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Yes, add me to the list.

While I will still buy the odd character or box of infantry for my Mordheim activities, I used to buy every Codex/Army Book released and built up a number of 1000pt armies.

1. I disliked the 'scaling up' of a what was supposed to be a skirmish game. 40K is now Epic in 28mm.

2. They abandoned the aspect I truly loved which is the modelling of scenery and terrain. Now while I freely admit this is never going to make them vast sums of money (aside from selling modelling guides perhaps), it is what adds depth to the hobby. Do the Hornby crowd play with trains on prefabricated train set boards? No, because the entire point is making your own stuff. Ok, modelling terrain may not be the entire point of Warhammer for some people, but it was a large part of it for me.

 -DE- wrote:
I can just picture those high-level executives stopping by a Warhammer store in their Lamborghinis, buying a single plastic Space Marine Captain to put on their desk as a status symbol for all their subordinates to see.

In fact, Warhammers should simply get it over with and hang up a sign on the door, saying "No peasants allowed". Would be much quicker than these endless, clumsy policies and relentless price bumps.

And eventually they will have one customer - Donald Trump, who will mount gold plated Space Marines in every bedroom in the Taj....

The Auld Grump

We wrote:If you have been out for 5 or more years you are not part of the problem. You haven't been in the equation so long you are not a factor.

I helped convince a friend to not run an annual 40k tournament that usually gets 40ish people. He quit playing when 8th dropped so soon after 7th and was still going to rent the hall and put on the event anyway as the edition change was really unexpected and he felt too many of his gaming buddies expected him to put in the weekend anyway. A bunch of us had a chat about how giving up an entire weekend to run an event for a game you don't play isn't a realistic expectation for anyone. The weekend came and went at the end of summer and the event didn't happen.

People buy and build armies for events like this. They talk about it like "For the next X-con, I think I'm going to make a Nurgle army-- I really like those new Forge World models that came out" and they buy the stuff and make the army and show up with it painted at the event. So I know this is going to (indirectly) cost GW money.

When you run a business based on word of mouth advertising for a hobby that is profoundly social in nature (people playing games and talking shop with one another) you can develop a local cadre of evangelical customers who will selflessly spread the good news of your product to their friends. A veritable volunteer sales force. Or... you can create an anti-sales force that will take the opportunities that arise to show people alternatives to your product or provide reasons to not go with your company.

I think the remaining GW customers have entered into fortress mode now. Every friend contemplating an alternative set of rules or miniatures is one more potential opponent who evaporates. Enough of those and local events and gaming nights stop being scheduled. And when key motivators and action oriented individuals switch to something else, it can spell the end for a local group of 40k players. I think the hostility from the only-40k crowd is largely because they know that their approach and preference really is threatened. The next person that switches games or quits in their local area really could be the tipping point that ruins everything for them.

#I'mpartofthereason even though I haven't played 40k since late 4th.

---

 frozenwastes wrote:
He quit playing when 8th dropped so soon after 7th

I think that you mean 6th to 7th. 8th edition will only come out next year.

PhantomViper wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:
He quit playing when 8th dropped so soon after 7th

I think that you mean 6th to 7th. 8th edition will only come out next year.

- I get the edition numbers of WFB and 40k confused given how rapidly 40k is catching up to WFB. They used to be 3 editions apart, now they're down to 1.

I have bought an alarming volume of 40k miniatures, starting up several fresh armies, over the past few months....

....and every single one (bar two exceptions) has come from eBay and has required varying degrees of salvage!

I vowed to never purchase from GW again as I watched WHFB (once my favourite pastime without question) devolve into gigantic, over-the-top monsters and the over-reliance on 'lolrandom' factors with the advent of 8th edition, and the fluff of 40k (once my favourite setting) degenerating into schoolyard fanfiction. That's not to mention the frankly appalling practices, behaviour and attitude of the company itself, the decreasing quality of their products, the creative bankruptcy present in their new ideas, and of course, the astronomic and constant price rises I stopped being able to justify as far back as the Dark Angel Veterans leaping from £12 to £15 for no appreciable reason. 7th edition 40k may well be the most ridiculous and idiotic thing of all and I reserve a special level of disdain for it.

What once was unconditional fanboy-ism on my part (I distinctly remember dismissing Warmachine in its early days because of that, a fact I'm not proud of) has been turned to a violent hatred, and I'll confess to a spiteful bias against them, wanting them to collapse as 'payback' for what they have done to games and universes I cared a great deal for - certainly I go out of my way to steer others clear of them, and to make snide comments about them in relevant conversation (and sometimes in irrelevant conversation too - such is my anger). It's a little over the top in its vitriol, perhaps, but that is the relationship the company has fostered.

As for the slew of 40k armies I mentioned at the start of the post, well, me and a friend play a house-ruled version of 5th ed 40k, because we both still like some of the older (3rd-5th ed period)models, and the universe. We just both ignore GW as an entity, and have divorced what we liked from any connection with them.

So I suppose, indirectly at least:

#I'mpartofthereason

One of the things I've noticed is that previously when someone had a break from GW, they would often come back, and try a new faction etc

Now they leave and try a while new system, and I think thats the difference.

Where I live there used to be GW bunker and another store which both (circa 5 years ago) had thriving games nights. Both of those no longer happen, and you go to the local clubs (which have only really started since this void occurred) and there's whilst GW games still get played there are people trying and playing other things, it's just easier to get these now, and the alternatives steal people away