I joined Warhammer 40k back at the end of 2012 after a year of reading Cain novels, and playing Dark Heresy. It wasn't until I got into the table top game, did I start learning about the community, and all the stuff that came with it. After surfing the many posts(and 1d4chan), I get the feeling there was a golden age for GW. Then well, there was at some point a Horus Heresy if you will. Things started devolving until they reached the point they are now.

What was the cause, and when did it start?

I'm curious as a still somewhat new player. Was it something big, or a great many small?

As many answers as there are players. It's a lot of echo chamber effect on the internet (and you're using 4chan for god's sake).

Roughly 6-8 months after the person you ask started playing.

Roughly around when they started making 'business' decisions and leaving the hobby in second place.
The big one for me was when they stopped bits ordering. Not sure of a year but it seems like a long time ago now.
Since then things have been changed for the worse or removed altogether one by one.
Throughout this process the prices have increased faster than inflation which makes it an even more bitter pill to swallow.

If you never looked on the internet for GW related ideas and discussions then you'll find that you love for the company would be a lot higher.

Luckily you dont need to like the company to like the game, with all these great alternate model companies growing because GW is daft.

And we're off to the races.

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
Roughly around when they started making 'business' decisions and leaving the hobby in second place.

So far, this sounds like the most likely of causes for the decline.

When the internet was invented.

 Rippy wrote:
When the internet was invented.

This is the only answer.

Also, thanks for making this thread. It really helps me find the right people to ignore.

I think you could divide 40k players into three groups.

First are hard core tournament players. They tend to get rather upset when the rules change, complain a bit but then adapt until the next power army is introduced.

Second is the "Fluff Guys". The back story, setting and history of the game is most important to them. They react with great anger when things change too much or when GW re-writes the fluff (which they do a lot). Since GW changes the game a lot every time a new edition or codex comes out they are pretty much always unhappy.

Third is the casual players. They play more for fun, don't read the books, know little of the back story to their army and play mostly with friends and family.

The first two groups are pretty much always unhappy with any change GW makes and tend to be quite vocal about it on the internet. The third group generally cares little if the game changes, adapts to the new rules and carry on. They seldom complain about changes because they just aren't that concerned with them.

The thing that really pisses the first two groups off the most though is their belief that GW cares more for the third group than they do them.

off to the races etc etc

I'm more interested in when it became cool to ignore the blatant flaws in the game and just make snide comments like this instead.

It didn't go down hill. It's still great. The 'golden age' is a myth born from nostalgic rejection to changes in the game, in spite of the fact that the continuing development and evolution of the game is what makes it so great in the first place.

The game has always had balance issues, there's no denying it. I started in mid-early fifth edition and lived through a lot of OP stuff and a lot of less-than OP. I remember when Blood Angels were the top dogs.
However, in 6th, it feels like there are *So many* things to deal with, it's impossible to build a TAC list. In a friendly game where I know who I'm facing it's not so bad, but in a full-on tournament, you have to bring: Lots of AA, enough Anti-Tank to kill a Lord of War, enough Anti-MC for the same reason, heavy psychic defense, something to deal with various 2++ rerollable save armies, etc.
It's leaning heavily into rock-paper-scissors territory. And, because there are *So Many* different types of enemies and rules, it's becoming increasingly unlikely that they can fix it with one update to anything. Can they fix it? Yes. Will it be a slow, grueling process which involves updating almost every book? Unfortunately yes.

 Dakkamite wrote:

off to the races etc etc

I'm more interested in when it became cool to ignore the blatant flaws in the game and just make snide comments like this instead.

Absolutely!

"Are you kidding? It's WONDERFUL! Never better! And I happen to gak ice cream"

Maybe this thread can shed some light on the issue...

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?388054-GW-Where-did-it-all-go-wrong

- Edited by insaniak. Please don't circumvent the language filter. It's there for a reason. -

It really depends on where you are at and the current era. There are a lot of places that still have huge groups of people that really bring a shine to GW and still host lots of games and enjoy it. Where I’m at the game started to drop around the start of 5th ed. That’s when most of my friends and I stopped playing it. For us, it was kinda the rules, but it was not everything, we had a lot of other things going on as well. Then group we used to play with lost a few members and we lost our Friday night at the FLGS we played at. It got eaten up by MTG, but the 40k group captured Sunday morning about a year or more later and still have about 5-10 people show up.

Then there is the Internet, if you’re from there you hate everything.

I was never really into Warhammer for the playing part of it. I love it for the miniature hobby. For me, I mostly stopped because my brother and dad stopped playing it. The game got too full of rule… people and the hobby of it became whose army was better and what it was made to do. The models got too expensive to continue at the pace I was going. There are a lot of cheaper games to get into and so I did.
Also not many kids of today play miniature games which also can be a factor of where you are at. It seems like most kids would rather play x-box or playstation or computer for four hours a day than sit down with a buddy and play a table top game. The list can go on…

Solis Luna Astrum wrote:
The thing that really pisses the first two groups off the most though is their belief that GW cares more for the third group than they do them.

Except that isn't really true. GW doesn't care more for the third group, the third group just has lower standards and is willing to put up with the garbage GW produces.

 Peregrine wrote:

Solis Luna Astrum wrote:
The thing that really pisses the first two groups off the most though is their belief that GW cares more for the third group than they do them.

Except that isn't really true. GW doesn't care more for the third group, the third group just has lower standards and is willing to put up with the garbage GW produces.

I dont have lower standards, if anything im normal. I dont force myself to play things i dont enjoy. I dont use my leisure time to play a game i despise. Maybe you are just a GW addict with a spiteful personality or something. After all we arent wasting our lives like the people with your attitude throwing money and time at something you hate is daft to me...

Although i do agree GW doesnt support any group really, us casual gamers are far more likely to buy 3rd party models for example as we dont take the game too seriously.

I think GW just takes what it can get and if you are slowly buying models from elsewhere and trying new things the best they can do is tell you to go somewhere else. In the end all they want is fresh blood or repeat customers. Rather than trying to bring back disgruntled players, which is where other companies come in and make their money.

Honestly, I am not a hardcore player, I love the hobby, I like the armies, and I enjoy collecting them.

I do enjoy the story behind 40k, I find it solid and pretty fun....in a murderous alien races killing you for the last can of beans that also happen to be everyone else but them in the universe kind of way.

I know the prices are higher then ever, people whine about paying money to play the game, and the rules always have to benefit your opponents army more then yours. That is normal, and ignoring the groups theory, it goes more like this:

out of 10 people:
4 wont know what warhammer is
3 play the game casually
2 players are hardcore to the point of obsessed with prices.
1 player is annoyed they aren't paying less and have decided to blame GW for not making models cheaper, instead of just buying less.

GW will spent more time with the ones on top of the list: the 7 players that will buy more, and play more.
Less time for the 2 that have already named their kids Draigo or Macragge.

Then acknowledge that one player is annoyed, then ignore him.

Hope this doesn't offend anyone. This is just how I see the majority of these arguements/threads/conversations/blogs/etc.

For me it was 6th. In 5th I had a ton of fun . Tough games against tough armies . Right now it is a bother to even take my IG with me . 6th seems to be wasted time for me , worse of it the codex bounce between good , monobuild and stuff like synergy armies. And you never know if after a year or two you get an actualy good codex like eldar or tau , or something like tyranids or chaos.

Models were always expensive. The rules were always badly written. The models were always awesome looking. People always loved bitching about gw.

Things started going down when more people got internet.

 Mywik wrote:
Models were always expensive. The rules were always badly written. The models were always awesome looking. People always loved bitching about gw.

Things started going down when more people got internet.

Models were not always expensive. When I started playing I bought a tactical squad each week with my £5 pocket money. That's equivalent to £8.60 in 2012, the last year data is available for:
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/Pages/inflation/calculator/flash/default.aspx

A tactical squad is now £25. Nicer models, but a kid can't buy them with pocket money any more. That's when the game went downhill for me.

Swastakowey wrote:... throwing money and time at something you hate is daft to me...

Have you stopped and considered the possibility that a lot of us complaining about the state of the game don't actually hate it?

It's possible to like something while still seeing its flaws. I love the Star Wars prequels. I still cringe at 'I love you because you're not like sand'...

40K, for me, is the same. I enjoy playing the game. But I also see enough of the flaws in it to know that I would enjoy it more if it was more tightly written.

And that's not even touching the difference liking the company producing a product and liking that product...

 insaniak wrote:

Swastakowey wrote:... throwing money and time at something you hate is daft to me...

Have you stopped and considered the possibility that a lot of us complaining about the state of the game don't actually hate it?

It's possible to like something while still seeing its flaws. I love the Star Wars prequels. I still cringe at 'I love you because you're not like sand'...

40K, for me, is the same. I enjoy playing the game. But I also see enough of the flaws in it to know that I would enjoy it more if it was more tightly written.

And that's not even touching the difference liking the company producing a product and liking that product...

I have yet to hear the person i said that to say anything remotely positive except that vandettas are great. Other than that all he talks about is how crap the game is. If you talk about apples tasting like feces you dont turn around and eat it, then buy more and keep eating them. I dont know you nor have i seen many of your posts but i was referring to pregriin or however you spell it, people with his attitude might need a new hobby or Councillor.

I hate the company but like the product, he however hates both it seems, just look at his comments and you will see, people like him i was referring to. Luckily he is a minority.

 Mywik wrote:
Models were always expensive. The rules were always badly written. The models were always awesome looking. People always loved bitching about gw.

Things started going down when more people got internet.

Models were always expensive, but they've hit new highs. Agree the rules were always badly written, personally I preferred older rulesets to the current ones not because they were perfect but they are just what I prefer. The models are actually average compared to the competition now.

Though you're probably right about the internet part. It helps spread all the crappy things GW are doing.

Personally I've felt GW have been going downhill since they removed bitz sales. That's not the only reason they went bad, of course, but around that time. Removing international sales, crippling online retailers, making it harder for FLGS's. You can't just pretend GW has always been the same and people have always just loved bitching, a lot of stuff has happened in more recent history to make them worse in the eyes of the customer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Swastakowey wrote:
I hate the company but like the product, he however hates both it seems, just look at his comments and you will see, people like him i was referring to. Luckily he is a minority.

You can like the "product" and still hate the game as the "product" isn't only the game, it's the universe and the miniatures and for many of us it's the history (if I hadn't already been collecting 40k and Fantasy miniatures for 18 or so years, I probably would not start now). 40k has a cool universe IMO, and if you look at Peregrine's gallery, it appears he has a rather expensive DKoK army. DKoK are again a great product, if I hadn't sunk so much money in to cars, I'd probably own a DKoK army simply because the models are awesome. I'm really not a huge fan of what the game itself has become though.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Swastakowey wrote:
I hate the company but like the product, he however hates both it seems, just look at his comments and you will see, people like him i was referring to. Luckily he is a minority.

You can like the "product" and still hate the game as the "product" isn't only the game, it's the universe and the miniatures and for many of us it's the history (if I hadn't already been collecting 40k and Fantasy miniatures for 18 or so years, I probably would not start now). 40k has a cool universe IMO, and if you look at Peregrine's gallery, it appears he has a rather expensive DKoK army. DKoK are again a great product, if I hadn't sunk so much money in to cars, I'd probably own a DKoK army simply because the models are awesome. I'm really not a huge fan of what the game itself has become though.

Personally my biggest gripe with modern GW is the lack of imagination.

In ye goode olde days the GW design team effectively ran the show, and nearly every crazy new idea got turned into a product. In addition to the Fantasy and 40k releases we got all sorts of fancy things; Epic, Necromunda, Gorkamorka, BFG, etc. Even some free mini-games published in White Dwarf.

Modern GW is run by the sales team, and every new 40k release is an unimaginative copy/paste of the previous release derived from spreadsheets of production costs and profit margins. There's no risk, no new concepts, just the same template each time::

Generic Flyer combo-kit
Generic Monstrous Creature/Construct
Racial heavy infantry equivalent combo-kit
Re-designed finecast-into-plastic unit
Codex and psychic cards

It's a real shame that as GW have vastly improved their design + production technology over the years, the actual creativity behind them has all but vanished. Even Forge World are stuck in a cycle of pushing out Power Armour variant #452 each month because: sales.

Well, for me it was when they started to make resin (instead of metal) models. I recognized first that metal Incubi were much cheaper than resin ones. This was more than 2 years ago. During this surge (metal -> resin) prices went up also for plastic models and GW started a ridiculous information policy of not informing customers beforehand.

Economically, there never was a golden age. The first success was forced upon them by MB making standard advertising (Heroquest, Space Crusade), the second success was forced upon them by Lord of the Rings and DeAgostini's standard advertising. The second boost to sales was quickly dealt with, the contract with DeAgostini cancelled and sales returned to normal, staying flat or declining since then. Took GW some time to annoy the flood of new customers with bad business decisions incl price policy, but now they have achieved a solid and sustained shrinking of the company, in an otherwise growing market.

Here some internal view by one of GW's founders:
http://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.de/2013/01/rick-priestley-interview-from-realms-of.html

RoC80s: Having interviewed other people involved in GW during this period, they describe the atmosphere in the studio as being very creative and supportive, as well as being very loosely controlled when it came to design. Is this a view that you share?

RP: Erm… well the RoC books extend over such a long development period that the atmosphere in the studio probably went through some changes to be honest. But when we were in Enfield Chambers (prior to 91) the studio was a very easy going creative environment to put it mildly. We were left to our own devices for much of the time, and Bryan Ansell (owner and boss) pretty much kept the creative part of the business separate from the manufacturing and sales part. Bryan was a very creative and ideas driven man – I don’t think he’d mind me saying that – he always wanted to make great games with interesting mechanics and stimulating ideas – and he didn’t mind investing in creative staff. He was a real patron of the studio and took a real interest in all the models and artwork. Bryan always said that if the studio ever had to mix with the manufacturing and sales part of the business it would destroy the studio. And I have to say – he wasn’t wrong there! The modern studio isn’t a studio in the same way; it isn’t a collection of artists and creatives sharing ideas and driving each other on. It’s become the promotions department of a toy company – things move on!

 Swastakowey wrote:
That is one of way of looking at it, but if I where to buy models for the sake of models like you suggest (which i do) then i wouldnt complain about the game, because once you complain about the game then that suggests you want to play (or hate the game) the game as well moving it from model collecting to war gaming.

I think there's a lot of people in between that buy models because they look cool AND they want to play with them. DKoK are a great example, they are awesome looking models, but once you have them in your hot little hands and they're all painted up, don't you think you'd want to play a game with them?

I definitely buy a lot of GW models just because I want to paint them and because I think they look cool. But if that were the ONLY reason to buy them, I probably would have spent the time and money on model aircraft (the real world type), because I think an F16 or an FW190 or a Spitfire or etc etc etc look infinitely better than anything GW have produced.

But another point you brought up which is a big deal for someone like me, is the quality of GW models is no longer amazing in comparison with many other great companies. I at most only buy vehicles from GW but even then I have to try hard to do so. Scibor, vic minis and so on are all far better and then there are companies that are similar to GW in quality but are far far cheaper. In my area we all use other companies when we can (which is 90% of the time), and im sure we arent the only ones. This means they dont have the luxury of being the one and only best like they used to be.

Yeah, the fact there's so many good models these days is almost a curse as much as a blessing for someone like me who simultaneously paints what he likes but also wants to assemble a cohesive army, lol.

 obithius wrote:

 Mywik wrote:
Models were always expensive. The rules were always badly written. The models were always awesome looking. People always loved bitching about gw.

Things started going down when more people got internet.

Models were not always expensive. When I started playing I bought a tactical squad each week with my £5 pocket money. That's equivalent to £8.60 in 2012, the last year data is available for:
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/Pages/inflation/calculator/flash/default.aspx

A tactical squad is now £25. Nicer models, but a kid can't buy them with pocket money any more. That's when the game went downhill for me.

Thats subjective i admit. When i started playing in 2nd edition a leman russ battle tank was 50DM ... at that time i was ~15 and had 50DM pocket money per month. So for me it was expensive.

Admittedly Boxes are more expensive now but also kids get more pocket money. The point still stands that its a long way to a working army when you are that age. Today i can totally afford one or more expensive boxes but i refuse to because of the price and not being 15 anymore.

So for some kid starting the hobby nothing really changed.

What did change though is the fact that there are a lot more competitors than back in the day that offer a lot more value for your money.

Alot of.crap about what category people fit in going on here, I play the game for the fluff, it's all that's kept me in it, I love modeling and painting (as anyone who has seen my blog on here can attest) I also enjoy playing competitive and friendly/fluff games, what category does that fit into?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As to what has helped this game go down hill?
It hasn't, it's still the same bag of cats that it has always been and I love it, something that does irk me though sadly is the players, we as a group are a fractured lot, not a true community like those who play in basements and the like, we also seem to refuse to take any blame for wrecking the game ourselves, I have seen people bitch about little Timmy... What about when you were little Timmy? I've seen people complain about the rules, what about these people who intentionally abuse the rules and those rules abuses filter down into standard play?
Do any of us try to get together and fix these apparent issues that we also helped become mainstream, no, all we do is whine and complain.

Untill recently that is, I watched something happen at throne of skulls that gave me hope that we as a community might actually one day have the clout to make gw listen, and listen at throne of skulls they have.
A person turned up with a titan, he plopped it down and his first opponent refused to play him, ok that's odd, then his next opponent refused, and the next, out of his 5 games he played 1, I was talking to an unnamed manager at the time and he also noticed these events, he has passed this on and apparently gw is taking notice that at there biggest in house tourny, escalation has been said no to by the British community, what if anything will come of this I don't know, but it's a good precedent

I restarted playing 40K in the autumn of 2004, when 4th edition was published. I joined DakkaDakka early in 2005. I was also a member of the GW official forums, which they closed down a few years later.

Other things that GW supported in 2004-5 which they have closed down since, are:

The Bitz service.
Chapter Approved.
Photocopy reprints from OOP White Dwarf articles.
Regional tournaments.
The national Grand Tournament.
Support for independent tournaments.
Worldwide campaigns.
Support for independent and school clubs.
Specialist games.
Veteran’s nights in shops.
Games Day (not closed yet, but clearly a shadow of its former self.)

All that is stuff you used to get from GW and you can’t get any more.

In addition to those moves, GW have made a number of actions that are hostile to fans’ interests, including:

C&Ds against fan websites and forums.
Distribution campaign to stop cheap sellers, especially targetting the USA and Australia.
Law suit against Chapter House.
Attempted closedown of “Spots The Space Marine” book.

To summarise, although I can’t say that 2004-5 was the start of the decline, it certainly has gone a long way downhill in the nine years since then.

The game itself hasn't changed nearly as much as you might think. The core mechanics in 6th edition are nearly all the same as 3rd edition. GW have tinkered with various details, largely with the object of selling larger armies.

 obithius wrote:

 Mywik wrote:
Models were always expensive. The rules were always badly written. The models were always awesome looking. People always loved bitching about gw.

Things started going down when more people got internet.

Models were not always expensive. When I started playing I bought a tactical squad each week with my £5 pocket money. That's equivalent to £8.60 in 2012, the last year data is available for:
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/Pages/inflation/calculator/flash/default.aspx

A tactical squad is now £25. Nicer models, but a kid can't buy them with pocket money any more. That's when the game went downhill for me.

I agree with this. I want more pocket money!
GW has really priced a lot of people out of the game and the hobby.
They really need to do something drastic with their prices in order to make the hobby more accessible again. Very few kids are willing to play a game you have to spend €1000 on in order to get a few decent armies. I mean; €35 for 10 little plastic figures? That is 3 months worth of pocket money! for 10 little figures!
Much better to get a new computer for that €1000.

The "golden age" of Warhammer is still in effect IMO. Games Workshop games are still the top dog in the miniatures world. Now new challenges have come out of the wood work in the last ten years Warmachine/Hordes and Malifaux being the top two I can think of. However Games Workshop still produces the best looking models, develops the more fun games, and has a great variety in it's models.

Lets look at what Warhammer/40K has inspired outside of the hobby. First of Warcraft was in fact suppose to be a WFB video game! Now Warcraft has become a household name thanks to it's MMO, but even still the idea a miniatures game can spark such a pop-culture event is mind boggling. A more recent example are the humans from Gears of War. The developer of the game has even admitted that Space Marines were one of the inspirations for the COG soldiers.

So I think were still in the "golden age." I will believe it's over when GW either stops making new well detailed stuff, or just gets lazy with the rules as opposed to trying new things.

I started playing back in early v3 late v2 (what 15 to 20 years ago ? I was a kid at the time).
Back then people were already saying that the game was going downhill, that the v3 was out of touch compared to the v2. And for every released I've lived almost every time people were saying that the new version was lackluster in comparaison to the previous one. So there have always been some kind of floating nostalgia in the W40k scenery.

On the other side, there is another matter and that's the fact that prices are going up, that GW doesn't make it easy for people to get into the game, that the game is not balanced at all and that GW seems to only care about selling figs since v5.

Well, if you are talking rules, we are n the golden age now.
if you re talking about prices and fluff, it was a while back before they started changing it every time they changed their underwear.
if you are talking about in terms of how fast releases were put out, we are in it now but if your talking about clerical errors in those releases, it was a while back.

The rules have been going downhill fast ever 6th ed hit. Now they are such a confusing, ill-balanced mess that its almost more frustrating than enjoyable to play.

As for prices, things have been going downhill fast for several years, but I'd say things have reached retardo levels over the past 3 years. 70$ Canadian for 10 DE witches lol.

There wasn't a single point, but ever since I started playing halfway through 5th I can't think of a time that the game has gotten better.

The prices don't help. The mess of expensive supplements like Escalation don't help. The day 1 FAQs and dataslates don't help.

Just not a fan of the direction.

 Peregrine wrote:

Solis Luna Astrum wrote:
The thing that really pisses the first two groups off the most though is their belief that GW cares more for the third group than they do them.

Except that isn't really true. GW doesn't care more for the third group, the third group just has lower standards and is willing to put up with the garbage GW produces.

I didn't say it was true. I said the first two groups believe it is true.

Kilkrazy wrote:I restarted playing 40K in the autumn of 2004, when 4th edition was published. I joined DakkaDakka early in 2005. I was also a member of the GW official forums, which they closed down a few years later.

Other things that GW supported in 2004-5 which they have closed down since, are:

The Bitz service.
Chapter Approved.
Photocopy reprints from OOP White Dwarf articles.
Regional tournaments.
The national Grand Tournament.
Support for independent tournaments.
Worldwide campaigns.
Support for independent and school clubs.
Specialist games.
Veteran’s nights in shops.
Games Day (not closed yet, but clearly a shadow of its former self.)

All that is stuff you used to get from GW and you can’t get any more.

In addition to those moves, GW have made a number of actions that are hostile to fans’ interests, including:

C&Ds against fan websites and forums.
Distribution campaign to stop cheap sellers, especially targetting the USA and Australia.
Law suit against Chapter House.
Attempted closedown of “Spots The Space Marine” book.

xttz wrote:Personally my biggest gripe with modern GW is the lack of imagination.

In ye goode olde days the GW design team effectively ran the show, and nearly every crazy new idea got turned into a product. In addition to the Fantasy and 40k releases we got all sorts of fancy things; Epic, Necromunda, Gorkamorka, BFG, etc. Even some free mini-games published in White Dwarf.

Modern GW is run by the sales team, and every new 40k release is an unimaginative copy/paste of the previous release derived from spreadsheets of production costs and profit margins. There's no risk, no new concepts, just the same template each time::


It's a real shame that as GW have vastly improved their design + production technology over the years, the actual creativity behind them has all but vanished. Even Forge World are stuck in a cycle of pushing out Power Armour variant #452 each month because: sales.

Perhaps it wasn't a single, or multiple mistakes, but their change in how they approached the game. I picture a fun new guy wearing a GW pin, just chargin' $5 for all these cool things of his. Then slowly overtime, he becomes less fun, and more of a corporate drone, reciting policies and rules. Maybe their early success went to their head. They wanted to expand, and to expand they needed monies, and to get the monies, they need to charge/cut. Sounds like a cycle that'd eventually result in what we have today.

There never was a golden age and the internet placates those who want to whine their hearts out.

I started in the days of 2nd edition. For me things started going downhill when they started pushing sales versus the game. Things like the codex creep of 3rd edition, where almost literallye very new codex (barring some exceptions, Chaos springs to mind) came with a bunch of overpowered units to promote buying them, and when they had the Index Astartes articles that gave each SM Legion different rules, some outright broken (Iron Warriors) for seemingly no reason.

For the company as a whole it was when they started to become soulless and kill off anything that wasn't directly promoting sales. So you went from having terrain articles about how to make cool-looking terrain cheaply from household items to "Buy our overpriced plastic terrain", you went from having both 'Eavy Metal masterclass articles showing how to pro paint things and "Here's how I quickly painted an army" articles from staff members that talked to you like regular gamers to what's basically paint-by-numbers articles designed to sell their paint and brush ranges.

Just everything about the company has become soulless. Plastic board, plastic terrain, plastic figures. You can't go into a store anymore with let's say $15 and, while you can't buy a whole unit, pick up a blister pack or two for that unit and have a starting point for it later, and make a note to pick up the rest the following week. Games in general have degenerated to using the latest net lists, and punishing people who pick a unit or theme to an army because they think it's cool as fun erodes when you always lose.

 Guardsmen Bob wrote:

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
Roughly around when they started making 'business' decisions and leaving the hobby in second place.

So far, this sounds like the most likely of causes for the decline.

Its like any art form, the second you seek the money first then the art declines. Its why movies like the Robocop remake are going fail, its soulless cash grabbing.

It was 4th edition that did it for a lot of people, there was a mass exodus and that's when GW started cutting everything and attacking its own customers. They've only gotten more desperate over the years, like cutting indys from selling online then blaming them for low sales.

 Mywik wrote:
Models were always expensive. The rules were always badly written. The models were always awesome looking. People always loved bitching about gw.

Things started going down when more people got internet.

Lets face it, GW is a British company, and if there's one thing we like better than our hobbies, it's complaining.

obithius wrote:
Models were not always expensive. When I started playing I bought a tactical squad each week with my £5 pocket money. That's equivalent to £8.60 in 2012, the last year data is available for:
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/Pages/inflation/calculator/flash/default.aspx

A tactical squad is now £25. Nicer models, but a kid can't buy them with pocket money any more. That's when the game went downhill for me.

Funny. My army has only doubled in price since 1998. I have a picture to prove it.



I think you had more pocket money as a child than you remember.

Jimsolo wrote:It didn't go down hill. It's still great. The 'golden age' is a myth born from nostalgic rejection to changes in the game, in spite of the fact that the continuing development and evolution of the game is what makes it so great in the first place.

Aye. 40k isn't like aviation. I mean, the Eurofighter was a cute idea, but it's no Spitfire or Mosquito... (in case it's not clear, I'm being facetious)

Blackhair Duckshape wrote:Roughly 6-8 months after the person you ask started playing.

Sounds about right.

Yeah that's when the newbies discover the Internet forums and blogs.

I would say, since I played since 1990, I miss the citadel journals that contained special army lists and special rules to add to games back in the 90's, that went away.... I miss that letters from fans were stopped being put in WD in the late 90's early 2000's, and now no physical white dwarf starting 2014! I miss that GW took down it's dedicated blog on it's own website in the 90's early 2000's, these moves are kinda insultive to gamers that the very company they supported stopped listening to them... Those were foreshadows to greater changes to come...

Another thing many gamers will say is they liked the X (put number here) edition rules/codex over the current rules/codex.... And I agree there were better rules in older books....

I used to be able to bring serious conversions (other game system minis, toys converted, etc...) to GW to play, but now they will actually ask you not to use them if they see them....

GW stores have become more & more salesy since 2007ish IMHO, maybe sooner for others....

I can see how some say the "fun" as taken from the hobby, but do not go into this hobby with an illusions... Like the corporate world, you are expendable & easily replaced in their (new) corporate eyes....




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and also (side note here) I was in the military (and got into 40k like many others in the military), and after the military I worked for them (as a civy) by producing the bases one and only official guide books (we did it nationally, 300+ books). I had hundreds of businesses that advertised in each of these, and GW was no exception (in the early 2000's). They showed support to the military, but in 2006 they pulled all ads! They decided "word of mouth" was better & no ads were needed anymore. Hm, besides insultive to the military, and the fact McDonald's has never slackened from their advertsising for example, I found this a bad move in many ways, and in poor taste.... IMHO

I find it impossible to set a firm date, but in my opinion is that after 2000 things started to go wrong faster.

The price raises, degredation of the DIY aspect of the hobby and dumbing down of white dwarf had always been a slow creep, I'd noticed them all even as I got into the hobby in the early 90's. However, in the early '00's, it seemed to accelerate.

Price raises became larger and more frequent, DIY articles began to be less and less prevalent in WD as GW scenery kits became the order of the day. The hope that plastic kits would make the hobby more affordable evaporated as plastic kits skyrocketed to heights at-or-more expensive than the metal kits they replaced.

It's also, that GW seemed to try to find lots of little ways to squeeze money out of it's players. New Codicies arrived that completely invalidated entire armies. Game boxes after 3rd edition don't actually give you any kind of useable, pointed, army lists. The removal of allies rules (rectified recently to be fair) and attempting to more fully segregate certain armies. Things that just made you think, these guys don't want to throw me any bones, they just want to squeeze me for whatever they can.

I think early 2000s, not with a single event, but multiple events that show they don't want to be engaged with their communities.

- Removal of GW forums
- Reduction in Games Day
- Suppression of online retailers
- Continued and frequent price increases
- Reduction in tournament support
- Making the game worse, not better
- Invalidating armies
- Pushing new large models via OP rules
- Vaselating on how GW stores will be run
- Direct only models
- Ignoring all forms of social media, suppressing where they can

When I started 40K in 1998, there were no options for the most part other than 40K. Other companies have now successfully entered the market, which means a decrease in service/value is not going to be tolerated like it was originally. WHFB shows that in the drop off it has seen with it's most recent edition.

 Guardsmen Bob wrote:

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
Roughly around when they started making 'business' decisions and leaving the hobby in second place.

So far, this sounds like the most likely of causes for the decline.

It may be, but if that is the case, this began long, long before you started playing, so it would seem weird to you to "go back" to this (mostly nebulous, partially fictional) era.

Speaking for myself, I actually stopped giving a feth about the rules of the game somewhere around 1995 or 1996, and only bought books for art and fluff. The rules of the game have always been a bit naff, but the fluff and story have generally been pretty good.

It started whenever the culture of complacency and general apathy towards their own customers set in at corporate. Also when they started chasing the fever dream that is Lord of the Rings.

I think it is absolutely a matter of perspective.

I was into GW at the very start with the first RPGs, etc. I remember times pre 40K, etc.

Some would vehemently argue that GW went to pot then, when they dropped reprinting imported RPGs (Stormbringer, etc) and started uniquely making their own products.

Others would point to when Ansell sold out to the company accountants and they dropped GW's own RPGs, board games, etc, etc and moved into uniquely making Citadel products.

At that point I dropped out because I worked for them and I saw changes which made the company seem plain cruel, terrible employment practices and treatment of staff. It went from a pretty family oriented company where staff were encouraged to cultivate customer relationships and the management acted as benevolent types into a hard-driving sell or be fired firm with secret shoppers, etc.

I did not get back for years and years but I could see another point to feel it went wrong, when they shut Black Industries straight after releasing Dark Heresy. Luckily FF picked up the brand and pushed it on but at the time it looked like a terrible blow, not to mention a stupid decision. A game which sold out its whole run in days and was going great guns got canned, along with the wonderful WFRP second edition.

I think it depends on what you like and value.

From my personal perspective current GW is a much nicer place than it was in 1992. Shops are much friendlier, the range is far, far better. I now have a good job and the ready cash to build armies I couldn't back when I was 18, etc. The current models are (mostly) excellent. I think they may have peaked with the Dark Eldar in pure quality of sculpts, a lot of the most recent stuff is more cartoonish and has much sharper and inorganic edges like the most recent chaos warrior models for WFB.

I'm happier now than I have ever been with them, but I absolutely respect anyone's right to be annoyed. They have certainly made a series of what I think are foolish decisions at best and I fear they are locked into a long term spiral of decline, with a shrinking customer base and permanent upward price moves that further shrink the fanbase. I am, however, hopeful that they can bring in a fresh approach and a fresh team. Also being British I'm proud of them as a big national success story.

Right, I'd agree that the game has sort of more or less trundled on the same for most of its history. It's always been about high-price, high-value durable good sales, and a complicated rules set that requires a certain amount of player agreement about how the game they're about to play should be played.

If I had to pick a golden age - and I would say it was more of a high point than something particularly special - I'd say it was early to mid 5th edition. Like 2008 to 2009. 5th ed changed the worst of 4th edition's rules, and orks and imperial guard got new codices (which are generally considered the most fun to play against), and space marines got their 5th ed codex, which I still think is the best codex GW has put out. This peak waned around 2010 once guard players figured out how to run leafblowers, and once the absolutely wretched BA and eventually GK codices came out. With a few good codices in a row, it felt like there was a brief period where people weren't quite so loudly screaming about cheese and spam.

I would agree that we're at one of the lower points in 40k at the moment, but that's because what's going on is the opposite of what happened during good times - they've released bad codices. They were doing all right, mostly, this time last year, with DA and CSM, which weren't great, but weren't bad either, but then they followed it up with tau, which was a complete disaster, which was then followed by eldar, which was only slightly better, and then they followed it up with escalation... 'nuff said.

This loss of quality in recent content didn't create problems, so much as exacerbated problems that 40k already had (especially after 6th ed slow-pitched a bunch of problems-to-be), like mismatched rules, and needing to spend more time talking with opponents before the game begins about just what you're doing, etc. Also, of course, their fluff has taken a disastrous nose-dive, once again starting with that BA codex and their necron fist-bumping, and then sliding to draigo, and then sliding to newcrons, and then stripping a lot of the fluff out of the CSM codex, etc.

The only way to correct this, really, is to just start doing things better. GW will have plenty of opportunities to do this. They seem to have done a fine job on the recent SM codex, and both orks and imperial guard are back on the docket for new codices. Not to say that they'll do a good job, but those are things that are relatively easy to not screw up.

In a way, GW is no different than any other content producer. SNL goes through periods of being better and worse depending on who they have as their writers, just like any other long-running television show.

I guess if I was forced to pin down something acyclical, I guess I'd have to say that the seeds were planted during that same time I said was a non-golden-age, of around 2009-2010, and for one reason - 'ard boyz. Yes, the tournament existed before 2009, but it wasn't as well publicized or attended for its first year or two. By 2010, 'ard boyz had replaced the relatively benign games days as "the meta", and things began to slide. You had a new group of players that were invited and then carefully fostered into believing that 40k was a strategy game where you pushed around grey pieces of plastic to show definitively who was smarter than who.

The process is starting to heal as 'ard boyz is now no longer, and its replacement tournaments are starting to get softer. Plus, 6th edition did a decent job of giving the middle finger to serious 40k players. I guess time will tell on that one.

To me, it was when the change from 2nd to 3rd happened. I still worked for GW then and the whole attitude seemed to shift (at least in my store). I still recall my boss telling me how the game was being streamlined for younger players and our new sales targets. For me at least, that's when my perception of GW started to shift and it has never fully recovered.

Personally, I don't mind the prices for models. It forces me to pace myself and prices many undesirables (kiddies) out of the game.

Codecies are another story. I should not be forced to pay $83 for a 100 page book.

Don't forget the GW lawsuits that cropped up everywhere starting en masse about 2008ish... sueing for use of "space marine" and other such nonsense.....

One of the big changes was 2nd edition to 3rd. While the game remained completely playable, there was a very obvious move made when units suddenly started going down in points cost- fast. It was an obvious grab for more money by making consumers buy many more models for the same standard gaming level.

Games remained at the arbitrary setting of (1500/2000pts), but suddenly Space Marines were half the points for an ever increasing cost in the real world. In 2nd edition a Space Marine squad of exactly the same composition as nowadays was 300pts, for just 10 men with bolters.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I restarted playing 40K in the autumn of 2004, when 4th edition was published. I joined DakkaDakka early in 2005. I was also a member of the GW official forums, which they closed down a few years later.

Other things that GW supported in 2004-5 which they have closed down since, are:

The Bitz service.
Chapter Approved.
Photocopy reprints from OOP White Dwarf articles.
Regional tournaments.
The national Grand Tournament.
Support for independent tournaments.
Worldwide campaigns.
Support for independent and school clubs.
Specialist games.
Veteran’s nights in shops.
Games Day (not closed yet, but clearly a shadow of its former self.)

All that is stuff you used to get from GW and you can’t get any more.

In addition to those moves, GW have made a number of actions that are hostile to fans’ interests, including:

C&Ds against fan websites and forums.
Distribution campaign to stop cheap sellers, especially targetting the USA and Australia.
Law suit against Chapter House.
Attempted closedown of “Spots The Space Marine” book.

To summarise, although I can’t say that 2004-5 was the start of the decline, it certainly has gone a long way downhill in the nine years since then.

The game itself hasn't changed nearly as much as you might think. The core mechanics in 6th edition are nearly all the same as 3rd edition. GW have tinkered with various details, largely with the object of selling larger armies.

I'm glad that KilKrazy made this post as it has saved me typing out basically the same identical thing! I think in terms of the game then as long as you have a decent opponent the game is fun no matter what Edition you play and I do think that the models are pretty damn good even if by personal economic situation means I can't buy as many as I would like (or any most of the time unfortunately).

I think that what KilKrazy has outlined above pretty much sums up what Games Workshop has done, or stopped doing as the case may be, that has diminished the company and by extension the game in so far as those corporate decisions closed down various avenues that could be explored as part of a wider hobby.

For instance, I really, really like reading up on the 40K background and playing Space Hulk, Necromunda, GorkaMorka, Inquisitor and Battle Fleet Gothic meant I had book after book to read along side the opportunity to make pretty cool models that just don't work in regular games of 40K which naturally meant I was often ordering up random bits from across the whole range of Citadel models. Then they made Specialist Games and then they stopped supporting it as well as cancelling the bits service which in turn gave rise to companies which Games Workshop has sued with fairly dismal results all round.

With no more world wide campaigns (with their associated background books) it has narrowed the 40K hobby to just the core game. I think that helps to explain why they've made lots of changes to the core game and brought out so many new kits at a very fast pace and yet, because they only have the one game, some players still have to wait years at a time for an update! They've had to cater for all those hobbyists that enjoyed the peripheral 40K games within the core game but the core game is too generic to truly cater to those people and the result is that a lot of people feel that the game just isn't as good anymore.

You can count me as another Kilkrazy echo. I have been with 40K through every bit of that list, all the way back to 1995.

My personal biggest annoyance is the lack of DIY stuff in the books. The books are more theatrical and that's cool, but I really like busting out the old 3rd edition rulebook or space marine codex and reading through all the: "this is how you build your own scenery" and "this is how you paint your guys" sections.

I feel like the shift from that DIY mindset is slowly poisoning the waters. That could be why there is a mindset of some gamers that its not a hobby its a super competitive game.

 Guardsmen Bob wrote:
I joined Warhammer 40k back at the end of 2012 after a year of reading Cain novels, and playing Dark Heresy. It wasn't until I got into the table top game, did I start learning about the community, and all the stuff that came with it. After surfing the many posts(and 1d4chan), I get the feeling there was a golden age for GW. Then well, there was at some point a Horus Heresy if you will. Things started devolving until they reached the point they are now.

What was the cause, and when did it start?

I'm curious as a still somewhat new player. Was it something big, or a great many small?

Don't buy into the hype - the game is still loads of fun and great. It can seem otherwise when you are assailed with negativity on forums sometimes.

Enjoy the game for what it is. Never before have we seen as much 40k (and 30k for cryin out loud) material produced. Are there problems? Sure. But a lot of people are looking through rose-tinted glasses when they tell you how great things USED to be. (Though I agree wholeheartedly that White Dwarf was incredible around the Eye of Terror Campaign period!).

People want to see WD produce DIY articles and such - but to be honest there are SO many blogs and forums with ideas on what to do with this kind of thing... just look around. We are able to share ideas more than EVER before. There are Podcasts (self plug), blogs, forums, Facebook groups....

Learning to paint is easier than ever.

We have game stores you can play in, that typically support multiple tables. When I was younger there was ONE store and it had ONE table in the back with an incredibly lack of terrain. It was primarily used by Role Players.

The models are better than ever (and true.. more expensive). Forge World has become more "mainstream" than it was even 4 years ago, and they have ramped up model production to incredible levels. Black Library is releasing QUALITY books which are written by decent authors....

Honestly there is so much good going on... for me it still outweighs the bad. I know people will disagree with this opinion. *shrug* I have enjoyed 6th edition more than any other version of the game so far and I am playing regularly with a large group of people. Surround yourself with people who's interests are similar and you will see how much you can enjoy this hobby.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

Swastakowey wrote:... throwing money and time at something you hate is daft to me...

Have you stopped and considered the possibility that a lot of us complaining about the state of the game don't actually hate it?

It's possible to like something while still seeing its flaws. I love the Star Wars prequels. I still cringe at 'I love you because you're not like sand'...

40K, for me, is the same. I enjoy playing the game. But I also see enough of the flaws in it to know that I would enjoy it more if it was more tightly written.

And that's not even touching the difference liking the company producing a product and liking that product...

I have yet to hear the person i said that to say anything remotely positive except that vandettas are great. Other than that all he talks about is how crap the game is. If you talk about apples tasting like feces you dont turn around and eat it, then buy more and keep eating them. I dont know you nor have i seen many of your posts but i was referring to pregriin or however you spell it, people with his attitude might need a new hobby or Councillor.

I hate the company but like the product, he however hates both it seems, just look at his comments and you will see, people like him i was referring to. Luckily he is a minority.

He is a person that have the reason and know how to writte a rule system by himself, know how to manage a multimillionare company, have a degree on universal administrasion and wargames design, and more he has the tastes of the gods, and now have the infinite necessity to share his exalted knowledge about GW on the forum... sarcasm apart, if you dont like the game, dont like the companny, dont like the opinion of the other memebers of the community then what the are you doing here? correct me if i wrong, but thats we called masochist
Since the firts time i saw a warhammer fantasy mini, was love at firt sight, i wanted to build a bretonian army, full of knights, but then discovered 40k and then i knew the hobby was for me, since them i dont think the companny went for better to worse, becuase i am aware, since the begining, that is a expensive hobby. Years back, like 7 or 8 years ago, i wantted so bad a box of space marines, back then, here in my country and more specific in my city, was almost impossible to buy something related to gw, only one store sold them and making the math with inflation and change of the dollar, the price for a single box of tactical space marines, back then, was around $48 on todays dollars (today, around here you can get them on the same price). So i never understand why all the whine on the prices, even more, i considere all the people that live on the usa an europe lucky, becuase there you can buy them like candys, here on mexico, is a rare image to wacht an apocalypse army or game. I have 3 years on the hobby offiacialy and i barely have 2000 points of space wolves and 1500 pts of orks.
So the real question is, is the same GW the internet talk about, that the real GW?

PD: since i begin to writte here my english improve a lot and more importantly, i learn to recognize the whine from the real content and contributions from real dakka usar and real hobby fans

10 to 15 years from now some will claim this edition is the golden age.

 Formosa wrote:
Do any of us try to get together and fix these apparent issues that we also helped become mainstream, no, all we do is whine and complain.

Yeah, I agree.

It's like when I bought my last car. It was a total lemon... broke down all the time, constantly leaked oil all over my garage floor, the rear passenger door wouldn't unlock, and the glove box would fall open every time I hit 60km/hr.

Sure, I could have complained about it... but instead, I did the right thing, and got together with a bunch of other people who had bought the same car, and we tore it apart and built a new car out of the pieces.

Because when you pay good money for something, you damn well should have to fix all of the problems with it yourself. Expecting the company that has all those people who are supposedly trained to do the job properly to give you the product you paid for in proper working condition is just totally unreasonable.

Shame on you all.

 insaniak wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Do any of us try to get together and fix these apparent issues that we also helped become mainstream, no, all we do is whine and complain.

Yeah, I agree.

It's like when I bought my last car. It was a total lemon... broke down all the time, constantly leaked oil all over my garage floor, the rear passenger door wouldn't unlock, and the glove box would fall open every time I hit 60km/hr.

Sure, I could have complained about it... but instead, I did the right thing, and got together with a bunch of other people who had bought the same car, and we tore it apart and built a new car out of the pieces.

Because when you pay good money for something, you damn well should have to fix all of the problems with it yourself. Expecting the company that has all those people who are supposedly trained to do the job properly to give you the product you paid for in proper working condition is just totally unreasonable.

Shame on you all.

Well, thats becuase you never read it the manual of the car, or never take the time to read about the issues, or about the right way to put the oil or the the right way to drive it, maybe becuase you only bought it for the bright colors of the car, and then you take it a casaul car to make it a racing car, you make a good 50km/h car into a piece of and now you whine about how the company and the people that work there are useless workers, who dont know how to make their job well...

 anyeri wrote:
Well, thats becuase you never read it the manual of the car, or never take the time to read about the issues, or about the right way to put the oil or the the right way to drive it, maybe becuase you only bought it for the bright colors of the car, and then you take it a casaul car to make it a racing car, you make a good 50km/h car into a piece of and now you whine about how the company and the people that work there are useless workers, who dont know how to make their job well...

Ah, see, that's the problem right there... it was when I started reading the manual that I started noticing the problem. And when I turned to online forums to find out if other people were having similar problems, some people tried to tell me that the car is actually perfectly fine, it's just people complaining about the things that are wrong with it that make people think that there are things wrong with it. The cads.

 Formosa wrote:
Do any of us try to get together and fix these apparent issues that we also helped become mainstream, no, all we do is whine and complain.

Well here's the rub- define 'fix'? If I converted 40k so you could use all your models with another system would that count? Or would you dismiss it out of hand?

I started playing at the beginning of 3rd. That lasted until about mid-late 4th when I went off to school, but during that time it seemed like there really was a "40k universe". KilKrazys post slapped me hard with nostalgia in realizing there really was a golden age. The terms Games Day, White Dwarf (not the $8.00 pseudo-pamphlet it is now, the actual MAGAZINE), chapter Approved, the bitz orders/catalogue, Battlefleet Gothic etc, brings back nothing but the fondest of memories. I went to.a Gamesday when I was 15 and it was the coolest, most engaging GW related experience I ever had.

And then I came back in 6th. Unfortunately picking up my old BA right after the Tau dex dropped. Needless to say I've been playing for a few months now and it seems 40k has truly gone cold. Didn't want to accept it at first, but after Escalation there was no hiding it. The love of the game/product is gone. Nearly everything is a moneygrab (some more blatant than others) and it seems the ONLY reason I can and do still love playing has much less to do with the game and more to do with the fact thatI am rreally blessed to be able to play it with a great crew of guys that always agree to houserule out the garbage.

To answer the OPs question, somewhere between. 04 and 13 lol

TL; DR in 03-04 GW seemed akin to a bright eyed gamer with endless possibilities. In '13-14 that gamer has clearly devolved into a money grubbing suit who's only care is for the quarterly returns.

For me the decline happened around the release of the 4th edition Chaos Space Marine codex . Not just because it was a horrible codex from which Chaos has never recovered, but also because it marked the start of a process to dumb down and steamline the game. The fluff was terrible, all of the vast Legion history was removed in exchange for some bland 1 liner descriptions of a bunch of never before mentioned Warbands. The rules suddenly ceased to represent the fluff and it is still impossible to do entirely fluffy Legions. All of the options of the previous codex were torn out and replaced with basically a one build sham of a codex.

Now obviously there have been a ton of books released since then that were far better, however it was not just the Chaos book that changed, that was just the first time I felt like the hobby I knew had been turned on it's head. It may have improved but it's never got back to the level it was before then.

Before that we had global campaigns, 5 games all set in the 40k universe that promoted the release of even more background. White Dwarf was filled with bits of fluff, experimental rules, all kinds of different terrain workshops. A bitz catalogue, Short stories that didn't necessarily break ground but really fleshed out the universe. I particularly remember after Necrons were released there was an Inquisitors report, interogating someone on the War in Heaven. It genuinely felt like this new race had a tense, terrifying introduction into the background with snippets of vague information as opposed to just a summary of their whole history. Don't get me wrong, I liked the newest Necron codex, but I miss the days of Inquistion transmissions and Rogue Trader reports, not child like fantasy stories about How the Angels of Blood with all there blood named toys and characters, bro fisted with the Necrons. It's not just a change of the fluff, it's a change of the delivery that makes it somewhat less than it was. And White Dwarf is just a bit overpriced advert for whatever flavour of the month they are trying to promote.

Don't get me wrong, I love, love, love the HH series. But that is another emerging problem, before 40k was all legend, we had these myths about The Primarchs, the Fall of the Eldar, The rise of the Necrons etc, but it was all second hand information, now everything is explained which takes away some of the mystery but also is proving vastly unmanageable to keep timelines making sense. It's fine that not all 40k books always gel with each other because "There is no canon, everything is canon etc" but in a single series, there should really be a concise time line. Codices have followed this trend, by now every book is filled with stories that make it's faction "THE BEST THING EVER" and the ambiguity is gone.

I know this is all just my opinion, some would probably go back further and say 2nd Ed was the Golden age. But for me, the time I noted was when it felt more like an all encompassing hobby, rather than just some expensive toys that you can play games with.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
10 to 15 years from now some will claim this edition is the golden age.

Yes, lots of people bemoan how times of 5th edition were great, but either they suffer from some selective memory syndrome, or they weren't around for very long during the edition. There was enormous whining about 5th edition, how it's the worst 40k edition ever and how it killed the game and how nobody played it anymore.

or me the decline happened around the release of the 4th edition Chaos Space Marine codex . Not just because it was a horrible codex from which Chaos has never recovered, but also because it marked the start of a process to dumb down and steamline the game. The fluff was terrible, all of the vast Legion history was removed in exchange for some bland 1 liner descriptions of a bunch of never before mentioned Warbands. The rules suddenly ceased to represent the fluff and it is still impossible to do entirely fluffy Legions. All of the options of the previous codex were torn out and replaced with basically a one build sham of a codex.

In fact, this was a big shock for the CSM players. The 3.5 ed codex was absolulely brilliant, maybe the best codex ever. The following codex was exactly the opposite. I think is was mainly influenced by JJ and his former DA codex making things simpler, just boring.

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
Roughly around when they started making 'business' decisions and leaving the hobby in second place.
The big one for me was when they stopped bits ordering. Not sure of a year but it seems like a long time ago now.
Since then things have been changed for the worse or removed altogether one by one.
Throughout this process the prices have increased faster than inflation which makes it an even more bitter pill to swallow.

This right here. In the past you could imagine the game was poorly balanced because they weren't really trying, it just wasn't a concern. The main concern was the hobby. But now, the main concern is the business and making money. Now it feels like they are neglecting game balance because they don't think its a good investment, in addition to neglecting the hobby.

 obithius wrote:

 Mywik wrote:
Models were always expensive. The rules were always badly written. The models were always awesome looking. People always loved bitching about gw.

Things started going down when more people got internet.

Models were not always expensive. When I started playing I bought a tactical squad each week with my £5 pocket money. That's equivalent to £8.60 in 2012, the last year data is available for:
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/Pages/inflation/calculator/flash/default.aspx

A tactical squad is now £25. Nicer models, but a kid can't buy them with pocket money any more. That's when the game went downhill for me.

Also, the scale of the game has increased, such that you need more and more of those models for an "evening's play" game.

(This is where someone often charges in to say that no, the prices are fine if you play one or two very specific armies and somehow get the rulebook for free)

The decline really came about as a result of pulling of anything that wasnt making profits. Sure, they were always consistantly raising prices, but what really heralded the downfall was the pulling of content.

The old army books, codex(es?), white dwarf mags, and the games workshop website used to be packed with hobbying articles, how to paint hundreds of alternate colour schemes, how to make scenery out of junk, tip and tricks, battle reports etc.

Until games workshop decided to turn everything they made that wasnt a miniature into a way of selling miniatures and stopped catering to their older fanbase in favour of hyperaggressive sales tactics.

The golden age was when the fans and the company were on the same page, getting behind the same things, and getting along.

Before the greed, really.

It is a difficult question. - For example, people talk about how awesome Chaos 3.5 was. I remember it more as:

Iron Warriors, Iron Warriors everywhere.

I think it is quite hard to define the peaks because, well, there's never a situation when GW does stuff completely right.

2003 to 2004 was a pretty good year, actually taking part in the Eye of Terror Campaign was great fun (and the disasterous results weren't known until a while afterwards), I mostly played Lord of The Rings then, which had evolved into a mature game, the scenario play gave great challenges and tactics and I was pretty much loving it. - LOTR only really went downhill for me when they released the Rohan Outriders that completely skewed the game.

It's a lot easier to identify the troughs. The really low points of GW. - The release of the Plastic Giant is a pretty famous one. Traditionally, they have slowly rebuilt and become enjoyable again... Traditionally.

The troughs seems to have merged together to become a basin now however. There's just seemed to be such a constant hammer now of things that would be one off dips that have just lumped together into a downward spiral.

I'd argue that this latest thing started with May 2011. It was at that point a load of daft ideas converged.

1) Finecast
2) Huge price hike (Guard boxes halved, massive increase in marine battleforce costs)
3) The huge amount of trade restrictions implemented on independent stores.

Since then, we've had:

Cease and desist the websites. All of them.
The Spots The Space Marine debacle.
The Chapterhouse Case
More trade restrictions on independent stores.
6th edition flyers Rules.
6th Edition Allies Rules.
Dreadfleet
One Man Stores
Hardback > Trade Paperback > Mass Market Paperback
More price rises
The Hobbit failure
Tau Codex and Riptide rules
Wraithknight rules
Games Day with no Games
The Khornemower
Escalation
Supplemental Codices
New Tyranid Codex - replacing a poor codex with a worse one.
Warhammer Visions.


Two or three of them in the past together would have caused some anger, frustration, gnashing of teeth and a bit of internet rage that'd swiftly be forgotten. Now it's just this constant barrage of insanity that I think is just too much for the internet to recover from and forget.

The crazy thing is, GW are doing some things now that could potentially be worth actual, proper praise. The Stronghold expansion, properly written, would have been something I had been waiting for for more than 12 years. I've lost so much interest GW that I've never even looked at the book, nevermind bought it. The new Imperial Knights do genuinely look awesome and GW have actually started doing sales now and proper, actually really good value bundle deals.

But all that good stuff is just hidden and covered under tonnes and tonnes of stupid, mean spirited, hostile insanity. And more just keeps on being shovelled on.

You can probably tell I still want to have passion for GW but, I just don't have the energy to care anymore. There's other companies out there and, even though they do have their faults, they're far more deserving of my time, attention and, most importantly, money, than Games Workshop.

i remember back when the first boxed set of WH40K came out. at the time i felt it pandered to 'kids' and that those of us who had built up collections of lead and RTB01 marines and had made sense of the Rogue Trader rules were being abandoned. i wasn't alone with that feeling. but it was nonsense, i was 15 and an idiot. someone said earlier, and i may paraphrase, that for each person the moment GW started going downhill was shortly after they started playing, and i think that the truth!

I would say the decline of GW has an actual leader in wargaming started when they stopped producing new Specialist Games content. When it all became only about monetizing WFB, W40K, and LotR, that's when it started to go downhill. The loss of their bits service is a good example. A company that consistently tried to sell itself to the shareholders as a maker of the best toy soldiers in the world, who makes collectibles first and games second, but then suddenly starts to remove the collectibles aspect (no bits, no more cool models, etc,) is really telling.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I would say the decline of GW has an actual leader in wargaming started when they stopped producing new Specialist Games content. When it all became only about monetizing WFB, W40K, and LotR, that's when it started to go downhill. The loss of their bits service is a good example. A company that consistently tried to sell itself to the shareholders as a maker of the best toy soldiers in the world, who makes collectibles first and games second, but then suddenly starts to remove the collectibles aspect (no bits, no more cool models, etc,) is really telling.

I'd consider that more as a plateau actually. All those points you made where good but together they would have stopped GW from growing and maybe caused them to shrink a little, I think the reason that they are now really starting to feel the pressure (to put it mildly) is because of the 'we are the Hobby, we have no competition, ect' mentality the top brass have.

The rise of companies like Privateer Press, Corvus Bellie, Spartan Games, Mantic and all the others putting out both models and games and GWs refusal to acknowledge them as competition are what's killing GW.

The whole 'we are selling to collectors, the rules don't matter' was fine when if you wanted a reasonable chance of a pick up game on any given weekend you HAD to play 40k. Now that you don't people who are not collectors are jumping ship left right and center for games that are, mechanically speaking, much better. And GW, in their infinite wisdom, are continuing to pump out the same or worse rules instead of trying to fix the problem.
Likewise the actual collectors are becoming more and more aware of the other model lines out there which, frankly, can make GW stuff look like toys. (It's anecdotal I know but I enjoy collecting and I only know one person who is purely a collector/painter rather than a gamer and we both had a good laugh at the recent dwarf release while drooling over some infinity models I picked up for no reason other than because they looked cool.)

GW has the production capacity and distribution channels to dominate the market again, but it would require them to accept that they have competition and they won't do that.
You can't win a war you don't know your fighting and GW seem intent on staying the course rather than bringing their considerable weight to bear.

Honestly I think it started to go downhill when they came out with the previous paint range. Now, that might sound weird so hear me out. I've been looking over some old issues of White Dwarf lately, mostly to reminisce of the "good old days". I noticed that the magazine, and the rest of the company, seemed to change around that time. The DIY articles seemed to dry up as did the "So-and-so in the studio has collected an X army, here's how he collected and painted it up" articles and the good battle reports. It became more simplistic, with the old and now new paint range's "paint by numbers" approach replacing it. Terrain articles were all removed in favor of "Buy our new plastic terrain kit".

Of special mention is when the website was changed to be just a catalog and nothing else, and they removed all of the hobbyist articles. I used to like being able to find articles on various paint schemes or better yet articles from somebody on collecting armies, and that seems to have gone largely away.

More than anything else though it's when they came up with the idea that balance isn't something they care about, and when they believed the idea that all 40k games are for narrative purposes and that anything somebody buys should be legally allowed for use in a game, and the constant trying to make the game larger and larger so that it more resembles Epic than 40k.

In a roundabout way I actually blame LOTR. Epic was dropped to make way for it, and also to shoehorn impossibly massive and inconvenient models into 28mm 40K like titans and huge tanks, while simultaneously dropping 2e skirmish style and replacing with oversimplified not-quite-sure-what-type-of-game-I'm-playing 3e style, much of which remains today.

MarsNZ wrote:
In a roundabout way I actually blame LOTR. Epic was dropped to make way for it

Epic's demise had nothing to do with LotR, GW alienated 99% of the existing fanbase with Epic40k, resulting in plummeting sales.

In the days of 2-5th editions, the 40K universe was a hobby experience, fully supported by a company full of employees who were truly fans of their own material and passed that love on.

Now it's just an off-the-shelf product, being kept alive by the fans willingness to spend money.

I have seen it devolve since the old heady days of the Games Workshop Forums.

 Gashrog wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:
In a roundabout way I actually blame LOTR. Epic was dropped to make way for it

Epic's demise had nothing to do with LotR, GW alienated 99% of the existing fanbase with Epic40k, resulting in plummeting sales.

99% is something of an exaggeration. Still, nice that they replaced Epic with such a resoundingly successful game!

GW started going downhill when the top brass decided to stop being a "game" company and instead become a luxury action figure company. Quite simply, the vast majority of their competition has become better than them at games and gaming while they focus on selling plastic action figures. They have lost site of their core value to the market and it shows in almost every thing they do. In fact, they have lost site of what the market even is anymore.

And for their three games they have decided to keep, they don't even know what they want those to be anymore and it clearly shows in the design of those games.

Do I expect it to be fixed? No. Because the other thing they have become is one of the most customer hostile and arrogant companies I have ever seen. I would say they are worse than even EA, who has won worst company two years running because of their customer gouging tactics and inferior quality of their products. GW is following in the same footsteps, but unlike EA, they don't have the massive multi-billion dollar business to soak up this kind of behavior like EA did.

WayneTheGame wrote:
Of special mention is when the website was changed to be just a catalog and nothing else, and they removed all of the hobbyist articles. I used to like being able to find articles on various paint schemes or better yet articles from somebody on collecting armies, and that seems to have gone largely away.

There were some really good articles on the old website. There was one where they showed you how to make your own magnetized display board for your army. I remember a couple where they showed you how to cut up and repose the plastic wraithlord or converting the plastic carnifex. Lots of terrain stuff. My favorite was an article where they painted a Tau piranha with an airbrush, where they not only talked about the airbrush set-up but showed you how to get the paint-chipping effect to make it look worn and the end result looked pretty decent.

It's just sad thinking about everything we lost, all because of GW's unparalleled greed and stupidity.

It all started going downhill when people started talking on forums.

It all started going downhill when people started talking on forums.

Going from the days of the old Games Workshop forums, there can be things said for that theory.

Realistically, things started showing when fans can do more to support the Games Workshops games than corporate can. Epic 40K has basically been erased from GW's history, but right now there is fan support that is more effective and more stringently playtested than when GW sold the game*.

At least as far as Epic: Armageddon goes. I have a giant book I printed out at Office Max that contains army lists for every single race in 40K that could take part in Epic, save for the Tyranids, along with internally embedded FAQ's and the official eratta pasted where it should be.

 Voidwraith wrote:
It all started going downhill when people started talking on forums.

No, this is not the case. In our local gaming group, there is a kind of frustration about GW and its policies, and as a result, there has been a shift to other game systems, mainly to WM/Hordes.

IMO, it started going down hill when GW plc stopped thinking of themselves as part of the wider table top war gaming hobby. (Based on creativity and social interaction.)
And thought of the 'GW hobby' as completely separate,and just 'buying product from GW .'
(Based on short term sales of product on a churn and burn basis.)

Im a Fluff dude…and ill go ahed with the Warhammer 40k game as far as i can.

Yes. GW can make HUGELY bad choices…But i still like the game, and the community which comes together.

And I've not been swayed enough to quit.

All the creativity in the hobby is on the Internet, on forums like this with the blogs and galleries. Creativity from GW has withered over the last 10 years. Increasingly formulaic codices, every one needs a release on a large base, many variants are gone. IG are all Cadians and some old Catachan plastics, despite there being masses of OOP regiments. White Dwarf did nothing in recent years other than displaying the same painted models straight out the box and 'making' plastic kit terrain. What happened to the templates for making vehicles and the wave serpent conversion using a plastic spoon?

I think a lot of the fun started to bleed out if the game with 3rd edition 40k when GW really started to crank up the army size and push model sales, making table tops bloated and streamlining the game so that it became more mass figure removal and less characterful. They also started to let 'specialist games' begin to wane. In fact the invention of 'specialist games' as a term was the first nail in their coffin. Once GW stopped simply making and selling games and started focusing only on their core games while everything else went into a niche interest category it was on the road to the end with their removal from stores and withdrawal of support.

Some people might say it went all down hill once White Dwarf stopped supporting anything other than GW product. Maybe they're right. But once 2nd edition 40k was abandoned the current ethos seemed the destination. It's not as though there was ever a golden age for rules, 2nd edition clearly had issues with overpowered units. But that was 20 years ago and it doesn't seem to have improved. But the GW hobby had more soul back then, they've cut everything back to the bone, axing specialist games, bitz, their back catalogues of miniatures, their forums, all the content of white dwarf. They don't encourage modelling or creativity, they just want to sell fantasy or 40k with formulaic armies, and the table, and the scenery all as pre made kits, with the magazine and website serving only to constantly push these. Most of the old creatives, even Rick Priestly, have been eased out over time to be replaced with those who better fit the corporate approach.

The funny thing is, around the time of 2nd and 3rd edition when core games were smaller and specialist games were supported and the bitz catalogues where open and White Dwarf was full of Chapter Approved and home made scenery, all the things we are told are wasteful and unprofitable, their sales were at their highest and their company grew and grew. But they've chopped all that out and streamline staff to one man stores and axe games and remove distractions from sales in white dwarf, and where has it got them? They hold steady from year to year only though continual cutting of costs.

I absolutely echo your statements to the letter, Treesong.

Unfortunately there are plenty of 3-5 year long GW supporters who weren't barely born during the times we talk about who will counter that with the statement, "You're just old! You are just viewing things through rose colored classes!"

And....sigh. Litereally the only areas where GW has improved since those days is advancing plastic models. Everything else has stagnated.

Even when you had the options of all those other metal Guard regiments and even when starting a Guard army was not crazy expensive...

You would still see whatever was an option in plastic dominating more than the "unique" metal regiments.

I've been playing since mid-3rd Ed, and have WD dating back from earlier, so I feel as if I can comment with some idea of what I'm talking about.

For me the beginning of the end was when the 4th Ed. Dark Angels Codex was released: it marked the beginning of streamlining lists (5 or 10 man tac squads only, no armoury, and heavy restrictions on what units could and could not take. Not to mention it saw the Rhino drop from 50 to 35 points). Every other codex followed suit, and got worse and worse in terms of taking the uniqueness of an army away from the player/hobbiest. Did you Rune Priest rock a storm shield and rune staff? How about your chaplain with the crozius and hammer? Canoness with a jump-pack who was loaded up with all sorts of goodies (blessed weapon, litanies of faith, mantle of Ophelia) to make her a S3 T3 daemon slaying bad-ass? Nope, not any more.
That was the beginning of the end, where GW chose to dictate more and more about how its game should be played.

I kept playing right up to 6th ed mind you, at which point I stopped playing after it became *very* apparent to me the game was less about the player playing the way they felt most fun, and more about GW selling you its newest toys at ever increasing prices.
Example? I have a Biel-Tan Eldar Army (even after they did away with the 'official' 3rd Ed era craftworld codex) that had one of every aspect warrior unit in the army (save two). That was how I wanted to play the game. It was a challenge in 4th Ed., a challenge in 5th Ed., and completely unplayable in 6th Ed. An army that relied on tight rules, clever thinking, and units to do *exactly* what was needed of them, could not be played in a game with so much randomness and sloppy-feeling rules. What was the overwhelming response to my concerns? Buy more models! Change the army you've been playing for the past two editions and add the new release units that, by-the-way, don't jive at all with what you were going with to begin with! I believe you should by units you *want* to play with - not units that GW says you *need* to play with.

So yeah, I was a huge 40k fan for 8 years, and then stopped playing shortly after 6th was released. The turning point all started with the Dark Angels.

I have not played since 4th edition, and I am pretty sure the armies I have would be depressingly sub-par in 6th edition, from Space marines, to Necrons, to Eldar.

I mean, good god, my Necron army is still from back in 3rd edition, which has a Lord, two 5-man squads of Immortals, three 10-man Necron units, some Scarab bases, a destroyer unit and two Spyders - all metal through and through. It played just fine, too.

But there's no stereotypically powergame-able units in it, which is what GW wants me to keep buying.

Another post in support of Killkrazy's post.

Also, the introduction of True Line of Sight in 5th edition.

That too. The existing system of LOS seemed to work just fine up until then.

Also put in the part about measuring from the actual guns on the model, and not just the base.

I wrote this on another topic, earlier today. However I think that this is a better thread for what I had said. The only addendum that I would make to it is that while I played regularly for seven years, I began buying gamesworkshop/citadel miniatures way back in the mid 90's while in the military. A full decade before I ever rolled dice on the tabletop.

Well, well, well!

Now we can see why there have been no FAQs answered since April of 2013, which was when I had made my last purchase of GW product.

Honestly, after waiting several months after that particular April, I stopped playing altogether and moved onto other things to occupy my time. Things such as board games (Axis and Allies, Zombicide, even Chess and Stratego) and other non-game interests (Archery, Target shooting, Fishing, wood working, Beer making).

I actualy packed up all of my GW stuff into boxes and put them away in my storage shed just last month. It will remain there until I see some sort of improvement in the state of the game. I continue to keep an eye out on forums such as this one and hang out with my friends that still continue to play, but for now I am out.

I began playing in the later years of 4th edition, played regularly for seven years, spent thousands of dollars and ended up building three different massive armies. Orks, Space Marines, IG and a workable Tau army. I even read the Black Library books. At some point the product began to change making it less enjoyable. It was evidenced not only in the standard game, but in the books and Forgeworld as well.

It began to remind me of what happened to the comic book industry in the early 90's. I would read several titiles regularly and buy a few other titles from time to time. Yes there were a few different titles that covered the same characters such as "The Amazing Spiderman" and "Spectacular Spiderman" but you could follow one or the other without having to have the other title to understand what was going on. Then...everything changed. There was an explosion of books coming out that crossed over, across multiple titles! I couldn't understand what was going on in my issue of "Uncanny X-men" unless I also had "X-men", "X-factor", "X-force" (formerly "New Mutants"), Weapon X and who knows what else they added in just to get the sales of an underperforming book to increase. Even as a teenager I felt as though I was being had.

I first noticed things going that way while reading the Horus Heresy novels. I was following along fairly well, buying the books as they came out and enjoying them. Then other things began to crop up. E-books, audio only books (which I detest and aren't books) and Limited-gold-foil-dragonskin-written-in-the-blood-of-a-virgin-unicorn editions. I couldn't follow the story anymore due to holes that I was unable or unwilling to fill. So I stopped buying them .

The 40K games has gone the same way. I bought the new rule book, there were errors and discrepancies. They fixed a few, but not all. I could live with it knowing that they could correct them. Then they stopped correcting the discrepancies. Then there was a new suplemental rules printed in a magazine that I can never seem to get my hands on, due to limited printing. I eventually got those rules by downloading them for free from another source. They later printed those same rules into a supplemental rule book, that I wouldn't buy (because I downloaded them for free) People ran out and bought this supplemental rule book, for a hefty sum, only to see those that they needed pop up in another rule suplement that they would have to purchase anyway in order to play their prefered army. All the while answering no inquiries about discrepancies in this pile of rules.

Now, there is the rumor that there will be a new rule book that will clarify the mistakes that they made. While I have no doubt that there will be a book, I do doubt that it will truly fix much, More like, create a new batch of discrepancies, if the examples of the recent past are any indicator. To summarize the issue at hand...they are expecting me to buy their product, sight unseen with the expectation that this time....this time.....this time it will be better.

If GW wants to know why their stock dropped or why their sales are down, it's me and everyone like me. They aren't losing me, they've already lost me. I am giving them the opportunity to win me back.

When did it start going down hill?...

Was it when they went WAAC and started trying to min-max profits at the cost of the quality of their games?

Was it when they became the TFG of the gaming company world and started all those pointless lawsuits??

Was it when they made it clear they do not care what their customers opinions are???

---->Yes<----

I'm the kind of guy that stands on principle often and respects others for doing the same. I tend to do more business with companies that have them also and try to avoid those that don't. GW is not on my list of preferred companies and are in fact moving toward preferred enemy status.

I'd like to buy their models but it goes against my personal ethics to do business with a company that has none. It's really to bad that the company that created such an awesome game has turned it's back on it's customer base and shown such utter disregard for those that have supported them over the years. I find them unrespectable and view them with disdain.

I still play. I just don't give them any money.

Well, things went down hill when they lost part of their fan base due to price increases (students) and simultaneously kids were not able to get into the hobby due to the high prices for generating an army.

I feel like if I had to pick out a starting point for the decline it'd be the release of the 5e rulebook; before then you didn't see unplayable Codices languishing two editions behind the rules, newer kits didn't automatically trump older ones, the popular cheese armies were all more easily counterable, and the spread of power between Codexes was narrower. That's also about when they started letting Matt Ward write anything at all, his Necron and Grey Knight Codexes were the two worst Codexes in the history of the game in terms of game balance and in terms of fluff (he also broke Warhammer Fantasy so hard with his Daemons book that they had to release 8e just to nerf them, but that's a story for another day).

For me it all started going downhill when GW decided to keep all of its releases a big secret.
I remember a time when the News and Rumors section was packed with leaked info about what's coming in the next year or two. It gave rise to some exciting rumor-mongering and inspired cool ideas for future modeling plans. People where generally really excited.
You'll notice now that there is very little GW news anymore. Nothing to get excited about. Nothing to talk about. We know nothing until a release is imminent, at which point it's too late to build hype.

The GW decision to eliminate all promotion, excitement and anticipation about upcoming releases was akin to finding out that sex will never again involve nudity or foreplay... In fact you're lucky if you're even aware it happened.

It's going to vary from person to person really.

For me it was about 2002-3 where I really fell out of love with GW to the point I gave all my stuff away and abandoned it for a good few years.

It wasn't one thing so much as several. I went to Games Day in 2001 for the first and only time and while I'm sure most will have enjoyed it back then compared to what folk are saying about it now it ended up being a real non-event for me, and that was disheartening. I dunno, maybe it was the overnight coach journey with the brats. LotR became a bit of a factor after its release too tho. Before that, there was a pretty good amount of Necromunda & Blood Bowl players at our local store. That seemed to dry up in the years after LotR was released. Also White Dwarf seemed to start to become more like the sales advert it ended up as, with the inverted LotR section at the back and having to use more space to push the new releases than ever before, reducing content elsewhere. It was around that time I also started to notice the really aggressive sales tacks of the staff. Must emphasise they were nice guys all the same and knew the regulars well and would chat to us about what we're doing etc etc, but any time someone naive came in they'd be trying to push the boxed games like crazy. That was never fun to watch.

The price rises were also definitely a factor to me. While they're probably even more considerable now than back then, it was a shock seeing an Ork Dread go in the £30-£35 range for the first time, when I think it had been no more than half that when I started out. If they'd been kept at a lower level I might have kept the interest much longer, maybe even throughout the whole period instead of leaving. It was the combination of everything that just made it harder if not impossible to justify.

I've no doubt at this time there were still a lot of good things going on...and it's pretty clear that there's a lot more nonsense now than then as has been eloquently summed up by others... but for me my aim is so limited to just getting the Ork force done to play against mates I've met in the last few years that I can filter out most of the recent bs from GW, and with the ability to buy online from eBay/indy distributors the prices become at least tolerable. The quality of the minis has always been there (those AoBR Orks really helped get me hooked again) and I adore the overall fluff, even with drastic changes like what happened to Necrons recently. It's a shame how GW are going though - more and more corporate as the years tick by but I guess that was sadly inevitable.

I wonder what percentage of the forums nowadays is this exact thread.

 Mywik wrote:

 obithius wrote:

 Mywik wrote:
Models were always expensive. The rules were always badly written. The models were always awesome looking. People always loved bitching about gw.

Things started going down when more people got internet.

Models were not always expensive. When I started playing I bought a tactical squad each week with my £5 pocket money. That's equivalent to £8.60 in 2012, the last year data is available for:
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/Pages/inflation/calculator/flash/default.aspx

A tactical squad is now £25. Nicer models, but a kid can't buy them with pocket money any more. That's when the game went downhill for me.

Thats subjective i admit. When i started playing in 2nd edition a leman russ battle tank was 50DM ... at that time i was ~15 and had 50DM pocket money per month. So for me it was expensive.

Admittedly Boxes are more expensive now but also kids get more pocket money. The point still stands that its a long way to a working army when you are that age. Today i can totally afford one or more expensive boxes but i refuse to because of the price and not being 15 anymore.

So for some kid starting the hobby nothing really changed.

What did change though is the fact that there are a lot more competitors than back in the day that offer a lot more value for your money.

Except, even accounting for inflation, the prices have gone up significantly in the past 5 years. When I started playing, you could get a Land Raider for 50 bucks, or a Tactical Squad for 25. (It might even have been 20.) Battleforces were 80 dollars.
In the past four years, though, prices have consistently grown so that every model is about 50% more expensive. In five years.

However, that's not even a fair comparison. Five years ago, it was incredibly easy to go online and find a web-store selling models for thirty, fourty, or even fifty percent off. Sales were frequent, and getting cheap models was painfully easy. So, in effect, for the average thrifty player costs have nearly trippled in those five years.

Now, I do agree with GW cracking down on the web-sales and discounts. The models were selling for so cheaply, they weren't making any profitwhatsoever. However, simultaneously taking away the discounts and massively raising their prices (Which were already high) is just too much.

I'd say after the late 90s. I think a lot of key people left GW, and it became more of a business than a company run by a bunch of hobby dudes. People like Andy Chambers, Paul Sawyer, Jake Thornton, etc. The people, to me, that really made GW what it was. Although I guess most of those were early 2000s. So maybe around 4th edition?

White Dwarf quality had slowly been declining, and took such a nose dive that I know I stopped buying it.

You think of ALL the Specialist games produced in the late 80s and most of the 90s. Stuff like Mordheim, which started as the pet project of a GW employee, and then was featured in White Dwarf, had a huge reception, and was eventually made into a game. I can't IMAGINE current day GW doing something like that. Back then GW really was innovative and generally had an aura of "excitement". Just pure joy and excitement at the hobby bled through every page of every article, codex, and rulebook. Whereas now the tone of the writing almost feels like a person trying to awkwardly recapture that. Whenever the 6th rulebook mentions "narrative" I roll my eyes, because it just feels so forced.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Mywik wrote:
Models were always expensive. The rules were always badly written. The models were always awesome looking. People always loved bitching about gw.

Things started going down when more people got internet.

Lets face it, GW is a British company, and if there's one thing we like better than our hobbies, it's complaining.

obithius wrote:
Models were not always expensive. When I started playing I bought a tactical squad each week with my £5 pocket money. That's equivalent to £8.60 in 2012, the last year data is available for:
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/Pages/inflation/calculator/flash/default.aspx

A tactical squad is now £25. Nicer models, but a kid can't buy them with pocket money any more. That's when the game went downhill for me.

Funny. My army has only doubled in price since 1998. I have a picture to prove it.



I think you had more pocket money as a child than you remember.

I just broke out a copy of White Dwarf 244 from May of 2000. A 20 man box of Catachans had a cost of $22.99. Today the same exact 20 models will cost you $58.00.

A Space Marine Land Raider Army boxed set contained: A land raider, a 10 man tac squad, 5 man terminator squad, 1 terminator captain, 1 land speeder, a 3 man bike squad, a 5 man jump pack squad, a 5 man devestator squad, a dreadnaught, and a 5 man scout squad, all for $199.99.

Today that stuff will run you $425.75.

The catachans are over a 150% increase in 15 years while the land raider box is a 112% increase. I don't believe that inflation has been quite that high in the last decade and a half. A quick check on an inflation calculator will show that the $22.99 in 2000 had the same buying power as $31.10 as of 2013. That's a far cry from $58. The $199.99 had the same buying power as $270.55. That is a more than just a bit less than $425.75.

You could get a three model set of Sentinels for $50 and a catachan battle force containing 20 catachans, 2 sentinels and Leman Russ for $80.

Then let's look at a codex price. Codex Space Marines and Codex Imperial Guard were $14.99. The Space Wolves Codex was $9.99. Now I know that they've added a lot more pictures since those days, but that's about it. Heck, I personaly paid $32.95 for the Angels of Death codex, that contained all the rules for Dark Angels and Blood Angels with a ton of fluff in 120 pages. I know that I paid this because the price sticker is still on the book. But the new hardbounds are so much better quality, you might say...horse feathers. Out of all the trade paperback rule books that I have purchased (that's soft cover) I lost one page from one of them. My hard cover 6th edition rulebook is falling apart.

As the prices for this stuff have increased at roughly triple the rate of inflation i would surmise that.... no, he may not have had more pocket money as a child than he remembers as he didn't give the time when he was a child.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Even your example is a 117% increase. Way over inflationary adjustment. Even though it is a single model cherry picked from the entire line. You could easily do the same with Iron Hand Straken. That is indeed even a newer model than the 2000 version and it's price only increased roughly by 60% from $9.49 to $15.00. Still a bit steep as adjusting for inflation the model should cost $12.84 today.

 bosky wrote:
You think of ALL the Specialist games produced in the late 80s and most of the 90s. Stuff like Mordheim, which started as the pet project of a GW employee, and then was featured in White Dwarf, had a huge reception, and was eventually made into a game. I can't IMAGINE current day GW doing something like that. Back then GW really was innovative and generally had an aura of "excitement". Just pure joy and excitement at the hobby bled through every page of every article, codex, and rulebook. Whereas now the tone of the writing almost feels like a person trying to awkwardly recapture that. Whenever the 6th rulebook mentions "narrative" I roll my eyes, because it just feels so forced.

I think that's really the crux of it. There was a time when GW was innovative, when they actually created games. Now, they're just revising and rehashing the same things. When was the last time GAMES Workshop actually made a new game that we all wanted to play?

I think that's really the crux of it. There was a time when GW was innovative, when they actually created games. Now, they're just revising and rehashing the same things. When was the last time GAMES Workshop actually made a new game that we all wanted to play?

I would say Lord of the Rings, but that has become a bunch of rehashes, too. Hmm.....Battlefleet Gothic? Or maybe Epic: Armageddon, though that technically wasn't a "new" game.

Hell, before Battlefleet Gothic came out, they released a set of the beta rules in White Dwarf, complete with card punch-outs of ships. Can you even imagine GW doing that nowadays?!?

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Can you even imagine GW doing that nowadays?!?

I would shed a single manly tear of happiness if they did.

 Voidwraith wrote:
It all started going downhill when people started talking on forums.

It's really easy to just see all of the negative comments on forums and conclude that they are somehow to blame for spreading ill-will towards GW like some sort of online virus... But I've been involved in several clubs over the years that had most of their players with very little or no internet presence. And they still got progressively more anti-GW as time went on, due to GW's business practices.

The internet doesn't promote the hate. It just gives people a venue to discuss it. The internet also promotes the better aspects of the hobby in a way that physical clubs never can, by allowing enthusiasts to share their passion with people from all over the globe. Forums aren't the problem... the visible negativity is just a symptom.


To a certain extent, the idea that things started going downhill shortly after any given player started is spot-on... Because the point at which we are first introduced to the hobby becomes our baseline for what is 'normal'. As prices increase, and as you get exposed to an ever-increasing pool of examples as to why GW is completely fething insane, your perception of the hobby is coloured as a result, and things eventually wind up seeming less shiny than they were when you started.


So it's not surprising that everyone has a different idea of just when it started going downhill. It's been going downhill for a heck of a long time... but exactly when people noticed has varied for everybody.

I remember (and still have) the old Horus Heresy game they made about the Siege of Terra. It was a couple of card inserts worth in the White Dwarf and while it wasn't massively deep or intricate it was a completely free, fun game. It got you engaged with the IP (there was some awesome fluff with it) and let you play in the same world you loved a different way.

Likewise, we briefly had a lot of fun with Brewhouse Bash, and the Dark Eldar arena game at the start of 3rd edition.

More over I think there is also somewhat of a backlash due to the quality of rules. It has been brought into sharp relief in recent years. In 1990 I simply didn't notice how bad it was and there weren't any other options. Now in 2014 not only can I find loopholes with ease but I know full well there are other rulesets that just don'thave the issue.

Evey 40k player should browse the YMDC for Warmachine. That is the quality of rules the biggest wargaming company making the biggest game in the world should be making and it's customers should be getting.

 insaniak wrote:
Likewise, we briefly had a lot of fun with Brewhouse Bash, and the Dark Eldar arena game at the start of 3rd edition.

Yeah and mentioning WHFB briefly, Full Tilt.

Brewhouse Bash was really fun. Would still like to make a 3D version of that pub lol

 bosky wrote:


You think of ALL the Specialist games produced in the late 80s and most of the 90s. Stuff like Mordheim, which started as the pet project of a GW employee, and then was featured in White Dwarf, had a huge reception, and was eventually made into a game. I can't IMAGINE current day GW doing something like that. Back then GW really was innovative and generally had an aura of "excitement". Just pure joy and excitement at the hobby bled through every page of every article, codex, and rulebook. Whereas now the tone of the writing almost feels like a person trying to awkwardly recapture that. Whenever the 6th rulebook mentions "narrative" I roll my eyes, because it just feels so forced.

I started to agree with this and then remembered Dreadfleet. This was obviously made by someone who had a really good idea, and then managed to persuade management to run with it. And Dreadfleet was gak. So, I blame Phil Kelly for the decline of GW.

I think it's quite clear that there's a lot more management control over GW releases now. Sculpts are almost exact recreations of artwork [mostly to their detriment in my opinion] and characters that are either out of stock or never had a model are stripped from codexes. Units are intentionally withheld from codexes in order to sell dataslates. Epic will never come back as it's much more profitable to make customers buy the full size units.

In terms of buying models from GW, 'Fine'cast limited lots of options for me. Lower quality, higher cost models using a cheaper material [and the QC issues] led tome swearing never to buy this gak, something I've kept to. 'Fine'cast encouraged me to choose an all metal army - Sisters - which I love [I have only a handful of plastic models too].

Ruleswise, I've been really happy since 6th. Love allies, flyers, fortifications, Escalation. So for me, in terms of rules, GW is in a 'golden era'. In terms of models, maybe bronze. In terms of creativity, yeah I agree it's pretty barren ground due to corporate control.

 bosky wrote:
I'd say after the late 90s. I think a lot of key people left GW, and it became more of a business than a company run by a bunch of hobby dudes. People like Andy Chambers, Paul Sawyer, Jake Thornton, etc. The people, to me, that really made GW what it was. Although I guess most of those were early 2000s. So maybe around 4th edition?

White Dwarf quality had slowly been declining, and took such a nose dive that I know I stopped buying it.

You think of ALL the Specialist games produced in the late 80s and most of the 90s. Stuff like Mordheim, which started as the pet project of a GW employee, and then was featured in White Dwarf, had a huge reception, and was eventually made into a game. I can't IMAGINE current day GW doing something like that. Back then GW really was innovative and generally had an aura of "excitement". Just pure joy and excitement at the hobby bled through every page of every article, codex, and rulebook. Whereas now the tone of the writing almost feels like a person trying to awkwardly recapture that. Whenever the 6th rulebook mentions "narrative" I roll my eyes, because it just feels so forced.

When you think about it, its also a form of playtesting. Imagine if they did this in their white dwarf! Had a small section to rules and game options (like a demo) and if people like it enough then they can make a big deal about releasing it and so on. Like when someone converts an army, they make minor rules for it (blood pact comes to mind) and if people wanted it they could release a "Digital dataslate" for people to buy and so on.

Involves the community a bit more and makes white dwarf a better read if this was to be done.

 tyrannosaurus wrote:
I started to agree with this and then remembered Dreadfleet. This was obviously made by someone who had a really good idea, ...

All evidence would appear to the contrary...


An all-in-one-box naval game set in the Warhammer World might have been a good idea. But not in the format they decided on.



I think that the comparison between Dreadfleet and the redone Space Hulk, combined with the different receptions received by redone models compared to new additons recently suggests that redoing their old stuff is ultimately something that GW are far, far better at than coming up with anything new.

So, in that light, sticking with rehashing the same stuff over and over rather than pushing out more Dreadfleets and Riptides does seem like the best option...

 insaniak wrote:

 tyrannosaurus wrote:
I started to agree with this and then remembered Dreadfleet. This was obviously made by someone who had a really good idea, ...

All evidence would appear to the contrary...

An all-in-one-box naval game set in the Warhammer World might have been a good idea. But not in the format they decided on.

I think that the comparison between Dreadfleet and the redone Space Hulk, combined with the different receptions received by redone models compared to new additons recently suggests that redoing their old stuff is ultimately something that GW are far, far better at than coming up with anything new.

So, in that light, sticking with rehashing the same stuff over and over rather than pushing out more Dreadfleets and Riptides does seem like the best option...

There's definitely much more risk aversion at GW now. To be honest I would have been much more likely to buy Dreadfleet if it had been a reboxing of Man O'War. I would also happily buy a rebox of Bloodbowl, Necromunda, BFG, EPIC and Mordheim. Would I buy a completely new game? Maybe, maybe not.

I think a lot of the decisions made by GW management make more sense when you look at their customer base. Nostalgic 30/40 somethings with disposable income [like me] and new entrants to the hobby who want to buy somethin cool looking that is going to win them the game, no matter the fluff/balance.

I feel like if I had to pick out a starting point for the decline it'd be the release of the 5e rulebook; before then you didn't see unplayable Codices languishing two editions behind the rules, newer kits didn't automatically trump older ones, the popular cheese armies were all more easily counterable, and the spread of power between Codexes was narrower. That's also about when they started letting Matt Ward write anything at all, his Necron and Grey Knight Codexes were the two worst Codexes in the history of the game in terms of game balance and in terms of fluff (he also broke Warhammer Fantasy so hard with his Daemons book that they had to release 8e just to nerf them, but that's a story for another day).

I second this. 4e certainly had its problems, see holofalcons, Nidzilla and lash of submission, but they were isolated problems. When 5e rolled around, it seemed the new codices just straight out outclassed the older ones, and the game became utterly dominated by the likes of IG, Space Wolves, Blood Angles, Grey Knights, etc. To GWs credit though, if it wasn't for Tau and Eldar, I think the 5e codices would have been on a level playing field with the 6e codices, although 6e is still plagued by the likes of the flyer rules, snap shots, challenges, and lots of tables (warlord, mysterious terrain, etc.).

 tyrannosaurus wrote:
I started to agree with this and then remembered Dreadfleet. This was obviously made by someone who had a really good idea, and then managed to persuade management to run with it. And Dreadfleet was gak. So, I blame Phil Kelly for the decline of GW.

Haha, I guess this could be reasoned as Dreadfleet was not a labor of love, it was a calculated move to try to capitalize on how popular the single box Space Hulk re-release was. The fact that they focused more on the models than the rules in White Dwarf kind of supports this idea...at least that's how I'm going to reason it out

 Swastakowey wrote:
When you think about it, its also a form of playtesting. Imagine if they did this in their white dwarf! Had a small section to rules and game options (like a demo) and if people like it enough then they can make a big deal about releasing it and so on. Like when someone converts an army, they make minor rules for it (blood pact comes to mind) and if people wanted it they could release a "Digital dataslate" for people to buy and so on.

Involves the community a bit more and makes white dwarf a better read if this was to be done.

They did exactly that for Mordheim. I remember Tuomas Pirinen being excited about the game and posting some preliminary rules, sketches, and converted warbands. Which is why it's too bad how crummy White Dwarf and Specialist games have gotten.

Phanixis wrote:

I feel like if I had to pick out a starting point for the decline it'd be the release of the 5e rulebook; before then you didn't see unplayable Codices languishing two editions behind the rules, newer kits didn't automatically trump older ones, the popular cheese armies were all more easily counterable, and the spread of power between Codexes was narrower. That's also about when they started letting Matt Ward write anything at all, his Necron and Grey Knight Codexes were the two worst Codexes in the history of the game in terms of game balance and in terms of fluff (he also broke Warhammer Fantasy so hard with his Daemons book that they had to release 8e just to nerf them, but that's a story for another day).

I second this. 4e certainly had its problems, see holofalcons, Nidzilla and lash of submission, but they were isolated problems. When 5e rolled around, it seemed the new codices just straight out outclassed the older ones, and the game became utterly dominated by the likes of IG, Space Wolves, Blood Angles, Grey Knights, etc. To GWs credit though, if it wasn't for Tau and Eldar, I think the 5e codices would have been on a level playing field with the 6e codices, although 6e is still plagued by the likes of the flyer rules, snap shots, challenges, and lots of tables (warlord, mysterious terrain, etc.).

YOu forgot daemons. EVERY Xeno codex has been better than EVERY meq codex except for maybe Tyranids. And for me, the jury is still out. I am very underwhelmed by the marine codex.

The thing about GW is they have grown exceptionally strong in many points, unfortunately and the cost of others. The elaboration of the Horus Heresy has been one of the best additions to the 40k universe they have ever brought in, it adds a depth of story to it that was no where near before. Being a thirty year old that has got back into after a 12 year hiatus, this is without question what drew me back initially. The quality of the minatures has sky rocketed, along with the ability to pose in all different forms allows for amazing creativity, the eldar dire avengers provides a perfects example of this when compared to the second edition ones. With the use of easier to cut plastics, the commercial release of green stuff (fianlly!) and all manner of internet tutorials has made achieving the miniature you have in your minds eyes exceptionally easy. These are all points that GW are extremely strong on.

This however has come at a cost. A cost not matched since the betrayal. They have stripped out the soul of the original game, white dwarfs are now written by sales men pushing their latest products, local stores staff have become bitter at how little they are told by upper management. If i want a set of termiantor bases from and official outlet i have to buy a bag of mixed bases which include 5 of the ones i want. Fire cast.......enough said. All these things mentioned and more are straight out of marketing 101 that allows them to extract money out of the customers wallet, without full scale rebellion.

But the question me and jonkofi discuss regually is why. What is the asset that GW have over music companies, film makers, comic book writers, computer game publishers? Their sole product cannot be downloaded, there is not a pirate bay out there that can download a squad of space marines.........yet.

With the price of 3D printers hurtling down day by day, in 3 years time it will be common place for people to have them in their household, and what will the average child, student, full time worker do the moment they can download 3D model files....download a squad of space marines. I certainly will do, one person with a 3D scanner and even rudimentary skills on max/maya will be able to tweak the scan, package it up, even add a few new guns. The world is their oyster at that point.

GW are far to intelligent to not see this coming, which is why, in my opinion, they are branching out into as many avenues as possible and reaping as much casheloa as they can, as the day an iron clad dreadnought comes up on pirate bay, is the day they start to make losses.

Harsh, but fair?

Depends on who you ask.

A lot of old-timers will tell you that it all went to hell back when White Dwarf stopping covering RPGs back in the late 80's.

6th is what killed the game. The reliance on ONLY shooting now, the inclusion of the riptide (my DKoK army still wipes whole tau armies in 3 turns, then loses to Riptides only), the stupidity of fliers, the highly imbalanced changes across all armies (BA and DE have been crying since 6th started while crons just laughed).

5th was a shooting edition also, but it had at least the threat of melee to make armies bring a counter-charge unit or redundancy in shorter range units. Even vs 5th GK i could compete with every unit they could field. Now games require things like spammed AP2 long range shooting and anti-flier ability, which just compartmentalizes lists into even more cookie cutter. I brought a huge variety of lists to tourneys and placed with some of the worst (My 1st tourney win was with trygon+ warrior+ genestealer nids). Now, 6th has just made the environment more hostile to less optimized lists with the increase in the SHOOTING power of each new army produced.

At this point, i think you would struggle to make an assault unit that would be truly strong without a 3++ at minimum. Even Wraith spam lists arent showing up much in competition, and look how AMAZING the stats on those were.

Allies made min-maxing lists SO much easier. Before you brought sub-optimal choices to deal with roles you couldnt deal with, but this was offset by your army's strengths. My 4th eldar codex's lack of great AT was offset by the huge power of harlequins crossing the board quickly and often untouched.

I didnt mind the 4th-5th change all that much. The golden age for me was the ups and downs from guard-GK. GK started the huge ramping of power creep that was continued in crons and then in 6th editions ruleset change.

I'd say it started with 4th edition.

There was a massive exodus of players when it came out and GW started gutting itself and blaming its own fans. Since then they have become ever growingly desperate to nickel and dime people to death.

Rick Priestly leaving was a pretty big deal. Its the most damning evidence when the guy who invented your game says you destroyed the soul to get money.

 Ravenous D wrote:
I'd say it started with 4th edition.

There was a massive exodus of players when it came out and GW started gutting itself and blaming its own fans. Since then they have become ever growingly desperate to nickel and dime people to death.

Rick Priestly leaving was a pretty big deal. Its the most damning evidence when the guy who invented your game says you destroyed the soul to get money.

Did he actually say that?

Well, I think that GW should be able to turn the tide. Look at the Dwarf deal with 59 miniatures for 100 pounds.

What would interest me is if the British players, painters or collectors have a higher affinity to GW (as a British company) than those from the rest of the world?

 wuestenfux wrote:
Well, I think that GW should be able to turn the tide. Look at the Dwarf deal with 59 miniatures for 100 pounds.

What would interest me is if the British players, painters or collectors have a higher affinity to GW (as a British company) than those from the rest of the world?

not quite...

Its their high street stores that did the job of making them dominant in the UK.

Really the internet has help promote the 'newer' games somewhat but the GW stores attract many as they are rather handy and do take the character of a 'childminders' every now and then (what that says about Uk parenting skills i have no idea )

Personally 5th was where things were quite good, many of the imbalances were not as glaringly obvious as they are now. GW really dropped the ball here, the base rules are actually fine, its each codex that may or may not be OP that is the problem. Its that issue that causes the 'complaints' moreso when warmahordes works like a dream everytime regardless of armies.

 zephoid wrote:
6th is what killed the game. The reliance on ONLY shooting now, the inclusion of the riptide (my DKoK army still wipes whole tau armies in 3 turns, then loses to Riptides only), the stupidity of fliers, the highly imbalanced changes across all armies (BA and DE have been crying since 6th started while crons just laughed).

People say the same thing in every edition. You could replace the 6th with 3rd and complain about hand to hand, blood angels rhino rush, how stupid white dwarf add-on lists are, etc.

Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Well, I think that GW should be able to turn the tide. Look at the Dwarf deal with 59 miniatures for 100 pounds.

What would interest me is if the British players, painters or collectors have a higher affinity to GW (as a British company) than those from the rest of the world?

Their "deals" are still crazy expensive to get into. $165UDF for 59 miniatures that just barely makes an entry-level force, plus you still need $125 for the rulebook and army book? They should offer these deals and throw in the army book/codex for free like they used to in the olden days; I recall the Mail Order Trolls used to always have deals like a 2,000 point army for $200 or thereabouts.

 pretre wrote:

 zephoid wrote:
6th is what killed the game. The reliance on ONLY shooting now, the inclusion of the riptide (my DKoK army still wipes whole tau armies in 3 turns, then loses to Riptides only), the stupidity of fliers, the highly imbalanced changes across all armies (BA and DE have been crying since 6th started while crons just laughed).

People say the same thing in every edition. You could replace the 6th with 3rd and complain about hand to hand, blood angels rhino rush, how stupid white dwarf add-on lists are, etc.

Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.

Just because 3rd was bad doesnt mean that things never got bad afterwords. 4th and 5th were hybrid editions where there were instances of both melee and shooting being the stronger type. 6th is so one sided that, as i said, you cant MAKE a melee unit without a 3++ or better (that wasnt flying or a MC) that would be top teir. The game has been relegated to nearly entirely shooting or synergy lists that try for the 2++ rerollable.

In terms of codexes, the game has always been up and down in terms of power. SW and IG were both very strong early 5th codexes. BA was weaker, but played well against the top teir armies. DE was considered the most balanced codex GW had put out in a long, long while. Then GK (OP as hell) and Crons (Wraiths, spyders, 1-upping MEQ) started throwing around power creep so hard something was going to break. 6th broke it. The huge nerfs to assault/vehicles and the introduction of fliers wrecked some armies (DE, BA) and created huge imbalances that have persisted until recently. Even now some armies dont have good solutions to fliers and suffer in both competitive and casual settings because of it. Its not fun to see 1/3 your ork army taken out by helldrakes, either in a competitive setting or not. GW apparently thinks this is acceptable . The vast majority of people i talk to disagree, along with myself.

I'm kind of finding it hard to not agree with pretty much everything Zephoid has said so far.

I've not played 40k for 6 months now and I'm really just not wanting to turn up to a game where there's every likelihood now of me playing against.

"A primary detachment of Three to Six Imperial Knights."

Where:

"They may also be taken as allies, you can include up to Three Imperial Knights as a single allied detachment."

That is genuinely illustrating perfectly how Warhammer 40000 is just simply not the game I want to play anymore.

I remember in 5th ed I was briefly involved with planning/running a large apoc event. Rules for the emperor titan showed up on GW's website. A local guy built one and wanted to bring it to the event.

Long story short, I dug my heels in and said "no sorry, it's just too much"(it was also 4000pts, each player was only allowed a couple thousand). The main event organizer got involved and more or less said "let him run it or I'll find someone else to run the apoc" and he went on to say something that really stuck with me, he basically said "we can't be impeding on other people's fun" to which I replied "his fun will come at the expense of many other's". I stepped down and decided not to involve myself, apoc is zany and crazy enough but having one side try and deal with like 28+ D weapon templates just seemed short sighted.

Games sometimes don't go our way, as players its hard to argue that a lucky vindicator shot killing 5 terminators is fun, but it's also something that doesn't happen every game and any player who has been around a while usually develops a thick skin and is able to shrug off a loss or a string of unlucky occurences. I liked 5th ed a lot, I tolerated apoc at best. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than the clusterfeth we have now.

Fast forward a couple years and now we're all essentially being forced to play apoc in so much as the firewall between the two games has been torn down for the benefit of faceless shareholders and entitled brats with too much money.

In the word of the bunk "Makes me sick, melon-fether, how far we done fell."




It's hard to peg exactly when things started going downhill, but I can't help but think it was the first time someone put 3 manticores on a skyshield.

It's not realistic to expect people to have noticed things going downhill before they started to play.

The fact that people didn't notice things going downhill before they started to play doesn't mean things weren't going downhill at that time.

 Compel wrote:
I'm kind of finding it hard to not agree with pretty much everything Zephoid has said so far.

I've not played 40k for 6 months now and I'm really just not wanting to turn up to a game where there's every likelihood now of me playing against.

"A primary detachment of Three to Six Imperial Knights."

Where:

"They may also be taken as allies, you can include up to Three Imperial Knights as a single allied detachment."

That is genuinely illustrating perfectly how Warhammer 40000 is just simply not the game I want to play anymore.

I never understood this argument. For the entirety of 40k, there have been people, lists and things that you don't want to play against. Yeah, playing against super heavies is no fun if you don't want to play against super heavies. Guess what? Don't play against them.

I have never played against someone or something I didn't want to in 40k. Choose your club, your friends or your events with your eyes open and you'll never have that problem.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I feel like if I had to pick out a starting point for the decline it'd be the release of the 5e rulebook; before then you didn't see unplayable Codices languishing two editions behind the rules, newer kits didn't automatically trump older ones, the popular cheese armies were all more easily counterable, and the spread of power between Codexes was narrower. That's also about when they started letting Matt Ward write anything at all, his Necron and Grey Knight Codexes were the two worst Codexes in the history of the game in terms of game balance and in terms of fluff (he also broke Warhammer Fantasy so hard with his Daemons book that they had to release 8e just to nerf them, but that's a story for another day).

Eh, no.

in all these cases, you are incorrect.

Or don't you remember orks and dark eldar being left from the start of third edition with their codices (heck, the ork codex didn't even have a list of weapon profiles, or armoury!) and no updates until fifth. Orks went for what? Ten years? Twelve? Without an update?
You saw plenty unplayable codices. The ratio of cheese to waste was as great as it is now. Guard sucked, bar one build (drop troops) for a lot of it.
Popular cheese armies were certainly not 'more easily counter able' or don't you remember triple wraithlord, starcannon, seer council, disruption table wielding, crystal targeting matrix equipped eldar armies back in third? Don't you remember the abomination of fourth edition iron warriors? That abomination of a chaos code single handedly destroyed fourth edition. Siren princes and nike lords still make me shudder in disgust.
The spread of power was as it is now. You saw some builds in some editions, others were pointless. Some codices were leagues ahead of others.
Matt ward? Yeah, try Pete Haines. Joke at the time being 'don't let Pete Haines write a codex for an army he plays'. They did. He did the chaos codex. And specifically gave iron warriors a level of cheese that would make grey knights in fifth edition blush.


Point being? The decline didn't start in fifth. Those things you saw happen then? Yeah, well I saw the same kind of faults, problems, and issues ten years before then. I'm serious about that. If someone who was a forum goer ten years ago reading portent, and was familiar with the moaning, complaining, and venting with regard to 40k that was then posted, and was to go through time to now, he'd shake his head - 'ten years, and nothing's changed? Same old crap. Wtf!'

Deadnight wrote:
Orks went for what? Ten years? Twelve? Without an update?

Orks - 2nd Edition - 1994
Orks - 3rd Edition - 1999
Orks - 4th edition - 2008

9 years, but pretty close.

Point being? The decline didn't start in fifth. Those things you saw happen then? Yeah, well I saw the same kind of faults, problems, and issues ten years before then. I'm serious about that. If someone who was a forum goer ten years ago reading portent, and was familiar with the moaning, complaining, and venting with regard to 40k that was then posted, and was to go through time to now, he'd shake his head - 'ten years, and nothing's changed? Same old crap. Wtf!'

Yep, you can still go back (which I do occasionally) and reproduce people's arguments today with pretty much the same argument 10-20 years ago with the magic of google.

Yeah, I can choose not to play X, Y and Z. And I have done so in the past

Since May 2013? Though. Well, 40k has left me long behind. It's not just X, Y, Z anymore, now it's A - W as well.

 Compel wrote:
Yeah, I can choose not to play X, Y and Z. And I have done so in the past

Since May 2013? Though. Well, 40k has left me long behind. It's not just X, Y, Z anymore, now it's A - W as well.

How many bad games did you have? Because, at least from your posts, this sounds more like a philosophical objection than an actual objection. I find that a lot of people object to things happening in 40k, but don't actually run into these things on the table.

Oh well, if you don't want to play, don't play. Just don't try to convince us that it is because 40k changed.

First of all, I'd like to state, that most of the guys I played were perfectly nice chaps but that's actually kind of the point, the way the game had moved on is the biggest problem.

There was the 9 Vendetta guy, 2 Hydra, 2 Manticore guy.
There was the Wraithknight with Long Fang spam doubles team.
Deathwing allies to someone else (think it was ultramarines.)
Everyone and their dog having a(t least one) storm raven now.
I wasn't far off from playing against an entire Tau army deployed on a skyshield.


I'm not whinging that these are uber powerful unbeatable armies or anything. Because, I know they're not, however they are just armies and forces I can't be bothered with anymore.

I think the armies currently being played at my gaming club are. Now, I'd like to repeat, these guys are my good mates but still...

Warhound Titan with Grey Knights. Or double Dreadknights.
Tau with Riptide and Allied Wraithknight.
Eldar with 2 Wraithknights.
Tau with supplement codex, crisis suit blob with 2 special characters and allied Eldar.
Raven Guard with... I want to say 2 storm ravens and a storm talon, but it might be the other way round.

And, that trend is continuing with this 'Imperial Knight' army idea.

So, it is a combination of philosophical and actual. I've played against the early parts of this trend, and didn't enjoy the gameplay and have since chosen to 'bug out' as the trend has continued.

I know the 40k universe is structured around people running up and hitting things with their chainswords, but honestly doesn't anyone thinks it's good that shooting is better than close combat? It's sci-fi for goodness sakes. The whole idea of a guy charging across a massive battlefield, getting shot the whole time, and somehow surviving to kill someone with a glorified knife is silly. If you like melee there are plenty of games where that is the focus. If you look at modern warfare the thought of someone intentionally focusing on stabbing an enemy is ridiculous, let alone after a dozens centuries of refining the process of "shoot at farther and farther distances".

It's fine that shooting is better, than CC, but CC units need to be priced accordingly, which they are not. And shooting units as well.

All I have to say is that GW is NOT the company it was back in the late 1990's, and not in the good way. Somewhere along the line the went off the rails, no matter what year you point that out as.

Though I say somewhere between 2000-05..

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Ravenous D wrote:
Rick Priestly leaving was a pretty big deal. Its the most damning evidence when the guy who invented your game says you destroyed the soul to get money.

Did he actually say that?

Not exactly. He made a comment in one of the Gates of Antares discussions to the effect that the separation between studio and the bean counters was what made their games work, and once the studio's decisions because directly influenced by the accountants they would lose their way.

 Compel wrote:
I'm kind of finding it hard to not agree with pretty much everything Zephoid has said so far.

I've not played 40k for 6 months now and I'm really just not wanting to turn up to a game where there's every likelihood now of me playing against.

"A primary detachment of Three to Six Imperial Knights."

Where:

"They may also be taken as allies, you can include up to Three Imperial Knights as a single allied detachment."

That is genuinely illustrating perfectly how Warhammer 40000 is just simply not the game I want to play anymore.

Amusingly enough, back in the days of 2nd Edition, we would have lauded GW for giving us Knights to play with. Anyone else remember all the cool stuff they published in things like the Citadel Journal? I still remember scratchbuilding my own Thunderhawk out of cardboard (and toilet paper rolls for the engines) when they published rules for it. There was a time when GW games were fun to just play, now too many people seem to think it's only fun if you win. We've forgotten how to play, and GW has forgotten how to make games.

GW killing the Black Templars didnt help their image either.

Well, I was 12 when I played 2nd edition. Lets play pretty much sums it up.

I'm not 12 anymore and want something a bit more from my toy sodjers.

It's not a binary thing, either going along with everything GW says as great for [strikethrough]forging a narrative[/strikethrough]Lets play or being a Win-at-all-costs munchkin.

There's another quality for me, something I'm sorry to say, I can't quite put into words. A certain feel to the game that for much of 5th edition (the GK release started making it fade though), I liked and was comfortable with. Sure, you had the people with 9 vendettas or 18 long fangs, or whatever it was. However, they were rare. Armies were made around a structure, a composition that I enjoyed.

Or, at least, the ones I played against were.

Now this setup of the game has changed completely, armies are barely recognisable anymore. It's not, say, one centerpiece model, it's now 2 to 3.

And I can't be bothered to get my 40k models out to play anymore, with the inevitable stress that actually comes with it.

Apparently I am still bothered enough about it to whinge on forums.

 Compel wrote:


Removing all hobby content from their main website
Replacing their entire paint range
Failcast
Introducing dual kit box sets and charging you 1.5 times what you would have normally paid for the one unit type you'll build out of them, unless you are a professional at magnetizing
Cease and desist the websites. All of them.
The Chapterhouse Case
More trade restrictions on independent stores.
6th edition Flyers Rules.
6th Edition Allies Rules (and by that meaning chaplains leading a unit of maxed out fearless kroot into battle and all sorts of other, completely unfluffy shenanigans - "forging the narrative" my ).
6th edition in general - hullpoints (debatable), close combat nerf (AP3 swords, AP4 mauls, overwatch, random charge ranges), wound allocation, challenge system etc.
Completely changing the face of the game from Warhammer 40,000 to Deathstar 40,000
More price rises
The Hobbit failure
Tau Codex and Riptide rules
Wraithknight rules
Games Day with no Games
The Khornemower
Making the Baneblade kit even more expensive
Escalation
Supplemental Codices for full codex price featuring 5% rules, 60% fluff, 15% missions you'll probably never find someone to play with and 20% miniature gallery
New Tyranid Codex - replacing a poor codex with a worse one.
Warhammer Visions.
Imperial Knights
Renaming the Imperial Guard to Astra Militarum
Rolling out 7th edition less than 2 years after the release of 6th and stuffing superheavies into it

Fixed

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Amusingly enough, back in the days of 2nd Edition, we would have lauded GW for giving us Knights to play with. Anyone else remember all the cool stuff they published in things like the Citadel Journal?

Sure do. I also remember all that cool stuff not generally being allowed in tournaments, along with Allies and Special Characters.

The players haven't changed as much as you think. There are still plenty of people who just want cool toys to play with. There are also, and always were, plenty of people who just want a clear ruleset that is suitable for tournament play. Some of them are the same people.

GW killing the Black Templars didnt help their image either.

Well, seeing as they started in 2nd edition as just another vanilla chapter in Codex: Ultramarines........

I figuered it out, it was when they stopped requiring people to paint their models to be able to play in store. That was it.

 AegisGrimm wrote:

Well, seeing as they started in 2nd edition as just another vanilla chapter in Codex: Ultramarines........

I'm not sure I get your point here? re you suggesting that players should be upset at something being removed or downgraded in some way if it wasn't set in stone from the very beginnings of 40K?

 bosky wrote:
I know the 40k universe is structured around people running up and hitting things with their chainswords, but honestly doesn't anyone thinks it's good that shooting is better than close combat? It's sci-fi for goodness sakes. The whole idea of a guy charging across a massive battlefield, getting shot the whole time, and somehow surviving to kill someone with a glorified knife is silly. If you like melee there are plenty of games where that is the focus. If you look at modern warfare the thought of someone intentionally focusing on stabbing an enemy is ridiculous, let alone after a dozens centuries of refining the process of "shoot at farther and farther distances".

You start off saying you understand that 40k is structured around people running up and hitting things...

Then you say it is a good thing they are changing things to ignore that. 40k isn't Sci-Fi, it is fantasy in space. There is magic, incredibly powerful heroes that fight primarily in MELEE, and the fact that ground battle actually EXIST in this setting is a testament to how little lip service is payed to Sci-Fi. Is it silly for a guy to run across the battlefield and stab someone to death in a game where I can look over at an ORK army? ANY Ork army? The entire theme of Orks is the ridiculous taken to extremes.

If YOU want a realistic shooting gallery there are plenty of games for you to go play, stop trying to turn 40k into a "realistic" war simulator. Entire factions in this game spit in the face of realism for the sake of over the top fun.

I don't know that its ever been going 'down hill' I just think that there are running issues that have never been resolved and certain editions of the game exacerbate the situation.

Examples of which include:
codex creep
price creep
exceptionally high buy in price for a new army
inability to connect with customer base

some of the issues are covered here, its quite a good read
http://masterminis.blogspot.de/2013/08/the-future-of-games-days-games-workshop.html

 Sirius42 wrote:
I don't know that its ever been going 'down hill' I just think that there are running issues that have never been resolved and certain editions of the game exacerbate the situation.

Examples of which include:
codex creep
price creep
exceptionally high buy in price for a new army
inability to connect with customer base

some of the issues are covered here, its quite a good read
http://masterminis.blogspot.de/2013/08/the-future-of-games-days-games-workshop.html

Yeah, this Aldi Süd guy has written an interesting post. His bottle is half empty. But you can see it also from the half-full point of view.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
You start off saying you understand that 40k is structured around people running up and hitting things...

Then you say it is a good thing they are changing things to ignore that. 40k isn't Sci-Fi, it is fantasy in space. There is magic, incredibly powerful heroes that fight primarily in MELEE, and the fact that ground battle actually EXIST in this setting is a testament to how little lip service is payed to Sci-Fi. Is it silly for a guy to run across the battlefield and stab someone to death in a game where I can look over at an ORK army? ANY Ork army? The entire theme of Orks is the ridiculous taken to extremes.

If YOU want a realistic shooting gallery there are plenty of games for you to go play, stop trying to turn 40k into a "realistic" war simulator. Entire factions in this game spit in the face of realism for the sake of over the top fun.

Yeah I guess I want the best of both worlds. And in some ways 40k tries to satisfy that, since they desperately try for a grim dark tone and some realistic mechanics, and then throw it all out the window for a silly race like the Orks. So maybe they just need to unabashedly say "Yes, running across the field to stab someone is viable" AND "shooting is viable", as compared to sort of going a shooting heavy route like a normal sci-fi game, but not fully committing, so then melee armies are left out to hang.

Crablezworth wrote:I figuered it out, it was when they stopped requiring people to paint their models to be able to play in store. That was it.

You know, this may sound silly, but there's something else that goes along with this that I've noticed over the years. And it's nothing more than a subtle language shift.

I feel like in older times, you identified with your army more. Everyone spent at least some amount of time painting, and most people, at least around me, would make serious efforts at getting to tabletop standard (relative to the length they'd had the army for). Then, you "were" a guard player, which was a sign of the amount of emotional investment that came from the huge time and money investment. Of course, people have always had multiple armies, but it felt more like children that they had.

I feel like with the dawn of "serious" tournaments, coupled with an influx of players from dawn of war, combined with older millenials who just wanted to be good at something and couldn't find fulfilment through work (thanks to the econopocalypse), and you started to add to this mix of the older way of doing things something new - you started getting codex hopping. I don't mean people who were indecisive about which army they wanted, but I mean a sharp increase in people who would buy and assemble an army shortly after the new codex came out, and then never have any interest in painting or writing backstory or doing any of the other hobby stuff, and then holding onto the army for some number of months, and then selling it so that they could buy the new flavor of the month.

These people "ran" guard for the moment, or were "with" their GK army. People treating the army they ran less as a lifestyle and more of... well... with the same attitude you might have if you played white in one chess game and black in another. More a change of pieces and strategy, but little else.

Perhaps there have always been a large minority of codex hoppers, but I feel like there was a shift from the armies we "were" to the armies we "had" or "were with". It went from bizarre TFG behavior to something that you could reasonably expect to see. At least, so it seems.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Ravenous D wrote:
I'd say it started with 4th edition.

There was a massive exodus of players when it came out and GW started gutting itself and blaming its own fans. Since then they have become ever growingly desperate to nickel and dime people to death.

Rick Priestly leaving was a pretty big deal. Its the most damning evidence when the guy who invented your game says you destroyed the soul to get money.

Did he actually say that?

I paraphrased, but its in my sig that he mentioned during an interview after he left.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
40k isn't Sci-Fi, it is fantasy in space.

And this is exactly the problem: 40k keeps trying to be fantasy in space, which is a stupid design concept. Think about the iconic 40k unit, the humble tactical squad. It's a shooting-focused unit that generally functions like modern infantry, especially when you break it up into a pair of mutually-supporting combat squads. You move it up in a transport, disembark into a key position to shoot from, and then maybe in the right situation you charge in with knives and grenades to clear a weakened unit from cover. And this tactical squad wants rules that function like modern/scifi infantry combat: free-form movement instead of formations, emphasis on movement and shooting (preferably with suppressing fire to enable movement and shooting tactics), and a turn structure with lots of opportunities to react to events. But instead we get a game that keeps trying to be WHFB with different models (or the same models, if you play demons), which sets up a conflict between how you intuitively expect things to work and how the rules function.

And of course this problem gets even worse when you have lazy and/or incompetent game designers that keep producing units/armies based on the "WHFB with different models" concept. You have an interesting game with Tau/IG/marines/etc playing like a modern/scifi setting should work, and then you throw in an army full of screaming idiots with swords and no shooting. And then you wonder why that army can't compete. The solution isn't to keep trying to force everything into the idiotic "WHFB with different models" design concept, it's to scrap the obsolete 1980s fantasy mechanics and make a proper scifi game.

Actually the IG arent very sci-fi at all...they could easily be mistaken for today's military.

Also I dont know about you guys but I LOVE the Fantasy in Spess concept. Well I wouldnt call it Warhammer Fantasy in space, because that would be paying homage to another game system; I'd like to think of 40k as a unique system that combines science fiction and baroque warfare into a gothic blend that no other gaming system in the sci-fi genre manages to replicate as uniquely and strikingly original as Wh40k.

I like Thunderhammer and Stormshield Chapter Masters smashing the torso of a Daemon Prince of Hive Tyrant while surrounded by gunfire, battle tanks, titans and monstrosities in a sea of carnage.

Probably when they suddenly effectively doubled the price of Dire Avengers. You use to get ten in a box, now you only get 5 for the same price.

When they started removing models from their line that weren't super high selling Spacemarines.

You can't even buy units that are in army books anymore (bretonnian trebuchet).

When they pulled any free modeling/painting advice from there website.

I have nothing against gw and do not think that for the moment the majority of their stuff is overpriced (though if other things go the way of the dire avengers... ) I like the models. I just feel that the company is being driven into the ground by a management team that cares little for wargamming or modeling and only about the dollar. From my understanding from things I read and hear their could be better balance and thoughtfulness added to the game (though I am a very casual player). People may have put up with v serious balance problems in the 80's, but in the age of star craft?

I don't understand why people refuse to criticise them and stick up for them blindly, whatever they do.

I've been on the forums since 2011/12 and as far as I remember it's always been like this. People back then complained about Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Imperial Guard and Grey Knights all the time. 40k has been an unbalanced mess before 5th and, from what I can tell, all the way back to Rogue Trader. The only difference between then and now is that Games Workshop allows you to take bigger and stupider models. Well, that and the accursed random rolls. Anyone else sick of them? Put some decision back into the players hand, if you'd be so kindly.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
I've been on the forums since 2011/12 and as far as I remember it's always been like this. People back then complained about Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Imperial Guard and Grey Knights all the time. 40k has been an unbalanced mess before 5th and, from what I can tell, all the way back to Rogue Trader. The only difference between then and now is that Games Workshop allows you to take bigger and stupider models. Well, that and the accursed random rolls. Anyone else sick of them? Put some decision back into the players hand, if you'd be so kindly.

It has gotten worse, there has always been broken builds but even then they had a sense of order and you had a decent chance of beating it. Tournaments used to be won by all comers lists with good generals, and net lists were usually stupid one trick ponies, now the net lists are more powerful because of the amount of combos that were not thought of during play testing (and we know GW has play testers, they are just terrible at their jobs). Games were won based on skillful tactics and proper list building, now that can swept away by Johnny Goob and whatever freak show of models he brings to the table with his abortion of source material excuse.

 Ravenous D wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
I've been on the forums since 2011/12 and as far as I remember it's always been like this. People back then complained about Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Imperial Guard and Grey Knights all the time. 40k has been an unbalanced mess before 5th and, from what I can tell, all the way back to Rogue Trader. The only difference between then and now is that Games Workshop allows you to take bigger and stupider models. Well, that and the accursed random rolls. Anyone else sick of them? Put some decision back into the players hand, if you'd be so kindly.

It has gotten worse, there has always been broken builds but even then they had a sense of order and you had a decent chance of beating it. Tournaments used to be won by all comers lists with good generals, and net lists were usually stupid one trick ponies, now the net lists are more powerful because of the amount of combos that were not thought of during play testing (and we know GW has play testers, they are just terrible at their jobs). Games were won based on skillful tactics and proper list building, now that can swept away by Johnny Goob and whatever freak show of models he brings to the table with his abortion of source material excuse.

That's not the 40k as I remember it. Back then, during the days of 5th, it was the same gimmicky crap though admittedly not as gimmicky as it was now. Oh, man, the Grey Knight shenanigans alone made for some interesting batreps.

Though I will concede that 40k has gotten worse but I don't think it's because it takes less skill to win these days. What has gotten worse is the discrepancy between a good tournament list and what little Johnny made out of a battleforce and what he thought was cool. Back then you had a solid chance of at least doing some damage against a tourney style list. These days you will get stomped on thanks to the amount of "We ignore your rules" special rules that they have given out like candy to Tau/Eldar players. In other words, the same players are winning or losing but they are winning or losing harder.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Ravenous D wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
I've been on the forums since 2011/12 and as far as I remember it's always been like this. People back then complained about Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Imperial Guard and Grey Knights all the time. 40k has been an unbalanced mess before 5th and, from what I can tell, all the way back to Rogue Trader. The only difference between then and now is that Games Workshop allows you to take bigger and stupider models. Well, that and the accursed random rolls. Anyone else sick of them? Put some decision back into the players hand, if you'd be so kindly.

It has gotten worse, there has always been broken builds but even then they had a sense of order and you had a decent chance of beating it. Tournaments used to be won by all comers lists with good generals, and net lists were usually stupid one trick ponies, now the net lists are more powerful because of the amount of combos that were not thought of during play testing (and we know GW has play testers, they are just terrible at their jobs). Games were won based on skillful tactics and proper list building, now that can swept away by Johnny Goob and whatever freak show of models he brings to the table with his abortion of source material excuse.

That's not the 40k as I remember it. Back then, during the days of 5th, it was the same gimmicky crap though admittedly not as gimmicky as it was now. Oh, man, the Grey Knight shenanigans alone made for some interesting batreps.

It was during 2nd edition and the early days of 3rd, so this hasn't been the case for many years now sadly. Even at the later part of 3rd you had Rhino Rush and Mauleed Marines and Iron Warriors as the powerhouses, but I never recall the meta being as insanely broken as it is now where you're actively penalized for NOT playing a net list.

I feel like we as players are being sucked dry of as much nonsense we can possibly buy (notice I didn't say afford) in order to keep up with the arms race imposed on us.

Escalation was a grave being dug.

Knights are the nail in the coffin.

 herpguy wrote:
I feel like we as players are being sucked dry of as much nonsense we can possibly buy (notice I didn't say afford) in order to keep up with the arms race imposed on us.

Escalation was a grave being dug.

Knights are the nail in the coffin.

That's pretty much the problem I and many others have with the game now; as another thread put it the game has turned into an arms race. It is literally the definition of "pay to win" when you can spend $500 or more on some huge model (e.g. Revenant Titan) that has no place in a normal game and obliterate anything standing against you for no other reason than you had $500 to spend and the company in question doesn't care what you field as long as you get to play with what you buy.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 herpguy wrote:
I feel like we as players are being sucked dry of as much nonsense we can possibly buy (notice I didn't say afford) in order to keep up with the arms race imposed on us.

Escalation was a grave being dug.

Knights are the nail in the coffin.

That's pretty much the problem I and many others have with the game now; as another thread put it the game has turned into an arms race. It is literally the definition of "pay to win" when you can spend $500 or more on some huge model (e.g. Revenant Titan) that has no place in a normal game and obliterate anything standing against you for no other reason than you had $500 to spend and the company in question doesn't care what you field as long as you get to play with what you buy.

Are you finding that every single game you play you are faced with A Lord of War?

Maybe it's your local meta/playgroup, or you are a tournament player- but not everyone is experiencing this phenomenon of 'having to buy the biggest toys to play the game'.

To me things haven't started going down hill with 6e (although I consider the rules to be worse than 5e in general). The primary difference now is GW is throwing a ton of stuff at us, which many people wanted.

From an general hobby perspective I would argue things have never been better.

XenosTerminus wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

 herpguy wrote:
I feel like we as players are being sucked dry of as much nonsense we can possibly buy (notice I didn't say afford) in order to keep up with the arms race imposed on us.

Escalation was a grave being dug.

Knights are the nail in the coffin.

That's pretty much the problem I and many others have with the game now; as another thread put it the game has turned into an arms race. It is literally the definition of "pay to win" when you can spend $500 or more on some huge model (e.g. Revenant Titan) that has no place in a normal game and obliterate anything standing against you for no other reason than you had $500 to spend and the company in question doesn't care what you field as long as you get to play with what you buy.

Are you finding that every single game you play you are faced with A Lord of War?

Maybe it's your local meta/playgroup, or you are a tournament player- but not everyone is experiencing this phenomenon of 'having to buy the biggest toys to play the game'.

To me things haven't started going down hill with 6e (although I consider the rules to be worse than 5e in general). The primary difference now is GW is throwing a ton of stuff at us, which many people wanted.

From an general hobby perspective I would argue things have never been better.

That's not the point; the point I was making is that having the game allow for things like a LoW simply because somebody decides to buy one is inherently broken because it either forces you to account for the possibility of facing one (as with flyers currently), get destroyed due to not having accounted for facing one, or refuse to play somebody who insists on using a LoW. While refusing to play somebody is possible, if you rely on pick-up games versus a club that can mean that you drive to the game shop and walk away without any game, thus wasting time.

WayneTheGame wrote:

XenosTerminus wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

 herpguy wrote:
I feel like we as players are being sucked dry of as much nonsense we can possibly buy (notice I didn't say afford) in order to keep up with the arms race imposed on us.

Escalation was a grave being dug.

Knights are the nail in the coffin.

That's pretty much the problem I and many others have with the game now; as another thread put it the game has turned into an arms race. It is literally the definition of "pay to win" when you can spend $500 or more on some huge model (e.g. Revenant Titan) that has no place in a normal game and obliterate anything standing against you for no other reason than you had $500 to spend and the company in question doesn't care what you field as long as you get to play with what you buy.

Are you finding that every single game you play you are faced with A Lord of War?

Maybe it's your local meta/playgroup, or you are a tournament player- but not everyone is experiencing this phenomenon of 'having to buy the biggest toys to play the game'.

To me things haven't started going down hill with 6e (although I consider the rules to be worse than 5e in general). The primary difference now is GW is throwing a ton of stuff at us, which many people wanted.

From an general hobby perspective I would argue things have never been better.

That's not the point; the point I was making is that having the game allow for things like a LoW simply because somebody decides to buy one is inherently broken because it either forces you to account for the possibility of facing one (as with flyers currently), get destroyed due to not having accounted for facing one, or refuse to play somebody who insists on using a LoW. While refusing to play somebody is possible, if you rely on pick-up games versus a club that can mean that you drive to the game shop and walk away without any game, thus wasting time.

Valid points.

There are only a handful of actual LOW's that outright 'bust' the game from what I have seen.

I think a lot of people (especially IG players) are ecstatic they can bring a baneblade (or alternative) to the field for normal games- hell, they are even considered to be overcosted compared to a similar amount of points spent on Leman Russes. The same is being said about the Knight Titan's.

So really the problem is isolated to a few problem units. Yes, the possibility is there that these units could surface, but I imagine the players that abuse this at an FLGS (IE a player showing up and always having an Eldar ally for the Revenant) would quickly find themselves either not getting many games or losing fiends rapidly.

Also- regular games of 40k have this same problem (as you mentioned with your flier example). Rerollable 2++. flier spam- 4 ripdites...

Regular games have the same issue- sometimes you are just not prepared to deal with some of the cheese a player can bring. While this is certainly a fault with individual unit balance, only the biggest a-holes of an FLGS will typically spam this on a regular basis willingly.

"Regular games have the same issue- sometimes you are just not prepared to deal with some of the cheese a player can bring. While this is certainly a fault with individual unit balance, only the biggest a-holes of an FLGS will typically spam this on a regular basis willingly."

If a regular opponent played me with a very powerful list, I would learn what I could and try and play that individual again with a better list of my own.

That's very different than the race to the bottom of "well I guess I'll have to also buy that big flavour of the month model".


I never played with allies because I saw the race to the bottom a mile out. I never played with fortifications for the same reason.


pure codex vs codex, I won't argue they are balanced, they're not, but I'm also not going to start labelling my regular opponents and blaming them for that. I blame GW and my attempt to rebalance is making the best list possible given the opponent and play well and learn from my mistakes. That's what makes me competative.

With that said, pure codex vs codex is more balanced than anything goes take whatever you want. I don't seek perfect balance, just as much as I can get.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 herpguy wrote:
I feel like we as players are being sucked dry of as much nonsense we can possibly buy (notice I didn't say afford) in order to keep up with the arms race imposed on us.

Escalation was a grave being dug.

Knights are the nail in the coffin.

That's pretty much the problem I and many others have with the game now; as another thread put it the game has turned into an arms race. It is literally the definition of "pay to win" when you can spend $500 or more on some huge model (e.g. Revenant Titan) that has no place in a normal game and obliterate anything standing against you for no other reason than you had $500 to spend and the company in question doesn't care what you field as long as you get to play with what you buy.

And that's it right there.

GW does not care whether you have fun, or if the games are short or boring, they just want the models out the door, and that is so short sighted and narrow minded for them to believe that constantly throwing big overpriced kits (Lets be honest the knight isn't worth more then $100 on a good day) at people and ramming their D down our throats that will fix the game. Its alienating and pushing people away.

40K is like a beloved grandparent that is slowly falling into dementia and the rest of the family is in denial about how bad it is.

 Ravenous D wrote:
40K is like a beloved grandparent that is slowly falling into dementia and the rest of the family is in denial about how bad it is.

freakin sigged

Just to pick up on a comment made earlier.
Well written games that are based on modern combat have an EQUAL balance of mobility , fire power and assault.
Mobility to take objectives, fire power to control enemy movement , and assault to contest objectives.

This would suit 40k background perfectly.(And does in Epic Armageddon!)

However, WHFB themed models in space is fine.

WHFB ancient rules , where the game is ALL about moving to get advantageous close combat match ups , with shooting is a supporting role ONLY.
Is possible the WORST type of rule set 40k could have, simply because the level of fire power is too high to just be used in a supporting role.
So assault has to be buffed to make shooting pointless,or allow shooting to be all powerful to make assault pointless.
Balancing all or nothing strategic options is impossible.

Wow, this is some necromancy. lol

I'll say that your going to find some players who say its gone downhill, others say its gone uphill. Just depds on who you ask.

 EVIL INC wrote:
Wow, this is some necromancy. lol

I'll say that your going to find some players who say its gone downhill, others say its gone uphill. Just depds on who you ask.

Or what time the individual you question took their medication.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 EVIL INC wrote:
Wow, this is some necromancy. lol

I'll say that your going to find some players who say its gone downhill, others say its gone uphill. Just depds on who you ask.

Or what time the individual you question took their medication.

I think you meant "what time they took their kool-aid"