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Wouldn't surprise me 40K rules wise is a steaming pile of crap. Cant wait to see 7th go and have 40k AoS'd. Get rid of some of the old guard

No matter how bad 40k is I can't believe it would sell less than another terrible game.

I game at a HUGE FLGS and I think just BaC outsold all of AOS

40k may be in a pretty sorry state right now, but I don't see AoS as being any better.

GW is just abysmal at writing rules, and that's it.

Seems like standard bullgak from Taco Bell.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Do they add Betrayal at calth and Burning of Prospero to that number?

That's a good question. If GW sees 30k as separate from 40k, then AoS could easily be outselling non-30k 40k.

 Easy E wrote:
Haven't played since 5th edition.

Haven't played since 5th edition as well

All I can do is add an anecdote.

Locally, in the major city I play in, 40k is fairly alive and active, as is AoS.

40k gets played *fairly* regularly, mostly revolving around big competitive events with the same people, maybe once or twice a month.

AoS has a massive event that rotates stores every Friday, pulls in 10-15 players easily, and is constantly gaining new people.

Locally- GW is dying on the vine.

AOS gathers dust on the shelves, and 40 K is giving way to Warmahordes, Malfaux, and X Wing.

On a stranger note, Bold Action is coming up in conversations...

The pricing is killing the appeal across the board, and people are just outright losing faith in GW.

 Grot 6 wrote:
Locally- GW is dying on the vine.

AOS gathers dust on the shelves, and 40 K is giving way to Warmahordes, Malfaux, and X Wing.

On a stranger note, Bold Action is coming up in conversations...

The pricing is killing the appeal across the board, and people are just outright losing faith in GW.

Not so sure. You talk about price killing the appeal yet Warmahordes is dong the same. They have some very high prices as well. Not as ludicrous as most GW products, but still very high.

GW dying? No. This was said 20 years ago, and GW is still around. They will still be around. Will they die? No. Will they become as successful as they once were? Time will tell. Right now I don't think they will. They will just tread water. They won't sink but they will not rise above to what they once were.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sorry, but do you guys actually enjoy playing 40k right now? Rules As Written?

No, because at this point it has become too convoluted. There is way too much you need/have to think about and process while playing the game. I love the universe and hope it never changes, but it is no longer an easy game to pick up and learn. Thats why I haven't bothered with 40k in a while, I have however enjoyed all of the individual thematic boxed games they have been doing. You guys keep mentioning warmahordes and other games, and I just don't see the appeal in them. They don't have the universe and delicious IP, the coolness factor is lacking on every level. I will admit X wing is great, armada is as well...even though its more tricky to master.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sorry, but do you guys actually enjoy playing 40k right now? Rules As Written?

Exaulted.

No. Just no. I got a few games in this year before the other 2 players left Delhi, and no, they were not fun. Painting was fun. Talking to the other guys was fun. My homebrew spaceship corridor scenario was fun.

But designing armies, juggling formations and combinated arms and so, so many special rules and rolling for psy powers...

Not fun, not fun at all.

hmm

Multiple ways to get at the core rules and army lists at multiple price ranges. Start collecting boxes that form a better core to an army. Lots of shiny new model ranges with solid rules I could see a combination of low barrier to entry and good models = lots of sales.

In my area the wargaming group has gone almost exclusively warmahordes and 30k with a side of killteam. I do see about as many people picking up AOS kits for hobbying as I see 40k sales, but warmahordes has taken over. Most of the group have several established 40k armies so there is no need for more. Or in my case no point in adding to my orks and chaos beyond a couple of paint projects.

But we don't have a time frame or know what and how they are counting this so, lets wait for the financial reports.

At my local GW both games are pretty strong but speaking with a relatively new player (to both 40k and fantasy/AOS) he is drawn a little bit more to AOS for it being a little easier to get into and enjoy.

At Independent retailers... or at least the ones that have GW game players over there... 40K is still kind of king.

In my bedroom... GW is gak... the cats are the top of the pop... all hail cats... (they have scout, infiltrate, and rending... and pooping)

I've spenet a fortune this year at GW, probably the most I've ever spent with them. But looking at what I bought could back up the above statement.
Betrayal at Calth (30k not 40K)
Burning of Prospero (likewise)
Start collecting Nurgle (which category does this go to)
Start collecting Khorne (as above)
Execution Force (is this placed in seperate category?)
Several boxes of Direwolves to convert to Flesh hounds (AoS)
Screamers of Tzeentch (?)
Flamers of Tzeentch (?)
Start collecting Orks (the only definate 40K)

GW's still dead around my way even mentioning AoS will see you laughed out the shop.

X-wing and Armada still the most popular with 9th age and kow having some traction.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Do they add Betrayal at calth and Burning of Prospero to that number?

That's a good question. If GW sees 30k as separate from 40k, then AoS could easily be outselling non-30k 40k.

I can see it happening if you count WHQ and the last chance to buy stuff as being AoS sales. But without any actual details, it's impossible to tell.

Anecdotally, here, AoS is never mentioned, people are selling off WHFB armies for cheap, and there's still a few 40K games on the go. But we're a smallish club of mostly older gamers, where boxed games have totally taken off.

Herzlos wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Do they add Betrayal at calth and Burning of Prospero to that number?

That's a good question. If GW sees 30k as separate from 40k, then AoS could easily be outselling non-30k 40k.

I can see it happening if you count WHQ and the last chance to buy stuff as being AoS sales. But without any actual details, it's impossible to tell.

Anecdotally, here, AoS is never mentioned, people are selling off WHFB armies for cheap, and there's still a few 40K games on the go. But we're a smallish club of mostly older gamers, where boxed games have totally taken off.

Slightly different situation here - with some WHFB armies being eBayed, and others repurposed for Kings of War.

Honestly, I think that which game is doing best is which game has a strong supporting local group of players.

Locally, Kings of War has one, and AoS does not, so the KoW group gets their game played, and the game gets more people - in a positive feedback loop.

AoS started with its worst foot forward - the game may be vastly improved from what it was on first release, but that initial offering soured a lot of people on the game. (And with good reason - it was pretty darned bad when it first came out - and I know that I have not bothered looking at it since. It was downright insulting.)

Oddly, I think having Kings of War to fall back on has made people a bit less bitter about GW - rules matter, and the Kings of War rules don't care where the minis come from.

The Auld Grump

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Oddly, I think having Kings of War to fall back on has made people a bit less bitter about GW - rules matter, and the Kings of War rules don't care where the minis come from.

Oddly, Kings of War is a block game and doesn't really need any minis at all.

I could see AoS outselling 40k as there's only so many Space Marines one can own (although I seem to be collecting a Chapter these days), although I personally really enjoy 40k 7th edition and I find it takes the lion's share of my gaming time these days. My gaming group is currently doing 40k, AoS, Infinity, and just started with Dropfleet Commander.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Oddly, I think having Kings of War to fall back on has made people a bit less bitter about GW - rules matter, and the Kings of War rules don't care where the minis come from.

Oddly, Kings of War is a block game and doesn't really need any minis at all.

This is true of every miniature game where the only thing that matters is the base and not the vertical space of the miniature. You can play 40k or AoS with coins if you make some LOS assumptions. WM/H even goes so far as to have the entire volume of each base defined in the rules.

I don't actually believe AoS is outselling 40k unless 40k stagnated hard. Or there was a particular poor array of 40k releases while there was a particular strong array of AoS releases and naturally for that tiny period they sold in higher numbers that is only an artifact of a release cycle. Even then, I'm guessing that random purchases of items from the existing Space Marine product line would outsell all of AoS for any given period.

Davor wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:
Locally- GW is dying on the vine.

AOS gathers dust on the shelves, and 40 K is giving way to Warmahordes, Malfaux, and X Wing.

On a stranger note, Bold Action is coming up in conversations...

The pricing is killing the appeal across the board, and people are just outright losing faith in GW.

Not so sure. You talk about price killing the appeal yet Warmahordes is dong the same. They have some very high prices as well. Not as ludicrous as most GW products, but still very high.

GW dying? No. This was said 20 years ago, and GW is still around. They will still be around. Will they die? No. Will they become as successful as they once were? Time will tell. Right now I don't think they will. They will just tread water. They won't sink but they will not rise above to what they once were.

Locally.

THAT is the key word in the context. See my illustrious poster that posted right before I did.

On my end, it comes down to a couple of points of discussion to elaborate, but at the end of the day- Gaming is honestly in flux right now, and there are ALOT of different aspects that have to do with the large spread of discussions.

1. AOS gathers dust on the shelves, and 40 K is giving way to Warmahordes, Malfaux, and X Wing.[i]

No one locally is interested in this new game. The fact that there were a few Fantasy Players that honestly felt themselves shafted by the development of this radically different agenda by GW, combined with a price hike at the time, and the whole, "Well, we destroyed the old world, sucks to be you." feel that came out of left field from GW that in turn lead to the change of leadership and developments in the meta game.

X Wing, Warmahordes, and Malfaux have local represented support because of a very solid community that run events, support the game with tournys, and the local area is easy on getting both new product, and resale/ trades. Apparently there has been an ongoing steady run of players for Warmahordes that have been slow and steady, and they pull in new and older players that haven't played since 1. ( Me included. I agree on the buy in, and the update on my end is in tune, card decks and books alone, to the tune of 100.00. 20.00 each for two card decks to start and a 60.00 new rulebook.

(They are adding in the small rulebook with the box to battle crews, now, as well... So that is a major appeal. 1 box of caster and two to three jacks/ beasts, and a infantry crew- at basic cost of around an extra 100-120.00 USD. The new guy pops everything out, puts it together, and brings it to the table, almost within 2 hours. As compared to- 200-500.00 per a basic army for GW. You buy a basic GW army, and your bringing it in maybe 2 weeks to 3-4, depending on your commitment.

X wing, right out of the box- then the community always has extras for sell/ trades.

Malfaux is touch and go, and the ongoing local RPG does have its crowd as well.

and Bolt Action/ Konflict 47 is strangely bringing in the old dust players, and new players as well. "Gotta be the mechs. WW2 doesn't hurt- either."

2. The pricing is killing the appeal across the board, and people are just outright losing faith in GW.

The price is the deal breaker. YES, Warmahordes has a buy in of around 200 bucks, but that helps when the rules do not change all that much, you get a rerelease of the "New" rules if you want to, and if not, there are plenty of ways to get the rules for free, Figures stay pretty much the same, you can still use your old lickies and chewies, and add in as time goes by. And like I said, there are a slow and established crowd of the players that have been playing for years that have always been there, and understand the environment that they have developed for the game.

Pricing for games that have appeal and a strong audience are offset by their community themselves. They help each other with the pricing issues.

End of the statement here needs a disclaimer- YOUR local community dictates YOUR perception. just because my area is lacking doesn't mean that some of these other new games, such as the Warhammer quest stand in, 30K games, and specialist games are not jumping the shark.

I'm trying to scare up an audience for Necromunda, and am strangely finding people who don't even have an idea that this is even a game. O.o

GW's pricing have hit breaking point. Ones or twos, a paint or two start breaking the bank, people end up buying less trading, or buying secondary market. I'm going to go ahead and call it that there will be plenty of sales soon, and one shot armies, and also armies built from boxes broken down and sold piecemeal...

How much does an army cost is the end of the day question that runs people off.

 frozenwastes wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Oddly, I think having Kings of War to fall back on has made people a bit less bitter about GW - rules matter, and the Kings of War rules don't care where the minis come from.

Oddly, Kings of War is a block game and doesn't really need any minis at all.

This is true of every miniature game where the only thing that matters is the base and not the vertical space of the miniature. You can play 40k or AoS with coins if you make some LOS assumptions. WM/H even goes so far as to have the entire volume of each base defined in the rules.

I don't actually believe AoS is outselling 40k unless 40k stagnated hard.

KoW defines block size in the rules and is a pure 2D game. RAW 40k is TLOS, so you're houseruling the game a lot. The difference that you are missing is that KoW can be played with blocks of wood representing the unit, whereas 40k and WMH and so on are all individual model games. KoW, you don't move individual models with squad coherency. Nor are models glorified wound markers.

Now that I'm looking, I see a LOT of anecdotes that AoS is bringing in a lot of new blood, not 40k.

hobojebus wrote:
GW's still dead around my way even mentioning AoS will see you laughed out the shop.

X-wing and Armada still the most popular with 9th age and kow having some traction.

Where do you live out of curiosity, Hobo? :-)

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Davor wrote:
What is the meaning of Taco Bell here? To me they are a fast food chain.

It's a direct measure of the quality of the clickbait gak that passes for an article on their site.

It seems as if you perhaps already knew the answer to your question then?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Oddly, I think having Kings of War to fall back on has made people a bit less bitter about GW - rules matter, and the Kings of War rules don't care where the minis come from.

Oddly, Kings of War is a block game and doesn't really need any minis at all.

News flash - no miniatures game really needs miniatures - paper counters can be used just fine. (Heck, there were editions of WHFB and scenarios therefor that came with just that.)

People will often test their KoW game with paper outlines, but in actual play the least that I have seen has been PDF miniatures glued to the appropriate base.

People like having their minis - and given a choice between a cardboard rectangle and a nice block of painted troops, most will choose the block of painted troops.

The Auld Grump

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

KoW defines block size in the rules and is a pure 2D game. RAW 40k is TLOS, so you're houseruling the game a lot. The difference that you are missing is that KoW can be played with blocks of wood representing the unit, whereas 40k and WMH and so on are all individual model games. KoW, you don't move individual models with squad coherency. Nor are models glorified wound markers.

So 40k is a 'lots of small blocks of wood' game compared to KoW's larger blocks of wood. And KoW saves you the time of removing small blocks of wood when the dice go against you rather than just keeping count before you remove the large block of wood.

I really don't see what your point is.

As for the subject title. My local anecdote is that a few people buy AoS stuff to paint. 40k is slowly dying but a few excited teenagers are buying up armies cheap as people sell up and move on.
The main games seem to be X-wing, Bolt Action and whatever is the current new kid on the block - which comes and goes. If people want to play fantasy, it's KoW or Frostgrave.

Wow, you guys are really fething defensive about KoW... I did not expect that at all.

But my point would be that nobody needs to buy AoS to play KoW.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Wow, you guys are really fething defensive about KoW... I did not expect that at all.

But my point would be that nobody needs to buy AoS to play KoW.

While that may have been your intent (Which I honestly rather doubt) that is not what you wrote. And if it was what you meant then there was no reason to post - even if you do consider KoW to be a block game then it does not matter, because people are using miniatures.

In point of fact, the only reason to use miniatures with any miniatures game is that they look good - my point was that rules matter, and right now GW does not have good rules.

And in the final measure, nobody needs to buy either KoW or AoS to play either game.

Both have rules available for free, and as I pointed out, neither really needs miniatures.

At this moment, in the local market, folks would be more likely to buy AoS miniatures for Kings of War than they would to buy them for Aos - nobody is playing AoS, even in the GW store.

It is not a choice between people buying AoS miniatures for Aos or buying them for KoW - the game for AoS is not one of the choices that people are making.

It is a choice of what miniatures are people using for Kings of War - where the price of the AoS miniatures sends people to Reaper Miniatures instead. (I know that you are a GW fan, but the price of AoS miniatures are ludicrous, while the price of Reaper Bones are not.)

Most people are adapting WHFB models that they already have, and using Bones for the bigger monsters. More WHFB miniatures are being used for Kings of War than Mantic miniatures. There are some armies built with Mantic model, but more are adapting the older armies - in part because they like the models better, and in part because they already have them.

On topic, I would take the claim that AoS is outperforming 40K with an entire salt mine - there are still folks playing WH40K locally, but AoS is a rotting corpse at this point.

The Auld Grump

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Wow, you guys are really fething defensive about KoW... I did not expect that at all.

But my point would be that nobody needs to buy AoS to play KoW.

Defensive? Not really. I thought my statement was a pretty neutral description of how I assumed you viewed miniature games.

But thanks for making your point clear. And you're right. No-one needs to buy AoS to play KoW.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sorry, but do you guys actually enjoy playing 40k right now? Rules As Written?

I guess I'll be the only one to say yes. I've played since 4th ed and I gotta say, I enjoy 7th very much. RAW and everything

It is a bloated mess? Sure and I would enjoy some simplification.
But considering that 90% of the draft FAQs were how I was playing it anyway, I like 7th ed just fine. But I'll probably like it when it gets AoS'd.

You should also consider that I have rejected video games and any non-GW table top games, so my opinion is heavily biased. 40K all day every day

OK, fair enough, then!