalty.
Furthermore, points are frequently awarded for no thought whatsoever. A GK player is asked to cast a psychic power. Wow. I bet he really had to think hard about that one. Where would we b without Maelstrom to provide is with these deep, tactical decisions?
And then you have missions that you can't possibly complete, because you're asked to kill something the enemy doesn't have. Can you kill a flyer the enemy doesn't have? Amazing. Maelstrom has brought us beyond mere tactics and into deep philosophical questions.
Indeed, maelstrom games are tactically rather limited.
Atm, we prefer the missions from the HH book one or three in our 30k games. More flexible and eternal war alike.
jeffersonian000 wrote: All I can say is that most likely your problems with the game are due to your lack of thought in playing it.
SJ
Nope. Insulting much?
Nope. Responding to the suggestion that the game involves little thought. People stating that the game is both unbalance and not mentally challanging seem to be missing to parts that balance the game by making you think.
Oh man, all this GW hate is getting so old. We get it - you think the game sucks, so move along people. Don't try to ruin it for other people who enjoy the game. 40k is what it has always been - an amazingly rich, interesting fluff combined with cool models. If you are having a problem with balance, it is because of your gaming community, not the game. It was never meant to be competitive, so if people are trying to max/min units, trying to break the game at every turn, then that is what is going to happen. From the very beginning, GW was interested in making cool models and writing fluff, not produce a tournament game. It is what has always happened with that type of player. It really isn't complex. Just agree what type of game you want to have, then play it. Don't like playing against Gargantuan Monstrous Creatures - cool, just speak up. Someone shows up with all Imperial Knights and you have a Nid swarm list? Then don't play against the person. Done. Blaming GW for the choices made by players is just ludicrous. If you are looking for an internally balanced tournament game, then, seriously, you need to go elsewhere. 40k has never been that way. The core rule book has always favored one style of play over another, which has always either boosted or hurt more specialized armies.
If you are looking to have fun with some friends, then the game has never been better. It has far more options, models, combinations than ever. 7th is my favorite edition since I started playing 20 years ago.
Grumblewartz wrote: Oh man, all this GW hate is getting so old. We get it - you think the game sucks, so move along people. Don't try to ruin it for other people who enjoy the game. 40k is what it has always been - an amazingly rich, interesting fluff combined with cool models. If you are having a problem with balance, it is because of your gaming community, not the game. It was never meant to be competitive, so if people are trying to max/min units, trying to break the game at every turn, then that is what is going to happen. From the very beginning, GW was interested in making cool models and writing fluff, not produce a tournament game. It is what has always happened with that type of player. It really isn't complex. Just agree what type of game you want to have, then play it. Don't like playing against Gargantuan Monstrous Creatures - cool, just speak up. Someone shows up with all Imperial Knights and you have a Nid swarm list? Then don't play against the person. Done. Blaming GW for the choices made by players is just ludicrous. If you are looking for an internally balanced tournament game, then, seriously, you need to go elsewhere. 40k has never been that way. The core rule book has always favored one style of play over another, which has always either boosted or hurt more specialized armies.
If you are looking to have fun with some friends, then the game has never been better. It has far more options, models, combinations than ever. 7th is my favorite edition since I started playing 20 years ago.
jeffersonian000 wrote: All I can say is that most likely your problems with the game are due to your lack of thought in playing it.
SJ
Nope. Insulting much?
Nope. Responding to the suggestion that the game involves little thought. People stating that the game is both unbalance and not mentally challanging seem to be missing to parts that balance the game by making you think.
SJ
40k. Balanced.
Good Sir, do you perchance play Eldar?
I play a pure Grey Knights list setup to beat Maelstrom rather than my opponent via Jump, Shunt, Gate, and Deep Strike. More thought goes into winning each turn than goes into sitting back for three turns before worrying about turns 4, 5, and 6. If I can beat you by turn 3 by being better at achieving random objectives throughout the game than you are, regardless of which random cards I might draw, its because I planned for it and stayed strategically minded during the game. Figuring out how to take an object on the other side of the table now involves more thought than trying for the same objective 4 turns from now.
I'll admit, against an opponent that tends to not move, its pretty easy to win when I'm not only willing to move but planning to. And its possible to win without killing a single unit, or losing a single unit, which takes pressure off having to table to win. Versus an opponent to goes for the kill, it easy to kite them through favorable terrain into a position were I have the advantage. If I need to table my opponent to win, I'm prepared to dismantle their army over the course of the game if necessy.
Which one of us is thinking, and which one of us is just rolling dice?
jeffersonian000 wrote: All I can say is that most likely your problems with the game are due to your lack of thought in playing it.
SJ
Nope. Insulting much?
Nope. Responding to the suggestion that the game involves little thought. People stating that the game is both unbalance and not mentally challanging seem to be missing to parts that balance the game by making you think.
SJ
40k. Balanced.
Good Sir, do you perchance play Eldar?
I play a pure Grey Knights list setup to beat Maelstrom rather than my opponent via Jump, Shunt, Gate, and Deep Strike. More thought goes into winning each turn than goes into sitting back for three turns before worrying about turns 4, 5, and 6. If I can beat you by turn 3 by being better at achieving random objectives throughout the game than you are, regardless of which random cards I might draw, its because I planned for it and stayed strategically minded during the game. Figuring out how to take an object on the other side of the table now involves more thought than trying for the same objective 4 turns from now.
I'll admit, against an opponent that tends to not move, its pretty easy to win when I'm not only willing to move but planning to. And its possible to win without killing a single unit, or losing a single unit, which takes pressure off having to table to win. Versus an opponent to goes for the kill, it easy to kite them through favorable terrain into a position were I have the advantage. If I need to table my opponent to win, I'm prepared to dismantle their army over the course of the game if necessy.
Which one of us is thinking, and which one of us is just rolling dice?
SJ
And of course, codex power levels have absolutely no effect on a player's ability to win.
jeffersonian000 wrote: All I can say is that most likely your problems with the game are due to your lack of thought in playing it.
SJ
Nope. Insulting much?
Nope. Responding to the suggestion that the game involves little thought. People stating that the game is both unbalance and not mentally challanging seem to be missing to parts that balance the game by making you think.
SJ
40k. Balanced.
Good Sir, do you perchance play Eldar?
I play a pure Grey Knights list setup to beat Maelstrom rather than my opponent via Jump, Shunt, Gate, and Deep Strike. More thought goes into winning each turn than goes into sitting back for three turns before worrying about turns 4, 5, and 6. If I can beat you by turn 3 by being better at achieving random objectives throughout the game than you are, regardless of which random cards I might draw, its because I planned for it and stayed strategically minded during the game. Figuring out how to take an object on the other side of the table now involves more thought than trying for the same objective 4 turns from now.
I'll admit, against an opponent that tends to not move, its pretty easy to win when I'm not only willing to move but planning to. And its possible to win without killing a single unit, or losing a single unit, which takes pressure off having to table to win. Versus an opponent to goes for the kill, it easy to kite them through favorable terrain into a position were I have the advantage. If I need to table my opponent to win, I'm prepared to dismantle their army over the course of the game if necessy.
Which one of us is thinking, and which one of us is just rolling dice?
SJ
And of course, codex power levels have absolutely no effect on a player's ability to win.
Of course not, what a preposterous idea!
I am sure a CSM/BA player has just the same winning chances as a Eldar spamming WK and scatterbikes...
Grumblewartz wrote: Oh man, all this GW hate is getting so old. We get it - you think the game sucks, so move along people. Don't try to ruin it for other people who enjoy the game. 40k is what it has always been - an amazingly rich, interesting fluff combined with cool models. If you are having a problem with balance, it is because of your gaming community, not the game. It was never meant to be competitive, so if people are trying to max/min units, trying to break the game at every turn, then that is what is going to happen. From the very beginning, GW was interested in making cool models and writing fluff, not produce a tournament game. It is what has always happened with that type of player. It really isn't complex. Just agree what type of game you want to have, then play it. Don't like playing against Gargantuan Monstrous Creatures - cool, just speak up. Someone shows up with all Imperial Knights and you have a Nid swarm list? Then don't play against the person. Done. Blaming GW for the choices made by players is just ludicrous. If you are looking for an internally balanced tournament game, then, seriously, you need to go elsewhere. 40k has never been that way. The core rule book has always favored one style of play over another, which has always either boosted or hurt more specialized armies.
If you are looking to have fun with some friends, then the game has never been better. It has far more options, models, combinations than ever. 7th is my favorite edition since I started playing 20 years ago.
Here Here!! Exalted for truth!
I never really understood why so many GW hater linger and troll the boards just hating all over the game. If you don't like it, don't play it... and let the rest of us enjoy it!
7th is my favorite edition since 2nd... and my gaming community is loving it, too!
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