Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fc36Is_6yZw

That should bring you up to speed about my opinion on 40k right now. Having not even reached a year into the hobby I think I am done with 40k. I started right at the end of 6th and getting 7th didnt seem like much to me at the time. I even remeber reading the amazing fluff and stories for each race and battle. I can still see myself as I found out what the Horus Heresy was and all the little stories of each primarch was (yes I was a big noob). But now GW has seemed to wreck 40k beyond repair. I mean really, unbound? Formations? I have no problems with these army list guidelines/configurations at all but when its abused, say having only riptides etc is whats going to happen and whos to stop people? Id like to think GW was thinking of having narratives with one player bringing everything he has in his pure AM army vs another players collection of SM in a fun, laid back enviorment to blow a couple hours and have someones collection pitted against another. Now yes you could not play with said people who abuse this system but when you and your friend are the only ones who dont play by the proper rules (not doing unbound) frankly investing a couple hundred dollars into the hobby just to play my friend over and over again is not my idea of warhammer. My Idea of warhammer is when 2 STRUCTURED (Force Org.) armies face eachother and see who comes out on top. Not throw the best and broken units together to win no matter what. Sure you can spam 3 riptides, have at it but when its 9, 10 and Ive even seen 11 riptides being fielded its just too ridiculous. Yes I want to win, but at the cost of 12 grav centurions all with tiggy? No. Sure you dont get Obj. secured but who cares when youve killed every unit your opponent has? But I dont know, what are your guy's thoughts or opinions?

Same gak, different day. I guess people have finally gotten sick of it.

Im not watching yet another "hitler freaks out" video, there are better ways to articulate.

Locally in the last 2 years I have watched the 40K environment wither to a point where there are less than 10 regular players. Even for Quarterly tournaments turnout is less than 16 people.

I will say this. Previously there were divisions in place by GW for the style of games people wanted to play. Combat patrol, full 40k and Apocalypse. Now 40k 7th edition is anything and everything. all of these players are in one big pool and thats where the problem starts. People are trying to create division of how they want to play but nobody agrees.

Dont want to run unlimited CAD/Allies? you're playing the game wrong.
Dont want to play against super heavies? you're a f**king coward.
Dont want to play against forge world? you're a waac piece s**t that doesnt want to "shake up the meta".

My only advice is carve out a local gaming group and be very up front about how everyone wants to play.

7-th has brought a relief to 40k. Our local club is seeing 4 new players in the last month and more are coming. While during the 6-th, half the guyz stopped playing and only those with tournament minmax lists were happy.

I don't get the hate towards unbound. Hasn't 6 allready been unbound with allies and detachments? With everyone just bringing a min troop tax to sit in the backfield.

Superheavies except for rare few like trans c'tan are reasonable and even underwhelming sometimes.

Maelstorm of war is a great thing. It actually inspires board controle and variety. You can't just sit back for the whole game blasting away your opponent and hope to win on the last turn. Or fly around with a single deathstar and hope to win a point game.

Seems about the same, but I live in a small college town, so our numbers fluctuate wildly.

It's pretty hard to tell for me. I only started getting involved in 40K stuff as 7th was coming out, so I have no clue what the scene was like before. There are still plenty of tournaments going on and the local players seem pretty happy too.

40K already died years ago in my hometown in Hungary, even before 6th came out. I don't know about the rest of the country, but I suspect things are looking pretty grim. Most people have low salaries, which makes expensive hobbies impossible to pursue and last I checked, GW has no official presence in Hungary and aren't even willing to ship to retailers.

Normally, I'd be freaking out because of this, as I'll most likely be moving back there in a year or so, but luckily I have a few friends who are just starting the game. I won't be spoiled for choice with my opponents, but I don't mind much. Back when I started playing WHFB I played the same friend twice a month and we still had plenty of fun!

Who cares? Honestly, it seems people have freaked out over every edition of 40k, because somethings always wrong.

I like 7th. It aint perfect, but vehicles are more tanky as they should be and unbound allows for some fun games, especially if you are playing teams because you don't have to rely on having enough troops or going over your FA slots.

40k is well and alive in my LGS, due in part to Friday night fights and some tourneys, but also due to the interest of the players.

If you hate it, stop playing. There are plenty of other good games out there, don't waste people's time on another 40k doom and gloom thread.

I think 40k is dying in my area. Fantasy pretty much died with the last edition changed and shriveled to about 3 regular players relative to the then 40 or 50 regular 40k player. With this change in edition 40k is now shriveling. The main FLGS has been doing less restock because of it. "40k night" is slowly becoming inundated with gamers who would rather break out other miniature games, such that its almost just a generic miniature game night. There have been 40k nights where no one showed up to play 40k. There are no less than 10 regular 40k players.

I've only just started gaming again properly and I've got to say that in my local area it seems to be booming.

Thursday nights have at least 10 gamers
Fridays have stuff going on but I don't really go
Saturday day large scale Apoc games or you can hire a table

And you're always able to get a pick up game if you want.

The more I travel the more I realize just how bad off the game really is (at least in the U.S.). Many stores have dropped it altogether and replaced it with other games (X-Wing, Warmachine/Hordes, Dropzone Commander, Malifaux, etc). Those stores that do sell it are often handicapped by Games-Workshop itself due to the steadily increasing number of web-exclusives and delayed orders. Heck, even those stores that do sell it would often rather drop it for another game when you ask the owners. Add to that an aging player-base and a lack of fresh blood and you quickly find that many of the 40k groups that do exist are drying up.

Whatever your opinion though, Games Workshop has certainly done its best to earn itself a black mark to many an LGS and many players. They are losing the war of attrition.

OP, I think the message here is "It's only dying to you."

40k isn't dying down under. Its dead.

I'll simply inter it onto a golden throne, and continue its quest for dominence.

 PastelAvenger wrote:
I've only just started gaming again properly and I've got to say that in my local area it seems to be booming.

Thursday nights have at least 10 gamers
Fridays have stuff going on but I don't really go
Saturday day large scale Apoc games or you can hire a table

And you're always able to get a pick up game if you want.

Hire a table? Please explain.

From GW's financials it would certainly appear they're moving less product. Adjusted revenue is down almost 50% from a decade ago, with significantly higher prices, both in absolute and inflation-adjusted terms, while for the last few years revenue has been somewhat constant (with, again, increasing prices every year). The only explanation is simply that total sales volume is decreasing.

That's not surprising. Prices have risen out of pace with inflation, there is more competition and they have a much higher profile, while substitute products are likewise more readily available, while they've simultaneously tried to cut their retailers out of as much of the pie as they can and turned their website and publications from hobby sites loaded with lore and battle reports into poorly managed sales catalogs.

I wouldn't call it the "end of GW", but they're certainly not on a great track.

 jonolikespie wrote:
40k isn't dying down under. Its dead.[/quote
Yep

I hope so, then 5 years after DOA = FFG buys the rights and actually makes a good game out of it.

Maybe the tournament scene is suffering, but I couldn't care less about that. The local club has lots of games all the time with new players seem to be showing up frequently. For all the doom and gloom around the no FoC thing (which that crushingly witty video featured) I've seen a total of one unbound army across the table from me and I destroyed it with a battleforged army.

 jreilly89 wrote:

If you hate it, stop playing. There are plenty of other good games out there, don't waste people's time on another 40k doom and gloom thread.

You, sir, get an exalt.

Not really. Lots of people picking up Fantasy instead in my area, but 40k/30k still has a solid following.

 Nightwolf829 wrote:
The more I travel the more I realize just how bad off the game really is (at least in the U.S.). Many stores have dropped it altogether and replaced it with other games (X-Wing, Warmachine/Hordes, Dropzone Commander, Malifaux, etc). Those stores that do sell it are often handicapped by Games-Workshop itself due to the steadily increasing number of web-exclusives and delayed orders. Heck, even those stores that do sell it would often rather drop it for another game when you ask the owners. Add to that an aging player-base and a lack of fresh blood and you quickly find that many of the 40k groups that do exist are drying up.

Whatever your opinion though, Games Workshop has certainly done its best to earn itself a black mark to many an LGS and many players. They are losing the war of attrition.

That's become a bit of a problem in my area. We have one game store (brick and mortar with online shop) within driving distance, which carries GW, had terrain made for 40k, LOTR and WHFB for players to freely use, regulary 40k/WHFB nights and regular tournaments. At first they weren't allowed to use official pictures from GW in their webstores, then they recieved no more prize-support for their events, then they had to cut down most of their GW lineup, as much of it went from retail, to direct order only. Now the only events that take place are FoW, Infinity and WMH, the owner started providing tables and terrain for 10/15 mm games and slowly, what was once a 90% GW environment with a few Magic players, changed into one where the GW systems almost ceased to exist. Only a few 40k games now and then, WHFB is almost dead.

While they still might be selling and making profits, it might not have been wise to treat independent stores the way they did.

With 7th we saw new players in our local gaming group, and for the first time we have enough people interested in a friendly local tournament. So, no, nothing dying here, rather flourishing.

Dying is subjective, but IMHO 40k (and GW in general) are on the decline. I live in an area with 4 game stores within a 40 mile radius (could even be more than that). Only one (albeit the largest one) has 40k going on regularly, at the others its nonexistent largely because people have left GW for other, better written and supported (talking about community interaction) games. And of course all of those are a drop in the bucket to the MtG crowd which is the real thing those stores cater to.

I think that GW's unwillingness to adapt and react to the market is declining 40k as they keep trying to push their vision of the game (which incidentally is also the most profitable) on everyone regardless and refuse to balance the game, write concise rules or stop believing the lie that they sell models and not a game.

For me personally I would play the game if the rules were clear and the models didn't cost an arm and a leg for a minuscule amount of points in-game, but since they don't do that I choose not to play even though I know I have a community.

I am fine with 40k. However, people in my community is switching to fantasy recently due to the release of Nagash. Once the excitement with the great Necromancer is done, I hope to see more Warhammer 40k in store.

I play weekly at a club with maybe 15 regulars, 30-40 irregulars, with at least one new face almost every week.

I've never seen a super heavy fielded outside of apoc games. The players with competitive lists are all very up front about them. A couple people (myself included, I'm too much of an engineer to not be ensnared by the Mechanicus) play FW, and the rule is ask first and bring an extra copy of any rules for your opponent to have for reference. Never been an issue.

Dead? I'm not seeing it.

 jreilly89 wrote:
don't waste people's time on another 40k doom and gloom thread.

What a strange statement to make.

Is your willpower so incredibly weak that you feel compelled to enter and read every single thread that pops up on the forum, thus resulting in a waste of your time when threads that you don't like pop up?

Using the advice that you gave to the OP about the game, shouldn't people who dislike threads like this simply... not go into them?

This type of question will never have a definite answer - what does "dying" even mean in this context?

All you'll get in the way of answers is anecdotes, which are totally worthless from a statistical point of view (doesn't mean they can't be interesting to read though).

40k might not do as well as it used to, but obviously it still sells, and people still play it. In some areas people may have shifted to other systems, which isn't that strange given the amount of interesting and fun games available during this period of wargaming history.

I'd like to see a breakdown by country how people think GW is doing. It seems the Americans view Gw as more on a decline that the British, but this is too small a group to get accurate information.

Either way, GW's financial reports show that they are selling less product. In some areas it may be doing better, but overall the average is that it's losing customers.
My local (re-opened) FLGS is phasing out GW and growing more of the other games like WM/H, Infinity, Relic Knights, DZC, etc.

I can't say that it's dying, but it's continuing to lose hit points.

 Acephale wrote:
This type of question will never have a definite answer - what does "dying" even mean in this context?

Drastically falling sales is probably a good indicator.
Either less people are interested in the game or the people who are still interested are less so.
When the market around you is growing and you're shrinking, you're dying.

7th edition is fantastic providing you're not No need for this part. Please don't insult other users like this. reds8n

"Hey I'm looking for more of a casual game, are those the only models you brought today?" and then play someone else or suck it up and courteously ask them to bring a battle forged/fluffier unbound list next week.

Maelstrom is amazing. I've seen some pretty fun themed unbound lists, especially for armies that suffer at low-ish points. All 7th edition has changed from 6th is a slight revision (streamlining in my opinion) of the basic rules and the options to play in a ton of different "game modes."

40k is the Austria-Hungary of the gaming world: the decaying power that fails to incorporate its heavily-fragmented interior in an efficient way that could satisy everyone, that shocks the entire world by its mere existence year after year.