When you buy a warhammer 40k kit, very often there are options that are in the rules that can't be achieved without purchasing of additional bits, or kits.
It seems to me that the player who is willing to drop the $ on the extra bits or kits is often going to be a -sometimes severe- advantage over the player who is not.

Compare this to a game like Warmachine which is not really much less expensive (not the point of this thread) but doesn't have the kind of menu of options that a 40k model has. Everyone who buys that kit has the same options. The same seeming to be true for Infinity.

It seems that 40k is fairly unique this incentivising of the purchase of additional bits beyond the purchase of the unit itself. I realize that there are many generic games (many of which I play where the options are even wider) but -among games that sell their own miniatures- are there other games that do the same or is this mostly a 40k thing?

Somewhat of a tangent.
There have always been some GW copycats, but It is somewhat ironic that as GW produces both the models and rules, it is really their own actions which have created the recent (last 10 years) market for the 3rd party bits producers which in many cases have expanded into ranges of GW-compatible complete models.

It's only an issue if the people you play with are really anal about WYSIWYG.

Diablo 3

BLah i was going to say d3.

but basically any pay to win mmo.

Well, it isn't a miniatures game, but Magic: the Gathering will eat up your money if you're wanting to stay competitive. It's even worse if you decide you want to get into the Modern or Legacy formats, or if you're the "flavor of the month" type player.

Here's an example of a hypothetical deck that would cost over $7,000 to build with average condition cards:

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=732125

Saldiven wrote:
Well, it isn't a miniatures game, but Magic: the Gathering will eat up your money if you're wanting to stay competitive. It's even worse if you decide you want to get into the Modern or Legacy formats, or if you're the "flavor of the month" type player.

Here's an example of a hypothetical deck that would cost over $7,000 to build with average condition cards:

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=732125

Oh yeah MTG, it's like warhammer 40k, only more expensive and a lot more addictive . Been clean for years now, but have fond memories of playing with friends around 15 years back

With 40k I suppose the reasoning is that in order to sell more kits they encourage the kitbashing option, or only have certain options as expensive kits eg: land raider.

I disagree with the underlying premise, as so many of the "premium" options simply don't exist.

I can't say there is incentive to buy IG camo cloaks or carapace armor, because you can't* buy them.

Maybe if you actually gave some specific examples.



* Barring monopose figures or metal models with extraneous options.

As others have said, it doesn't make any difference as long as other players don't insist on the official option for everything.

Computer games are different, of course.

It is all about what is important to you. My group is pretty relaxed and loves to play the game. But at the same, time we look down on players who have craptasticaly painted models or models that are poorly converted or not the official model. But we are not the WAAC players that bring power lists with the most cheese you can stuff into a list like you see with players that are "rewarded" from buying more bits or expensive models. We buy what looks cool put it together, paint it to a high standard and base it before it ever sees the battlefield. There are those in our group that have bigger collections than others however, there is never a problem with players changing to the newest codex or spamming units that are expensive to buy. The "reward" in 40k is the hobby not winning because you can spend the most money. If I was beaten by a player that just bought a boatload of deamons slapped them together and didn't bother to paint them I would not be at all sad about the fact that the reason that kid won was because he had more money than i do.

 daedalus wrote:
I disagree with the underlying premise, as so many of the "premium" options simply don't exist.

I can't say there is incentive to buy IG camo cloaks or carapace armor, because you can't* buy them.

Maybe if you actually gave some specific examples.



* Barring monopose figures or metal models with extraneous options.

Jetlock seer council.

EDIT: And we actually do pay a premium on good units, wraithlords are 2 small plastic sprues and a base but its $55.50 (up $10.50 from last year btw), a guardian box comes with 4 spures and its $43.50, the pricing is clearly not based on weight, but amount that you can buy.

Eilif wrote:
When you buy a warhammer 40k kit, very often there are options that are in the rules that can't be achieved without purchasing of additional bits, or kits.

I don't think this necessarily comes up a lot unless you believe in internet spam lists. And even then, it doesn't seem too big of a problem with some armies -- like Chaos Daemons, to be topical.

And we actually do pay a premium on good units, wraithlords are 2 small plastic sprues and a base but its $55.50 (up $10.50 from last year btw), a guardian box comes with 4 spures and its $43.50, the pricing is clearly not based on weight, but amount that you can buy.

This is just a part of the game. If you want your models to look good you buy the extra bits to build a destroyer lord instead of slapping together crap. Armies are priced to put together as a collection over years. Not to buy all at once, slap together and spray paint.

 nectarprime wrote:
It's only an issue if the people you play with are really anal about WYSIWYG.

Or if you want your army to look right...

Saldiven wrote:
Well, it isn't a miniatures game, but Magic: the Gathering will eat up your money if you're wanting to stay competitive. It's even worse if you decide you want to get into the Modern or Legacy formats, or if you're the "flavor of the month" type player.

Here's an example of a hypothetical deck that would cost over $7,000 to build with average condition cards:

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=732125

+ OVER9000

In 40k a land raider will always be a tough tank, marines will always be better than imperial guard in melee... there are some certainties.

Also plastic kits are priced around how many they can expect an individual to buy.

Even if there is more plastic in a troop kit, they are not expectingas much volume of sales for elites when the initial investment is similar in price for a mold they must then charge more. The materials are cheap as chips.

Saldiven wrote:Well, it isn't a miniatures game, but Magic: the Gathering will eat up your money if you're wanting to stay competitive. It's even worse if you decide you want to get into the Modern or Legacy formats, or if you're the "flavor of the month" type player.

Here's an example of a hypothetical deck that would cost over $7,000 to build with average condition cards:

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=732125

That's a very good point. I wasn't even thinking about card games, but big Tournament Competitive CCG's is certainly a money sink.

daedalus wrote:I disagree with the underlying premise, as so many of the "premium" options simply don't exist.

I can't say there is incentive to buy IG camo cloaks or carapace armor, because you can't* buy them.

Maybe if you actually gave some specific examples.

My only experience is with IG and Marines, but a few glaring examples I see would be:

-Getting a Heavy weapon other than missile launcher for your Marine Tactical squad
-Wanting your devastator squad to all have the same weapon. A pretty standard game choice, but one that the kit doesn't allow for, though it must be said the current options are much greater than the previous versions.
-A weapon other than flamer or grenade launcher for your IG squads. The box doesn't come with ANY plasma or melta guns.
-Wanting plasma or melta for your Vets.

The above are very common and effective squad compositions that are not possible with the standard boxed set.

Leth wrote:Also plastic kits are priced around how many they can expect an individual to buy.

Just to be clear, I don't want to start a thread about pricing, rather I'm interested in the necessity of buying beyond the box for a given unit.

nectarprime wrote:It's only an issue if the people you play with are really anal about WYSIWYG.

To a certain extent that's true, but I think there's alot of IG who would like their own guardsmen with plasma guns.... to have plasma guns.
And that's even before taking your opponents annoyance into consideration.

Back in the metal days it may have been an issue, but I doubt it. These days all the plastic kits come with tons of options, and if you're part of a local group, it's pretty easy to talk trade for bits. Even with that being said, what kind of douche wouldn't let someone run a proxy model or two in a friendly game. This comment is entirely based on power players and internet speculation. There's a lot more to 40k than just blowing up plastic men on a table.

Munga wrote:
These days all the plastic kits come with tons of options,

Except for the ones that don't. Just off the time of my head, Space Marine Dreadnoughts and Razorbacks are two that are still missing a large whack of options in their kits.

And heaven forbid you want to run Genestealers with any of the head biomorphs...

Saldiven wrote:
Well, it isn't a miniatures game, but Magic: the Gathering will eat up your money if you're wanting to stay competitive. It's even worse if you decide you want to get into the Modern or Legacy formats, or if you're the "flavor of the month" type player.

Here's an example of a hypothetical deck that would cost over $7,000 to build with average condition cards:

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=732125

You act like that's an average price for a competitive deck. You don't need moxes and black lotuses for a deck.

Hell, you CAN'T play that in your average competitive format.

 Ravenous D wrote:
Diablo 3

my mind went immediately to Farmville..

 Laughing Man wrote:
Hell, you CAN'T play that in your average competitive format.

And you wouldn't want to. In the one format where the deck is legal it would have zero chance of winning. It's a random pile of cards thrown together to demonstrate how expensive you can make a random pile of cards, not a real deck.


Anyway, MTG can be expensive. However:

1) Vintage, the format where everything is legal, including the single cards with prices of $500 each or more, often has tournaments that allow a limited number of proxies. So dedicated collectors will spend obscene amounts of money on building a deck, while people who are just there to compete will write "black lotus" on a $0.01 basic land.

2) Only vintage and maybe legacy come anywhere near that price total. Standard, the most common format, has total deck costs in the $1-500 range. Sure, it's an ongoing investment and the annual price can be more than 40k once you have a complete 40k army, but a competitive 40k player is also going to be buying new armies. And since "used" MTG cards sell for a much higher percentage of full "retail" price than 40k models it's a lot easier to sell your decks and invest in the next one than it is to sell a 40k army and buy the next tournament winner.

My name is Jim and I'm a cardboard heroin addict. I started with Star Trek: the CCG, and went into Magic, then Highlander, Star Wars, and Babylon 5. I even dabbled in Hero Clix for a while. At the height of my addiction, I sold blood, robbed little old ladies, and performed sex acts with livestock for a paying audience, all to buy more cards. Today I'm clean and sober, and it's been six years since I fell off the wagon and bought any CCG packs. (Although I still have all my Highlander cards, because damn that game was fun.)

I can honestly say that when it comes to competitive games, I think that 40k has very little ongoing costs, as opposed to say the CCG, or MMO, or really any other competitive style game. I think the huge advantage of 40k is that once you buy the models, you can use them forever. (The same is not true of cards in a CCG, except in certain limited formats.)

The kits do not, of course, come with every conceivable option. (Most units have too many options for that to be feasible! ) I don't think of that as incentivizing bits sales or purchases to third party manufacturers. Rather, I think of that as incentivizing being part of a larger community, in order to swap and acquire bits. I also think it encourages creativity, since the game openly allows you to build your own equipment. Personally, I love my thunder hammer/storm shield terminators, and I paid a grand total of, like, a buck for the pieces. (Maybe three bucks once I factor in the lollipop sticks.)

While it's undeniable that you see a return on your investment for adding extra after-market stuff to your army, I think that you can do just as well with homemade or traded-for bits, and I also think that the return is very low compared to the return you see for your money in many online games with in-game bennies for real-world cash, or in almost any kind of customizable card game.

In any event, this is just my own subjective opinion. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go click the deck on my PC solitaire game and listen to the card-shuffling sounds until my shakes go away...

 Jimsolo wrote:
I think the huge advantage of 40k is that once you buy the models, you can use them forever.

As long as you don't care about winning. GW's constant power creep and new releases ensure that you will always have to buy new stuff or lose constantly to the people who do.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
I think the huge advantage of 40k is that once you buy the models, you can use them forever.

As long as you don't care about winning. GW's constant power creep and new releases ensure that you will always have to buy new stuff or lose constantly to the people who do.

I think it's silly to claim that people who don't buy the latest models don't care about winning.

They may not make it a higher priority than, say, their college tuition. But they still care.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I think it's silly to claim that people who don't buy the latest models don't care about winning.

They may not make it a higher priority than, say, their college tuition. But they still care.

Ok, yes, that's based on the assumption that you have disposable income and CAN spend money on hobbies.

Anyway, my point is that the supposed advantage of "buy once play forever" of 40k doesn't exist. A player who buys a single 40k army and stops buying will be in the exact same position as a MTG player who buys a single deck and stops buying. Both players can still play the game with equally budget-limited opponents, neither player can expect to continue winning against opponents who regularly buy new stuff.

rigeld2 wrote:

Saldiven wrote:
Well, it isn't a miniatures game, but Magic: the Gathering will eat up your money if you're wanting to stay competitive. It's even worse if you decide you want to get into the Modern or Legacy formats, or if you're the "flavor of the month" type player.

Here's an example of a hypothetical deck that would cost over $7,000 to build with average condition cards:

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=732125

You act like that's an average price for a competitive deck. You don't need moxes and black lotuses for a deck.

While that's not a typical example, I would like to point out that there are people paying 300+ dollars for a deck.

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1075704

Is it competitive? not entirely sure since I'm not in the competitive magic scene, and was just looking for a way to play Boros in a little, "league" some of my friends are running at our uni. That deck's average price is just shy of $350. That's a lot for 75 pieces of paper and cardboard with some fancy ink on them.

Though as I dig into more of that site using just "Boros deck" shows some that average 170 dollars, and some that average 400 dollars. But if I can buy an army for the price of a single magic deck... something is wrong lol

Eilif wrote:
It seems to me that the player who is willing to drop the $ on the extra bits or kits is often going to be a -sometimes severe- advantage over the player who is not... It seems that 40k is fairly unique this incentivising of the purchase of additional bits beyond the purchase of the unit itself.

It's definitely a "sound" (whether or not it alienates some customers, others end up buying more kits - evil, perhaps, but it makes sense) marketing strategy, but I don't think it ends up having that much effect on actual gameplay. With the available options - (3rd party) bits sellers, trading, scratchbuilding, counts-as, etc. - most players, at least, can run the options they want without breaking the bank... much more than they already are. If there was a universally adopted and rigidly enforced WYSIWYG/GW only policy (meaning there's no other way to get a particular option, more akin to premium/cash shop items in MMOs), it would certainly be more of an issue, but, as it stands, it's just one more annoyance due to a company trying to squeeze a bit more out of its customers.

 Alfndrate wrote:
But if I can buy an army for the price of a single magic deck... something is wrong lol

What army are you buying for only $3-400? You might be able to get a 500-750 point army for that much, but good luck getting to the 1500+ level that people usually play at.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
But if I can buy an army for the price of a single magic deck... something is wrong lol

What army are you buying for only $3-400? You might be able to get a 500-750 point army for that much, but good luck getting to the 1500+ level that people usually play at.

Second hand market good sir... My ultramarines, chaos, and Imperial guard were all purchased either here on the Swap Shop or at my FLGS for no more than 350 dollars per army, for several thousand points of each army... Also my Dante Wing BA army was about 350 or so for 2250 points, and that was only 2 years ago.

Also I wasn't clear, 40k isn't my main game, so for me an army might be 35 points of a Warmachine faction, 35 SS of a Malifaux crew, or 200+ resources for Brushfire, I'm sorry for that.

I think you also have to make allowance for the sheer amount of time the games been running for

that means there's been ages to build up more and more different units/armies/races

Its all very well for a new system to say we can produce an effective competitive army for a lot less than 40K...

but will that be true in 20 years time when loads of new units/rules have been added (and they will be added if they system succceeds and survives)

the only way to avoid this is either to regularly remove units/armies to make way for new ones (and we saw how well that went down with the squats),

or not to produce new units/armies, just regularly reskin the old ones (again i'd doubt that's a real oooption)

games would like a system that doesn't reward extra spending (pay to win),

but on the other hand they really want extra new cool stuff (and cool stuff that has useful rules, most won't buy if the rules are junk)

and those two are, unfortunatly, incompatible desires

Eilif wrote:

My only experience is with IG and Marines, but a few glaring examples I see would be:

-Getting a Heavy weapon other than missile launcher for your Marine Tactical squad
-Wanting your devastator squad to all have the same weapon. A pretty standard game choice, but one that the kit doesn't allow for, though it must be said the current options are much greater than the previous versions.
-A weapon other than flamer or grenade launcher for your IG squads. The box doesn't come with ANY plasma or melta guns.
-Wanting plasma or melta for your Vets.

I had considered plasma/meltaguns, but as you can actually get them at a reasonable (even per GW) rate, I didn't consider them a good comparison.

You do make a good point with the devastators/tac squad guys.

rothrich wrote:
But at the same, time we look down on players who have craptasticaly painted models or models that are poorly converted or not the official model.

By "craptasticaly" do you mean that they painted it bad because they're lazy?

Honestly even working on stuff 30 minutes a day will have results in a few months. And power washing armies is a joke. I did 1000pts worth of plague marines in 12 hours and scored in the top 5 for painting.

The only minature game more focused on pay more for better in game effect than 40k IS WHFB.
AFIAK.
The new WoC book allows a chaos champion (16 pts +) to be transformed into a spawn of chaos(50 pts) or Deamon Prince,(250 pts ish).IF THE PLAYER HAS THE APPROPRIATE MODEL.

Yeah, having to have the model is totally paying for performance.

Or not. Whichever.

That's no different from saying that a Tervigon can only spawn Termagants if you have the models.

rigeld2 wrote:

Saldiven wrote:
Well, it isn't a miniatures game, but Magic: the Gathering will eat up your money if you're wanting to stay competitive. It's even worse if you decide you want to get into the Modern or Legacy formats, or if you're the "flavor of the month" type player.

Here's an example of a hypothetical deck that would cost over $7,000 to build with average condition cards:

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=732125

You act like that's an average price for a competitive deck. You don't need moxes and black lotuses for a deck.

No, I didn't act like that was an average price for a competitive deck. That link is for a Legacy deck, such as those I reference in the second page of my post as being really bad as far as expense is concerned.

If a person is attempting to play competitive standard, they're either buying multiple boxes every time an expansion comes out or buying the singles at a premium of $5-$40+ per card for the important cards. If a person plays for an extended period of time, they're adjusting their deck every three months or so as new sets come out and what classifies as "standard" changes.

I'm not an avid M:tG player, but there are a good number of players at the LGS. I personally know people that spend literally hundreds of dollars every month on cards.

I spend maybe $60-70 on cards a month and stay relatively competitive. I don't win every FNM I go to, but I win enough.

Seriously, MTG isn't significantly more expensive than 40k if you're trying to stay on the bleeding edge.

rigeld2 wrote:
Yeah, having to have the model is totally paying for performance.

Or not. Whichever.

That's no different from saying that a Tervigon can only spawn Termagants if you have the models.

>_>

If I don't have the termagants, I cannot spawn them... I do indeed need to pay for performance... if my list revolves around me spawning gants...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

rigeld2 wrote:
I spend maybe $60-70 on cards a month and stay relatively competitive. I don't win every FNM I go to, but I win enough.

Seriously, MTG isn't significantly more expensive than 40k if you're trying to stay on the bleeding edge.

65 dollars x 12 months = 780 dollars, and besides that legacy deck, I did show a few decks that are worth several hundred dollars... That's still a lot for cards...

 Alfndrate wrote:
That's still a lot for cards...

Now price a new 2k point army from scratch for every codex release.

That's a lot for plastic. Go ahead and include Forgeworld options when they're released as well - have to stay on the bleeding edge dontcha?

 Peregrine wrote:

What army are you buying for only $3-400? You might be able to get a 500-750 point army for that much, but good luck getting to the 1500+ level that people usually play at.

$400 buys you a 1500 point armored battlegroup, though you'll be short a pair of tanks from the full 10-tank company. But that's mainly because it's 1500 points, not because you're cheaping out.

I find that MTG is as expensive as you want to make it. you can be competitive with relatively cheap decks in standard or have a decent chance of winning in limited formats. it all comes down to after the game where you can sell or trade cards around for profit. being able to collect cards you know will end up being popular, then trade/sell for profit.

i remember back like a year or 2 ago i used to jump into fnm standard nights for 5$ with a cheep red deck wins which was like 10$ and at least place for prizes, which could net me like 2-3 boosters. if i felt bored i could open them and ma bye get a nice rare, or i can sell them at school or amounts friends for like 3 dollars, recouping me entry and eventually the deck.

then again i also collect older cards with 2-5 dollar commons and unhinged/unglued lands just because i like the looks.

also i basically stopped and haven't seen what the top decks are lately. (but the basic red deck wins, white weenies are almost always affordable)

40k doesn't really reward total money spent unless you have a very large force for the army with nearly every unit the codex has.

And the reward is in resistance to edition and codex changes.


We'll take my Vanilla Marine collection as an example.

I have 100ish bolter marines, 20 special weapon marines(with various weapons) 20 heavy weapon marines(even mix of lascannons and missile launchers, with a couple HBs and a MM thrown in) and 2 of each HQ choice(with different weapon options)

I also have 50 terminators(even mix of assault and tactical, with a mix of weapons)

Then I have a bunch of speeders, 3 landraiders, 2 predators, Stormtalon, vindicator, 8 dreadnoughts, and 4 Rhinos/Razorbacks.



With this critical mass I have built up, I don't have to buy much of anything if/when the codex gets updated.

Lets say the new codex gets released tomorrow with the Stormraven. I'd only need to buy the new codex and a Stormraven to update my army. Thats if I was going to use a Stormraven, which I wouldn't.



When the GK codex got released, I only bought the new codex, Crowe, 2 Dreadknights, 2 Stormravens, and 2 boxes of PAGKs. At the time, that was only around $200. I already had 40 metal PAGKs, 10 terminators, and a couple grandmasters.

The more money you put in now, the less you have to pay to update with each edition change.



GW games don't reward you with game power the more money you spend. They reward you with longevity. Power comes from spending that money on the correct units.

If it's TTGs, then my vote goes to M:TG.

However, if it's games in general, then the Call of Duty series gets my vote.

TheCustomLime wrote:
If it's TTGs, then my vote goes to M:TG.

However, if it's games in general, then the Call of Duty series gets my vote.

wait you can spend irl $ in cod? when did this happen?

 Desubot wrote:

TheCustomLime wrote:
If it's TTGs, then my vote goes to M:TG.

However, if it's games in general, then the Call of Duty series gets my vote.

wait you can spend irl $ in cod? when did this happen?

They are called DLC packs, my friend, and they run you $15 for very little content.

TheCustomLime wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

TheCustomLime wrote:
If it's TTGs, then my vote goes to M:TG.

However, if it's games in general, then the Call of Duty series gets my vote.

wait you can spend irl $ in cod? when did this happen?

They are called DLC packs, my friend, and they run you $15 for very little content.

But does it give you an advantage in multi-player?

otherwise thats not really pay to win, just pay to play a bit more.

The most recent one gives you an additional gun to use in multiplayer.

rigeld2 wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
That's still a lot for cards...

Now price a new 2k point army from scratch for every codex release.

That's a lot for plastic. Go ahead and include Forgeworld options when they're released as well - have to stay on the bleeding edge dontcha?

Why are people buying 2000 point armies for each and every codex release? You can only ever play 1 at a time... But okay, I'll bite... using some lists from Dakka 40k Army lists since I don't own anything really all that new, nor do I play 40k much, so you'll have to excuse the quickness of this... And why would I include Forgeworld? I can't use them in tournaments can I? No need to stay on the bleeding edge of things if I'm not playing competitively. These are just 3 lists that I grabbed, 2 of them are 2k and 1 of them is sub 2k, but it's still a "tournament army". I'll use GW prices, and even include a Savvy shopper price of someone that might use the Warstore for their order...

Using the lists here (1850), here, and here.

You would pay the following:
List 1 - CSM 1850 Tournament list


List 2 - Chaos Daemons 1999+1


List 3 - 1999 +1 Space Wolves


So there are 3* lists that I pulled that all spend less than you do on magic in a year for far more physical items than just cards. Is it expensive? Feth yeah it is... But I've done what you asked. Humorously the only one to not come in under 700 dollars was the smallest point cost list lol .

* - 1 of the lists is 150 points shy

 Desubot wrote:

TheCustomLime wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

TheCustomLime wrote:
If it's TTGs, then my vote goes to M:TG.

However, if it's games in general, then the Call of Duty series gets my vote.

wait you can spend irl $ in cod? when did this happen?

They are called DLC packs, my friend, and they run you $15 for very little content.

But does it give you an advantage in multi-player?

otherwise thats not really pay to win, just pay to play a bit more.

A fair point but that can apply to 40k and M:TG too. You can spend 200 dollars on 40k or MTG and still be able to play but not with as much variety. Likewise with CoD, you can own the vanilla version but you won't gain access to at least half of the available maps without paying double. Very few games have "pay to win" models of play, and most of them are F2P MMOs AFAIK.

 Alfndrate wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
That's still a lot for cards...

Now price a new 2k point army from scratch for every codex release.

That's a lot for plastic. Go ahead and include Forgeworld options when they're released as well - have to stay on the bleeding edge dontcha?

Why are people buying 2000 point armies for each and every codex release? You can only ever play 1 at a time... But okay, I'll bite... using some lists from Dakka 40k Army lists since I don't own anything really all that new, nor do I play 40k much, so you'll have to excuse the quickness of this... And why would I include Forgeworld? I can't use them in tournaments can I? No need to stay on the bleeding edge of things if I'm not playing competitively. These are just 3 lists that I grabbed, 2 of them are 2k and 1 of them is sub 2k, but it's still a "tournament army". I'll use GW prices, and even include a Savvy shopper price of someone that might use the Warstore for their order...

More and more tournaments are allowing Forge World, so including them is valid.
If you don't care about bleeding edge, you don't need to spend even a quarter what I do on mtg.
So, amusingly, you proved my point. Thanks.

And if you're not playing competitively why do you care about pay-for-performance?

 Alfndrate wrote:
Why are people buying 2000 point armies for each and every codex release? You can only ever play 1 at a time...

I suspect he was going with the idea that the most recent codex is going to be the most powerful, so you need to switch to it when it is released.

You can certainly play more than one army at a time these days, though... That's what Apocalypse was for

And why would I include Forgeworld? I can't use them in tournaments can I?

You can use them in those tournaments which allow Forgeworld... which is a growing number of them.

Why are we ruling scratchbuilds out as a viable option?

Sorry my wording in regards to Forgeworld was unclear... if I can't use them competitively, why would I purchase them? If they're indeed becoming more prevalent, then it's something that a competitive player should look at... I'm far from such, so someone else can handle that.. It's been a long day at work, but my point stands. 780 dollars is a lot for cards... For less than what you spend on Magic in a year I can get a full 2000 point army, which is exactly what you asked me to do, now I don't personally know how competitive those lists are, but if you'd be willing to provide me with 6th edition GT (or even prominent RTT) lists, I'll do the same exact thing.


And since I don't play 40k regularly, nor do I personally care how much someone spends on their various hobby, but for the prices of how much you spend on Magic, or 1 of those armies, I can get almost an entire Malifaux Faction (Bought all the Gremlins from Wyrd a year ago for about 250 to 275 dollars), a competitive Hordes army (my Trolls are competitive at 35 points for about 150 to 175 dollars (though I have more)), and 200 Resources of Brushfire for about 100 dollars.

But obviously the more money to spend on both 40k and Magic, the closer you can get to pay to win. My Iron Warriors are an old 3rd Edition army, in 6th ed, they're foot slogging CSM with no flyers or anything else new that I "should" have in 6th edition... I haven't paid, I'm not winning with them... I've yet to have game go past Turn 3 with them against updated armies and armies using 6th ed rules (this includes Flyers)

... and that's my point. I spend that much to stay up to date. If you don't want to stay up to date, you don't have to. At all.

Even when your cards rotate out of standard they aren't invalidated. You can still sell/trade them for current cards and not spend a dime.

For what I spend on magic you can get a single army. I've built about a dozen decks that are standard legal, have 4-5 more that are in progress and have a sizeable collection of trade fodder.

$700 is a lot for anything, but pretending that Magic is more expensive than 40k is just untrue.

Only if you have a small specilized army, then yes its expensive to update.

But if you have a lot of models that can give you a varied build you won't have to buy much to update.

Reading this, I would like to point out that while you say $700 is a lot for cards, the difference is that when you're done with them, as long as you didn't destroy them through lack of sleeves you can sell them to someone else for generally 80%-100% of their market price.

Also, once you get good enough at the game, it becomes self-sustaining. I have a modern deck that has payed for itself at least once so far in tournament winnings.

 forrestfire wrote:
Reading this, I would like to point out that while you say $700 is a lot for cards, the difference is that when you're done with them, as long as you didn't destroy them through lack of sleeves you can sell them to someone else for generally 80%-100% of their market price.

Also, once you get good enough at the game, it becomes self-sustaining. I have a modern deck that has payed for itself at least once so far in tournament winnings.

And Mannahin has a self-sustaining Tournament Army... he goes to RTTs and gets store credit... he then turns that into models or codicies... Everyone can sustain themselves on something if they put enough effort into it. You put the extra money into your cards to keep them looking nice, a decent painter can keep his models looking nice and sell them for a pretty penny if he wanted to as well to fund other projects...

Eilif wrote:
When you buy a warhammer 40k kit, very often there are options that are in the rules that can't be achieved without purchasing of additional bits, or kits.
It seems to me that the player who is willing to drop the $ on the extra bits or kits is often going to be a -sometimes severe- advantage over the player who is not.

Compare this to a game like Warmachine which is not really much less expensive (not the point of this thread) but doesn't have the kind of menu of options that a 40k model has. Everyone who buys that kit has the same options. The same seeming to be true for Infinity.

It seems that 40k is fairly unique this incentivising of the purchase of additional bits beyond the purchase of the unit itself. I realize that there are many generic games (many of which I play where the options are even wider) but -among games that sell their own miniatures- are there other games that do the same or is this mostly a 40k thing?

Somewhat of a tangent.
There have always been some GW copycats, but It is somewhat ironic that as GW produces both the models and rules, it is really their own actions which have created the recent (last 10 years) market for the 3rd party bits producers which in many cases have expanded into ranges of GW-compatible complete models.

The idée is that you should buy and fit your models Correctly. Many people do not do this.. Problem when they do not is that, then you can mini/max as much as you want, and then GWs games become broken. If everyone had to Buy everything we would not have as much problem playing a "fun game" of WH40k. But as everyone I have ever played with uses Proxes etc.. the game gets broken fast. I would probably like WH40k and Fantasy Better if everyone just stuck to the rules and played Exacly what they had on the miniatures...

But when I used to play the game I always got voted down when i Wanted to Play what people had and not a bunch of proxed models... This is just another reason why I dislike Games Workshop games.. When I play warmachine/hordes what you see is what you get... Balance is already taken into account...

 Alfndrate wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
That's still a lot for cards...

Now price a new 2k point army from scratch for every codex release.

That's a lot for plastic. Go ahead and include Forgeworld options when they're released as well - have to stay on the bleeding edge dontcha?

Why are people buying 2000 point armies for each and every codex release? You can only ever play 1 at a time... But okay, I'll bite... using some lists from Dakka 40k Army lists since I don't own anything really all that new, nor do I play 40k much, so you'll have to excuse the quickness of this... And why would I include Forgeworld? I can't use them in tournaments can I? No need to stay on the bleeding edge of things if I'm not playing competitively. These are just 3 lists that I grabbed, 2 of them are 2k and 1 of them is sub 2k, but it's still a "tournament army". I'll use GW prices, and even include a Savvy shopper price of someone that might use the Warstore for their order...

Using the lists here (1850), here, and here.

You would pay the following:
List 1 - CSM 1850 Tournament list

Spoiler:

Nurgle Lord - Chaos Lord 2 w/Axe (not sure what a Palanquin of Nurgle is) =19.75
5 Units of Plague Marines w/ 2 Melta guns a unit - 225 + 1 pack of melta guns = 235
1 Aegis Defense Line w/ Quad Gun = 30 dollars
3 heldrakes = 222
5 Chaos Rhino kits
Sub Total: 693
Codex - 60
Grand Total: $753
Savvy Shopper: 602.4

List 2 - Chaos Daemons 1999+1

Spoiler:

Great Unclean One - 57.75
Herald of Khorne - 22.75
Exalted Seeker of Slaanesh - 59.50
Herald of Tzeentch on Disc - 40
2 Daemon Princes (Nurgle Finecast Edition) - 74.5
Plague Drones (not sure how much 161 points gets you, but assuming 1 box) - 60
Plaguebearers - 29
Khorne Bloodletters (need 1.5 boxes, priced for 2 boxes) - 58
Pink Horrors (need 1.5 boxes, priced for 2) - 58
Soul Grinder - 66
Sub Total: 525.5
Codex -
Grand Total: 585.5
Savvy Shopper: 468.4

List 3 - 1999 +1 Space Wolves

Spoiler:

2 Rune Priests - 39.5
Dreadnought - 46.25
2 Wolf Guard Terminator Squads - 100.00
Wolf Guard (Converted from GH Squad box) - 0.00
3 Grey Hunter Squads and Sarges from Long Fang Squads (27/30 bodies) - 111.75
2 Devastator Squads - 70
3 Drop Pods - 111.75
Razorback - 41.25
Sub Total:520.5
Codex - 33
Grand Total: 553.5
Savvy Shopper: 442.8


Alternatively: You buy Battleforces for the following list and convert some heavy weapons:
2 Rune Priests - 39.5
Dreadnought - 46.25
2 Wolf Guard Terminator Squads - 100.00
Wolf Guard (Converted from GH Squad box) - 0.00
2 Battleforces - 220
Drop Pod - 37.25
Razorback - 41.25
Sub Total: 494.25
Codex - 33
Grand Total: 527.25
Savvy Shopper - 421.8

So there are 3* lists that I pulled that all spend less than you do on magic in a year for far more physical items than just cards. Is it expensive? Feth yeah it is... But I've done what you asked. Humorously the only one to not come in under 700 dollars was the smallest point cost list lol .

* - 1 of the lists is 150 points shy

Tournament list?? GW do not officaly suport any Tournaments and the rules are broken..Are there still people who take WH40k and fantasy Tournaments seriously?

And as I said everyone I have ever met in this hobby that playes games workshop games just proxes the gak out of their models.. making the games even less fun to play...

Tournaments here in the US are all independently supported

 forrestfire wrote:
Reading this, I would like to point out that while you say $700 is a lot for cards, the difference is that when you're done with them, as long as you didn't destroy them through lack of sleeves you can sell them to someone else for generally 80%-100% of their market price.

Also, once you get good enough at the game, it becomes self-sustaining. I have a modern deck that has payed for itself at least once so far in tournament winnings.

Are you talking about a tricked out legacy/vintage type deck or modern/standard magic?

If we're talking legacy/vintage then - yes I agree with you (in part). All or most of those good expensive cards will always be good/expensive. BUT - that isn't really representative of "Normal" FNM -magic. That would be more analogous to someone buying a complete golden-demon painted army for $2000-$3000 - winning a few tournaments with it - keeping it in pristine condition, then reselling it for almost the same amount.

If we're talking 'standard' magic - FNM type magic - then yeah - almost all cards are totally worthless the second they rotate out of block. With just a few chase rares going over $5 or $10. That's similar to the average warhammer player trying to dump old Tac Squads or last edition starter set models. But even things like that - most average used warhammer models tend to bottom out at around 50-40% of retail unless you've done a god-awful construction or paint job.

Warhammer is always going to lose the crown for ongoing $ to win because of the pool of old models you can draw on - not to mention conversions and scratch builds. And once you own the model it's value in army stays more-or-less the same. A tac-marine is always going to be pretty much what it's always been. But trying to stay even slightly competitive in FNM setting means today's hot rare is next week's $0.50 jank.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I think you also have to make allowance for the sheer amount of time the games been running for

that means there's been ages to build up more and more different units/armies/races

Its all very well for a new system to say we can produce an effective competitive army for a lot less than 40K...

but will that be true in 20 years time when loads of new units/rules have been added (and they will be added if they system succceeds and survives)

the only way to avoid this is either to regularly remove units/armies to make way for new ones (and we saw how well that went down with the squats),

or not to produce new units/armies, just regularly reskin the old ones (again i'd doubt that's a real oooption)

games would like a system that doesn't reward extra spending (pay to win),

but on the other hand they really want extra new cool stuff (and cool stuff that has useful rules, most won't buy if the rules are junk)

and those two are, unfortunatly, incompatible desires

To be honest here there is a simple solution to all problems with balance and other stuff that plagues Games Workshop games. They should do what Privateer press do.. update all the armies at the same time.. So instead of getting a new codex, everyone gets a few new models to play around with each year. This means all armies stay UP TO DATE, and NOBODY gets left BEHIND.. and the game stays competetive for ALL YOUR friends not just for them that have a CODEX that works well with the latest rules...

This will never happen however because GW makes it's living trying to force people to build/buy completely new armies ALL the time. They charge more for popular armies. They screw the balance in Favor of the latest models they want to sell etc.. Its a SCAM.. sad thing is that not more people have cought on yet, and continue to buy stuff from them :(


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alfndrate wrote:
Tournaments here in the US are all independently supported

Sounds like crap.. who would want to be a part of that? If the offical rules are broken and suck.. How many house rules do these Tournaments have to have? do they even have the same rules if you go to diffrent types?and How can you even feel any sence of accomplishment taken part in something that you know is not the REAL thing.. to compare it to other types of sports its like you are playing land Hockey in your back yard with your own "special rules", when Magic and Warmachine/hordes player are going away to the offical olympics and playing it for REAL..

Both Warmachine/hordes and Magic have world tournaments that are suported..

 Nucflash wrote:
..and How can you even feel any sence of accomplishment taken part in something that you know is not the REAL thing..

The sense of accomplishment comes from playing some games against other like-minded players. Whether or not some other event down the road has the exact same rules has very little bearing on that.

 Nucflash wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
Tournaments here in the US are all independently supported

Sounds like crap.. who would want to be a part of that? If the offical rules are broken and suck.. How many house rules do these Tournaments have to have? do they even have the same rules if you go to diffrent types?and How can you even feel any sence of accomplishment taken part in something that you know is not the REAL thing.. to compare it to other types of sports its like you are playing land Hockey in your back yard with your own "special rules", when Magic and Warmachine/hordes player are going away to the offical olympics and playing it for REAL..

Both Warmachine/hordes and Magic have world tournaments that are suported..

Not the real thing? I'd rather take part in the NoVA Open instead of GW's Throne of Skulls... One tournament pitted you against the entire field of competitors where wins and losses determined your rank amongst EVERYONE... The other tournament pitted you against the rest of the competitors, but you really only cared how your codex did... So if in 3 rounds of this tournament you had a grand total of 3 people playing the Tau Codex, and you go 1W 1 D and 1 L, and the other 2 Tau players both had 0 W or 1 W and 2 L, etc... Then you were the most winningest Tau player... but not the best...

Why on earth would I want to play in a GW sponsored tournament?

Also Warmahordes tournaments are not supported unless you have a large enough crowd or unless you get the Pressganger running things to buy the tournament pack. Malifaux has official tournament rules, but Wyrd doesn't do tournament support again, unless you have a large enough venue...


Edit: Also, Lock and Load's Masters is run by Privateer Press... at an event run by Privateer Press, GW doesn't support tournaments anymore... not even at their own "convention" (Games Day).

 Alfndrate wrote:

 Nucflash wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
Tournaments here in the US are all independently supported

Sounds like crap.. who would want to be a part of that? If the offical rules are broken and suck.. How many house rules do these Tournaments have to have? do they even have the same rules if you go to diffrent types?and How can you even feel any sence of accomplishment taken part in something that you know is not the REAL thing.. to compare it to other types of sports its like you are playing land Hockey in your back yard with your own "special rules", when Magic and Warmachine/hordes player are going away to the offical olympics and playing it for REAL..

Both Warmachine/hordes and Magic have world tournaments that are suported..

Not the real thing? I'd rather take part in the NoVA Open instead of GW's Throne of Skulls... One tournament pitted you against the entire field of competitors where wins and losses determined your rank amongst EVERYONE... The other tournament pitted you against the rest of the competitors, but you really only cared how your codex did... So if in 3 rounds of this tournament you had a grand total of 3 people playing the Tau Codex, and you go 1W 1 D and 1 L, and the other 2 Tau players both had 0 W or 1 W and 2 L, etc... Then you were the most winningest Tau player... but not the best...

Why on earth would I want to play in a GW sponsored tournament?

Also Warmahordes tournaments are not supported unless you have a large enough crowd or unless you get the Pressganger running things to buy the tournament pack. Malifaux has official tournament rules, but Wyrd doesn't do tournament support again, unless you have a large enough venue...


Edit: Also, Lock and Load's Masters is run by Privateer Press... at an event run by Privateer Press, GW doesn't support tournaments anymore... not even at their own "convention" (Games Day).

I am not talking about sponsored games here, who cares.. I'm talking about a Universal Rules system that is suported by the game designers. So that a World championship can be played. They have this in chess/poker/warmachine/hordes/magic and most other competative games across the globe.. But Games Workshop do not.. and that is a MAYOR FLAW..

But all accept GW has offical rules that are universal. Do you understand the diffrence there? that means if I go to another country and play a game of Warmchine/hordes under the offical Steamroller 2013 rules(they get updated every year). I would play the same rules. This is HUGHE. Same goes for Magic. When you have these Universal RULES.. It gives the players who win these events alot more credibility i hope you understand why? You can also see who is ranked at the top in the World and Why. With alot of diffrent house rules and unsurported Tournaments you dont get this. If I see that you have won X number of tournaments in the US it gives you zero cred in my book. Becuase I have nothing to compare it to. There is no Offical Rules that you all use..

To me you are just a laughing stock if you run competative Unsoported tournaments for any other reason then having some fun and killing time... All other games be they Computer games or Real sports events accross the globe, take great care to have offical rules for their game, that is Universaly used by ALL. everyone accept Games Workshop that is, because lets face it the game is so dam broken that It cant be done...

 Nucflash wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:

 Nucflash wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
Tournaments here in the US are all independently supported

Sounds like crap.. who would want to be a part of that? If the offical rules are broken and suck.. How many house rules do these Tournaments have to have? do they even have the same rules if you go to diffrent types?and How can you even feel any sence of accomplishment taken part in something that you know is not the REAL thing.. to compare it to other types of sports its like you are playing land Hockey in your back yard with your own "special rules", when Magic and Warmachine/hordes player are going away to the offical olympics and playing it for REAL..

Both Warmachine/hordes and Magic have world tournaments that are suported..

Not the real thing? I'd rather take part in the NoVA Open instead of GW's Throne of Skulls... One tournament pitted you against the entire field of competitors where wins and losses determined your rank amongst EVERYONE... The other tournament pitted you against the rest of the competitors, but you really only cared how your codex did... So if in 3 rounds of this tournament you had a grand total of 3 people playing the Tau Codex, and you go 1W 1 D and 1 L, and the other 2 Tau players both had 0 W or 1 W and 2 L, etc... Then you were the most winningest Tau player... but not the best...

Why on earth would I want to play in a GW sponsored tournament?

Also Warmahordes tournaments are not supported unless you have a large enough crowd or unless you get the Pressganger running things to buy the tournament pack. Malifaux has official tournament rules, but Wyrd doesn't do tournament support again, unless you have a large enough venue...


Edit: Also, Lock and Load's Masters is run by Privateer Press... at an event run by Privateer Press, GW doesn't support tournaments anymore... not even at their own "convention" (Games Day).

But all accept GW has offical rules that are universal. Do you understand the diffrence there? that means if I go to another country and play a game of Warmchine/hordes under the offical Steamroller 2013 rules(they get updated every year). I would play the same rules. This is HUGHE. Same goes for Magic. When you have these Universal RULES.. It gives the players who win these events alot more credibility i hope you understand why? You can also see who is ranked at the top in the World and Why. With alot of diffrent house rules and unsurported Tournaments you dont get this. If I see that you have won X number of tournaments in the US it gives you zero cred in my book. Becuase I have nothing to compare it to. There is no Offical Rules that you all use..

To me you are just a laughing stock if you run competative Unsoported tournaments for any other reason then having some fun and killing time... All other games be they Computer games or Real sports events accross the globe, take great care to have offical rules for their game, that is Universaly used by ALL. everyone accept Games Workshop that is, because lets face it the game is so dam broken that It cant be done...

Official Warhammer 40k Rules for use in Tournament or Casual Play


Your rules are the same no matter where you go. Tournament Organizers make changes to the organization of the tournament, or to have pre-made scenarios so people aren't rolling for them and can get to playing... And as a Malifaux Henchmen, I have access to Gaining Grounds, the official Malifaux Tournament Rules... Guess what, those rules are different than the rules in Official Wyrd Tournament Rules. And I don't even have to use those, it just makes things easier. The same holds true with Warmachine Tournaments... You as the event organizers make changes to fit your play scene... or else you don't get people to play...

 Cryptek of Awesome wrote:

 forrestfire wrote:
Reading this, I would like to point out that while you say $700 is a lot for cards, the difference is that when you're done with them, as long as you didn't destroy them through lack of sleeves you can sell them to someone else for generally 80%-100% of their market price.

Also, once you get good enough at the game, it becomes self-sustaining. I have a modern deck that has payed for itself at least once so far in tournament winnings.

Are you talking about a tricked out legacy/vintage type deck or modern/standard magic?

If we're talking legacy/vintage then - yes I agree with you (in part). All or most of those good expensive cards will always be good/expensive. BUT - that isn't really representative of "Normal" FNM -magic. That would be more analogous to someone buying a complete golden-demon painted army for $2000-$3000 - winning a few tournaments with it - keeping it in pristine condition, then reselling it for almost the same amount.

If we're talking 'standard' magic - FNM type magic - then yeah - almost all cards are totally worthless the second they rotate out of block. With just a few chase rares going over $5 or $10. That's similar to the average warhammer player trying to dump old Tac Squads or last edition starter set models. But even things like that - most average used warhammer models tend to bottom out at around 50-40% of retail unless you've done a god-awful construction or paint job.

Warhammer is always going to lose the crown for ongoing $ to win because of the pool of old models you can draw on - not to mention conversions and scratch builds. And once you own the model it's value in army stays more-or-less the same. A tac-marine is always going to be pretty much what it's always been. But trying to stay even slightly competitive in FNM setting means today's hot rare is next week's $0.50 jank.

In Modern and Legacy, any cards you spend money on around going to stay relatively stable unless they either get banned or reprinted in huge amounts, and even in the second case they don't go down much. Even if they're banned, most cards that are powerful enough to be banned in modern are legacy viable, and so they would keep their value unless they were in a bubble (like Blazing Shoal was, since it shot up for one tournament before it got banned).

In Vintage, there are not enough tournaments to really "go even" on a deck--you're either playing mostly cards from a legacy deck with proxied power, etc, or you're collecting the deck for the reason of having it, not profiting off of it.

For standard? The average deck is $200-300. Your average FNM pays out $30-40 in packs/credit if you win, so you break even after five or six weeks if you're lucky enough to have a store with good payouts. Each standard format rotates after a year, but you don't sell your cards after that, you do it a few months before, when they're still at full price because the bigger tournaments are going on.

I do not see where you're getting the idea that a standard player that wins regularly will not profit off of the game. That should only happen if they make extremely bad business decisions with their cards.

 insaniak wrote:

 Nucflash wrote:
..and How can you even feel any sence of accomplishment taken part in something that you know is not the REAL thing..

The sense of accomplishment comes from playing some games against other like-minded players. Whether or not some other event down the road has the exact same rules has very little bearing on that.

Thanks for a good answer . Playing for fun is good.. I just hope you don't have people at these events who take it to seriously... that would be really sad if you ask me hehe

 Alfndrate wrote:

 Nucflash wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:

 Nucflash wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
Tournaments here in the US are all independently supported

Sounds like crap.. who would want to be a part of that? If the offical rules are broken and suck.. How many house rules do these Tournaments have to have? do they even have the same rules if you go to diffrent types?and How can you even feel any sence of accomplishment taken part in something that you know is not the REAL thing.. to compare it to other types of sports its like you are playing land Hockey in your back yard with your own "special rules", when Magic and Warmachine/hordes player are going away to the offical olympics and playing it for REAL..

Both Warmachine/hordes and Magic have world tournaments that are suported..

Not the real thing? I'd rather take part in the NoVA Open instead of GW's Throne of Skulls... One tournament pitted you against the entire field of competitors where wins and losses determined your rank amongst EVERYONE... The other tournament pitted you against the rest of the competitors, but you really only cared how your codex did... So if in 3 rounds of this tournament you had a grand total of 3 people playing the Tau Codex, and you go 1W 1 D and 1 L, and the other 2 Tau players both had 0 W or 1 W and 2 L, etc... Then you were the most winningest Tau player... but not the best...

Why on earth would I want to play in a GW sponsored tournament?

Also Warmahordes tournaments are not supported unless you have a large enough crowd or unless you get the Pressganger running things to buy the tournament pack. Malifaux has official tournament rules, but Wyrd doesn't do tournament support again, unless you have a large enough venue...


Edit: Also, Lock and Load's Masters is run by Privateer Press... at an event run by Privateer Press, GW doesn't support tournaments anymore... not even at their own "convention" (Games Day).

But all accept GW has offical rules that are universal. Do you understand the diffrence there? that means if I go to another country and play a game of Warmchine/hordes under the offical Steamroller 2013 rules(they get updated every year). I would play the same rules. This is HUGHE. Same goes for Magic. When you have these Universal RULES.. It gives the players who win these events alot more credibility i hope you understand why? You can also see who is ranked at the top in the World and Why. With alot of diffrent house rules and unsurported Tournaments you dont get this. If I see that you have won X number of tournaments in the US it gives you zero cred in my book. Becuase I have nothing to compare it to. There is no Offical Rules that you all use..

To me you are just a laughing stock if you run competative Unsoported tournaments for any other reason then having some fun and killing time... All other games be they Computer games or Real sports events accross the globe, take great care to have offical rules for their game, that is Universaly used by ALL. everyone accept Games Workshop that is, because lets face it the game is so dam broken that It cant be done...

Official Warhammer 40k Rules for use in Tournament or Casual Play

Spoiler:

Your rules are the same no matter where you go. Tournament Organizers make changes to the organization of the tournament, or to have pre-made scenarios so people aren't rolling for them and can get to playing... And as a Malifaux Henchmen, I have access to Gaining Grounds, the official Malifaux Tournament Rules... Guess what, those rules are different than the rules in Official Wyrd Tournament Rules. And I don't even have to use those, it just makes things easier. The same holds true with Warmachine Tournaments... You as the event organizers make changes to fit your play scene... or else you don't get people to play...

HAHA.. I see that I'm getting nowhere with you. So you are telling me that all your Unoffical Tournaments in the US. USE the Core rules with no "house rules". You read all the rules as written by games workshop? all list building is exacly the same with no acceptions? I can come and use the chessiest broken gak I can find in the Offical rules and everyone is okey with it? as long as i stay on Points.. Man I really would not like to play WH40k/fantasy Tournament in a setting like that. The system has so many "rules Lawyer" loopholes that it would make for a really nice mess...

You do understand that other gaming system has an official, set of Scenarios, and sets limitations on list buildings etc. For warmachine/hordes its called steamroller 2013 and can be downloaded seperatly from the main rules... This is done in many other games also like poker, chess and Magic. This is to add a level of professionalism to competative gaming... But hey whatever floats your boat my friend haha

 forrestfire wrote:

For standard? The average deck is $200-300. Your average FNM pays out $30-40 in packs/credit if you win, so you break even after five or six weeks if you're lucky enough to have a store with good payouts. Each standard format rotates after a year, but you don't sell your cards after that, you do it a few months before, when they're still at full price because the bigger tournaments are going on.

I do not see where you're getting the idea that a standard player that wins regularly will not profit off of the game. That should only happen if they make extremely bad business decisions with their cards.

So you're saying you will profit if you always/almost always win and sell your stuff early while you're still having fun with it.

The point is - that this doesn't really describe the average person's gaming experience. If one person or a few select people are wining the FNM prizes - by definition - everyone else is losing. Sure a small % of people are going to win all the prizes, make awesome trades with noobs/kids and sell everything for max price at the height of the set's popularity. Just like a small % of people can buy a used warhammer model at a garage sale, clean it up, convert it, paint it like a boss, and sell it for 20-50 times what they paid for it. But I mean - these are ridiculous examples.

I bought someone's entire collection off of Craigslist for $100 - books, Empire army, & some Space wolves. I sold the books and wolves for $110. I'm not about to tell a new player "Hey you should start Warhammer, you can get an army for -$10!" That's obviously ridiculous and I've never seen a deal come along that was quite that good again.

Steamroller has no restrictions on what list you can run. Its only a scenerio packet with tournament rules attached.


And yes, over here in the US we play Warhammer or Warhammer 40k. Not "SomethingarandomTOdecidedtherulesshouldbelikehammer"

 Nucflash wrote:


HAHA.. I see that I'm getting nowhere with you. So you are telling me that all your Unoffical Tournaments in the US. USE the Core rules with no "house rules". You read all the rules as written by games workshop? all list building is exacly the same with no acceptions? I can come and use the chessiest broken gak I can find in the Offical rules and everyone is okey with it? as long as i stay on Points.. Man I really would not like to play WH40k/fantasy Tournament in a setting like that. The system has so many "rules Lawyer" loopholes that it would make for a really nice mess...

You do understand that other gaming system has an official, set of Scenarios, and sets limitations on list buildings etc. For warmachine/hordes its called steamroller 2013 and can be downloaded seperatly from the main rules... This is done in many other games also like poker, chess and Magic. This is to add a level of professionalism to competative gaming... But hey whatever floats your boat my friend haha

Actually, yes. Most tournaments play by the books, with the occasional FAQ to explain some interactions that have not been covered by the official ones. If you normally play in a place where people take issue with you running a list made to win in a setting where the objective is to win, I kinda feel bad for you.

 Cryptek of Awesome wrote:

 forrestfire wrote:

For standard? The average deck is $200-300. Your average FNM pays out $30-40 in packs/credit if you win, so you break even after five or six weeks if you're lucky enough to have a store with good payouts. Each standard format rotates after a year, but you don't sell your cards after that, you do it a few months before, when they're still at full price because the bigger tournaments are going on.

I do not see where you're getting the idea that a standard player that wins regularly will not profit off of the game. That should only happen if they make extremely bad business decisions with their cards.

So you're saying you will profit if you always/almost always win and sell your stuff early while you're still having fun with it.

The point is - that this doesn't really describe the average person's gaming experience. If one person or a few select people are wining the FNM prizes - by definition - everyone else is losing. Sure a small % of people are going to win all the prizes, make awesome trades with noobs/kids and sell everything for max price at the height of the set's popularity. Just like a small % of people can buy a used warhammer model at a garage sale, clean it up, convert it, paint it like a boss, and sell it for 20-50 times what they paid for it. But I mean - these are ridiculous examples.

I bought someone's entire collection off of Craigslist for $100 - books, Empire army, & some Space wolves. I sold the books and wolves for $110. I'm not about to tell a new player "Hey you should start Warhammer, you can get an army for -$10!" That's obviously ridiculous and I've never seen a deal come along that was quite that good again.

To each his own, I guess. For me and many other players, playing the best you can without breaking the bank is part of the fun, and you don't have to use a $200-300 deck to win FNMs, cheaper decks will do just fine if you are good enough. But then, I don't play at a store that shafts its players with crappy prize support--it's distributed fairly evenly based on ranking.

In fact, one of the regulars at my FLGS (definitely a much better player than me) took some event decks to FNM and played them unmodified and still top 8'd.

I think my point is that it's much easier to minimize costs in magic than it is in 40k. I can think of at least ten players at my hometown FLGS alone that profit off the game, but I can't think of one person who has won enough in 40k tournaments to earn back the cost of his army. It's a fundamentally different hobby, and even the players who buy waste (at least in my opinion) money on booster boxes still enjoy it and still have a good chance of being able to offload what they don't want from the boxes for a good amount of money (more like 40-50% of the cost of the box, though).

 Grey Templar wrote:
Steamroller has no restrictions on what list you can run. Its only a scenerio packet with tournament rules attached.

Technically, it does, as IIRC character restrictions are standard for Steamroller these days. Of course, since Warmachine doesn't have the glaring balance issues that 40k/WHFB have, it doesn't need a list of models that you can't field...

Actually, yes. Most tournaments play by the books, with the occasional FAQ to explain some interactions that have not been covered by the official ones. If you normally play in a place where people take issue with you running a list made to win in a setting where the objective is to win, I kinda feel bad for you. That must suck to not be able to play your best game.

They're called comp scores.

You missed several key points of my posts:

1) I don't play 40k, you'd know that if you read several of my posts in this thread especially the ones between rigfeld2 and myself.

2) I know what Steamrollers are, but nothing is stopping a Pressganger from running a tournament that doesn't use Steamrollers, just like there is nothing stopping me (a Henchman for Wyrd Miniatures) from not using Gaining Grounds, which are the official tournament rules for Malifaux Tournaments, but Wyrd also has a different ruleset for their official tournaments that Wyrd Employees themselves run. GW USED to host their own tournaments, they called them 'Ard Boyz and and Throne of Skulls... They stopped it because they don't feel like supporting tournaments... The Independent Tournament scene here in America is far better than the "official" ones put on by GW.

3) No company says, "if you run a tournament, you must use our official tournament rules."

4) EVERY game has FAQs, Errata, and Clarifications, if you don't play with those, then your version of a Steamroller is different than mine if I run Steamrollers with all of the FAQs, Errata, and Clarifications.

 forrestfire wrote:

 Nucflash wrote:


HAHA.. I see that I'm getting nowhere with you. So you are telling me that all your Unoffical Tournaments in the US. USE the Core rules with no "house rules". You read all the rules as written by games workshop? all list building is exacly the same with no acceptions? I can come and use the chessiest broken gak I can find in the Offical rules and everyone is okey with it? as long as i stay on Points.. Man I really would not like to play WH40k/fantasy Tournament in a setting like that. The system has so many "rules Lawyer" loopholes that it would make for a really nice mess...

You do understand that other gaming system has an official, set of Scenarios, and sets limitations on list buildings etc. For warmachine/hordes its called steamroller 2013 and can be downloaded seperatly from the main rules... This is done in many other games also like poker, chess and Magic. This is to add a level of professionalism to competative gaming... But hey whatever floats your boat my friend haha

Actually, yes. Most tournaments play by the books, with the occasional FAQ to explain some interactions that have not been covered by the official ones. If you normally play in a place where people take issue with you running a list made to win in a setting where the objective is to win, I kinda feel bad for you.

The Facts are that you can run really messed up stuff that has zero balance. So running full blown Cheese, and trying to exploit everything just comes natural for me. I have found that warhammer 40k and fantasy is not the best system to let someone with my mindset just run free. I care Zero for lore or "fluff" and will use whatever thing that gives me the most edge. I think there are more people out there like me. I do understand that the US scene is diffrent then the European. Just watch chees hunters from Beast of War and you understand what I mean. The gaming group i play with have long since broken the Games Workshops rules to the point that it is no longer playabal...

 forrestfire wrote:
To each his own, I guess. For me and many other players, playing the best you can without breaking the bank is part of the fun, and you don't have to use a $200-300 deck to win FNMs, cheaper decks will do just fine if you are good enough. But then, I don't play at a store that shafts its players with crappy prize support--it's distributed fairly evenly based on ranking.

The flaw in the argument is that when you say 'if you win, you can break even' implies that the person you are advising to play based on this has to always win to meet that expectation. You say it's part of the fun trying to do this - sure, it might be. But it's also not reliably done, because, well, you might just lose, since only one person is the winner.

 -Loki- wrote:

 forrestfire wrote:
To each his own, I guess. For me and many other players, playing the best you can without breaking the bank is part of the fun, and you don't have to use a $200-300 deck to win FNMs, cheaper decks will do just fine if you are good enough. But then, I don't play at a store that shafts its players with crappy prize support--it's distributed fairly evenly based on ranking.

The flaw in the argument is that when you say 'if you win, you can break even' implies that the person you are advising to play based on this has to always win to meet that expectation. You say it's part of the fun trying to do this - sure, it might be. But it's also not reliably done, because, well, you might just lose, since only one person is the winner.

This is true, but my whole argument is based on the caveat that you are good enough to consistently win. Players who do not have a strong enough deck, or are not good enough players should be discounted from the people who have a chance of "going infinite" and financing their hobby entirely off of the startup cost.

Even if you lose half of your tournaments, or even most of them, there are a good 40 or so weeks that with tournaments in a year, if we discount the time where you'd want to dump the standard staples. If you have a $200 deck, and tournament payout (when you sell or trade a pack you won) is $30 for first, $20 for second, $12 for third, and $8 for fourth through eighth, you could simply play above-average and top 8 in a bit over half of the tournaments you play in and you would break even.

It all depends on the decks being played and the local meta, though. For instance, if one plays at a store with mostly more casual decks being played, and brings a tuned tournament deck, it is very easy to profit off of tournaments, whereas if you have a field with 20-30 regulars all with tier 1 decks, it is much more difficult.

In any case, I feel like I've kept this tangent going for a bit too long, because the answer to the original topic of the thread is "yes, Magic the Gathering is a game that rewards additional money spent."

It's definitely comparable or more expensive than 40k, unless you are one of the aforementioned tournament-winning players.

 Alfndrate wrote:
You missed several key points of my posts:

1) I don't play 40k, you'd know that if you read several of my posts in this thread especially the ones between rigfeld2 and myself.

Shush you GW lovin' white knight! j/k

As for people talking about sunk costs. Last time I checked, the 4th Ed OnG figures I bought back in the early 90's can still be good in a game. Yes I needed to add to that army to keep it viable. On the other hand, the two 20 gallon totes of L5R cards I got from collecting for 10 years, getting ready to sort through them and throw most of them out because they are worthless. I shudder to think how much that was all worth retail. And that is a game that is still going. Have another one of Vampire:TCG. That one is dead as a doornail. Can't get new players into the game because there aren't decks they can buy.

As for the people who were complaining about not always being able to have enough of the options in a unit, what happened using some green stuff, some tubing, and plastic card? If there has been any game that is friendly to conversions and alternative models, it is the GW games. People complaining about having to buy Chaos Spawn?!? I have never seen a person buy a chaos spawn model, they have all been conversions. The spawn is the definition of a conversion friendly model. No imagination in kids these days.

 forrestfire wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:

 forrestfire wrote:
To each his own, I guess. For me and many other players, playing the best you can without breaking the bank is part of the fun, and you don't have to use a $200-300 deck to win FNMs, cheaper decks will do just fine if you are good enough. But then, I don't play at a store that shafts its players with crappy prize support--it's distributed fairly evenly based on ranking.

The flaw in the argument is that when you say 'if you win, you can break even' implies that the person you are advising to play based on this has to always win to meet that expectation. You say it's part of the fun trying to do this - sure, it might be. But it's also not reliably done, because, well, you might just lose, since only one person is the winner.

This is true, but my whole argument is based on the caveat that you are good enough to consistently win. Players who do not have a strong enough deck, or are not good enough players should be discounted from the people who have a chance of "going infinite" and financing their hobby entirely off of the startup cost.

Even if you lose half of your tournaments, or even most of them, there are a good 40 or so weeks that with tournaments in a year, if we discount the time where you'd want to dump the standard staples. If you have a $200 deck, and tournament payout (when you sell or trade a pack you won) is $30 for first, $20 for second, $12 for third, and $8 for fourth through eighth, you could simply play above-average and top 8 in a bit over half of the tournaments you play in and you would break even.

It all depends on the decks being played and the local meta, though. For instance, if one plays at a store with mostly more casual decks being played, and brings a tuned tournament deck, it is very easy to profit off of tournaments, whereas if you have a field with 20-30 regulars all with tier 1 decks, it is much more difficult.

In any case, I feel like I've kept this tangent going for a bit too long, because the answer to the original topic of the thread is "yes, Magic the Gathering is a game that rewards additional money spent."

It's definitely comparable or more expensive than 40k, unless you are one of the aforementioned tournament-winning players.

The thing is, when GW used to run 'Ard Boyz, you could use your logic and say playing 40k was free, because if you won 'Ard Boyz every year, you got a free army. Sure, the margin for losing was wider, but the chance was there.

It also is based on people playing at their FLGS. When my brother and friends played Magic, we only play at our houses. For someone who plans on doing that, the chance to play 'for free' just isn't there.

It's something you can aim for, but it's not something you can recommend the game on, because it's just not going to happen for the vast majority of people playing the game.

Point taken.

 -Loki- wrote:
When my brother and friends played Magic, we only play at our houses. For someone who plans on doing that, the chance to play 'for free' just isn't there.

But at the same time the "spend $lots per month or fall behind and never win anymore" problem doesn't exist if you're just playing kitchen table games with a few friends. You only have to keep investing constantly in the latest cards if you're playing in tournaments. And if you're playing competitively it's fair to assume that you'll win sometimes, and you'll be smart with your trading and be able to recover a decent percentage of the purchase price of your cards when it's time to replace them.

Also, there are two other factors here:

1) Time is money. Total cost to get a MTG deck? $X, and five minutes putting it in sleeves once the cards arrive. Total cost to build a 40k army when the new codex comes out? $Y, and weeks/months of work. The financial cost per year for 40k might be slightly less, but only at the cost of a huge increase in the amount of time you have to spend on building the playing pieces.

2) The most expensive MTG cards tend to increase in value. So sure, you have to buy a set of four copies of a $20 card for a competitive deck. Get it early (because you're a competitive player and keep up with all the trends in what is powerful) for $20 and you can often sell it for $30 when it's time to switch decks. In the most extreme cases I have cards that I bought years ago for $10-20 that are now worth ten times that and will only continue to increase in price. Compare that to 40k where the value of your models drops by half as soon as you take them out of the box and down to almost nothing if you assemble and paint them.

 Peregrine wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
When my brother and friends played Magic, we only play at our houses. For someone who plans on doing that, the chance to play 'for free' just isn't there.

But at the same time the "spend $lots per month or fall behind and never win anymore" problem doesn't exist if you're just playing kitchen table games with a few friends. You only have to keep investing constantly in the latest cards if you're playing in tournaments.

You'd think so, but when my brother was buying full display boxes of cards every other week, and his friend was buying a lot as well, being the only two in the group then with full time jobs and lots of disposable income, they were definitely ahead on the power curve. Kitchen table games can get just as competitive as tournament games.

Yeah, but building and painting the army to get it ready to play is part of the fun in and of itself. Heck, there are people that don't play at all and still have fun painting the miniatures.

40k has more intangible benifits than Magic. Magic just gets you playing the game and making various decks. 40k has both playing the game, list building, model assembly, painting, personalization of your army, fluff writing, etc... And you will always be able to use your models for something. A marine with a meltagun will always be useful, a specific magic card not so much.

 -Loki- wrote:
You'd think so, but when my brother was buying full display boxes of cards every other week, and his friend was buying a lot as well, being the only two in the group then with full time jobs and lots of disposable income, they were definitely ahead on the power curve. Kitchen table games can get just as competitive as tournament games.

But how is that any different from 40k? If you're on a limited budget and your friends all buy a few Vendettas/Helldrakes/etc you're going to be just as far behind.

Eilif wrote:
When you buy a warhammer 40k kit, very often there are options that are in the rules that can't be achieved without purchasing of additional bits, or kits.
It seems to me that the player who is willing to drop the $ on the extra bits or kits is often going to be a -sometimes severe- advantage over the player who is not.

Compare this to a game like Warmachine which is not really much less expensive (not the point of this thread) but doesn't have the kind of menu of options that a 40k model has. Everyone who buys that kit has the same options. The same seeming to be true for Infinity.

It seems that 40k is fairly unique this incentivising of the purchase of additional bits beyond the purchase of the unit itself. I realize that there are many generic games (many of which I play where the options are even wider) but -among games that sell their own miniatures- are there other games that do the same or is this mostly a 40k thing?
Somewhat of a tangent.
There have always been some GW copycats, but It is somewhat ironic that as GW produces both the models and rules, it is really their own actions which have created the recent (last 10 years) market for the 3rd party bits producers which in many cases have expanded into ranges of GW-compatible complete models.

Lawyers Guns and Money.

My favourite graph in our internal reporting shows the sales in each country going as far back as we have records. 1988, I believe. The really great part about it is that it has over 20 years of data. You can see proper trends over 20 years, and if your intention is to build a business that lasts, which mine always has been, then ‘long term’ means decades.
What does the graph show? It shows our rapid increase of sales in the 90s when we opened a lot of stores in the UK and a lot of businesses around the world. The UK line then shows a period of consolidation as that growth demanded we sort out our manufacturing and warehousing. Then we enter a short surge due to our intoxicating Lord of the Rings tie-in (everywhere except the US, interestingly enough) followed by a long hangover in Europe and a shorter one in the UK. Recently we have been flat and very recently trending upwards again.
Looking closely at the trend lines reveals interesting strategic information. The gradient of the US growth changed dramatically when we switched from using distributors to going direct to retailers; if you are considering such a move, do not hesitate. It is impossible to see where various electronic games devices were released, or the effect they have had on our sales. Each of these devices supposedly heralded the end for our antiquated miniatures - oh ye of little faith.
Underneath the main country based sales are the exciting slow but steady growth lines of Forge World and Black Library. And just recently the graph has been enhanced by the appearance of a red line at the bottom. I use fairly crude (and so, memorable) colour association for the lines. Red is China.
Why is this so interesting? First, it shows that even as we are very intent on the future growth of the business so we are constantly looking at our record to learn what not to do, and what to do again. Second, it gives perspective to our view that short-term issues are short-term. Third, it underlines what I said earlier: when we say we are a long-term business we mean it. We cannot guarantee to be around in 50 years time, but we certainly intend to be.
Short-termism is one of the evils of modern society. More shareholder value is destroyed by managers making dumb short-term decisions to enable them to produce glowing quarterly reports than ever is gained in the laughably inappropriately named ‘transparency‘ they are supposed to bring.
If you would like more transparency on Games Workshop, come to our annual general meeting. You will see our facilities, and maybe be quite surprised by how interesting they are. You will get to meet all the people who do the important things and talk to them about their jobs. You will also get, if such is your desire, a foaming pint of Bugman’s best in our famous bar. No, shareholders do not get a discount on beer. We don’t do discounts, not even for you.Tom Kirby
Chairman
30 July 2012

I/E Buy those bits even if if you can't afford them.

 Nucflash wrote:

 forrestfire wrote:

 Nucflash wrote:


HAHA.. I see that I'm getting nowhere with you. So you are telling me that all your Unoffical Tournaments in the US. USE the Core rules with no "house rules". You read all the rules as written by games workshop? all list building is exacly the same with no acceptions? I can come and use the chessiest broken gak I can find in the Offical rules and everyone is okey with it? as long as i stay on Points.. Man I really would not like to play WH40k/fantasy Tournament in a setting like that. The system has so many "rules Lawyer" loopholes that it would make for a really nice mess...

You do understand that other gaming system has an official, set of Scenarios, and sets limitations on list buildings etc. For warmachine/hordes its called steamroller 2013 and can be downloaded seperatly from the main rules... This is done in many other games also like poker, chess and Magic. This is to add a level of professionalism to competative gaming... But hey whatever floats your boat my friend haha

Actually, yes. Most tournaments play by the books, with the occasional FAQ to explain some interactions that have not been covered by the official ones. If you normally play in a place where people take issue with you running a list made to win in a setting where the objective is to win, I kinda feel bad for you.

The Facts are that you can run really messed up stuff that has zero balance. So running full blown Cheese, and trying to exploit everything just comes natural for me. I have found that warhammer 40k and fantasy is not the best system to let someone with my mindset just run free. I care Zero for lore or "fluff" and will use whatever thing that gives me the most edge. I think there are more people out there like me. I do understand that the US scene is diffrent then the European. Just watch chees hunters from Beast of War and you understand what I mean. The gaming group i play with have long since broken the Games Workshops rules to the point that it is no longer playabal...

Good to see you're still the jack wagon you were before.

You have not "broken the rules to the point they're not playable". While it sounds like you may be a Cheesy-Spam player, I promise you haven't "broken" the game. If there was a single list that "broke" the game then we'd see the same list winning every tournament. We aren't.

You're simply foolish. I'd love to be more colorful in how I detail my opinion of you, but ill refrain for fear of the ban hammer.

So ill put it plainly: quit trolling.

 Peregrine wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
You'd think so, but when my brother was buying full display boxes of cards every other week, and his friend was buying a lot as well, being the only two in the group then with full time jobs and lots of disposable income, they were definitely ahead on the power curve. Kitchen table games can get just as competitive as tournament games.

But how is that any different from 40k? If you're on a limited budget and your friends all buy a few Vendettas/Helldrakes/etc you're going to be just as far behind.

I'm not saying it's not. I was merely pointing out that saying Magic essentially pays for itself because you can win cards at FNM and other tournaments to resell is disengenuous, because it's simply going to only apply to a very, very select portion of the playerbase, just like winning Ard Boyz essentially made playing 40k free for those that managed to win it multiple times.

My comment about playing at home being competitive was due to you saying it's not as competitive at home, when I made the comment that if you are one of those players the incentive of Magic paying for itself is just not going to happen. A completely different tangent.

There is nothing requiring you to buy the official GW kit, other than a dandified GW employee that insists 100% of the plastic and paint used in your army needs to have come off GW's production line in the past 12 months.....

i exaggerate, of course, but while you have to be sneaky about getting say, weapons from third parties, you can do what GW now is turning into a taboo, which is use your creativity. Given the right plasticard and an hour, you could probably knock out about 5 plasma guns in the space of an hour (measuring, drawing, cutting, filing and gluing)... in fact probably 5 of any special or heavy weapon in the space of an hour (except, perhaps, if it is eldar, in which case you may be hooped, as sculpting is quite a bit harder....) Heck. If you are really good and sneaky, you can buy a squad of tactical marines and, assuming you have enough torso-components left over from other kits (like say the tank gunners...) and mixing and matching with bionics, you could come out with 16? marines from one tactical squad.

Really, it just comes down to an individual philosophy, do you like having stock or do you like getting mileage out of your purchase? I waffle between both, usually because I buy most of my stuff second hand and need to salvage it into usable condition. I've had to fill many gaps in my arsenal by building the gear out of parts, or creating a counts-as analogue in the case of the horrendously damaged space marine bikes i bought...

Since GW doesn't sponsor any tournaments, they have no way of enforcing you use their models in games that arn't in a GW store. And every tournament I have been to allows alternate models. They just have to be WYSIWYG.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Since GW doesn't sponsor any tournaments, they have no way of enforcing you use their models in games that arn't in a GW store. And every tournament I have been to allows alternate models. They just have to be WYSIWYG.

doesn't have to be tournament. I got the stink eye from a snot-faced red shirt when he insisted that my ancient CSM were produced by a third party. Fed up, i ripped the model out of its base and made him read the stamp on the back of the metal tab.....

 poda_t wrote:
There is nothing requiring you to buy the official GW kit, other than a dandified GW employee that insists 100% of the plastic and paint used in your army needs to have come off GW's production line in the past 12 months.....

i exaggerate, of course, but while you have to be sneaky about getting say, weapons from third parties, you can do what GW now is turning into a taboo, which is use your creativity. Given the right plasticard and an hour, you could probably knock out about 5 plasma guns in the space of an hour (measuring, drawing, cutting, filing and gluing)... in fact probably 5 of any special or heavy weapon in the space of an hour (except, perhaps, if it is eldar, in which case you may be hooped, as sculpting is quite a bit harder....) Heck. If you are really good and sneaky, you can buy a squad of tactical marines and, assuming you have enough torso-components left over from other kits (like say the tank gunners...) and mixing and matching with bionics, you could come out with 16? marines from one tactical squad.

Really, it just comes down to an individual philosophy, do you like having stock or do you like getting mileage out of your purchase? I waffle between both, usually because I buy most of my stuff second hand and need to salvage it into usable condition. I've had to fill many gaps in my arsenal by building the gear out of parts, or creating a counts-as analogue in the case of the horrendously damaged space marine bikes i bought...

I'd love to see how you're getting 16 marines out of a tac squad box even with extra torsos.

 poda_t wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Since GW doesn't sponsor any tournaments, they have no way of enforcing you use their models in games that arn't in a GW store. And every tournament I have been to allows alternate models. They just have to be WYSIWYG.

doesn't have to be tournament. I got the stink eye from a snot-faced red shirt when he insisted that my ancient CSM were produced by a third party. Fed up, i ripped the model out of its base and made him read the stamp on the back of the metal tab.....

thats why most people don't play at GW stores. the staff know diddly squat 99% of the time.

 cincydooley wrote:

 poda_t wrote:
There is nothing requiring you to buy the official GW kit, other than a dandified GW employee that insists 100% of the plastic and paint used in your army needs to have come off GW's production line in the past 12 months.....

i exaggerate, of course, but while you have to be sneaky about getting say, weapons from third parties, you can do what GW now is turning into a taboo, which is use your creativity. Given the right plasticard and an hour, you could probably knock out about 5 plasma guns in the space of an hour (measuring, drawing, cutting, filing and gluing)... in fact probably 5 of any special or heavy weapon in the space of an hour (except, perhaps, if it is eldar, in which case you may be hooped, as sculpting is quite a bit harder....) Heck. If you are really good and sneaky, you can buy a squad of tactical marines and, assuming you have enough torso-components left over from other kits (like say the tank gunners...) and mixing and matching with bionics, you could come out with 16? marines from one tactical squad.

Really, it just comes down to an individual philosophy, do you like having stock or do you like getting mileage out of your purchase? I waffle between both, usually because I buy most of my stuff second hand and need to salvage it into usable condition. I've had to fill many gaps in my arsenal by building the gear out of parts, or creating a counts-as analogue in the case of the horrendously damaged space marine bikes i bought...

I'd love to see how you're getting 16 marines out of a tac squad box even with extra torsos.

I'd love to see how you'd knock out 5 half decent looking plasma guns from plasticard in an hour, hell if you include the time taken to actually plan out the design and all that jazz, I'd be surprised if I could do 5 decent looking plasma guns in a day.

if you can, you could sell that stuff on E-bay.

 cincydooley wrote:

 poda_t wrote:
There is nothing requiring you to buy the official GW kit, other than a dandified GW employee that insists 100% of the plastic and paint used in your army needs to have come off GW's production line in the past 12 months.....

i exaggerate, of course, but while you have to be sneaky about getting say, weapons from third parties, you can do what GW now is turning into a taboo, which is use your creativity. Given the right plasticard and an hour, you could probably knock out about 5 plasma guns in the space of an hour (measuring, drawing, cutting, filing and gluing)... in fact probably 5 of any special or heavy weapon in the space of an hour (except, perhaps, if it is eldar, in which case you may be hooped, as sculpting is quite a bit harder....) Heck. If you are really good and sneaky, you can buy a squad of tactical marines and, assuming you have enough torso-components left over from other kits (like say the tank gunners...) and mixing and matching with bionics, you could come out with 16? marines from one tactical squad.

Really, it just comes down to an individual philosophy, do you like having stock or do you like getting mileage out of your purchase? I waffle between both, usually because I buy most of my stuff second hand and need to salvage it into usable condition. I've had to fill many gaps in my arsenal by building the gear out of parts, or creating a counts-as analogue in the case of the horrendously damaged space marine bikes i bought...

I'd love to see how you're getting 16 marines out of a tac squad box even with extra torsos.

bionics.

 poda_t wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 poda_t wrote:
There is nothing requiring you to buy the official GW kit, other than a dandified GW employee that insists 100% of the plastic and paint used in your army needs to have come off GW's production line in the past 12 months.....

i exaggerate, of course, but while you have to be sneaky about getting say, weapons from third parties, you can do what GW now is turning into a taboo, which is use your creativity. Given the right plasticard and an hour, you could probably knock out about 5 plasma guns in the space of an hour (measuring, drawing, cutting, filing and gluing)... in fact probably 5 of any special or heavy weapon in the space of an hour (except, perhaps, if it is eldar, in which case you may be hooped, as sculpting is quite a bit harder....) Heck. If you are really good and sneaky, you can buy a squad of tactical marines and, assuming you have enough torso-components left over from other kits (like say the tank gunners...) and mixing and matching with bionics, you could come out with 16? marines from one tactical squad.

Really, it just comes down to an individual philosophy, do you like having stock or do you like getting mileage out of your purchase? I waffle between both, usually because I buy most of my stuff second hand and need to salvage it into usable condition. I've had to fill many gaps in my arsenal by building the gear out of parts, or creating a counts-as analogue in the case of the horrendously damaged space marine bikes i bought...

I'd love to see how you're getting 16 marines out of a tac squad box even with extra torsos.

bionics.

Bionics? So you mean creating legs from plasticard and sculpture? If so, that's quite a bit more involved than simply kit bashing a bunch of bitz you may have left over together. And that certainly isn't a skill everyone has, so using it as an example here is a bit disingenuous.

 cincydooley wrote:


Bionics? So you mean creating legs from plasticard and sculpture? If so, that's quite a bit more involved than simply kit bashing a bunch of bitz you may have left over together. And that certainly isn't a skill everyone has, so using it as an example here is a bit disingenuous.

everyone starts somewhere... not everyone is masterful, but I'm convinced that enough people can pick up the habit to do a decent job of it for this to be a legitimate suggestion

 poda_t wrote:
everyone starts somewhere... not everyone is masterful, but I'm convinced that enough people can pick up the habit to do a decent job of it for this to be a legitimate suggestion

It's a suggestion, but it has nothing to do with the topic of this thread. Once you start talking about scratchbuilding entire models (and let's be honest, most people aren't going to scratchbuild things as nice as the real ones) in 40k then you have to do the same for every other game and allow proxying/scratchbuilding. This isn't an advantage for 40k, or even a reduction in the higher costs compared to other games, it's just a statement that you can play pretty much any game for free if you don't want to play the real game.

 Peregrine wrote:

 poda_t wrote:
everyone starts somewhere... not everyone is masterful, but I'm convinced that enough people can pick up the habit to do a decent job of it for this to be a legitimate suggestion

It's a suggestion, but it has nothing to do with the topic of this thread. Once you start talking about scratchbuilding entire models (and let's be honest, most people aren't going to scratchbuild things as nice as the real ones) in 40k then you have to do the same for every other game and allow proxying/scratchbuilding. This isn't an advantage for 40k, or even a reduction in the higher costs compared to other games, it's just a statement that you can play pretty much any game for free if you don't want to play the real game.

touché, but I'm not talking about scratch-building an entire model. I guess if we want to run down the scratch building side with any degree of honesty, there's the time investment which could rack up pretty quick and compete against just outright buying the kit to begin with, or you could purchase from third parties. The suggestion isn't irrelevant at all I might add. If we are taking OP beyond the letter, and towing the line of official models to represent the unit only, then fine i guess you have to go and buy every single unit from one faction's line in order to "play the real game". I however find it ridiculous to cough up $50 if all I need is one heavy bolter, and I don't find $5 for parts and shipping for a bits dealer to be reasonable. I don't see 40K as offering me any added value for paying more just to get a few parts I need to achieve wisywig and a giant pile of scrap that's inevitably going to find its way to the recycling bin.

 poda_t wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 poda_t wrote:
everyone starts somewhere... not everyone is masterful, but I'm convinced that enough people can pick up the habit to do a decent job of it for this to be a legitimate suggestion

It's a suggestion, but it has nothing to do with the topic of this thread. Once you start talking about scratchbuilding entire models (and let's be honest, most people aren't going to scratchbuild things as nice as the real ones) in 40k then you have to do the same for every other game and allow proxying/scratchbuilding. This isn't an advantage for 40k, or even a reduction in the higher costs compared to other games, it's just a statement that you can play pretty much any game for free if you don't want to play the real game.

touché, but I'm not talking about scratch-building an entire model. I guess if we want to run down the scratch building side with any degree of honesty, there's the time investment which could rack up pretty quick and compete against just outright buying the kit to begin with, or you could purchase from third parties. The suggestion isn't irrelevant at all I might add. If we are taking OP beyond the letter, and towing the line of official models to represent the unit only, then fine i guess you have to go and buy every single unit from one faction's line in order to "play the real game". I however find it ridiculous to cough up $50 if all I need is one heavy bolter, and I don't find $5 for parts and shipping for a bits dealer to be reasonable. I don't see 40K as offering me any added value for paying more just to get a few parts I need to achieve wisywig and a giant pile of scrap that's inevitably going to find its way to the recycling bin.

It's a balance and depends on the individual. You mentioned scratch building 5 plasma guns in an hour, realistically I think the minimum would be several hours and to get any where near GW quality...



...you'd be looking at a couple of hours to make just one and then several hours to make a mould and recast it or several hours to make 5 of them.

Personally I'd sooner spend the $10 to just buy them from GW. If it's going to cost me a couple of days of my time to turn a box of 10 marines in to a box of 16 marines, saving $22.35 and probably not looking anywhere near as good as the originals (or if they did, they probably will take significantly longer than a "couple of days"), that's not worth my time. But everyone values their time differently, personally I already struggle to get together armies for lack of time, so I am prepared to pay more to save time. As a kid I used to buy model aircraft and miniatures with money earned from chores, so a day or two modelling to save me $20 was worth while. These days, a day or two to save me $20 isn't worth it because I already can't get my armies finished in time and would rather spend the time painting/playing/drinking with friends and $20 is less than I make in an hour at work. That's not to say I'm going to burn money, I'm just not going to spend a lot of time trying to save a buck.

So everything needs to be kept in perspective.

 Nucflash wrote:


To be honest here there is a simple solution to all problems with balance and other stuff that plagues Games Workshop games. They should do what Privateer press do.. update all the armies at the same time.. So instead of getting a new codex, everyone gets a few new models to play around with each year. This means all armies stay UP TO DATE, and NOBODY gets left BEHIND.. and the game stays competetive for ALL YOUR friends not just for them that have a CODEX that works well with the latest rules...

This will never happen however because GW makes it's living trying to force people to build/buy completely new armies ALL the time. They charge more for popular armies. They screw the balance in Favor of the latest models they want to sell etc.. Its a SCAM.. sad thing is that not more people have cought on yet, and continue to buy stuff from them :(

Update all armies at the same time?

Privateer Press, when they release a new book, update rules for a handful of factions - either the Warmachine or the Hordes factions.

GW would have to do it for 15 armies for 40k and Fantasy.

Drop armies? Remember Squats?

GW don't try to force people to build/buy completely new armies all the time. Case in point: Lord of the Rings, where the forces are incredibly balanced. In fact, I'd say more balanced than WM/H. I haven't played Infinity, but from what I hear about the game, it's about on par with it. Also, all the armies were updated at the same time. They can do this because it's easy to lump armies together - Kingdoms of Men, Mordor, Fallen Realms etc.

If GW really were trying to skew balance to sell more models, then why not skew the balance towards Tyranids, Orks or foot-slogging IG instead of Grey Knights? It'd probably cost me nearly as much, if not more, to buy all my Gaunts than to buy a whole army of Grey Knights. And I think a lot more people like the look of Grey Knights than Tyranids, as far as I know.

Cost of a tactical squad: 23 pounds. Cost of Tau Fire Warriors: 22 pounds. Wow, one pound extra! Sooooo much money! Hey guys, GW charge one pound more for a Tactical Squad! They're ripping us Space Marine players off big time! Please.

From what I hear, the new Codi are actually quite balanced and not very overpowered. They're moving in the right direction.

Yeah, GW are expensive for what you get. I don't want to have to drill holes through the hands of my Easterlings so I can give them more spears. But I enjoy the game, so I don't care what I spend. You don't like the game? Fine, you don't have to like it. But don't make these sweeping assumptions that:
a) Everyone's a tournament player
b) GW make unbalanced rules and there are rule flaws (which, by the way, would naturally happen anyway, I've had issues with the rules not being clear in WM/H)
c) Because of this, everyone should move on.

What will be telling is the release of the Convergence faction.

Dude, don't waste your time... he's just trolling.

I'd love it if he secretly bought Rogue Trader and has 2000 point armies for five different factions.

One thing to keep in mind when comparing MtG to 40k is that WotC does not dictate the pricing of each individual cards. Third party sellers do. Sure, they can make the cards more awesome and a must-have than any other card (I'm looking at you, Thragtusk), but ultimately they don't control how much the price of the cards will fluctuate: what they think would sell would sometimes turn out to be crappy while weird cards they don't think would work suddenly become must-haves. WotC gets money on how many boosters and boxes were sold, not for the pricing of individual cards made by resellers.

GW dictates the prices of the models.

 heartserenade wrote:
One thing to keep in mind when comparing MtG to 40k is that WotC does not dictate the pricing of each individual cards. Third party sellers do. Sure, they can make the cards more awesome and a must-have than any other card (I'm looking at you, Thragtusk), but ultimately they don't control how much the price of the cards will fluctuate: what they think would sell would sometimes turn out to be crappy while weird cards they don't think would work suddenly become must-haves. WotC gets money on how many boosters and boxes were sold, not for the pricing of individual cards made by resellers.

GW dictates the prices of the models.

This is a good point, but you also have to remember that they also make a limited number of cards based on rarity, so in a way they are controlling the price. A card that everyone loves and wants to use is going to be harder to get if it's a rare or legendary rare, rather than a common or uncommon. So while third party sellers control the pricing of the cards, WoTC still controls number of x card going out into the public.

I never got how people in 5th accused GW of fudging the rules to sell models, when *the* over-powered army was Grey Knights, who had a Draigo deathstar as the cheapest army in the game, and who were very cheap money wise to collect. Compare this to how weak foot guard and swarm tyranids were. Obviously I decided to collect foot guard even so

It's not really a stretch of imagination when there have been several ex-GW staff who have come out and said that is the case? We've heard from Rick Priestly most recently that everything that is created goes through the sales department for tweaking before it goes on sale. Hell even Matt Ward made a comment relating to it, and he still works for the company - it's not like any secret is made of the fact.

Now there may well be exceptions to that rule, as you have pointed out (or it might just be that the sales guys got it wrong) but that doesn't break the overwhelming trend of how the company tries to beef up sales of its product. Personally I can completely understand it from a business point of view - it's an effective way of making new miniatures sell. And it's not something that is unique to GW - Infinity have done it with their latest campaign book, increasing the importance of baggage bots, engineers and hackers, which no doubt prompted a surge of sale of those items.

My sig is the Rick Priestley quote

 Alfndrate wrote:

 heartserenade wrote:
One thing to keep in mind when comparing MtG to 40k is that WotC does not dictate the pricing of each individual cards. Third party sellers do. Sure, they can make the cards more awesome and a must-have than any other card (I'm looking at you, Thragtusk), but ultimately they don't control how much the price of the cards will fluctuate: what they think would sell would sometimes turn out to be crappy while weird cards they don't think would work suddenly become must-haves. WotC gets money on how many boosters and boxes were sold, not for the pricing of individual cards made by resellers.

GW dictates the prices of the models.

This is a good point, but you also have to remember that they also make a limited number of cards based on rarity, so in a way they are controlling the price. A card that everyone loves and wants to use is going to be harder to get if it's a rare or legendary rare, rather than a common or uncommon. So while third party sellers control the pricing of the cards, WoTC still controls number of x card going out into the public.

They control the rarity of the card, true. Even so, a crappy rare is just as rare as a must-have rare. They also couldn't predict how the meta shifts, and usually what happens is that they create a rare card that they thought would be bomb but the public does not want it, and create cards that they wouldn't have predicted will shift the meta dramatically (i.e. Tarmogoyf). I remember buying a Tarmogoyf for Php 5.00 (12 cents in $). Now one Tarmogoyf can fetch $50. That's a heavy price fluctuation.

Again, even if they create an ultimate rare card that will cost $500 on the third party market, they wouldn't see any of the $500 spent by the players. Just the money on the $3 booster pack. Sure, it might boost their sales (more players buy the boosters), but ultimately how the card is priced does not affect WotC directly.

Saldiven wrote:
Well, it isn't a miniatures game, but Magic: the Gathering will eat up your money if you're wanting to stay competitive. It's even worse if you decide you want to get into the Modern or Legacy formats, or if you're the "flavor of the month" type player.

Here's an example of a hypothetical deck that would cost over $7,000 to build with average condition cards:

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=732125

An average magic player playing competitive standard spends roughly $400 every 3 months.
(without going into all the other formats)

An average warhammer player playing competitive warhammer spends roughly $600 every year.
(just 40k)

I could tell you all the differences, but they are pretty noticeable.
Warhmachine and other game products don't nearly have the same price tag, but those two games are the most widely played out of all collectible hobbies other than yu gi oh.
I'm working on opening a store and its amazing how the sales break up.

Profit:
50% Magic
20% Yugioh
20% Miniatures
5% dice and other accessories (like paint)
2.5% books
1.5% third party games
0.5% drinks
0.5% anything not hobby related like posters

 Pacific wrote:
It's not really a stretch of imagination when there have been several ex-GW staff who have come out and said that is the case? We've heard from Rick Priestly most recently that everything that is created goes through the sales department for tweaking before it goes on sale. Hell even Matt Ward made a comment relating to it, and he still works for the company - it's not like any secret is made of the fact.

So you mean there's a business behind all of these too? Nooooooo..

Maybe someone should have told Priestly that before they launched the Beyond the Gates kickstarter.....

 Pacific wrote:
It's not really a stretch of imagination when there have been several ex-GW staff who have come out and said that is the case? We've heard from Rick Priestly most recently that everything that is created goes through the sales department for tweaking before it goes on sale. Hell even Matt Ward made a comment relating to it, and he still works for the company - it's not like any secret is made of the fact.

Now there may well be exceptions to that rule, as you have pointed out (or it might just be that the sales guys got it wrong) but that doesn't break the overwhelming trend of how the company tries to beef up sales of its product. Personally I can completely understand it from a business point of view - it's an effective way of making new miniatures sell. And it's not something that is unique to GW - Infinity have done it with their latest campaign book, increasing the importance of baggage bots, engineers and hackers, which no doubt prompted a surge of sale of those items.

Then why are all the powerful armies fairly cheap? I don't doubt that certain models - certainly all flyers - have been buffed in order to sell what are presumably high margin products (also buildings which are clearly OP in order to sell them to every single army). But I don't think the entire ruleset of 40k revolves around making people spend as much as possible.

Only thing I can think of is false choices. the strongest armies may be cheaper so more people buy it when compared to other armies. but im pretty sure gee dubs don't think that deep into it.

Yeah, but that would be counter productive for GW.

They would be better off making the high model count armies better than the low count.

I don't know about made awesome to sell models. You guys have seen the rules for the Dark Angels flyers and new speeders right? Or the new Tzeentch chariot? And the Khorne chariot feels less a must than a Soul Grinder that's been out for years. As for Chaos's new kits only the dragon stands out. The rest of the new kits were mediocre game wise at best.

That said quite a few of the models I just named are rather pretty.

Personally I don't think GW(read 40k) really reward dollars spent. If only because of it's loose rules for WYSIWYG. Wehn you can convert, scratch build, and piece together bits to get what you want for cheaper than retail then it's not really about the cash spent.

Now I play in several large events (5+ games, 2+ Days) in various states and generally play in tournament a month (3-game, 1 day). If I didn't have a focus issue I'd probably never spend more than $100-$200 (less if not at retail) a year to stay current. and honestly I'd eventually not have to do that as I'd have the entire array of my range within a few years.

That's not including codexes but you don't need any codex but your codex so you can't say it's a required expense.

Granted I get bored easily so I spend more but it's certainly not a pay to win like the OP suggests.

I agree with Hulksmash. I don't think GW's designers are competent enough to overpower or underpower things on demand. There's enough evidence of new models that are crap on the table to dismiss the idea that new = good.

No, some stuff is good and some stuff is bad because GW's designers are inept.

 BryllCream wrote:

Then why are all the powerful armies fairly cheap? I don't doubt that certain models - certainly all flyers - have been buffed in order to sell what are presumably high margin products (also buildings which are clearly OP in order to sell them to every single army). But I don't think the entire ruleset of 40k revolves around making people spend as much as possible.

that requires getting into GW's psyche, and given that GW seem to be insisting they are a miniatures manufacturing company and not a game manufacturing company, it seems reasonable to suggest that they are tailoring new editions of rules to favor the sale of their product. Historically, GW has not manufactured all of the available models, and it's only recently that GW's aimed to feature a product line consistent with their rulebooks... Of course i get highly suspicious of GW's claims if all of the models it produces are used in one of a few games that it produces...

Consider the allies system just implemented by GW. One could argue it's intended to change the dynamic of the game and help cover weaknesses of one army by permitting the use of assets from another army, and that it helps tailor gameplay to player needs, but a more legitimate view might be that GW is trying to whittle into one-army-only players on the assumption that they haven't started another army because of the expense or their favour with the one army, or the lack of sufficient pointage of the smaller army to bring it to bear.... whatever. There are many reasons, but what's clear is that it opens up new play options that encourages people to open their wallets. Perhaps I'd like to redact my earlier remark, as having considered this, I feel that there is a benefit to spending more. I think Warmachine has it better developed with the mercenaries...

But I don't think the entire ruleset of 40k revolves around making people spend as much as possible.

Well yes right obviously nothing that extreme, but there are shades of grey in-between. Contrast with many other games, which aren't quite so veracious with their updates, with making the 'hot new item', and where the gaming experience is much more balanced as a result.

I think a fair way of looking at it would be to make two points on a graph. At one extreme you have sales directives at the expense of all else (production quality, balance of rules etc) and at the other end the completely opposite prerogative - the GW of the mid 90's, that was a games designer's and a games players dream, but when the accountant was quite possibly locked in a cupboard and told to shut up. I don't think it's at all unreasonable to stipulate that GW are much further along that graph, swinging towards the former example, than they were 10-15 years ago, or compared to many of their competitors today.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
It's not really a stretch of imagination when there have been several ex-GW staff who have come out and said that is the case? We've heard from Rick Priestly most recently that everything that is created goes through the sales department for tweaking before it goes on sale. Hell even Matt Ward made a comment relating to it, and he still works for the company - it's not like any secret is made of the fact.

So you mean there's a business behind all of these too? Nooooooo..

Maybe someone should have told Priestly that before they launched the Beyond the Gates kickstarter.....

Regarding the first thing you have said there, If you had read the rest of my post before making that comic interlude you would have seen I was agreeing with you

And Oi! Sonny! Mind yer manners.. (said in a cockney accent) Rick deserves a bit more respect than that!

I think WM/H has them all beat in this category, which isn't a bad thing. With 40k and WHFB there's usually an army for all armies which is at the top of a bell curve, any more and you get diminished returns. Along with the fact that every army has a slew of bad models for the table under any circumstances.
WM/H awards the guy who comes in with all the models for his faction on game day. You can then run every possible combo with every possible caster, and in almost any case it pays to have multiple of every model. Thus every new model is an award to player.

I wasn't going to bring up sideboards for major events but yeah, there are those too.

Though GW did have sideboards at one time. Around 250-300 or so points back in the early 00's if i remember right.

Maybe I'm just not that cynical, but perhaps the Allies ability is to allow vet gamers to use their diverse collections together in game now.

 cincydooley wrote:
Maybe I'm just not that cynical, but perhaps the Allies ability is to allow vet gamers to use their diverse collections together in game now.

+1

I have been collecting since 1989 and I am so glad they allow allies again. I still have my old squat trikes and there data card. I get new players crying all the time because my term's are on 25mm bases or that my Meganob orks are NOT really mega armoured cause they have never seen the original model before. They even say my old marnius is not a real model from GW cause he is sitting on a throne and looks "cheap". So........ I have stopped going to that store :(

Back on topic. No you do not have to pay to win. My wolves and orks are all old old old models and I have not bought a new model since 92. I win more then I lose and I tend to win armies that favour the "new hotness" over sound tactics.

Having said that, if you can't adapt your old army tactics to combat these new threats (IE flyers) you will face some diffacult times.

 cincydooley wrote:
Maybe I'm just not that cynical, but perhaps the Allies ability is to allow vet gamers to use their diverse collections together in game now.

Allies are also a gateway to starting a new army. You start with a codex, HQ, troop, and maybe one other unit. Then you think "Just one more troop and I can field them by themselves" next thing you know you need to buy more shelves to hold all your stuff.

 Nevelon wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
Maybe I'm just not that cynical, but perhaps the Allies ability is to allow vet gamers to use their diverse collections together in game now.

Allies are also a gateway to starting a new army. You start with a codex, HQ, troop, and maybe one other unit. Then you think "Just one more troop and I can field them by themselves" next thing you know you need to buy more shelves to hold all your stuff.

As if gamers need an excuse to buy more figures

 Ugavine wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
Maybe I'm just not that cynical, but perhaps the Allies ability is to allow vet gamers to use their diverse collections together in game now.

Allies are also a gateway to starting a new army. You start with a codex, HQ, troop, and maybe one other unit. Then you think "Just one more troop and I can field them by themselves" next thing you know you need to buy more shelves to hold all your stuff.

As if gamers need an excuse to buy more figures

the gamers themselves don't need excuses, but they need to produce them anyhow

 poda_t wrote:

the gamers themselves don't need excuses, but they need to produce them anyhow

That's what The Wife tells me...

Well, some players will only do stuff if GW officially says "Ok folks, use 3000+ armies and field whatever you want".

rigeld2 wrote:
... and that's my point. I spend that much to stay up to date. If you don't want to stay up to date, you don't have to. At all.

Even when your cards rotate out of standard they aren't invalidated. You can still sell/trade them for current cards and not spend a dime.

For what I spend on magic you can get a single army. I've built about a dozen decks that are standard legal, have 4-5 more that are in progress and have a sizeable collection of trade fodder.

$700 is a lot for anything, but pretending that Magic is more expensive than 40k is just untrue.

I got a 4000 point warriors of chaos army and I didn't spend a dime because I traded armies I don't use anymore for it. It cost me less to do than getting into magic:the gathering. See I did the same thing you did!!

 Hulksmash wrote:
I don't know about made awesome to sell models. You guys have seen the rules for the Dark Angels flyers and new speeders right? Or the new Tzeentch chariot? And the Khorne chariot feels less a must than a Soul Grinder that's been out for years. As for Chaos's new kits only the dragon stands out. The rest of the new kits were mediocre game wise at best.

If you could refrain from expressing your own opinion and making it sound objectively true, that'd be great. There is certainly no lack of interest in new releases that I can see. I bet many people would spend huge amounts of money the next time their army gets a new codex.

 Generalian wrote:

An average warhammer player playing competitive warhammer spends roughly $600 every year.
(just 40k)

Please tell me what a competitive Necron or GK player is spending his $600 on this year? Or are you just making gak up?

 BryllCream wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
I don't know about made awesome to sell models. You guys have seen the rules for the Dark Angels flyers and new speeders right? Or the new Tzeentch chariot? And the Khorne chariot feels less a must than a Soul Grinder that's been out for years. As for Chaos's new kits only the dragon stands out. The rest of the new kits were mediocre game wise at best.

If you could refrain from expressing your own opinion and making it sound objectively true, that'd be great. There is certainly no lack of interest in new releases that I can see. I bet many people would spend huge amounts of money the next time their army gets a new codex.

I don't know you from Adam. I trust Hulk's opinions though. They may not be objectively true, but he's proven, over time, that he knows what he's talking about. Unlike the "many people" you reference, who would probably buy dog crap if it had a GW box.

 Redbeard wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
I don't know about made awesome to sell models. You guys have seen the rules for the Dark Angels flyers and new speeders right? Or the new Tzeentch chariot? And the Khorne chariot feels less a must than a Soul Grinder that's been out for years. As for Chaos's new kits only the dragon stands out. The rest of the new kits were mediocre game wise at best.

If you could refrain from expressing your own opinion and making it sound objectively true, that'd be great. There is certainly no lack of interest in new releases that I can see. I bet many people would spend huge amounts of money the next time their army gets a new codex.

I don't know you from Adam. I trust Hulk's opinions though. They may not be objectively true, but he's proven, over time, that he knows what he's talking about. Unlike the "many people" you reference, who would probably buy dog crap if it had a GW box.

I'd rather buy dog crap in a GW box on it than accept someone else's ideas as my own without bothering to state my own opinion. That's just weird

@bryllcream

No need to be rude. I'm pointing out that people are saying they make rules to sell models. That's not even close to correct.

Being condescending doesn't change the fact that many of the new models rules are not stellar. In fact many of them I'd personally consider sub-par.

Like I said earlier. If I didn't have an attention problem or get crazy ideas I'd spend less than $200 in a year on GW (not counting actual events) and maybe less. That amount is basically for a few units to compensate (if needed) for new codexes. That's at a fairl decent competitive level (I attend 5-6 GT's a year and regularly finish pretty high). So my original statement stands, 40k doesn't reward money spent if you can keep Forgeworld out of it.

Most of the new models are quite sub-par. Not even being Flyers can make the Nephelim and Dark Talonfrom being anything other than meh.

The Dark Shroud is useful in a Bike and Speeder army, but I think thats more luck of the draw than any deliberate attempt on GWs part.

I've personally always regarded most GW released units as sub-par. Within 40k the only armies I like aesthetically are some vanilla marines, GKs, Cadians and eldar. Maybe some orks.

Most of the others I've always thought like crap. Except those 2nd edition gretchins with autoguns. They were sweet

I was discussing rules, not models since that was what I was discussing previously when you decided to be condescending. Model wise GW generally does an excellent job and many of the sub-par rule releases have had some really cool kits. I like the Plasma Speeder, Nephelim Fighter, New Raptors, the Maulerfiend, Deathwing Knights, Nurgle Fly guys, and Tzeentch chariot to name a few.

I posted in reply to a comment specifically referring to new model releases. Rules wise, I've not played any others so I can't compare them. But speaking personally I know that my friends and I enjoy having fun yet competative battles, and I know many people do.

So do most tournament players. But if the theory being advanced is that people need to spend more money buying new kits to keep up competitively, because GW deliberately makes new kits more powerful, then that thesis falls down in the face of the many examples of new expensive kits which have sub-par rules.

Chaos Spawn are one of the classic examples; they got a new awesome kit for the previous codex, but back then they were arguably the single worst unit in the entire game. For more current examples we can take Raptors/Warp Talons, or the new Dark Angels flyers. I'm tempted to buy one anyway just because the model is cool, but there's no way on earth that I need one if I want to play competitively and keep up in tournaments.

@bryllcream

Except I was referencing rules, not models when you responded to me. So basically you misread what I was posting about and then got uppity. It's cool, happens.

And yeah Mannahnin, we're on the same page on that model. So pretty, so not playable. Maybe as a counts-as Avenger in FW legal games?

I'm so ignorant about most FW units, I couldn't tell you. I had the vague thought that it might be converted into an alternate Storm Talon for a DA force using the C:SM rules, or using C: SM allies.

 Hulksmash wrote:
@bryllcream

No need to be rude. I'm pointing out that people are saying they make rules to sell models. That's not even close to correct.

Being condescending doesn't change the fact that many of the new models rules are not stellar. In fact many of them I'd personally consider sub-par.

Like I said earlier. If I didn't have an attention problem or get crazy ideas I'd spend less than $200 in a year on GW (not counting actual events) and maybe less. That amount is basically for a few units to compensate (if needed) for new codexes. That's at a fairl decent competitive level (I attend 5-6 GT's a year and regularly finish pretty high). So my original statement stands, 40k doesn't reward money spent if you can keep Forgeworld out of it.

I think that there are aspects of your original statement that do not stand up to scrutiny. Although the 'best' 40k army may not be the most expensive one, you can most likely improve an army by spending money. An example, are special weapons. Many kits do not come with an optimal set of special weapons. By spending more money you can buy the optimal weapons and improve your army. Another issue is that over time, the game has changed, and with it the optimal armies and units also change. When I began playing in 2nd ed, vehicles were not an important part of the game. They are now. Sure, I could play with my old models, but I would be at a severe disadvantage. Hence, money spent is rewarded in the game. In 6th, flyers and large numbers of models are important. Most flyers are relatively recent releases. This causes vets to spend money or be at a disadvantage. Similar changes happen when a new codex is released. These days plain gaunts or dev gaunts are better than gaunts with fists. In the previous codex gaunts with fists were better. The old nid codex was vastly more competitive than the new one. A competitive player could sell the army to buy a top tier one. The alternative is to be at a disadvantage.

All of this being said, one must compare 40k to other game systems. The latter type of change, that of editions and codicies, happens in most games. Privateer press made substantial changes to Warmachine in MKII. Some people could argue GW are worse than most other companies in this regard. For example, Wood Elves used to be a top tier army. In 8th they are not even mid tier. You would have to spend a fair chunk of change to buy a new competitive army. If you sold your old one, you would take a big loss, as it is not competitive. The lack of weapon options is something that GW is worse about than other miniature companies. (It used to not be a problem when you could order bits. Now it is an issue, especially with the price of plastic kits rivaling the old cost of metals.) Most other companies either sell the mini as it should be equipped, or sell bits to outfit the mini any want you want.

Thats why there are 3rd party bits sellers. Their existance has filled a hole and makes any claims that you have to spend extra money to be competitive much less true. I can get a pack of any special or heavy weapons on the internet for only a few bucks.

I am not a tourney player, are non GW bit tourney legal?

The availability of 3rd party bits still does not address entire armies or unit types that have been scrapped. Squats, Halflings, Chaos Dwarfs. (What does GW have against little people?) Then there are the units that get shifted out of a codex, like Dragon ogres got taken away from Beastmen.

3rd party or converted weapons are perfectly legal in 90%+ of tournaments. GW doesn't really run or support big events in most countries anymore.

When GW stopped doing major tournaments they basically destroyed the only sort of control they had over players using their models.

Now nothing prevents you from using 3rd party bits or even complete models.

Adepticon, until a few years ago, used to be substantially supported by GW, and GW used to fly guys from the studio out the speak on panels, do presentations, talk about upcoming releases, etc. I saw Jervis, got to meet Phil Kelly when the Ork codex was new and chat with him (a friend of mine played him in one of the tournaments), etc. Adepticon, at the time, also maintained a 100% GW policy for its GW events.

When GW pulled its major support, that rule went away, as there was no longer a good reason to keep it.

Well, it looks like the bits are not an issue.

Codicies and nerfing stuff is, but those are reasons that people are gravitating away from 40k as a tournament game. If you are truly casual, then money does not matter. You don't find many such people.

 spaceelf wrote:
Well, it looks like the bits are not an issue.

Codicies and nerfing stuff is, but those are reasons that people are gravitating away from 40k as a tournament game. If you are truly casual, then money does not matter. You don't find many such people.

I'd argue you find more such people than you do tournament players. There's more people playing casually at clubs and stores and at home than there are people attending major tournaments - it would be impossible for any company to grow to the size it has on tournament players alone. While it might seem like there's a lot when you're in a room packed with players at a major convention, those 300 or so people - even counting all major and minor tournaments yearly, would be a pittance of GW's customer base.

The reason tournament players don't find these people is they don't care to look for them.

 -Loki- wrote:

 spaceelf wrote:
Well, it looks like the bits are not an issue.

Codicies and nerfing stuff is, but those are reasons that people are gravitating away from 40k as a tournament game. If you are truly casual, then money does not matter. You don't find many such people.

I'd argue you find more such people than you do tournament players. There's more people playing casually at clubs and stores and at home than there are people attending major tournaments - it would be impossible for any company to grow to the size it has on tournament players alone. While it might seem like there's a lot when you're in a room packed with players at a major convention, those 300 or so people - even counting all major and minor tournaments yearly, would be a pittance of GW's customer base.

The reason tournament players don't find these people is they don't care to look for them.

I agree that there are more casual players than tournament ones. However, even most casual players want to win. There was a thread on the topic a while back. I think that it is a rare gamer that just wants to see the game played win or lose.

Here are some relevant facts...

Tom Kirby GW C.E,O and chairman stated GW '..is in the buisness of selling toy soldiers to children...'

The release schedule is set by GW sales department .NOT the studio.

The GW game development team is told to write rules to 'inspire sales of new models.'

The fact the 40k rule set is such a mess, over complicated and counter intuitive.(Despite the game play being comparatively simple.)
Means the development team is at a massive disavantage at trying to arrive at any sort of balance.(Not aided by minimal play testing.)
And so often fail to make the rules 'inspiring' enough for competetive players to take.(Do not judge the level of power needed accurately enough.)

However, they do seem to believe enough 'cool sounding special rules' will inspire the rest of the customers!

Maybe I misunderstood the steam roller 2013 rules but I think that now you are limited from having the common models in both of your tournament lists. If this is a case then it is a huge requirement to buy more models in order to comply with the rules.

JWhex wrote:
Maybe I misunderstood the steam roller 2013 rules but I think that now you are limited from having the common models in both of your tournament lists. If this is a case then it is a huge requirement to buy more models in order to comply with the rules.

Only FA:C models. Which basically just means the occasional solo and unit can't be repeated. You're also not required to actually bring two lists in most tournaments (rather, you're not required to play both, which amounts to the same thing).

GW have outright said they only make rules to sell models.

Other games (where wargear is fixed) require actual tactics and strategy.

40k, spend enough money in the right places and very little actual tactical knowledge of the game is needed.

Haha that is so true of MTG. I've been clean for 2 years now.

Vermillion wrote:

Saldiven wrote:
Well, it isn't a miniatures game, but Magic: the Gathering will eat up your money if you're wanting to stay competitive. It's even worse if you decide you want to get into the Modern or Legacy formats, or if you're the "flavor of the month" type player.

Here's an example of a hypothetical deck that would cost over $7,000 to build with average condition cards:

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=732125

Oh yeah MTG, it's like warhammer 40k, only more expensive and a lot more addictive . Been clean for years now, but have fond memories of playing with friends around 15 years back

With 40k I suppose the reasoning is that in order to sell more kits they encourage the kitbashing option, or only have certain options as expensive kits eg: land raider.

Yeah I find it really annoying how there are some really competitive options in the game and I can think of them easily, its just absolutley ridiculoous the amount of money you would need to spend to field them sometimes. It would be one thing if it was all just due to manufacturing costs that are out of their control but GW blatantly sells things for more just because they're new or effective or because they know you need them to play. For example: Land raiders cost 60$ Stormravens cost 100$ even though theres barely any more material or processing involved. I still love the game and I don't really want to stop playing it but it would be nice if GW wasn't so obviously disrespectful towards their customers and if they actually made an effort to support people who want to play the game. 80$ core rule book, 40-60$ codex is ridiculous, most best selling 600 page novels cost 20$ at the most.