I can't really see what the problem is with them. I just started playing Warhammer, and I can understand that a drastic price increase in items for the game is considered unacceptable, but it's just the company trying to bring in more sales. Have you seen their stocks lately?


And you'll have to forgive me if I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm only saying this based on the little information I've seen so far.


They're honestly just doing their jobs by pulling in more money from kits and such. If you think that the prices of Warhammer minifigs are too much, then you should see how much a single meta-game card in MTG will go up for.

Hello Tom Kirby, welcome to Dakka!

But seriously, I'm sure dozens of people will be along shortly to express to you their many frustrations with GW's business practices.

Just remember everyone, if you choose to respond, you must remain polite!

It's not just about the prices, although that's certainly part of it. It's more of a 'death of a thousand cuts' sort of thing... High prices, published material full of unclear rules or misprints with no real rules support from the studio (they go through spurts of FAQ activity, and then fall to sporadic or nonexistent updates), the perceived pushing of the game into bigger and sillier directions, the refusal to acknowledge that any other games exist, and various comments over the years from GW higher-ups showing the complete and utter disdain within which they view their customer base and the general disconnect from the industry as a whole.

Just for starters.


Having said that, the last 6 months or so have seen a fairly significant change of direction for them, so it will be interesting to see where it goes. The current focus on FAQs is a promising start, and they seem to be trying to pull all the stops out on mini design again, which would suggest that they've finally started looking around at this burgeoning industry that has sprung up around them while they were ensconced in their ivory tower for the last decade...

It's giving me a bit more hope that 8th edition will return a playable game again...

Hello Tom Kirby, welcome to Dakka!


That made me chuckle.

ShockTroopahs wrote:
I can't really see what the problem is with them. I just started playing Warhammer, and I can understand that a drastic price increase in items for the game is considered unacceptable, but it's just the company trying to bring in more sales. Have you seen their stocks lately?


And you'll have to forgive me if I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm only saying this based on the little information I've seen so far.


They're honestly just doing their jobs by pulling in more money from kits and such. If you think that the prices of Warhammer minifigs are too much, then you should see how much a single meta-game card in MTG will go up for.

If you are just starting out, then I can only say to stay happy as long as you can. I recommend that you come back to your own post in six months of "The HHHobby."

Welcome to Dakka, BTW. Honestly.

Might I suggest, as you yourself admit to being poorly informed on the subject, that you go away and familiarize yourself with the issues people have with (or have had, a change in CEO has mitigated some of these at least a little)

- Cost of either starting or keeping up with changes
- Poor balance
- Using game edition advancement to try and manipulate more sales rather than fix what's broken.
- Heavy handed and often inappropriate legal action.
- Total disengagement from the community
- Downsizing of stores, often taking away people's space to play.
- What they did to Fantasy
- Using transitions in packaging or material to disguise huge price increases
- Refusal to show releases more than a week away
- What they've done to White Dwarf
- (my personal bugbear above nearly all else) removing player agency from games and replacing it with random.

There's probably others I've overlooked, and more personal ones for individuals, but that should get you started..

Thats because you haven't played long enough to have some of your favourite armies deleted, your favourite game (fantasy) deleted and many of the models you put hours of time and hundreds of dollars into rendered obsolete or useless due to their complete lack of ability to write proper rules.

Do you understand why now?

My list died with my previous computer but it was a three-page, single spaced, point form document of issues. Here are a few key points:

1) 40k 6th edition. Shafted multiple armies while giving local guard players everything that they wanted.

2) Spectacle Creep.

3) Price Creep.

4) 8th edition Randomhammer Fantasy. (I quit before Age of Sigmar)

5) Competitors are just better.

ShockTroopahs wrote:
I can't really see what the problem is with them. I just started playing Warhammer, and I can understand that a drastic price increase in items for the game is considered unacceptable, but it's just the company trying to bring in more sales. Have you seen their stocks lately?


And you'll have to forgive me if I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm only saying this based on the little information I've seen so far.


They're honestly just doing their jobs by pulling in more money from kits and such. If you think that the prices of Warhammer minifigs are too much, then you should see how much a single meta-game card in MTG will go up for.

ooooo, careful there, you can't say good things about GW on a forum j/k, well, kinda.
I see you joined Dakka yesterday (welcome) and not sure when you started playing Warhammer but I would council keeping an open mind when discussing GW on the INternetz anywhere[i] (and some salt) and just learn the game, enjoy your hobby and do what makes this fun and appealing to you to start in the first place. That said, you can get good civil conversation here.

Good luck!

I think the last five or so months show that most people are not arbitrarily hateful towards GW, but have instead been reacting to the company's (old) business model. A model that makes the mustached villain with his captured damsel seem relatable by comparison.

The one thing I did enjoy about the really dark years with GW was it got more people in alignment than ever before. It became harder and harder to group all criticisms as unfounded. Nowadays, it seems easier for people to point out the good (and bad) about the company. And the good is definitely on the rise. I've seen a lot of positivity regarding GW's releases these past few months. Now if they continue this momentum and apply it to fixing the games they spent the last ten years trying to milk to death, you'll see a lot of *really* positive fans.

A local guy who owns a comic shop had GW contact him about selling GW products. He was concerned about what he had heard that if he developed a local market for it GW would then open up a store in his city and compete directly with him and go after his customers. The rep told him that if he carried the product, they'd consider the region covered and there would be no reason to open a GW store.

He should have got that in writing, because 16 months later a GW store opened up. Then his shipments started getting delayed and he started getting short shipped new releases but the GW store always had the latest product in stock on release date.

He eventually transitioned to mostly Magic the Gathering as the gaming part of his business.

ShockTroopahs wrote:


And you'll have to forgive me if I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm only saying this based on the little information I've seen so far.


They're honestly just doing their jobs by pulling in more money from kits and such. If you think that the prices of Warhammer minifigs are too much, then you should see how much a single meta-game card in MTG will go up for.

Well, see there is the assumption that the card has that value while in the package. Anyone could wind up pulling that card from the pack and have bought it brand new for the price of a package of MTG cards.

That card is only worth an exorbitant amount on the secondary market, of which WotC sees exactly zero dollars only after having been purchased for the price of the card pack (about $3.99 iirc?)

Compare that with a product that is not a blind buy; one that can be compared with similar products; a product that has had the same tooling and
process used for at least 20 years (ex: Chaos Space Marines), other companies have demonstrated the ability to produce similar quality product with more quantity for less price.
Extreme price rises of nearly 25% in some cases and really 50% in others (Dire Avengers anyone?).

Not to mention the last ten years or so of ignoring input from the community.

So maybe that all has something to do with it?

Think if WotC started putting only 3 cards in a pack and charging an extra $0.50. Not only that, but also never updating an FAQ and removing corporate support from tournaments (yeah tournaments drive sales and official ones more so).

Cause Tom Kirby saw the company as a golden parachute basically and seemed hellbent almost on doing what needed to be done to make that better at the cost of all else. Roundtree was left with the mess and is trying to fix it up while Kirby continues to apparently wander around not being invited to their cool board room parties and such.

Stuff like the annual little thought out price hike of something like 5-10%... other stuff like look at those dire avengers that are more expensive now after their kit was reduced to 5 models than it was when it used to be 10 not even all that long ago. Trade embargo so they could enforce the exchange rate ignoring static prices. List could just keep going on about the absolutely stupid ideas Kirby pushed. As they are now however, they're slowly heading back in the right direction so as they get better I'd say that demonising would become rarer.

Honestly, it's the way they use the rules of the game to sell models.

This is the #1 issue people seem to have. An army you spent thousands building suddenly becomes obsolete based on overpowered units suddenly being added to another force.

Many other games try to achieve some level of balance. GW is more like Apple, the moment they decide to innovate, everything that came before is thrown out the window.

Read up on the Chapterhouse Studios case GW fought over a year or two, and GW's attitude to their players, their products, their IP and the original sources of that IP. There are some wonderful quotes you'll see repeated in people's sigs, and elsewhere.

I started to get pretty disenfranchised with GW over these 3 incidents:

1. Spots The Space Marine
2. Finecast
3. Chapterhouse

All show their unique way of working and how they feel about their customers.

ShockTroopahs wrote:
I can't really see what the problem is with them.

ShockTroopahs wrote:
*Fresh-Faced New User*

Give it time.

It's not enough for some to simply avoid/boycott GW, you have to hate it. REALLY hate it.
GW have faced unique problems by virtue of being the longest-lasting and biggest, and are almost ubiquitous with wargaming to an outside perspective.
Most games companies would mess themselves to be big enough to worry about some of the issues GW have had to deal with.
They have made mistakes, real clangers in some cases.
They were pilloried for their restrictive trade agreements for example - yet now PP and FFG/Asmodee now have similar.
They're also unique in being the only wargaming company that have their own retail arm which in itself presents problems.

But yeah.
Hurty feelz /ex-girlfriend syndrome.
With a heavy side of entitlement.

Also, it is like hating Microsoft. They are the big-hitter, and has the highest profile. Household names (or as near as) always come in got flak whenever they do anything, and GW is no exception.

RoperPG wrote:
With a heavy side of entitlement.

No one, or very few people at least on this board, is saying GW owes them. They're quite plainly criticising business decisions that have turned them off the product.

Personally, I now play several other games. GW is the only one I've played because I have lost at the army selection stage, because the army I chose became the companies red headed step child. I don't feel they owe me a balanced ruleset for the army because I spent money on it, I simply leave my criticism and go play other games.

 Skinnereal wrote:
Household names (or as near as) always come in got flak whenever they do anything, and GW is no exception.

Especially when they deserve it.

Aside from the other things already mentioned here GW just can't make good games anymore. Their models tend to be decent (although the competition has improved to the extent that they can no longer be considered the best on the market) but their rules, and the philosophy behind those rules, are just appalling and that is something that GW's management is entirely responsible for.

At this stage if you want a genuinely good wargame then you need to look elsewhere.

Because they took something I loved and couldn't conceive of leaving, and made it into such a stinking mess of bloated-ruled rock/paper/scissors I eventually did.

Over the years I have seen games workshop go from a company that sold 8 games wittled down to a few. Back in the day they would give detailed guides on making your own scenery, conversions and well the more practical parts of the hobby.

If you wanted a new army you could phone their mailnorder team (no internet) they would put an army together to an agreed budget along with a discount or freebies.

I understand that business is very different and that things won't be around for ever yet how they treated all the fantasy players with AoS was the final nail for me. As the dragonsvsay....I'm out.

Honestly its about the business decisions made over the last 8 years or so that did it for most people (Culminating in the end of WHFB).

For me it started back in 2007 when they dropped their bits service. But a lot of things like the ever increasing price for less and less product that really put me off GW.

That being said they have made quite a few changes in the last few months and, despite my beefs with the game, I like what they are doing with AoS.

Honestly it's what 15 years of spitting on the playerbase and treating them as clueless rubes. But there is hope I hated GW since about 2002 and I bought more in the past couple of weeks then I have spent on other games in months and I God forbid actually enjoyed age of Sigmar and I'm looking forward to building up a small army for 40k if I can ever decide which army I want to actually try.

ShockTroopahs wrote:
I can't really see what the problem is with them. I just started playing Warhammer, and I can understand that a drastic price increase in items for the game is considered unacceptable, but it's just the company trying to bring in more sales. Have you seen their stocks lately?


And you'll have to forgive me if I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm only saying this based on the little information I've seen so far.


They're honestly just doing their jobs by pulling in more money from kits and such. If you think that the prices of Warhammer minifigs are too much, then you should see how much a single meta-game card in MTG will go up for.

What army do you play? How much have you spent on it? How much time have you spent on it? How many cuts, paint spilt, fingers glued have you got so far? Please answer this before I go on. Also what else are you passionate about? What other games have you played? Do you like Star Wars? Do you like the prequels? How about Star Trek. Do you like what JJ Abrhams did with Star Trek? Answer this and I may be able to answer your questions.

OP- This topic is like trying to put out a fire by adding gas.

Flame bait.

Just accept that haters and fanboys exist. The internet will never agree on anything.

 Byte wrote:
OP- This topic is like trying to put out a fire by adding gas.

Flame bait.

Just accept that haters and fanboys exist. The internet will never agree on anything.

Yeah the reason that's flame bait is because it's stupid.

The hate that many fanbases have usually just come down to disagreements on how an IP should be handled. While there's certainly aspects of that with GW, GW have done their fair share of downright bad things to earn the hatred of their customers, like their aggressive copyright claims, not improving balance from one edition to the next, acting as if their customers are just walking wallets in statements made in court, killing much loved games with little to no warning, treating obvious mistakes in their rules as if they don't exist.

There are also several reasons GW fans tend to stick around to talk about why they dislike GW, a couple that come to mind immediately....

- Ex-GW fans often drop GW and then move on to other wargames, so they are still within the general wargaming community to complain about GW for ages rather than complaining for a short while then disappearing. Take Dakka, there's heaps of people who are no longer 40k players but they still hang around to discuss things, because they are still *wargamers*.

- 40k and WHFB are the sorts of things you put a huge investment of time and money into, so the sense of investment is often high. I don't necessarily think it's a sense of entitlement so much as investment. It means you don't like the game, play for a while, decide you don't like it and flip a switch to leave. The process of quitting is often slow and drawn out, the things you liked in the beginning slowly get outweighed by the things you don't like, you might stop buying, but keep gaming; or maybe you stop gaming but keep painting; maybe you stop with the miniatures but are still interested in the background and the video games.

- Many of the things GW customers hate about GW do affect customers directly, but maybe aren't apparent right from the outset. Things like poor balance, it could take months or years for you to discover the reason you keep losing is that you picked an army GW decided were going to be crap this edition. Then it may take even longer for you to realise the next edition doesn't fix any of the problems but just introduces even more ambiguous poorly written rules and new imbalances.

- Because of the last point, many of the issues with GW aren't immediately apparent to new players, ex-GW fans, either rightly or wrongly, often feel like they need to weigh in on discussions to offer a counterbalance to the fanboys so that newer players know that it's not all rosy before investing 100's of dollars and 100's of hours in to 40k.

In a niche like wargaming, one of the stupidest things you can do is burn your existing customers, not only do you lose those customers, it can greatly affect your prospects of getting new customers to replace them.

You are in your honeymoon phase. my advice? enjoy it while it lasts. come back in ~20 years and share some of your wisdom. Maybe then you will understand the general consensus of the community in regards to GW.

Also, MtG is that same thing as TT wargaming, its a hobby. So comparing the two is rather inane.

A lot of it too is many ex-GW fans feel like they didn't want to become ex-GW fans, but were essentially forced out or kicked to the curb by the company, so are more than a little resentful. You don't usually see ex-Warmachine or ex-Infinity players speaking so badly about the company (well maybe now with Warmachine v3 starting off a bit rocky), they just acknowledge it's not the game for them anymore.

GW games though are a different thing. Not only because they typically require more of an investment of time and money, but because GW alone has been the only company to essentially actively gak on their own games; see including Apoc/Escalation/Flyers in base 40k seemingly as a reaction to the players not including it themselves, the constant codex creep while some codexes languish, the constant release of unnecessary Space Marine supplements and models while some factions don't have common choices in plastic, removing the Bitz service to push you to buying multiple boxes just to get an extra heavy or special weapon, the constant price hikes for no reason while their competitors keep prices lower and rarely if ever raise them, the constant growing of the game size while still using rules that are 18 years old at this point and were designed for something much closer to a company-level game, the list goes on. GW has for many years actively worked to treat the players as dumbasses who don't realize they are being taken advantage of.

It's only recently that GW has started to do things better, and there are still major issues (namely the age of 40k rules, the constant push for Space Marines over everything else despite that going against "forge the narrative", the lack of having across the board updates to bring everything in line, and most notably the still-increasing prices), but for many it's never going to be enough because the damage has already been done.

 -Loki- wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
With a heavy side of entitlement.

No one, or very few people at least on this board, is saying GW owes them. They're quite plainly criticising business decisions that have turned them off the product.

Personally, I now play several other games. GW is the only one I've played because I have lost at the army selection stage, because the army I chose became the companies red headed step child. I don't feel they owe me a balanced ruleset for the army because I spent money on it, I simply leave my criticism and go play other games.

Dunno I kinda feel they owe the community an apology for several things over the past decade.

Like fine cast, squating armies, killing off fantasy, killing specialist games, turning on the veterans, closing down their forums etc.

They are trying, I'll give them that. Did anyone imagine you'd see GW with a Facebook page or a Youtube channel that shows painting techniques? It's a far cry still from the GW of old, but it's better than the GW of the last couple years. I don't see much of the "haha our customers are so stupid they'll buy anything" mentality.

To be fair, they have almost caught up with most of their rivals in that regard.

As someone who has "rage quit" 40k after 3rd edition "decapitation" of rules, I can clearly understand why that many people can outright hate GW.

But after returning to the hobby a year ago, I can also see, why a lot of this GW hate is just misdirected rage. Not that there are no faults on GW part, of course there are… But not all of them:

- GW gets blamed for the fact that people do not play as often as they would want to. There is a poll here on dakka, where more than half of voters play only a couple times a year or do not play at all. How can you name yourself a "playerbase" if you play once a year? I do not call myself a skier if I last went skiing couple of years ago, only because there are skis in my closet… And people get offended by GW claims, that they are hobby company, not games company, yet almost all mentions of "my group" or "at my flgs" here on dakka, mentions a list of only a few players, less than 10 usually… WH40K is a hobby with the posibility of playing a game, not a game with posibility of becoming a hobby...

- GW gets blamed for virtually zero social skills amongst playerbase. Hence the need for totaly bulletproof rules, because people do not want, or are unable to, make real friends within comunity and lack the ability to comunicate their needs (of course there are exceptions to this, but judging from constant whining here on dakka, these seems to be rare…). In the last month alone, there are at least two entire threads dedicated to shaming "Timmis" and "Daves" for being TFGs… And all I can say to summarise those threads - if you change all mentions of wh40k related stuff to violence or sexual abuse, these threads become diaries of toxic relationships. And if you are in a toxic relationship you either break up or get counseling and not blame any company for your lack of self esteem. And if you happen to have a close minded friend, spouse, brother, father, child etc.. to play with, this game has NO UNSOLVABLE problems whatsoever. And is a great "basic engine" and model range which you can modify to suit your needs.

- GW gets blamed for not making a game not 100% inline with particular interests of any given individual. We have a 22 pages long thread about femarines for crying out loud. In a clearily fascist, racist, mysoginistic, violent, grimdark, non-representative hobby game! Playerbase of this game is so diverse in terms of age, investment level, frequency of playing, attitude, political views, country of origin, cultural background etc that this is really childish to think, that there is "one ruleset to rule them all". There are hardcore tournament folks; there are beer and pretzels folks; teenagers without money, teenagers with parents money, mid aged people with a ton of money or on a tight budget; there are people playing with carefully painted collections and there are proxy netlisters and so on… There are Eternal War players and Maelstrom enthusiasts… ALL SORTS of players with sometimes drastically different expectations from GW products. It is impossible to please all of them at once, and sooner or later anyone and everyone will end up on the wrong side of changes GW makes.

- regarding ruleset alone: there are people who praise 5th ed rules and those who will not play anything post-2nd ed, because those are two ENTIRELY different games. If you think that 7th ed is a "bloated mess of rules and you cannot be bothered with even a single additional dice roll" try to read 2nd ed or Necromunda rulebook, and if you think that current games are slow, try to play modern sized games with 2nd edition rules - you will get stuck in a single game for a week, as games in Kill team size could take a couple of hours… And in "proposed rules" threads I can see recurring "improvements" involving rend instead of AP and to-hit modifiers instead cover saves, both of which massively increase resolution time on any terrain heavy table, when each member of a squad can be in different cover type, have a different armour, cover save etc (fun fact: those two rules are straight from 2nd ed and were scrapped in 3rd, but most of "rules proposers" do not know that)… And in those threads alone we can often see endless loop of arguments against and pro those changes, because playerbase is not homogeneous.

WH40K is a game with 30 year old history and some folks are playing it for similiar period. It is OBVIOUS that ups and downs are inevitable - this is a period of a traditional marriage. No one expects that a relationship will be endless honeymoon, or that every thing you do in your life will give you same thrill during entire life, or that you will not get bored or exhausted by ANY profession. WH40K is so huge (as a hobby), that you could easily write a major in psychology or sociology based on dakka forum alone. And yet there are people, who think that a bare minimum, clear rules will benefit all, or that focusing on a single faction or scrapping another will make everyone (or only a "significant minority") happy…

WH40K is so huge, that everything and anything GW does will have positive and negative influnence on different parts of the community. And all the whining in the world will not change that simple fact. Most recent example: Ynnead ritual, which was a huge expectation and dissapointment for some Eldar players; huge enjoyment for some Marine players after suposed failure, some rage quit threats from both Eldar and Slaneesh fanboys and some tears of racist joy in Eldar hating eyes. How could GW write this to satisfy ENTIRE community is beyond me...

Now to be fair I think GW is very much like Microsoft in some regards: Windows is "good enough" but has a lot of flaws, but Microsoft can't just strip it out and redo it from the ground up because of all the wailing and gnashing of teeth as legacy things break (see: Windows 10 coming after Windows 8 because so many legacy code used "9x" as a code for Windows 95 and 98 that it would break if there was a Windows 9).

GW is the same way. They SHOULD completely redo 40k from the ground up to be a scalable game, but if they ever did that the rage would be extreme even though ultimately it would be necessary.

I still have hope that GW does see that they need to stop relying on a core set of rules that are 18 years old and on top of that were whipped together in a hurry from a homebrew WW2 set of rules, and actually create a set of rules that can scale down to skirmish levels with a handful of models, or scale up to large battles. I don't think it would be that difficult. Some people may not like how abstracted their forces become at the higher scales, but that's how large-scale games work and they are better for it.

WayneTheGame wrote:
Now to be fair I think GW is very much like Microsoft in some regards: Windows is "good enough" but has a lot of flaws, but Microsoft can't just strip it out and redo it from the ground up because of all the wailing and gnashing of teeth as legacy things break (see: Windows 10 coming after Windows 8 because so many legacy code used "9x" as a code for Windows 95 and 98 that it would break if there was a Windows 9).

GW have really only gotten themselves in to that position in the past couple of editions. They should strip back the game to have a slightly different set of rules for smaller games and larger games for the sake of the core game, but that's not going to make people who like big stompy things in small games happy.

BUT.... there's really nothing stopping GW just from fixing some of the glaringly bad issues with 40k that result in a lot of hate from the community. While I think they do need to do a complete rewrite, they'd go a long way if they just fix the existing rules. All the stuff that's poorly written or just blatantly unbalanced could be fixed without a complete rewrite.

Something like Orks and Tyranids sucking and Eldar being awesome, or some of the ambiguous rules, the blame lies squarely with GW.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
Now to be fair I think GW is very much like Microsoft in some regards: Windows is "good enough" but has a lot of flaws, but Microsoft can't just strip it out and redo it from the ground up because of all the wailing and gnashing of teeth as legacy things break (see: Windows 10 coming after Windows 8 because so many legacy code used "9x" as a code for Windows 95 and 98 that it would break if there was a Windows 9).

GW have really only gotten themselves in to that position in the past couple of editions. They should strip back the game to have a slightly different set of rules for smaller games and larger games for the sake of the core game, but that's not going to make people who like big stompy things in small games happy.

BUT.... there's really nothing stopping GW just from fixing some of the glaringly bad issues with 40k that result in a lot of hate from the community. While I think they do need to do a complete rewrite, they'd go a long way if they just fix the existing rules. All the stuff that's poorly written or just blatantly unbalanced could be fixed without a complete rewrite.

Something like Orks and Tyranids sucking and Eldar being awesome, or some of the ambiguous rules, the blame lies squarely with GW.

Absolutely correct. They could do a lot to fix the game. What they should do is like they used to have, "Chapter Approved" in White Dwarf. They could have some "beta" versions of like a revamped Assault phase (like they did once before) or revamped army list, with a big note that hey this is a work in progress, try it out and give us feedback on our Facebook page. Then basically work on updating model ranges, instead of putting out new stuff. That's the problem. Space Marines get a dozen plus supplements, other factions get nothing, when they have mainstay troops that need to be in plastic and not Finecrap, but no can't do that because we need yet another Marine codex and reboxed Marine models with an extra sprue that nobody asked for instead.

That's the part that bothers me. They are showing improvements, but IMHO It's not where it counts. The game is a mess, and there's such a huge imbalance in codex power for no reason that it needs to be addressed, full stop before it gets even more out of control than it already is. Unless they make 40k like the Heresy where Marine vs. Marine is a common thing, it's silly to give the lion's share of books to an army that in its own fluff can't fight itself except in rare situations (the way games go you'd think there was another heresy going on with all the Imperium vs. Imperium conflicts).

They don't need to stop selling (let's face it, that's stupid), but they need to prioritize models. Chaos needs an update, for example, much more than there needs to be yet another Marine book or repackaged set. Orks need some updates, which should have happened long before putting out Deathwatch. Tyranids, who in the fluff are like second only to Chaos as the big boogeyman, need some major upgrades that should have happened before the Angels of Death book or the Flyer supplement that nobody remembers. They are focusing on the wrong things. Marines sell, this is undeniable, but the game doesn't promote Marine vs. Marine, and the sheer power gap turns the game typically (Eldar notwithstanding) into an 80s style saturday morning cartoon of the heroic and invincible Space Marines vs. their bumbling and incompetent foes who always get summarily defeated after bragging about this week's latest ridiculous scheme.

What I think they could do/plan to do in order to fix things:

1) Announce via White Dwarf they are working on a new edition of 40k that will streamline and revamp the rules, similar to Age of Sigmar but not destroying the world. Beta versions of these rules will be put into future White Dwarfs with the return of "Chapter Approved" for you to try out in your own games.

2) Prioritize getting rid of Finecast, redoing aging ranges (looking at you CSM) and then making upgrade kits for major groups within factions (e.g. an upgrade pack with Iron Warrior shoulderpads and helmets, or different style Eldar helmet for Ulthwe, or different style Ork bodies for Bad Moon, etc.) in plastic, sold similar to the existing upgrade packs at a relatively cheap price (idea being you buy a box of core troops and then pick up the upgrade pack,and you aren't spending a big amount).

3) Revamp the paint range again and move to a decent size (likely not dropper bottles, but like how Forgeworld has them now), okay raise the price a little bit (the larger shade paints are what, $7 now? That's expensive but not insane), so you don't feel like you're being ripped off by spending $5 on a 12ml bottle of paint. Texture paints for bases should be sold in BIG jars, period. Drybrush or technical paints can stay 12ml, idea being you aren't going to use a lot of paint so they last longer, I'd almost say different sizes for different ranges e.g. base paints are larger, because you use a lot to basecoat.

4) Create a 40k app for the new rules like AoS app, where all the rules/datasheets are freely available for download. Codexes become more like AoS battletomes; good additions but not required for the game. Focus on codexes, codex supplements, several for each faction (e.g. for Chaos Legions, Ork Clans, Craftworlds and the like), prices should be like General's Handbook for these (i.e. reasonable). Also focus on campaign books that add new detachments or wargear options and the like, with missions that can be customized. Put out a generic campaign system (not Planetary Empires) that encourages people to use it as the base, at the same time do a worldwide campaign like Seasons of War.

A GW doing those things would be great.

hobojebus wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
With a heavy side of entitlement.

No one, or very few people at least on this board, is saying GW owes them. They're quite plainly criticising business decisions that have turned them off the product.

Personally, I now play several other games. GW is the only one I've played because I have lost at the army selection stage, because the army I chose became the companies red headed step child. I don't feel they owe me a balanced ruleset for the army because I spent money on it, I simply leave my criticism and go play other games.

Dunno I kinda feel they owe the community an apology for several things over the past decade.

Like fine cast, squatting armies, killing off fantasy, killing specialist games, turning on the veterans, closing down their forums etc.

Nor is it wrong to want the company to produce rules that justify the cost. The customer is entitled to get his or her money's worth - Forbes has gone on about that more than once.

People are entitled to complain when a clam pack containing a single plastic miniature retails for $25.

I have seen more copies of 8th edition Warhammer bought for use with the Kings of War rules than I have seen bought for their own rules. (A shocking statement - the Isle of Blood box was worth it, just for the miniatures. The elves, in particular, are very good value for the quality of the models. The skaven... less so, but we have a ratkin player that disagrees with me. )

And many, if not most, of the complainers do say when they see GW doing something right. I know that I do.

And that is happening more often, these past few months, than had been the case in years.

On the other hand, it feels like the OP found a big ol' can labeled WORMS and went 'Hey! Let's open it!'

The Auld Grump

WayneTheGame wrote:
3) Revamp the paint range again and move to a decent size (likely not dropper bottles, but like how Forgeworld has them now), okay raise the price a little bit (the larger shade paints are what, $7 now? That's expensive but not insane), so you don't feel like you're being ripped off by spending $5 on a 12ml bottle of paint. Texture paints for bases should be sold in BIG jars, period. Drybrush or technical paints can stay 12ml, idea being you aren't going to use a lot of paint so they last longer, I'd almost say different sizes for different ranges e.g. base paints are larger, because you use a lot to basecoat.

I don't really think that's necessary, other than maybe textures being in larger pots. People don't go through full pots of paint unless it's the main colour of their army, a wash or the pot dries out, so low price-per-pot is more important than price-per-ml for 95% of the paints people buy. I don't think GW can afford to raise their price-per-pot any further, they are already the most expensive option. I really like the way Tamiya paints are cheaper per pot than anything else, even if they are only labelled as 10ml (though I'm sure they're more then that).

Even on washes, the only washes I go through regularly are dark brown and to a lesser extent black. Green, purple, blue, sepia, those washes have lasted me years.

Unfortunately for GW they are worse than the competition both on price per pot and price per ml.

To me, the idea of having small pots is to be competitive on the price-per-pot front so if doesn't matter that some of the money people save on buying 20 different colours for small details goes in to buying 2 or 3 pots of the base colour of one's army.

Agreed, the only paints I think I ever ranout of maybe 3 pots of colour in the 20+ years I've been painting but I've lost countless paints to drying though. So bigger pots would be more of a waste, as well as being harder to store.

I think it has alot to do with disgruntled Ex-players not leaving, as has been pointed out previously.

As has also been previously pointed out GW get the blame for alot of diverse things and the disgruntled Ex-players are there to pick up the newly disgruntled and welcome them into the soup. The soup is quite pro-active too, and will often praise other game systems and companies quite blindly.

I saw this most clearly with the switch from Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition to AoS.

So far I think the worst thing GW have done was the switch to finecast, as they promoted it as a cheaper material then increased prices, if it was priced lower I would have been fine with it.

The other baddie thing I think GW did was place an Embargo on the southern hemisphere.

It would be nice if GW could simplify and streamline 40K, but I imagine the internet reaction would be like the reaction AoS dialled up to 11 regardless of the merits of the actual changes.

You've picked up on a couple of things there StygianBeach, but there is more than that to it.

This was from a previous post on a similar subject, but think it applies equally well here

What I think is hard for gamers new to the hobby to understand is exactly how much ‘good stock’ GW used to hold with hobbyists. It has taken some serious effort (said sarcastically) to erode this to the point we are at now, although I do think things are much better now than they were 2011-12 (which had been dubbed the ‘summer of terror’ on some forums) in that at least GW doesn’t seem to be actively trying to upset the fanbase as much as possible. You're getting a lot more positive news now, more olive branches from GW.

Some examples of prior events, for the un-initiated:
- Finecast. Not so much that it was riddled with difficulties when it launched, but that it was sold as the ‘next big thing’. Look up stories of people getting 8-9 replacements of a miniature to find one of acceptable quality.
- ‘Rest of world sales ban’ – This does have arguments either side, although I think it was most likely brought in to protect the absurd prices in Aus/NZ. Essentially it stopped people from outside of Europe buying from the big UK sellers (Wayland, Maelstrom at the time etc.) Personally, this killed my GW hobby at the time as I lived in a country with no GW stores and had been relying completely on imports.
- The perennial price rises. These are better disguised and distributed now. Usually each spring would see a price rise (or jump, from your perspective) which would come along with a mass of groaning threads on forums.
- The voracious legal team. No one is or was disputing that GW’s IP is at the heart of its success. But the continuous targetting of small garage sellers, websites and authors (‘Spots the Space Marine’) won it few fans. What was perhaps worse was that a lot of the time the targets themselves were the biggest fans – websites/blogs (being issued with C&D orders because they had ‘warhammer’ in the URL for instance) is one example. There was also a fair amount of battening down of hatches in some forum communities, as they desperately tried to avoid falling under the crosshairs. It was all very ugly and unpleasant, and affected me personally as a moderator on a forum. Thankfully seems to have been checked for the time being. This, for me, is the biggest black mark against the company. You should never, ever, ever, forget the people that put you there.
- The sale of kits at the expense of the game. It’s all about the sale of the big next thing now, with rules that you can’t possibly ignore. Expensive to keep up, and the churn of new rules/army books is constant. Yes they are a business and have to make money but it’s a sliding scale, and I’m sure most would prefer it to be a bit more fan friendly, with more thought given to the creation of a quality game.
- The change from the GW store as a hobby club and centre to one-man intro-game sales point. Again, can understand why this has been done, but another big ‘X’ for the people that used to enjoy using the GW in this way (and perhaps had no other alternative, especially in the UK where we have a dearth of hobby stores.
- The complete lack of official social media. This is improving now, but for a good few years there was nothing. Think this was a good reason why the forums and blogsphere tended to vent at times, there was no-where else for it to go, and didn’t give an impression that GW cared much for its fans other than for the content of their wallets.

Personally, I think it’s wonderful that GW is living up to its name once more as a ‘games workshop’ – with new board games coming out etc. I would definitely say it is going some way to repairing the poor community relations and damage caused over the past 4-5 years. This is, in part, because things like the voracious legal team seems to have been quietened or at least let loose on worthy targets (illegal recasters and the like). The one, for me, dastardly act of the past years was killing off WHFB to release AoS. Yes, create a new game, but to kill a game off completely (and there was a big tournament and event following for that game) was nasty. And that would have applied even had AoS been the best game ever made, which it most pointedly is not.

Now, hopefully players will just be able to have fun and concentrate on the games and miniatures themselves, rather than having their attention drawn to nasty big-business behaviour. But, the rep the company has (improving now from an all time low) is definitely not without cause.

I do find it hilarious when people try to use the defense of, "it's just business" to justify GW's practices. This seems fair on the surface as an argument, but the reality is that if any other business operated like GW did, it would be bankrupt. GW exists mainly off nostalgia, captive market, and lack of competition. They have a good product in general, but that's just basic quality control.

Unfortunately, the only thing is has left nostalgia in spades, and then their captive market has been fleeing to the plethora of unanticipated competition, like X-Wing.

Likewise, it may be the job of a business to make money, but it's not the consumer's job to sit there and blindly accept be treated horribly by a business and still give them money. But, as mentioned already, people still do.

There's a balance to be had and GW has not been well balanced for a long time.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
Household names (or as near as) always come in got flak whenever they do anything, and GW is no exception.

Especially when they deserve it.

Aside from the other things already mentioned here GW just can't make good games anymore. Their models tend to be decent (although the competition has improved to the extent that they can no longer be considered the best on the market) but their rules, and the philosophy behind those rules, are just appalling and that is something that GW's management is entirely responsible for.

At this stage if you want a genuinely good wargame then you need to look elsewhere.

While 40k is a hot mess at present, AoS is actually a decent little ruleset - especially with the General's Handbook added in and some commonsense tweaks (i.e.: measure from base, not model). People mostly hate it (understandably) because of the manner that it was introduced. The newer boxed games are mostly decent games in and of themselves, with Overwatch, Calth, Execution Force, Silver Tower all getting positive responses to the games, while others like Stormcloud Attack and Renegade are decent, but in the "free in White Dwarf" level of quality and polish. Lost Patrol's rewrite seems distinctly sub-par on the other hand, so they really run the gamut of rules quality. Frankly, I gave up on WHFB years ago because of 5th (Herohammer) and on 40k during 6th. I still buy, build and paint the models, but the fantasy stuff gets used in a bunch of non-GW games, and will be for AoS as well at some stage, and 40k gaming is on hold until I work out which ruleset to migrate my stuff to. The boxed games are the best thing they have going in many ways right now, though.

The best thing about the past few years has been GW"s unfriendly business practices opening up a world of other, alternate games and models to flourish across many genres.



BTW, great post, Pacific. I don't agree entirely with every point, but overall a great post.

nou wrote:
GW gets blamed for virtually zero social skills amongst playerbase. Hence the need for totaly bulletproof rules, because people do not want, or are unable to, make real friends within comunity and lack the ability to comunicate their needs (of course there are exceptions to this, but judging from constant whining here on dakka, these seems to be rare…). In the last month alone, there are at least two entire threads dedicated to shaming "Timmis" and "Daves" for being TFGs… And all I can say to summarise those threads - if you change all mentions of wh40k related stuff to violence or sexual abuse, these threads become diaries of toxic relationships. And if you are in a toxic relationship you either break up or get counseling and not blame any company for your lack of self esteem. And if you happen to have a close minded friend, spouse, brother, father, child etc.. to play with, this game has NO UNSOLVABLE problems whatsoever. And is a great "basic engine" and model range which you can modify to suit your needs.

The reason that GW gets a lot of flak for this is because they are literally the only major company that needs this. Other companies are capable of writing rules that require no haggling other than "...X-points okay with you?" to get started. A lot of people therefore expect that the biggest player in the market should be able to do at least as much. With 40k/AOS, the horse-trading phase is so important you can end up playing a completely different game depending on your opponent (A Guard Player will have very different issues with the rules than an Tyranid player for example). Meanwhile it is a turn-off to new players or new players to your area, who turn up to a club only to find that there is a huge list of agreed-upon house rules that, again, completely alter play.

Contrast this with Warmahordes, where the only variation is what scenario is rolled, or X-wing, where it is always a head-to-head match unless stated otherwise. With these games, I could walk into a store in Quebec, only needing to know "bonjour", "merci", and whatever numbers are common point values for my game, and I could get a game. Of course, that's a ridiculous example, as most young people in Quebec speak pretty good English. Point is, GW is so far below the curve for simple clarity of rules, it would be easier to play some other games without a shared language than to play a GW game.

Many of us who left GW during the Kirby reign have come back under Rountree. There have been a lot of issues that have upset people to the point of leaving, that have been fixed. Not everything is fixed yet, and it can't be fixed overnight. But these past 6 months have marked a 180 turnaround that shows a remarkably different attitude that deserves to be supported. GW is back on the road to being the top company out there. If they stay on this path, I am confident they will earn back most of the people they've lost.

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:

nou wrote:
GW gets blamed for virtually zero social skills amongst playerbase. Hence the need for totaly bulletproof rules, because people do not want, or are unable to, make real friends within comunity and lack the ability to comunicate their needs (of course there are exceptions to this, but judging from constant whining here on dakka, these seems to be rare…). In the last month alone, there are at least two entire threads dedicated to shaming "Timmis" and "Daves" for being TFGs… And all I can say to summarise those threads - if you change all mentions of wh40k related stuff to violence or sexual abuse, these threads become diaries of toxic relationships. And if you are in a toxic relationship you either break up or get counseling and not blame any company for your lack of self esteem. And if you happen to have a close minded friend, spouse, brother, father, child etc.. to play with, this game has NO UNSOLVABLE problems whatsoever. And is a great "basic engine" and model range which you can modify to suit your needs.

The reason that GW gets a lot of flak for this is because they are literally the only major company that needs this. Other companies are capable of writing rules that require no haggling other than "...X-points okay with you?" to get started. A lot of people therefore expect that the biggest player in the market should be able to do at least as much. With 40k/AOS, the horse-trading phase is so important you can end up playing a completely different game depending on your opponent (A Guard Player will have very different issues with the rules than an Tyranid player for example). Meanwhile it is a turn-off to new players or new players to your area, who turn up to a club only to find that there is a huge list of agreed-upon house rules that, again, completely alter play.

Contrast this with Warmahordes, where the only variation is what scenario is rolled, or X-wing, where it is always a head-to-head match unless stated otherwise. With these games, I could walk into a store in Quebec, only needing to know "bonjour", "merci", and whatever numbers are common point values for my game, and I could get a game. Of course, that's a ridiculous example, as most young people in Quebec speak pretty good English. Point is, GW is so far below the curve for simple clarity of rules, it would be easier to play some other games without a shared language than to play a GW game.

I have not played in any non-GW wargame long enough to really feel such difference, and I had many rulewise arguments in all but the simplest boardgames. And had them in almost any RPG-like complexity level games I have played which all had some sort of "the most important rule" of social contract or flipping a coin over inevitable disputes. But I do get your point that GW may be the worst ofender here (but as you see from my post, I do not think that this is just a matter of the ruleset alone), and probably just had enough luck to mostly play with sensible players as I do not enjoy or seek pickup games of any kind.

Another factor is white knights coming up with irrelevant or nonsensical reasons why GW does not suck, with 'Well, I can afford it!' being an example.

There are arguments that work, but trying to claim that GW prices are reasonable, or that GW rules don't have problems actually end up serving the opposite to the intended purpose.

I never hate GW more than when some idjit comes up with a strawman argument or other nonsense to defend them.

*EDIT* Right now I am in the annoying position of wanting to show GW that I like the changes in direction, while finding nothing that I want among the current GW miniatures. (I loathe the style for AoS - and they got rid of the next army that I was planning to use for KoW - Tomb Kings.... *Sigh* ) I wish that Rountree had taken over about two years ago....

The Auld Grump

*EDIT 2* In case anyone thinks that i am targeting a poster in this current thread - no. The thing running through my head has to do with unemployed teenage Cypriots.... Somehow that long ago poster managed to make me hate GW more than any critic could have.

nou wrote:
- GW gets blamed for the fact that people do not play as often as they would want to. There is a poll here on dakka, where more than half of voters play only a couple times a year or do not play at all. How can you name yourself a "playerbase" if you play once a year? I do not call myself a skier if I last went skiing couple of years ago, only because there are skis in my closet… And people get offended by GW claims, that they are hobby company, not games company, yet almost all mentions of "my group" or "at my flgs" here on dakka, mentions a list of only a few players, less than 10 usually… WH40K is a hobby with the posibility of playing a game, not a game with posibility of becoming a hobby...

Two issues here:

1) You're ignoring the reason why many of those people play so rarely: the fact that the rules suck. This is not a win for GW.

2) The idea of "it's a hobby, not a game" is complete nonsense. GW isn't doing stuff that makes a great hobby at the unfortunate cost of making a weaker game, they're making a terrible game because they're lazy and incompetent and dismissing valid criticism with "it's a hobby". None of the things that make GW's products bad games make them better as painting hobbies.

- GW gets blamed for virtually zero social skills amongst playerbase. Hence the need for totaly bulletproof rules, because people do not want, or are unable to, make real friends within comunity and lack the ability to comunicate their needs (of course there are exceptions to this, but judging from constant whining here on dakka, these seems to be rare…). In the last month alone, there are at least two entire threads dedicated to shaming "Timmis" and "Daves" for being TFGs… And all I can say to summarise those threads - if you change all mentions of wh40k related stuff to violence or sexual abuse, these threads become diaries of toxic relationships. And if you are in a toxic relationship you either break up or get counseling and not blame any company for your lack of self esteem. And if you happen to have a close minded friend, spouse, brother, father, child etc.. to play with, this game has NO UNSOLVABLE problems whatsoever. And is a great "basic engine" and model range which you can modify to suit your needs.

Sorry, but this is just ridiculous. Other companies manage to make games that don't depend on "making friends" to function. If I want to play a game of X-Wing I can walk into a game store on X-Wing night, ask "standard 100 point game ok?" and start playing the game. There probably won't be any rule questions, and if they are they can almost certainly be solved with a quick look at the rulebook and/or FAQ. And this is great even if I'm friends with the person I'm playing with. We can spend all of our time playing the game or chatting about football or whatever instead of having to negotiate basic parts of how the game functions.

And no, the fact that I can make my own game based on 40k that solves 40k's problems does not in any way negate the fact that 40k is a broken game. If GW is going to demand obscene prices for their rulebooks then I am entirely justified in expecting that the game functions "out of the box" without having to find the right special snowflakes who share my exact gaming desires and spending a bunch of time and effort playing amateur game designer to fix all of the problems.

- GW gets blamed for not making a game not 100% inline with particular interests of any given individual. We have a 22 pages long thread about femarines for crying out loud. In a clearily fascist, racist, mysoginistic, violent, grimdark, non-representative hobby game! Playerbase of this game is so diverse in terms of age, investment level, frequency of playing, attitude, political views, country of origin, cultural background etc that this is really childish to think, that there is "one ruleset to rule them all". There are hardcore tournament folks; there are beer and pretzels folks; teenagers without money, teenagers with parents money, mid aged people with a ton of money or on a tight budget; there are people playing with carefully painted collections and there are proxy netlisters and so on… There are Eternal War players and Maelstrom enthusiasts… ALL SORTS of players with sometimes drastically different expectations from GW products. It is impossible to please all of them at once, and sooner or later anyone and everyone will end up on the wrong side of changes GW makes.

Contrast this with WOTC's position on MTG: "there are lots of different kinds of players who want different things, let's make sure we market to as many of them as we can". This is one of the reasons that MTG is a license to print money while GW is struggling to make a profit at all.

nou wrote:

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:

nou wrote:
GW gets blamed for virtually zero social skills amongst playerbase. Hence the need for totaly bulletproof rules, because people do not want, or are unable to, make real friends within comunity and lack the ability to comunicate their needs (of course there are exceptions to this, but judging from constant whining here on dakka, these seems to be rare…). In the last month alone, there are at least two entire threads dedicated to shaming "Timmis" and "Daves" for being TFGs… And all I can say to summarise those threads - if you change all mentions of wh40k related stuff to violence or sexual abuse, these threads become diaries of toxic relationships. And if you are in a toxic relationship you either break up or get counseling and not blame any company for your lack of self esteem. And if you happen to have a close minded friend, spouse, brother, father, child etc.. to play with, this game has NO UNSOLVABLE problems whatsoever. And is a great "basic engine" and model range which you can modify to suit your needs.

The reason that GW gets a lot of flak for this is because they are literally the only major company that needs this. Other companies are capable of writing rules that require no haggling other than "...X-points okay with you?" to get started. A lot of people therefore expect that the biggest player in the market should be able to do at least as much. With 40k/AOS, the horse-trading phase is so important you can end up playing a completely different game depending on your opponent (A Guard Player will have very different issues with the rules than an Tyranid player for example). Meanwhile it is a turn-off to new players or new players to your area, who turn up to a club only to find that there is a huge list of agreed-upon house rules that, again, completely alter play.

Contrast this with Warmahordes, where the only variation is what scenario is rolled, or X-wing, where it is always a head-to-head match unless stated otherwise. With these games, I could walk into a store in Quebec, only needing to know "bonjour", "merci", and whatever numbers are common point values for my game, and I could get a game. Of course, that's a ridiculous example, as most young people in Quebec speak pretty good English. Point is, GW is so far below the curve for simple clarity of rules, it would be easier to play some other games without a shared language than to play a GW game.

I have not played in any non-GW wargame long enough to really feel such difference, and I had many rulewise arguments in all but the simplest boardgames. And had them in almost any RPG-like complexity level games I have played which all had some sort of "the most important rule" of social contract or flipping a coin over inevitable disputes. But I do get your point that GW may be the worst ofender here (but as you see from my post, I do not think that this is just a matter of the ruleset alone), and probably just had enough luck to mostly play with sensible players as I do not enjoy or seek pickup games of any kind.

So you are saying that you have no real experience with what people are complaining about and choose to blame the players rather than admit that GW messed up?

 Peregrine wrote:

nou wrote:
- GW gets blamed for the fact that people do not play as often as they would want to. There is a poll here on dakka, where more than half of voters play only a couple times a year or do not play at all. How can you name yourself a "playerbase" if you play once a year? I do not call myself a skier if I last went skiing couple of years ago, only because there are skis in my closet… And people get offended by GW claims, that they are hobby company, not games company, yet almost all mentions of "my group" or "at my flgs" here on dakka, mentions a list of only a few players, less than 10 usually… WH40K is a hobby with the posibility of playing a game, not a game with posibility of becoming a hobby...

Two issues here:

1) You're ignoring the reason why many of those people play so rarely: the fact that the rules suck. This is not a win for GW.

2) The idea of "it's a hobby, not a game" is complete nonsense. GW isn't doing stuff that makes a great hobby at the unfortunate cost of making a weaker game, they're making a terrible game because they're lazy and incompetent and dismissing valid criticism with "it's a hobby". None of the things that make GW's products bad games make them better as painting hobbies.

- GW gets blamed for virtually zero social skills amongst playerbase. Hence the need for totaly bulletproof rules, because people do not want, or are unable to, make real friends within comunity and lack the ability to comunicate their needs (of course there are exceptions to this, but judging from constant whining here on dakka, these seems to be rare…). In the last month alone, there are at least two entire threads dedicated to shaming "Timmis" and "Daves" for being TFGs… And all I can say to summarise those threads - if you change all mentions of wh40k related stuff to violence or sexual abuse, these threads become diaries of toxic relationships. And if you are in a toxic relationship you either break up or get counseling and not blame any company for your lack of self esteem. And if you happen to have a close minded friend, spouse, brother, father, child etc.. to play with, this game has NO UNSOLVABLE problems whatsoever. And is a great "basic engine" and model range which you can modify to suit your needs.

Sorry, but this is just ridiculous. Other companies manage to make games that don't depend on "making friends" to function. If I want to play a game of X-Wing I can walk into a game store on X-Wing night, ask "standard 100 point game ok?" and start playing the game. There probably won't be any rule questions, and if they are they can almost certainly be solved with a quick look at the rulebook and/or FAQ. And this is great even if I'm friends with the person I'm playing with. We can spend all of our time playing the game or chatting about football or whatever instead of having to negotiate basic parts of how the game functions.

And no, the fact that I can make my own game based on 40k that solves 40k's problems does not in any way negate the fact that 40k is a broken game. If GW is going to demand obscene prices for their rulebooks then I am entirely justified in expecting that the game functions "out of the box" without having to find the right special snowflakes who share my exact gaming desires and spending a bunch of time and effort playing amateur game designer to fix all of the problems.

- GW gets blamed for not making a game not 100% inline with particular interests of any given individual. We have a 22 pages long thread about femarines for crying out loud. In a clearily fascist, racist, mysoginistic, violent, grimdark, non-representative hobby game! Playerbase of this game is so diverse in terms of age, investment level, frequency of playing, attitude, political views, country of origin, cultural background etc that this is really childish to think, that there is "one ruleset to rule them all". There are hardcore tournament folks; there are beer and pretzels folks; teenagers without money, teenagers with parents money, mid aged people with a ton of money or on a tight budget; there are people playing with carefully painted collections and there are proxy netlisters and so on… There are Eternal War players and Maelstrom enthusiasts… ALL SORTS of players with sometimes drastically different expectations from GW products. It is impossible to please all of them at once, and sooner or later anyone and everyone will end up on the wrong side of changes GW makes.

Contrast this with WOTC's position on MTG: "there are lots of different kinds of players who want different things, let's make sure we market to as many of them as we can". This is one of the reasons that MTG is a license to print money while GW is struggling to make a profit at all.

@not playing often enough: I'm not ignoring anything. Simply pointing out to recurrent complaints here on dakka, that people do not play as often as they want, because various non-ruleset related reasons (like FLGS being an hour away from where they live or being nonexistent in their area; or not having playpartners; or other rules independent reasons) and then blaming GW for making a game, that balance itself more over series of games and not within a single game each time. Another thing is, that if you like to play with fully painted non-proxy armies, then you have to invest a lot of time in preparation for your first game and once you are stuck with particular force you cannot make simple experiments with units (and loadouts if you play wysiwyg). Escalation leagues are organised over a periods of months and give you just a couple of games within that period. Your play-to-hobby ratio is very, very poor and this has nothing to do with ruleset. I usually see wh40k compared to X-Wing, Infinity or Malifaux in terms of rules clarity, but those are all skirmish level/squad level games in which you don't have to invest so heavily to just play a game. So your play-to-hobby ratio is much, much higher. WH40K (and WHFB even more so) have very, very poor play-to-hobby ratios compared to other games. And for comparison - MTG has huge - you do not spend literally hundreds of hours more painting and collecting cards than actually playing with them. In WH40K you often do. So dissapointement rate over bad game is much, much higher than with other board or card games. And one can of course complain, that this is GW fault for not delivering a game in which all your games are equally enjoyable, but judging from various discussions here on dakka, this is an unachievable goal with such a diverse community. There will always be something to complain about by at least a fraction of the community. MTG is not a great comparison, because the format of the game is so vastly different.

@social skill: try to play MTG with strangers without investing heavily in powerfull cards all the time and tell me how much fun you have geting a beating each time with your starter set… You have to comunicate power level at least, something that gets a lot of attention here on dakka and people seem to not be able to tame TFGs and powergamers… Same goes for any collectible games of varying power levels. And this is again IMHO related to play-to-hobby ratio of WH40K - you spend so much time carefully modeling and painting your army, that you get attached to it much more than to any MTG deck, and you are not willing to abandon underperforming models so easily as underperforming cards and blame GW for unavoidable power level differences or mismatches. And talking about attachement to your army and lore: WH40K is the only TT/board game I know of, that has true in-game racism and xenofobia amongst players of different factions.

And I really cannot give you any meaningfull answer to the diversity part, as I cannot see any way to further explain to you why Malestrom is not bull gak random mess and I enjy it deeply. We had our discussion about this and we are examples of completely different expectations of what "golden standard game" of WH40K should be. Which is exactly my point. And please, read my post again carefully, especially the first sentence - I'm not claiming, that there is nothing wrong with GW approach to rules writing or release timetable. But after few months spent here on dakka I cannot but wonder why GW gets blamed for every single bit of lore and rules by at least one person here and people have a hard time realising, that for each and every one of them, there is at least one other person, who likes WH40k exactly the opposite way…

And to be clear - please, do hate GW all you want, I'm not defending them or I don't try to prove that they are a flawless company (that would be indeed stupid). I'm just stating that they are not responsible for all what is wrong with WH40K scene.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:

nou wrote:

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:

nou wrote:
GW gets blamed for virtually zero social skills amongst playerbase. Hence the need for totaly bulletproof rules, because people do not want, or are unable to, make real friends within comunity and lack the ability to comunicate their needs (of course there are exceptions to this, but judging from constant whining here on dakka, these seems to be rare…). In the last month alone, there are at least two entire threads dedicated to shaming "Timmis" and "Daves" for being TFGs… And all I can say to summarise those threads - if you change all mentions of wh40k related stuff to violence or sexual abuse, these threads become diaries of toxic relationships. And if you are in a toxic relationship you either break up or get counseling and not blame any company for your lack of self esteem. And if you happen to have a close minded friend, spouse, brother, father, child etc.. to play with, this game has NO UNSOLVABLE problems whatsoever. And is a great "basic engine" and model range which you can modify to suit your needs.

The reason that GW gets a lot of flak for this is because they are literally the only major company that needs this. Other companies are capable of writing rules that require no haggling other than "...X-points okay with you?" to get started. A lot of people therefore expect that the biggest player in the market should be able to do at least as much. With 40k/AOS, the horse-trading phase is so important you can end up playing a completely different game depending on your opponent (A Guard Player will have very different issues with the rules than an Tyranid player for example). Meanwhile it is a turn-off to new players or new players to your area, who turn up to a club only to find that there is a huge list of agreed-upon house rules that, again, completely alter play.

Contrast this with Warmahordes, where the only variation is what scenario is rolled, or X-wing, where it is always a head-to-head match unless stated otherwise. With these games, I could walk into a store in Quebec, only needing to know "bonjour", "merci", and whatever numbers are common point values for my game, and I could get a game. Of course, that's a ridiculous example, as most young people in Quebec speak pretty good English. Point is, GW is so far below the curve for simple clarity of rules, it would be easier to play some other games without a shared language than to play a GW game.

I have not played in any non-GW wargame long enough to really feel such difference, and I had many rulewise arguments in all but the simplest boardgames. And had them in almost any RPG-like complexity level games I have played which all had some sort of "the most important rule" of social contract or flipping a coin over inevitable disputes. But I do get your point that GW may be the worst ofender here (but as you see from my post, I do not think that this is just a matter of the ruleset alone), and probably just had enough luck to mostly play with sensible players as I do not enjoy or seek pickup games of any kind.

So you are saying that you have no real experience with what people are complaining about and choose to blame the players rather than admit that GW messed up?

I have enough (5 years) experience with pickup games of 2nd and 3rd ed 40K to know exactly what people complain about and to not want to return to such playstyle. And as I said I rage-quit myself back then. I have also experience with various different board/card games of varying complexity and competitiveness (including MtG) to know how much of the feel to different tournament games lies within a comunity and not a ruleset. And I have came back to 40K in 7th ed, but being independent from playerbase I can now deeply enjoy the game, as I don't have to deal with hostile attitude of players and suddenly there is no problem with rule lawyering or TFG attitude and in-game racism… And as I wrote in my initial post and in reply to Peregrine - I do not try to defend GW, I just try to point out that they may not be solely responsible for everything that is wrong with current state of 40K scene.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Might I suggest, as you yourself admit to being poorly informed on the subject, that you go away and familiarize yourself with the issues people have with (or have had, a change in CEO has mitigated some of these at least a little)

- Cost of either starting or keeping up with changes
- Poor balance
- Using game edition advancement to try and manipulate more sales rather than fix what's broken.
- Heavy handed and often inappropriate legal action.
- Total disengagement from the community
- Downsizing of stores, often taking away people's space to play.
- What they did to Fantasy
- Using transitions in packaging or material to disguise huge price increases
- Refusal to show releases more than a week away
- What they've done to White Dwarf
- (my personal bugbear above nearly all else) removing player agency from games and replacing it with random.

There's probably others I've overlooked, and more personal ones for individuals, but that should get you started..

Pretty much sums it up for me. I sort of expected things to hit a status quo, and they would work on promoting the game rather than rererererevamping it to sell you the same book plus errata for more money. So for me, the game stopped being what I got into in the first place. More than anything is that, but the list above is nail on the head accurate.

nou wrote:
I do not try to defend GW, I just try to point out that they may not be solely responsible for everything that is wrong with current state of 40K scene.

This is a completely nonsensical argument. GW writers wrote 40k.... any problems are their fault. In no other field do you blame the customers for not being able to endure the failings of the company that made the product.

Even if GW have some specific plan to piss off certain people who don't want to fix 40k on their own, it's still GW's fault for pissing off those people, not the fault of the people for getting pissed off.

nou wrote:
@not playing often enough: I'm not ignoring anything. Simply pointing out to recurrent complaints here on dakka, that people do not play as often as they want, because various non-ruleset related reasons (like FLGS being an hour away from where they live or being nonexistent in their area; or not having playpartners; or other rules independent reasons) and then blaming GW for making a game, that balance itself more over series of games and not within a single game each time.

That doesn't make any sense. GW doesn't make a game that balances itself over a series of games, an optimized Eldar tournament army is going to crush a "casual" ork army game after game because of major balance issues. And nobody is blaming GW for things like the closest game store being too far away, so I don't know where that is coming from.

Another thing is, that if you like to play with fully painted non-proxy armies, then you have to invest a lot of time in preparation for your first game and once you are stuck with particular force you cannot make simple experiments with units (and loadouts if you play wysiwyg).

I'm not sure what your point here is. The fact that you're often locked in to a particular army list is a reason why GW's poor balance is bad. A well designed game would be balanced enough that a customer who buys their first army can expect to compete on a roughly equal level. GW, on the other hand, doesn't care about this and if you buy the wrong stuff you're just screwed.

I usually see wh40k compared to X-Wing, Infinity or Malifaux in terms of rules clarity, but those are all skirmish level/squad level games in which you don't have to invest so heavily to just play a game.

What does investment have to do with anything? Clear rules are clear rules, it doesn't get harder to write the rules just because it takes longer to paint some models. In fact, the investment level means we should be more critical of GW since you're wasting a lot more money if you invest in a GW game and hate the rule problems, while a cheap skirmish game with bad rules is a much smaller loss.

@social skill: try to play MTG with strangers without investing heavily in powerfull cards all the time and tell me how much fun you have geting a beating each time with your starter set…

And? MTG is not meant to be played with the starter sets. They're called starter sets for a reason. If you play standard tournament games MTG is reasonably well balanced and the rules are completely clear. If you draft the game is very well balanced.

and blame GW for unavoidable power level differences or mismatches.

These power level differences are not unavoidable at all. GW is just too lazy and/or incompetent to playtest sufficiently and catch major balance issues before they happen, and to stubborn about "BEER AND PRETZELS CASUAL AT ALL COSTS" to errata balance problems if they slip through playtesting.

I cannot see any way to further explain to you why Malestrom is not bull gak random mess and I enjy it deeply.

Probably because it is an inexcusable random mess. Maelstrom fails even basic game design concepts like "don't have impossible objectives", the fact that virtually everyone has house rules to modify Maelstrom objectives should be a pretty clear sign that the printed rules are garbage.

In a nutshell they do many things right and had done much more right.
They do many things wrong but it is easy to see potential for easy improvement.
It can be maddening to watch.
40k is "broken" according to me and my friends.
So we build and paint our models and wait.

 Talizvar wrote:
In a nutshell they do many things right and had done much more right.
They do many things wrong but it is easy to see potential for easy improvement.
It can be maddening to watch.
40k is "broken" according to me and my friends.
So we build and paint our models and wait.

Really? <-- and I mean that honestly. I'm actually a bit surprised that you're waiting for a company who provided you with a rules set that you don't enjoy to suddenly provide you with one that you will enjoy. Especially when they've been on the same design path since 1998. Are you expecting an Age of the Emperor game to come out soon?

I would recommend finding other rules sets in the mean time and getting some games in. Fubar and the One Page rules sets would be a place to start, but I like SuperSystem by Four-Color Studios. It's a comic book super heroes miniature game with a very, very complete build system. You can make it work with 40k stuff very easily. It's not free though.

Where I would start:
https://onepagerules.wordpress.com/

nou wrote:
... blame GW for unavoidable power level differences or mismatches...

My apologies. I'm not one to take such a small part of such a massive post and reply to it directly (that and Perry's kinda got us covered on the quote-by-quote replying), but I've got to single out one specific word here:

Unavoidable.

Let me start with a question for you nou: Do you know anything about how rules are written? That's not rhetorical. That's not a jab comparative intelligence levels or anything like that. It's a serious question; do you know anything about writing rules?

I happen to know a little about writing rules. I've dabbled, as it were, and the idea that the power level differences in a war game are somehow 'unavoidable' is laughably stupid. You think the rules take on a life of their own? You think that unforeseen combinations cannot be changed? Rules aren't a runaway train - they're something you develop yourself. They're something you have direct control over. The only reason bad rules get out is due to people either not caring about them, or crappy (or complacent) editing/technical editing.

Unavoidable?

Are you kidding me?

And even if the bad rules are missed in play testing, that doesn't mean they can't be fixed afterwards when brought up.

Gav Thorpe's 4th Ed Codex: Chaos Space Marines

I died a little inside

 MrDwhitey wrote:
And even if the bad rules are missed in play testing, that doesn't mean they can't be fixed afterwards when brought up.

Mistakes are always going to be made. Things will be missed in play-testing. We are all only human after all. I'm not trying to say that because one has control over their rules that everything will be perfect (it is very easy to miss the woods 'cause them blasted trees keep getting in the way)... but unavoidable? What an interesting choice of words (or word, rather).

 PLC wrote:
Gav Thorpe's 4th Ed Codex: Chaos Pace Marines

I died a little inside

I got kinda miffed by it.

You're being very kind calling it an "interesting" choice of words.

Thanks H.B.M.C, that picked all the scabs off the wounds.

 MrDwhitey wrote:
And even if the bad rules are missed in play testing, that doesn't mean they can't be fixed afterwards when brought up.

I think this is one of the big gripes of the player base.

40k has barely changed in the past 5 editions (up to and including 3rd ed), that's 18 years ago, EIGHTEEN years ago, eighteen YEARS ago. How in the hell do they still have ambiguously written rules after FIVE editions and EIGHTEEN years.

Even 2nd edition wasn't really THAT much different and that's going back 23 years.

Think about that for a second, if you dedicated the next 20 years of your life to writing a game, don't you think by the end of it you'd have something pretty fething solid? Even if not everyone agrees on what is good and what is bad, it shouldn't have gaping holes in it.

People expect incremental improvement as editions change, not just reshuffling what was crap. Sure, things might evolve in ways you don't like, but there should still be refinement of the core elements.

A game that is in its 1st or 2nd edition is likely to get a pass from the community on some small niggling issues. 40k doesn't get a pass because there's so much stuff that should not be a problem after this long.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

nou wrote:
... blame GW for unavoidable power level differences or mismatches...

My apologies. I'm not one to take such a small part of such a massive post and reply to it directly (that and Perry's kinda got us covered on the quote-by-quote replying), but I've got to single out one specific word here:

Unavoidable.

Let me start with a question for you nou: Do you know anything about how rules are written? That's not rhetorical. That's not a jab comparative intelligence levels or anything like that. It's a serious question; do you know anything about writing rules?

I happen to know a little about writing rules. I've dabbled, as it were, and the idea that the power level differences in a war game are somehow 'unavoidable' is laughably stupid. You think the rules take on a life of their own? You think that unforeseen combinations cannot be changed? Rules aren't a runaway train - they're something you develop yourself. They're something you have direct control over. The only reason bad rules get out is due to people either not caring about them, or crappy (or complacent) editing/technical editing.

Unavoidable?

Are you kidding me?

Mind you, that I'm not a native english speaker, so this might be indeed a poor choice of word on my part, that indeed might needs a further explanation. What I meant was that Warhammer ruleset (including all codex interactions) is large enough for Gödel theorem to kick in - in other words, you will always stumble upon rule conundrums that need to be clarified in next edition/next faq. I did not meant, that rules cannot be written better than what GW (currently) does (2nd ed rules language is much clearer than in present edition) or that GW does a good work resolving those conundrums. And yes, I know how rules are made, I have designed couple of games myself and have one card game in pre-production at the moment. And I'm perfectly aware, that at the current state of things only a complete rewrite and simplification on par with 2nd-3rd edition transition could get rid of all those conundrums currently present in the game. But same as then, we would end up with completely different game suited for only a fraction (it, of course, might be a large fraction) of the current comunity. And I myself enjoy current edition and this simple fact was the reason I took part in this here discussion - to show the OP, that not everyone outright hates GW for everything they do and that there are people, who enjoy even the current "bloated mess of rules" and did not enjoy "the golden era" of 3.5-5th ed 40K for being to simple to justify (my personal) time and money investment in this game.

And that is all from me in this thread, I said everything I wanted to say. Cheers!

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
A game that is in its 1st or 2nd edition is likely to get a pass from the community on some small niggling issues. 40k doesn't get a pass because there's so much stuff that should not be a problem after this long.

After 18+ years and 5 editions, if they cared at all about game play, things would be sorted. I think it's pretty much conclusive that GW's rules are not about playing a game, but are just a marketing tool to sell miniatures. People just keep getting fooled into thinking about the rules as a game when it's actually just a tool for structuring the sales of collectibles that they don't really expect you to play.

 frozenwastes wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
A game that is in its 1st or 2nd edition is likely to get a pass from the community on some small niggling issues. 40k doesn't get a pass because there's so much stuff that should not be a problem after this long.

After 18+ years and 5 editions, if they cared at all about game play, things would be sorted. I think it's pretty much conclusive that GW's rules are not about playing a game, but are just a marketing tool to sell miniatures. People just keep getting fooled into thinking about the rules as a game when it's actually just a tool for structuring the sales of collectibles that they don't really expect you to play.

Yeah, and if they conveyed that sentiment to customers, they'd have less angry customers....


....they'd also have less customers in total because I think most people got in to 40k for the gaming aspect

I know I got into 40k for the game not the miniature side, when the game became the mess it is now I stopped buying and playing.

Friends keep buying stuff and it puzzles me because they don't get around to painting it and don't play either, it just sits in a box.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Yeah, and if they conveyed that sentiment to customers, they'd have less angry customers....

....they'd also have less customers in total because I think most people got in to 40k for the gaming aspect

Definitely. As long as they can keep people believing in the idea of playing a game with the miniatures they can sell them a large army and then not care whether or not the person actually gets around to painting them up and getting them on the table before they quit. The rules only need to sort of work as an actual game, so that's all they care to produce.

You can see their plan the moment you walk into a GW store. The sales process invariably leads to a demo game (rigged so the prospective customer will always win) and then the idea of a game and collecting an army for it is planted and then they put the product in the person's hands, guide them to the till and a sale is made. The game rules as they are work for that process, so there's no reason for GW to change them.

And they are certainly not going to be honest about what they are really about. It'd be hilarious if the opening pages of 40k admitted that it was just a sales tool so you shouldn't take the game too seriously-- it worked enough to sell you on the idea of it and get you to part with your cash, but don't expect much else. Oh, buy this codex as well.

For now, you're a beginner, i was the same at the beginning at a small difference: i immedialty confided in the veterans' rants and quickly understood, like 2 months afterwards. In addition you probably (correct me if i'm wrong, just hypothesis) you might not have already come across any other company since GW is often an entrance gate to wargaming.

What's likely to happen, especially when you eventually discover another firm, is that you're going to realize how GW's products are expensive but let's be kind about it. What hurts is in fact how little they care about managment and above all us players and potential customers. They delete good stuff to put gigantic one barely making sens if it even does, they keep bashing the rules... Their policy as far as sells of, gifts etc is absolutly ridiculous: no sells of or nearly none, kits that won't get you the least pen saved, and events turning from an at least pretended friendship-minded organisation to an exhibited advertising show. All those shortcomings add to make GW a company not actually worth what players give them. I'm not directly concerned buy them deleting games: i'm relatively new and didn't know them before they got left totally aside, but i understand the feeling gnwing the guys who enjoyed it to see it die...

Of course, you can have fun with GW games but it's basically a joke to hammer that GW is alright, and one should give them as little money as possible and encourage their rivals.

You can guve faith to our accounts: i personaly play Bolt Action and i can certify how well they behave. And the my fellow dakkanauts will uote you as many others as you want!

I hope i answered your question and brought you light!

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 MrDwhitey wrote:
And even if the bad rules are missed in play testing, that doesn't mean they can't be fixed afterwards when brought up.

I think this is one of the big gripes of the player base.

40k has barely changed in the past 5 editions (up to and including 3rd ed), that's 18 years ago, EIGHTEEN years ago, eighteen YEARS ago. How in the hell do they still have ambiguously written rules after FIVE editions and EIGHTEEN years.

Even 2nd edition wasn't really THAT much different and that's going back 23 years.

Think about that for a second, if you dedicated the next 20 years of your life to writing a game, don't you think by the end of it you'd have something pretty fething solid? Even if not everyone agrees on what is good and what is bad, it shouldn't have gaping holes in it.

People expect incremental improvement as editions change, not just reshuffling what was crap. Sure, things might evolve in ways you don't like, but there should still be refinement of the core elements.

A game that is in its 1st or 2nd edition is likely to get a pass from the community on some small niggling issues. 40k doesn't get a pass because there's so much stuff that should not be a problem after this long.

THIS. This is the biggest condemnation of all. I remember when 3rd edition came out. 3rd edition has formed the core of the rules for 18 years now, and according to legend it was thrown together at the last minute by Rick Priestly based on some WW2 miniature game he was working on, because the suits rejected the idea of a cleaned up 2nd edition and wanted to go larger to sell more. So keep that in mind: Not only has the game had the same core rules for 18 years, but it's also based on a hackjob (not to disparage the great Mr. Priestly's work). After that long, bugs should be ironed out, issues should be fixed. There should be no more ambiguity since the core of the game is the same. Yet even with the new FAQs they released, they either got some rules completely wrong, changed the meaning of others or just said "Eh whatever you want to do" (e.g. drop pods). There's zero excuse for that other than not caring. 40k isn't a very complex game, despite what the claims are. There's a lot of extraneous information, but the core of the game has remained unchanged for nearly two decades and they STILL can't get basic rule interactions right.

That's a big problem, and the only reasoning is that it's complete unwillingness to try. Compare that to a game like Warmachine where I can literally go on the forum with a rules question, have a designated member of the forum with ties to the design staff ASK THEM and then clarify the rule straight from the designer's mouth how it works. No ambiguity, no "But what if...", it's "I asked the designers, they said it works like X". Now GW at least giving an FAQ, and a community-sourced one at that is unequivocally a good thing, but the answers show that they themselves often don't even know how the rule works (which I admit is understandable in a way, they may have "house rules" or whatnot; even other games' designers sometimes get rules wrong due to having gone through several versions of it before finalizing it), but after 18 years of rules that have stayed relatively the same? That's inexcusable.

 PLC wrote:
Gav Thorpe's 4th Ed Codex: Chaos Space Marines

I died a little inside

Was that the one that gave Chaos the OP list, or was that 3.5? I thought this one was the one that started the whole Bolter AND Bolt Pistol and close combat weapon nonsense.

It was the one that took away all the Legions and Daemons.

 frozenwastes wrote:
Really? <-- and I mean that honestly. I'm actually a bit surprised that you're waiting for a company who provided you with a rules set that you don't enjoy to suddenly provide you with one that you will enjoy.

They did in 5th!
Do you honestly think people just sit around and say "oh well, I guess I will not play then..."?
We do get some use out of it but we usually have to "craft" scenarios to ensure the balance.
We always have a standing agreement of switching armies if you do not think it "fair" enough.
We did switch a few times and it can be comedy gold remembering the other guy's army rules.
Pickup games however are pointless to us.

Especially when they've been on the same design path since 1998. Are you expecting an Age of the Emperor game to come out soon?

Hope springs eternal?
I had been playing 40k since second edition so I am kinda invested in the game, garbage rules now or not.
Do not ask how many models I have, nevermind metal ones.
My first and main army(ies?) is a freaking ton of CSM that used to have daemons which I have quite a few old metal ones kicking around.
You understand some bitterness there somewhere right?

I would recommend finding other rules sets in the mean time and getting some games in. Fubar and the One Page rules sets would be a place to start, but I like SuperSystem by Four-Color Studios. It's a comic book super heroes miniature game with a very, very complete build system. You can make it work with 40k stuff very easily. It's not free though.
Where I would start:
https://onepagerules.wordpress.com/

Thanks for the recommendations but I have participated in many a lively alternative rules discussion.
The alternative rule sets are not near as easy as modifying what we have.
Usually it just boils down to a house-rule list we keep updating as we go.
Hence why it is so irritating GW does not change a few fundamental rules to the game and it could play so much better.

<edit>It boils down that for us to go out and play / visit with new folk we play a different game (X-wing, Battletech, Malifaux) or get to know the new person and hammer out an "armistice" before we meet again to play.

Cool. I just seriously sounded like you were painting and waiting for GW to fix a problem for you they have no reason to fix.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
It was the one that took away all the Legions and Daemons.

So the 3.5 one was the "We can have our cake and eat everyone else's bakery, too" list, then this one was the one that felt more balanced in comparison.

 yakface wrote:
Hello Tom Kirby, welcome to Dakka!

Exalted!

As to the topic - posters have thoroughly explained their various beefs so I won't retread that ground. One thing I try to keep in mind is "fans" (as opposed to "fanboys") tend to enjoy the things they love in a very critical manner. If you ever want to find out exactly what is wrong with everything Marvel does, you need to ask a comic book fan. The same thing holds true for miniatures wargaming, of course. We fans tend to think of ourselves as experts and, to some degree, we are not wrong. Unfortunately, deep knowledge of the model range and associated lore does not really translate into understanding what is going on "inside baseball." (A related issue is, the fans aren't always the key market demographic.)

From what I've seen, a fan demonizes GW because the fan falls in love with one of GW's IPs, and GW makes a marketing or other decision that the fan doesn't agree with. The secret is to not go head over heels into a game to the point wherein you wig out because the owning company makes a change. Remember that company owns that intellectual property, and they are under no obligation whatsoever to listen to what fans have to say or to cater to their whims, regardless of how entitled the fan feels. However, be advised there are a number of wargaming rule sets and miniatures lines of a number of historical eras and sci-fi and fantasy universes you can choose from if Games Workshop angers you, and of course you are free to vote with your wallet.

And they are seeing what they can get away with by price increases of a already existing model under a new label

Landraiders at 75USD are already way over the 1999 era 50USD range,

Deathwatch Landraider, (and the additions are subtle and not really worth the increase is priced at 80USD, the problem is, nw players wanting a DW Landraider who buy enough, well they will then see all the previous Landraiders got to that 80USD price range. it is a sneaky and subtle push by GW.

Basically there are many players who would like to get into Warhammer 40K, but they cannot stand to pay the prices, even before they started. They cannot justify 50USD fo a codex, and almost 100USD for the main rules, nor the costs of the miniatures(see above), and the paints are very little for the 4+USD they charge per pot. One can get quality paints with more volume of said paints for less.

That and their subsidiary Forge World, makes nicely detailed stuff,,,again for the prices they charger per tank, they could at least clean the parts up and o better quality control. My Valdor came with massive chunks of resin from the mold process I has to use a saw on, and then smooth out myself, and smaller bits were needing flash scraping and hot water to help reshape to straighten out....I got cheaper tanks from an independent maker who took pride in his lower cost tank kits, they came free of any flash, were sanded down on the connective surfaces, and were free of releasing agent, and all for 1/10 the FW prices! Seriously, at the prices they charge, the damn tanks could come to you ready for assembly and paint with those 200+USD range how much harder is ti to have a wash and deburring/sprue chunk station so that I can truly feel I spent that 200+ on a quality model and not the extra 1/2lb of useless block resin? Granted, the details of the 1/10 the cost stuff was less than a FW kits, but they came in ready to go status, and good enough for tabletop. Heck the tank was even a bit cheaper than the 50USD Leman Russ kit!

But GW continues on their path to price people out of collecting, thus shrinking their Niche Market further, they are getting to a point where they will be in a decision making corner, continue on? do a price freeze? or reduce prices so that they can move their merchandise? More volume would equal out their revenue, and also reduce the "competition"(not likely as indy mini makers and other games make very nice looking models

GW may see themselves as the "Porsche of miniatures" but there are leaner, meaner competitors out there that may over take them as folks are forc4ed to find cheaper alternative models, and even rule sets.

Hubcommish wrote:
Remember that company owns that intellectual property, and they are under no obligation whatsoever to listen to what fans have to say or to cater to their whims, regardless of how entitled the fan feels.

Similarly, remember that the players have valid opinions too, and they are under no obligation whatsoever to pretend that GW is not run by incompetent idiots or to ignore the fact that other game companies don't fail so badly at basic things.

Hubcommish wrote:
From what I've seen, a fan demonizes GW because the fan falls in love with one of GW's IPs, and GW makes a marketing or other decision that the fan doesn't agree with. The secret is to not go head over heels into a game to the point wherein you wig out because the owning company makes a change. Remember that company owns that intellectual property, and they are under no obligation whatsoever to listen to what fans have to say or to cater to their whims, regardless of how entitled the fan feels. However, be advised there are a number of wargaming rule sets and miniatures lines of a number of historical eras and sci-fi and fantasy universes you can choose from if Games Workshop angers you, and of course you are free to vote with your wallet.

So.. commit to it sufficiently to spend hundreds/thousands of currency on it and hundreds/thousands of man hours, but not enough so you get pissed off when something the company who made it does that somehow makes all that effort and/or expense irrelevant?

 Just Tony wrote:

 PLC wrote:
Gav Thorpe's 4th Ed Codex: Chaos Space Marines

I died a little inside

Was that the one that gave Chaos the OP list, or was that 3.5? I thought this one was the one that started the whole Bolter AND Bolt Pistol and close combat weapon nonsense.

That was 3.5. The "Gavdex" was the one that reverted all of that back to the bland 3.0 (Jervisdex) version and took away everything that made Chaos unique. The one that's still in effect, basically. Seriously read that review linked. It made me mad and I didn't even play then.

 Talizvar wrote:
In a nutshell they do many things right and had done much more right.
They do many things wrong but it is easy to see potential for easy improvement.
It can be maddening to watch.
40k is "broken" according to me and my friends.
So we build and paint our models and wait.

This is where I am currently in regard to 40k.

WayneTheGame wrote:


THIS. This is the biggest condemnation of all. I remember when 3rd edition came out. 3rd edition has formed the core of the rules for 18 years now, and according to legend it was thrown together at the last minute by Rick Priestly based on some WW2 miniature game he was working on, because the suits rejected the idea of a cleaned up 2nd edition and wanted to go larger to sell more. So keep that in mind: Not only has the game had the same core rules for 18 years, but it's also based on a hackjob (not to disparage the great Mr. Priestly's work).

That sounds like "Warhammer 40000 3rd Edition, the Javascript of Wargames"

I thought Andy Chambers wanted 3rd edition (or was that the shift from 3rd to 4th?) to be more like what he ended up doing for the Starship Troopers game (but management didn't want that).

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

 PLC wrote:
Gav Thorpe's 4th Ed Codex: Chaos Space Marines

I died a little inside

Was that the one that gave Chaos the OP list, or was that 3.5? I thought this one was the one that started the whole Bolter AND Bolt Pistol and close combat weapon nonsense.

That was 3.5. The "Gavdex" was the one that reverted all of that back to the bland 3.0 (Jervisdex) version and took away everything that made Chaos unique. The one that's still in effect, basically. Seriously read that review linked. It made me mad and I didn't even play then.

I owned it when it came out. I'd played Iron Warriors since almost the start of 3rd Ed. and was building a 1K sons army while my brother was building his Death Guard. I got to experience the "joy" of having the dial of one of the armies I played turned soundly past 11 and landing on 35. Not only did we get special snowflake rules for each Legion that was honestly covered with the Index Astartes series, but we got choppas on Berzerkers, Bloodletters became Deep Striking Incubi that could charge on the turn they arrived, a force that didn't traditionally have ordinance getting a Leman Russ that can fight in combat, and pretty well I might add, Vindicators, and of course the Iron Warriors Basilisk. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. That codex made me feel literally guilty for running a Chaos army, so I went out of my way to bypass any of the units I saw as OTT, which was 2/3 of the Codex. In the end, that Codex made me focus on other armies, and started my general malaise towards GW in general. The 4th, which was TOO simplistic I agree, seemed more so because 3.5 was so ridiculously over the top that any step back was going to look like a full on retrograde.


You speak of fun, after being on the receiving end of more that a few games of Khorney Khorne "goodness", I can say that only one of us was having any fun.

 Azreal13 wrote:
So.. commit to it sufficiently to spend hundreds/thousands of currency on it and hundreds/thousands of man hours, but not enough so you get pissed off when something the company who made it does that somehow makes all that effort and/or expense irrelevant?

The White Knights these days are losing their touch.

 Just Tony wrote:
I owned it when it came out. I'd played Iron Warriors since almost the start of 3rd Ed. and was building a 1K sons army while my brother was building his Death Guard. I got to experience the "joy" of having the dial of one of the armies I played turned soundly past 11 and landing on 35. Not only did we get special snowflake rules for each Legion that was honestly covered with the Index Astartes series, but we got choppas on Berzerkers, Bloodletters became Deep Striking Incubi that could charge on the turn they arrived, a force that didn't traditionally have ordinance getting a Leman Russ that can fight in combat, and pretty well I might add, Vindicators, and of course the Iron Warriors Basilisk. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. That codex made me feel literally guilty for running a Chaos army, so I went out of my way to bypass any of the units I saw as OTT, which was 2/3 of the Codex. In the end, that Codex made me focus on other armies, and started my general malaise towards GW in general. The 4th, which was TOO simplistic I agree, seemed more so because 3.5 was so ridiculously over the top that any step back was going to look like a full on retrograde.

You speak of fun, after being on the receiving end of more that a few games of Khorney Khorne "goodness", I can say that only one of us was having any fun.

Wow... first time I've heard someone complain about the Khornate forces in the 3.5 'Dex. No one took Bloodletters. And 'Zerkers would leap out of their transports if you rolled a 1. There was nothing broken about them.

The issues with the 3.5 'Dex were balance related, but they ran the gamut of "super good" to "super bad". The Iron Warriors were the shining example of the high scale, where as the Thousand Sons were the polar opposite of that.

You felt guilty playing Iron Warriors? Please. I played most of the lists from that book and I think I brought a Basilisk to one game. Do you honestly think a Basilisk made the army overpowered? Giving ordnance to Chaos via the Defiler... and? The inherent imbalance in the list came about due to changes to the army's structure (like Iron Warriors and Word Bearers) rather than individual options (with the exception of Siren).

Special Snow flake Legion rules already covered in Index Astartes? Better to have 'em in one book than scattered around the place in WD issues and compilations. And having different rules for the legions was a GOOD thing. If Marines can have whole books for differnt coloured armour, why can't Chaos get a page per Legion?

Just before those good old "3.5" days I remember complaining hugely that any army I chose NEVER had guess weapons.

Black Templars I had were not allowed whirlwinds (Armageddon Codex) because they needed to "see their enemy die". CSM seeing the Defiler come along was a happy time.

I have a fair bit of Iron Warriors and I never got around to fielding a Basilisk... my impression was it was barely worth the points.

The above discussions do highlight the fact that many codexes that came before had many exciting things in them.

GW has a TON of lore/fluff.
Why do we play games based on these kinds of things or say movies?
We want to play/simulate what we saw/read as a game.

Any time game rules prevent a player from creating events like in the literature is viewed as a failure of the game.

This above statement is one of the main sources of GW "hate".
They seem to forget what makes the game exciting.

Or, more frequently, anyone who writes a list based on such gets curb stomped by someone bringing a flavourless but optimised spam list.

Back in 2nd, my little playgroup of 4, in the absence of the Internet to inform us or any real desire to optimise, had 'a' everything. I had 'a' Rhino, 'a' Land Raider, 'a' Tactical Squad etc This is still something I like to do. While experience, access to information and changes in the game mean I have altered this approach somewhat (foot squads will invariably have transports etc) I still like a visually and mechanically diverse list, like the armies in the battle reports of old.

Sadly, the days an army like that will triumph over the optimal spamming list are few and far between, it's not even like there's a huge range of tactical options I can employ to outplay a superior list, these days the better list almost always wins.

The 3.5 CSM codex was overpowered like hell.
Once I played in a local tourney with 2 Lieutanents on bikes, 5x6 Daemonettes, 6 Daemonettes on Steeds, 3 Obliterator, and 1 Defiler. Each Lieutenant had 9 minor psychic powers in order to Siren. A model with Siren cannot be shot or target. Since nobody brought Black Templars, I won the tourney with ease. Did I mention that they wanted to kill me? No?

@OP (if you're still watching) there are also many players (some even brand new like you) who just enjoy the hobby and play the game and don't care about the company or online community opinion--good or bad.

You asked, you saw, now you know, knowing is half the battle. Now go play and enjoy what you spent your money on and enjoy that return on investment.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Wow... first time I've heard someone complain about the Khornate forces in the 3.5 'Dex. No one took Bloodletters. And 'Zerkers would leap out of their transports if you rolled a 1. There was nothing broken about them.

Except no one took rhinos in fourth either.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

The issues with the 3.5 'Dex were balance related, but they ran the gamut of "super good" to "super bad". The Iron Warriors were the shining example of the high scale, where as the Thousand Sons were the polar opposite of that.

When all you see is the broken stuff though, it comes to define that codex. It could have been called codex iron warriors quite easily

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

You felt guilty playing Iron Warriors? Please. I played most of the lists from that book and I think I brought a Basilisk to one game. Do you honestly think a Basilisk made the army overpowered? Giving ordnance to Chaos via the Defiler... and? The inherent imbalance in the list came about due to changes to the army's structure (like Iron Warriors and Word Bearers) rather than individual options (with the exception of Siren).

The basilisk on its own? Probs not. Combined with 3x3 obliterators? Combined with 3 squads of Hafocs, all with tank hunting auto cannons? Infiltrating regular squaddies? Turn one assault 'nike' lords - d.speed, d.visage, infiltrate and lightning claws could turn a flank on their own. Then there were the daemon princes. Back in fourth, we didn't have the power curve of the current edition, but iron warriors were pretty much a 35 on a scale of 1-10.

Iron warriors were the absolute worst thing about fourth edition 40k. They broke its back. Back in Ireland, I remember tournaments where there were 90% iron warriors in composition.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Special Snow flake Legion rules already covered in Index Astartes? Better to have 'em in one book than scattered around the place in WD issues and compilations. And having different rules for the legions was a GOOD thing. If Marines can have whole books for differnt coloured armour, why can't Chaos get a page per Legion?

To be honest, I am personally against special snowflake rules for everything and it's dog. I think it adds too much bloat without adding value. A lot of the legion rules were pretty poorly thought out and open to abuse. Personally I always favoured something like ig doctrines or else how the forth ed eldar codex could essentially represent any craftworld.

Edit

*awaits posting of Pumbagore picture*

Its always the same. Haters hate and GW rumbles on.

Is this 'argument' on the Dakka bingo card?

Because GW isn't "rumbling on." Up until Rountree took the helm at least, GW was grinding to a halt. That's what falling revenue and declining profits means.

Your argument is about 3 years out of date. The "haters" had reached sufficient mass that GW fell below the line between growth and contraction.

The correct statement would be "the critics and disillusioned reached sufficient numbers that GW had to fairly dramatically change their approach to multiple aspects of their business in order to continue in a sustainable fashion."

I'm just sorry I can't boil that down into a vacuous non statement for everyone.

Edit.

The dip in financial performance didn't correlate in any way, shape or form with the global downturn. In fact, Kirby at one point proudly declared GW "recession proof."

Let's not also fail to account for the widely reported growth by competing companies. Companies who, in the main, only had a reason to exist because of niches that GW abandoned.

You really shouldn't be insulted by my vacuous statement, it was aimed at the argument and not the arguer, it is a trite and unsubstantiated statement that's is nearly always wheeled out by someone in these sorts of discussion, and is a nearly impossible position to debate honestly. Don't take it personally.

 Azreal13 wrote:

Its always the same. Haters hate and GW rumbles on.

Is this 'argument' on the Dakka bingo card?

Because GW isn't "rumbling on." Up until Rountree took the helm at least, GW was grinding to a halt. That's what falling revenue and declining profits means.

Your argument is about 3 years out of date. The "haters" had reached sufficient mass that GW fell below the line between growth and contraction.

The correct statement would be "the critics and disillusioned reached sufficient numbers that GW had to fairly dramatically change their approach to multiple aspects of their business in order to continue in a sustainable fashion."

I'm just sorry I can't boil that down into a vacuous non statement for everyone.

I think 'rumbling on' is more accurate than 'grinding to a halt'.

If you describe pre-Rountree GW's turnover as grinding to a halt then how would you describe other miniature companies?

GW were on the rise, then rocketed up with Lord of the Rings, crashed then climbed again for a bit then was on the slow decline until recently.

I have heard people preaching that GW will be out of business in the next 5 years for the last 20 years, yet it still rumbles on....

"As it was, so it will always be" is not an argument.

Edit.

2++ rerollable, $50 for 2 pages of rules. No more needs to be said, IMHO. Overall, I actually love GW, I just wish they would make their otherwise wonderful IP more fun to play competitively. I expect a 9th age equivalent to emerge soon for 40K.

 Byte wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azreal13 wrote:
The dip in financial performance didn't correlate in any way, shape or form with the global downturn. In fact, Kirby at one point proudly declared GW "recession proof."

Let's not also fail to account for the widely reported growth by competing companies. Companies who, in the main, only had a reason to exist because of niches that GW abandoned.

You really shouldn't be insulted by my vacuous statement, it was aimed at the argument and not the arguer, it is a trite and unsubstantiated statement that's is nearly always wheeled out by someone in these sorts of discussion, and is a nearly impossible position to debate honestly. Don't take it personally.

How could Kirby possibly know how households spend their money in tighter times? Is he some kind of financial profit? Its a ridiculous statement and an irrelevant data point. You believe this?

Because in general they are smaller games that can be supported with smaller buy ins. Coincidence?

Being that this is the internet were one can/will never concede any points. I leave you here and welcome you to my ignore list, it makes Dakka a more pleasant experience. I don't like being trolled and that's what you did. I'm sure you'll have some witty excuse for that too.

Well, there is actually a legitimate argument in favour of what Kirby said, but as I've been subjected to the greatest display of passive aggression open to a Dakka user (I'm putting you on ignore, and I'm making damn sure everyone knows it!!) there's little point in my explaining it.

Edit.

 kestral wrote:
2++ rerollable, $50 for 2 pages of rules. No more needs to be said, IMHO. Overall, I actually love GW, I just wish they would make their otherwise wonderful IP more fun to play competitively. I expect a 9th age equivalent to emerge soon for 40K.

Possibly, I've heard that discussed. I'm thinking 40K in its next incarnation will drop much of the bloat for a simpler ruleset like AoS (though obviously not the same mechanics) and won't be so alien an adjustment as fantasy was to AoS. Though I wonder when. Will FAQs on Facebook become official soon before the game changes.

@everybody From chatting with GW staff from different departments, especially community and social media side, they are very aware of the problems, more so when customers write them directly. Doesn't happen as often as we might think. I'm amazed when I write BL or FW and ask for something to be made or book a certain length or artwork or whatever how much (or little in this case) direct requests they actually receive to be passed on to the decision maker. So I encourage anyone who has a request or feedback to write GW directly and ask your note be delivered to the decision maker re: the topic or product.

Possibly, I've heard that discussed. I'm thinking 40K in its next incarnation will drop much of the bloat for a simpler ruleset like AoS (though obviously not the same mechanics)

You're in good company, the little that the best rumourmongers have said on the subject have indicated a fairly radical redesign and streamlining but "not AOS level streamlining" if I'm remembering the phrasing correctly.

I'm excited to see that, might make me interested to play regularly again.

 Byte wrote:
How could Kirby possibly know how households spend their money in tighter times? Is he some kind of financial profit? Its a ridiculous statement and an irrelevant data point. You believe this?

You do understand that there's this thing called "market research", right? Oh wait, GW proudly declares that they don't do market research. Perhaps we have seen some of the problem.

Because in general they are smaller games that can be supported with smaller buy ins. Coincidence?

Let's assume that this is true. Why didn't GW put out their own small-buy-in game variants to adapt to the changing market? Even if you assume that GW's decline is entirely due to their customers having less money and preferring small-buy-in games it's still a sign of incompetence that GW didn't recognize this fact and adapt to keep their customers. In fact, GW killed off all of their small-buy-in games, leaving only the big expensive ones that (supposedly) fewer people could afford. This is insane!

Actually that's one of the less bat gak crazy things Kirby has said - there is a school of economic thought that people compensate for not being able to indulge in larger purchases like cars or holidays in a recession by buying smaller items as a 'treat.'

A box of models would certainly fall into this sort of category.

However, a more level headed would have used words like 'resilient' or 'resistant' only someone with Kirby's very.. unusual thinking would declare themselves recession proof.

Edit.

Its mainly prices and perception of the state of the game I think, I find that every mini seller is around then 5-10$ per mini 15-20+ per large/fancy mini, if you know of a cheaper one with awesome sculpts Id love to know!

But that's kinda the catch 22 with so many players, you get so many complaints mainly because people are quicker to complain then to praise.

Yeesh, talk about sensitive. I disagree with Byte, get called a troll and put on ignore, Peregrine disagrees and gets accused of flaming?

In case you're reading this, as you wouldn't be the first person to publicly declare they were ignoring a poster only to somehow "forget" between making the declaration and clicking on the necessary button...

Disagreeing with what you say =\= a personal attack.

 easysauce wrote:
Its mainly prices and perception of the state of the game I think, I find that every mini seller is around then 5-10$ per mini 15-20+ per large/fancy mini, if you know of a cheaper one with awesome sculpts Id love to know!

But that's kinda the catch 22 with so many players, you get so many complaints mainly because people are quicker to complain then to praise.

This is why I think the new release of Kill Team will be pretty cool. It's actually a very good move on GWs part.

meh it's just more marines that's GW's go to move every time.

Edit.

I dont hate GW, I hope they improve the games they have. The problem is most competition (not all) is doing better with their products. Intro prices, availability (to buy using shopping cart) and good rules with players feedbacks.

 Byte wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Yeesh, talk about sensitive. I disagree with Byte, get called a troll and put on ignore, Peregrine disagrees and gets accused of flaming?

In case you're reading this, as you wouldn't be the first person to publicly declare they were ignoring a poster only to somehow "forget" between making the declaration and clicking on the necessary button...

Disagreeing with what you say =\= a personal attack.

You are ignored, but a little icon appears if you post and I can open it.

Its all in the delivery A13. There's a boorish approach, a gentlemanly approach, and something in between. Disagreeing differs from fabricating/manipulating what I actually said. If you actually read the through of both your responses they are contemptuous and dismissive. So ya, I didn't like it. Who would? It's just not necessary.

I'm aware of how ignoring people works, but I reserve it for people who attack me not my arguments. Ignoring people for disagreeing with one's opinions feels a little like simply not being able to handle the debate. Publicly announcing that you're ignoring someone is a supremely passive aggressive move too - someone's pissing you off? Ignore them and move on, don't do the digital equivalent of standing up and storming out, opening the door and slamming it a second time just to make sure everyone knows you're cross.

As for the delivery, how patronising do you think it comes across when someone drops in and declares "all these people with concerns and issues are just baseless haters, it's all fine, I know best." Which is, intended or not, what you came across as doing. Especially as you did so in a tired and cliched manner with absolutely nothing to back up your assertions beyond "it's as it was, so it will always be." I didn't fabricate nor manipulate a thing you said, I simply pointed out that what you said was oft repeated, never proved, and I stand by it.

So maybe, if someone seems to be taking issue with you, perhaps consider its in reaction to your own behaviour, and they're not a flamer/troll/hater at all?

 Byte wrote:




You don't have to like it. It just, is.

Since you cherry picked one small line from my post, I am focusing on this one.

Like you, I have played through RT to 5th edition, OI have the 6th ed book, but no one to play against due to travel restrictions per my health. Have not touched 7th as it is a pricey rulebook.
I have also copies from Apocalypse, and FW books, I have thousands of points in Tau/SM/Orks/and IG, I have enjoyed the games I have played. Have I enjoyed the price increases that the line you picked out was related to in my post? No, and I stated what I did regarding "Counts as" proxies from other companies due to their lower costs.

Deathwatch is another example where they are looking ot rook new players into buying a more expensive Landraider rather than keep the thing about 74+USD, the few little add ons do not really warrant the 5USD increase in the price of the kit, and if they sell enough, they will change the landraiders to 80USD. This is still a recession, and it is hard to justify 80USD for a kit that has not seen a total overhaul since 1999.

I also stated for the record that with such huge prices, that GW has cut themselves off from a larger market share, thus cutting their noses to spite their faces. My Necrons is where and when I ceased buying GW due to the increasing costs. Finecast is not worth the price as it is too flawed and brittle. (You know they are doing something wrong when their minis are to nerver wracking to even play with for fear of irreparable damage to it).

Codexii like the IG one where they charge 50USD for a more limp, watered down and bland book.(removal of characters and rules that were full of flavor and not OP)

Look, I get that you may still be so into GW-40K to defend it, but do not defend their silly price gouging. Knight is plastic and 140USD when it came out, for 150USD I got similar sized Leynos combat suits and add on CCWs so for the price of 1,25Knights, I have 3. I have the basic codex to run knights with.

I also stated that rather than be nickel and dimed buying their paints, I get good quality, cheaper per bottle, paints with higher volume in the paints than the GW "pots" tools I get off of Amazon or the local hardware store, and brushes cheap at 3-5 a dozen from outlets.

Calling themselves "The Porsche of Miniatures " with the smug air they did and that they have problems making decent rules for their miniature collectibles, (yes, collectibles as if these were Hummels and such), plus the yearly gouging when they need to drop prices to fit recessions, and such, and open a volume market rather than be pretentious may go a better way for them than they think.

And no, it is not so much hate as dislike for the practice and indeed we don't have to like it and our wallets speak loudly to them, they are just deaf as posts.

You know, as a bit of a petrol head, that "Porsche of miniatures" thing has always bothered me a bit.

Porsche are, broadly speaking, a mid range supercar manufacturer. Why not go with Aston Martin (similar market position but also a British marque and the whole Bond caché) or Lamborghini or Ferrari or something?

To call oneself the Porsche of anything seems like a curious lack of ambition if the intent is to portray yourself as the best of something.

Here I thought they were the Apple of the wargaming world, in their own heads at least.

I think the distinction is GW are Porsche, Kirby thought he was Jobs.

 Byte wrote:


Hmmm, might I remind folks of a little thing called a recession? Disposable income dried up in general across the board. That couldn't of possibly contribute decline and subsequent rebound.

So there is a recession people's disposable income dries up so GW increases the prices? Yes that makes a lot of sense. Charge more when people have less money. No wonder a lot of people left GW. As for the rebound, where is it? GW got what 4 million pounds/dollars what not from video games other wise they would be what 4 million less in profits or revenue. So please enlighten me where this rebound is. It hasn't happened yet even with all the good things GW has done so far surprisingly.

 Azreal13 wrote:
You know, as a bit of a petrol head, that "Porsche of miniatures" thing has always bothered me a bit.

Porsche are, broadly speaking, a mid range supercar manufacturer. Why not go with Aston Martin (similar market position but also a British marque and the whole Bond caché) or Lamborghini or Ferrari or something?

To call oneself the Porsche of anything seems like a curious lack of ambition if the intent is to portray yourself as the best of something.

My guess would be that Kirby doesn't know much about cars and just picked a 'luxury' name at random.

Although I believe that Porsche is held in slightly higher regard in the UK than in the US.

I'm in the Uk, my flags just gone temporarily wonky.

Not sure I'd agree with the sentiment exactly, seems more people who really like Porsche, and those that really don't. But I guess if Kirby were the former, then it would make sense.

I mean, it isn't like I don't know what the point he was making was, it has always just struck me as odd that given a free choice, Ferrari, or even Rolls Royce (that's a much better one!) would have been better.

 Azreal13 wrote:

Well, there is actually a legitimate argument in favour of what Kirby said, but as I've been subjected to the greatest display of passive aggression open to a Dakka user (I'm putting you on ignore, and I'm making damn sure everyone knows it!!) there's little point in my explaining it.

I thought that the greatest display was 'I'm putting you on Ignore, and I'm making damn sure everyone knows it - every time you post!'...

Hillarity ensues.

The Auld Grump - and Harpo does something funny.

 wuestenfux wrote:
The 3.5 CSM codex was overpowered like hell.
Once I played in a local tourney with 2 Lieutanents on bikes, 5x6 Daemonettes, 6 Daemonettes on Steeds, 3 Obliterator, and 1 Defiler. Each Lieutenant had 9 minor psychic powers in order to Siren. A model with Siren cannot be shot or target. Since nobody brought Black Templars, I won the tourney with ease. Did I mention that they wanted to kill me? No?

And like I said in the massive review I wrote when the 4th Edition 'Chaos' Codex came out, losing the 3.5 Codex was bad not because of the loss of power but the loss of flavour. FFS, the book had generic demons. How much more can we spell out how terrible that abortion of a Codex was? It destroyed the essence of Chaos by making everything the same.

 Azreal13 wrote:
I'm in the Uk, my flags just gone temporarily wonky.

Not sure I'd agree with the sentiment exactly, seems more people who really like Porsche, and those that really don't. But I guess if Kirby were the former, then it would make sense.

I mean, it isn't like I don't know what the point he was making was, it has always just struck me as odd that given a free choice, Ferrari, or even Rolls Royce (that's a much better one!) would have been better.

Maybe he was aiming for something that more people would see as possible, as opposed to Ferrari? Most people may think that one day they could buy a Porsche, but are realistic enough to realize they will never be able to afford a Ferrari?

Edit.

For someone you're meant to be ignoring you sure are paying a lot of attention to them. And you're going to get the thread locked. Just sayin'.

Oh, also "Haters gonna hate" is probably the single weakest 'get-out-of-having-to-make-an-actual-argument' card one can play at Dakka.

Wilfully ignoring GW's faults is also kinda silly. Again, just sayin'.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Yeesh, talk about sensitive. I disagree with Byte, get called a troll and put on ignore, Peregrine disagrees and gets accused of flaming?

In case you're reading this, as you wouldn't be the first person to publicly declare they were ignoring a poster only to somehow "forget" between making the declaration and clicking on the necessary button...

Disagreeing with what you say =\= a personal attack.

That happened to me with him about 2 years ago now. So I ignored him back and left him there.

Edit.

 Byte wrote:
How am I going to get the thread locked?

By talking about how you're ignoring people and complaining about being "flamed" instead of sticking to the topic. If you want to stop talking to people just do it, you don't have to yell to the whole world about how you're putting someone on ignore.

Its weird that I'm being singled out has some kind of GW defender, I just pointed out the unrest has been around for years and the general scenario will never change.

But the general scenario has changed. Over the history of GW they've seen periods of growth and periods of decline. And right now they're in a period of decline, or a period of stagnation at best. The fact that, in the past, concerns about the long-term health of the company have turned out to have been unjustified does not magically mean that this will continue to be the case.

People love to hate GW. Much like anything else that's mainstream in some circles. It falls into the category of "to big" to be cool.

No, people "love to hate GW" because GW is constantly making terrible decisions. It has nothing to do with how big they are or how cool they are, it's about the fact that GW is not a well-run business. It's about things like GW's CEO proudly declaring that they don't do market research, or GW's stubborn refusal to write rules that function "out of the box" without having to argue about how everything works. Things that other companies in the hobby don't fail so badly at.

Those that have issues with GW will tend to have issues with GW regardless of what the company does.

This is just nonsense. If GW started consistently making good decisions like other game companies a lot of the people who have issues with GW would be content. I don't know why you continue to act like GW's critics are just rabid hate monsters when people have told you plenty of legitimate disagreements that GW could fix.

What's so hard about trying to convey, "GW gets demonized, but the show goes on"

The fact that the show isn't going on. We know GW's financial state, and it isn't good. They're losing market share, losing profits, and just barely managing to compensate for the losses with cost cutting and price increases. The only reason GW still exists as a company after the past few years is that they started with near-complete dominance of the market and could take a significant drop in performance without actually losing money. But that initial advantage has been almost completely used up, GW has very little margin for error before they start losing money. And they are in serious danger of losing the "critical mass" factor where dominant market share gives even a weak product most of the new players entering the hobby, which would be a catastrophic loss in the long term even if GW continues to sell each box for more than the production costs for a while longer. If I was looking at GW from the point of view of an investor I'd be giving serious thought to pulling my money out before share prices start dropping.

Now, it's possible that GW will turn things around, and some people think GW has been making some positive steps in that direction. But if they do survive it will be because the show didn't go on. The show stopped, and GW started moving in a very different direction.

I think the two big things still going for 40k are....

1. A huge range. Lots of armies that are fully packed with miniatures. Even if you can find models you like more elsewhere you're unlikely to find such a complete range.

2. The number of existing players. When you choose a wargame, the number of existing players is such an important factor. A game could be awesome but it's meaningless if you can't find opponents. The fact GW find themselves in this position is just a case of being in the right place at the right time (largely in the 90's).

GW haven't been treating those things as the finite resources they are, it seems they might finally be starting to turn the corner on that one, we'll still have to wait and see, I think 8th ed will be very telling.

 Azreal13 wrote:
You know, as a bit of a petrol head, that "Porsche of miniatures" thing has always bothered me a bit.

Porsche are, broadly speaking, a mid range supercar manufacturer. Why not go with Aston Martin (similar market position but also a British marque and the whole Bond caché) or Lamborghini or Ferrari or something?

To call oneself the Porsche of anything seems like a curious lack of ambition if the intent is to portray yourself as the best of something.

You don't want to get into an argument about what is the 'best' of something like that

If anything, Aston Martin has something more of the 'old man poser's car' reputation about it, and aren't appealing to the same market as Porsche (which I think still people think of as 'sports car', despite their efforts with those dreadful 4x4 s)

Anyway, Kirby was obviously just using a term that everyone would instantly recognise as a luxury/high-end.

And for any newbies here who may have missed it, never miss a chance to post..

 Peregrine wrote:


But the general scenario has changed. Over the history of GW they've seen periods of growth and periods of decline. And right now they're in a period of decline, or a period of stagnation at best. The fact that, in the past, concerns about the long-term health of the company have turned out to have been unjustified does not magically mean that this will continue to be the case.

No, people "love to hate GW" because GW is constantly making terrible decisions. It has nothing to do with how big they are or how cool they are, it's about the fact that GW is not a well-run business. It's about things like GW's CEO proudly declaring that they don't do market research, or GW's stubborn refusal to write rules that function "out of the box" without having to argue about how everything works. Things that other companies in the hobby don't fail so badly at.

This is just nonsense. If GW started consistently making good decisions like other game companies a lot of the people who have issues with GW would be content. I don't know why you continue to act like GW's critics are just rabid hate monsters when people have told you plenty of legitimate disagreements that GW could fix.

The fact that the show isn't going on. We know GW's financial state, and it isn't good. They're losing market share, losing profits, and just barely managing to compensate for the losses with cost cutting and price increases. The only reason GW still exists as a company after the past few years is that they started with near-complete dominance of the market and could take a significant drop in performance without actually losing money. But that initial advantage has been almost completely used up, GW has very little margin for error before they start losing money. And they are in serious danger of losing the "critical mass" factor where dominant market share gives even a weak product most of the new players entering the hobby, which would be a catastrophic loss in the long term even if GW continues to sell each box for more than the production costs for a while longer. If I was looking at GW from the point of view of an investor I'd be giving serious thought to pulling my money out before share prices start dropping.

Now, it's possible that GW will turn things around, and some people think GW has been making some positive steps in that direction. But if they do survive it will be because the show didn't go on. The show stopped, and GW started moving in a very different direction.

The closest the GW show came to stopping was after the Lord of the Rings crash, nothing has been as bad since then and it has been over a decade since.

GW's financials are not bad at the moment, they are also doing better than barely managing, they are still making millions of pounds. When comparing GW to GW sure, things do not look as good as they have in the past, but there is no reason to believe that GW will do a Rackham, TSR or Ex-illis or......

Total War Warhammer will be an easy cash cow form now until Total War itself dies as a franchise, the game is just that good.

People do 'love to hate' GW, I have read posts that claim GW suck because of the Start collecting boxes, because they were cheaper than buying the boxes separately and this was a desperate and sleazy move. So for some people even lower prices are not worthy of merit.

GW could save alot of money by dropping their retail chain, but they would probably be reducing their potential for growth. Then where would we get new Wargaming buddies from? I imagine that they would have to come in (Lego style) from external IP's such as Star Wars. I am not sure how Warlord is doing with Terminator, or Prodos is doing with Alien vs Predator though, so maybe it is just a PPP thing?

The only bad decision they constantly make is to price Australia so unfairly.

 StygianBeach wrote:
Total War Warhammer will be an easy cash cow form now until Total War itself dies as a franchise, the game is just that good.

Oh dear... that's not really how that works. Most of that money will go to SEGA, which will come after the retailers and distributors take their cut. The licensing fee SEGA no doubt paid is just that: Paid. I really doubt GW gets an ongoing share in the game's success (or failure).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
The 3.5 CSM codex was overpowered like hell.
Once I played in a local tourney with 2 Lieutanents on bikes, 5x6 Daemonettes, 6 Daemonettes on Steeds, 3 Obliterator, and 1 Defiler. Each Lieutenant had 9 minor psychic powers in order to Siren. A model with Siren cannot be shot or target. Since nobody brought Black Templars, I won the tourney with ease. Did I mention that they wanted to kill me? No?

And like I said in the massive review I wrote when the 4th Edition 'Chaos' Codex came out, losing the 3.5 Codex was bad not because of the loss of power but the loss of flavour. FFS, the book had generic demons. How much more can we spell out how terrible that abortion of a Codex was? It destroyed the essence of Chaos by making everything the same.

Indeed, the 4th CSM codex has been one of the worst codices ever. Uninspired, unimaginable, un...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 StygianBeach wrote:
Total War Warhammer will be an easy cash cow form now until Total War itself dies as a franchise, the game is just that good.

Oh dear... that's not really how that works. Most of that money will go to SEGA, which will come after the retailers and distributors take their cut. The licensing fee SEGA no doubt paid is just that: Paid. I really doubt GW gets an ongoing share in the game's success (or failure).

Then why did the finnancial report meniton that TW:W was IP succes??? Its quite possible that GW gets some cuts each unit sold.

There's something like 50+ GW based games on the app store that's why royalties shot up, they whored out their IP to anyone that could pay.

Most of them are dreadful.

And their financial standing is not good they've lost nearly 20% of their model sales over three years that's shockingly bad and shows major decline in the player base they rely on.

herjan1987 wrote:
Then why did the finnancial report meniton that TW:W was IP succes???

What about IP success = constant revenue stream?

herjan1987 wrote:
Its quite possible that GW gets some cuts each unit sold.

Quite unlikely.

Some video games sell consistently well over the course of months if not years, most games however have a sudden burst in the week they are released and then die down.

Total War will have an ongoing stream of DLC for a while, if they're lucky that'll give them a bit of a revenue stream for a while.

But still, that's only a few million per year, GW can't rely on it to prop them up.

 StygianBeach wrote:
People do 'love to hate' GW, I have read posts that claim GW suck because of the Start collecting boxes, because they were cheaper than buying the boxes separately and this was a desperate and sleazy move. So for some people even lower prices are not worthy of merit.

That's a bit of a strawman. It's not really relevant that SOME people are idiots who hate anything GW does when people are highlighting very specific stupid things GW has done that you'd really struggle to put a positive spin on.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Some video games sell consistently well over the course of months if not years, most games however have a sudden burst in the week they are released and then die down.

Total War will have an ongoing stream of DLC for a while, if they're lucky that'll give them a bit of a revenue stream for a while.

But still, that's only a few million per year, GW can't rely on it to prop them up.

 StygianBeach wrote:
People do 'love to hate' GW, I have read posts that claim GW suck because of the Start collecting boxes, because they were cheaper than buying the boxes separately and this was a desperate and sleazy move. So for some people even lower prices are not worthy of merit.

That's a bit of a strawman. It's not really relevant that SOME people are idiots who hate anything GW does when people are highlighting very specific stupid things GW has done that you'd really struggle to put a positive spin on.

If I responded to something specific with my over generalised point, then I agree that I am in error.

I mainly wanted to point out that I have seen evidence that those people whom slag off GW regardless of GW's efforts do exist. I will agree that it is only some people though, and even then, the vast minority of people.

hobojebus wrote:


And their financial standing is not good they've lost nearly 20% of their model sales over three years that's shockingly bad and shows major decline in the player base they rely on.

Assuming you're citing the revenue drop, they've gone from 135m 3 years ago to 118m this year. So that's what ~12%?

I know I've said this to you before, but by all means be critical, God knows I am, but be accurate. Throwing around inaccurate and easily verifiable figures does nothing but undermine the legitimacy of any criticism and support the whole "haters goin hate" rhetoric.

Byte, I do assume you know what your talking about? How long have you been in the hobby?

I have been in since the late 90's and in all honesty GW has pretty much driven me away. I used to love GW - I would white knight for them, I would talk up about them and I regarded them as the best on the market.
Then the prices went up, the games I loved where trashed and I got disillusioned. I might have quit the hobby then, a slow and painful exit, but I happened to encounter Warmachine. And in doing so I found a better game which was cheaper to play and provided a superior product both in terms of models and game design and since then I have not looked back.
After Fantasy was destroyed I had almost nothing to back to GW for and so I abandoned it. The only reason I still play 40K is because it is so popular in my club where there is a certain elitism and fanaticism about GW.

Edit.

 Azreal13 wrote:

hobojebus wrote:


And their financial standing is not good they've lost nearly 20% of their model sales over three years that's shockingly bad and shows major decline in the player base they rely on.

Assuming you're citing the revenue drop, they've gone from 135m 3 years ago to 118m this year. So that's what ~12%?

I know I've said this to you before, but by all means be critical, God knows I am, but be accurate. Throwing around inaccurate and easily verifiable figures does nothing but undermine the legitimacy of any criticism and support the whole "haters goin hate" rhetoric.

No in talking about the 19% drop in model sales not revenue.

They are selling less models each year that is a fact.

There is zero evidence to support this, unless you're in possession of information beyond that included in the financial reports?

 StygianBeach wrote:
GW's financials are not bad at the moment, they are also doing better than barely managing, they are still making millions of pounds.

No, GW's financials right now are terrible. To look at the long-term health of the company you have to look beyond "did we make a profit this year" and look at things like why they made a profit, how they performed compared to last year, etc. And when we do that we see several red flags about GW's future:

1) Profit is decreasing, stagnant at best, while the market as a whole is growing. GW is still making money, but the amount of money they're making (adjusted for inflation) is on a bad trend. If the trend continues as it has been there's a serious danger that GW's profit margin will drop lower and lower until they're losing money, at which point the death spiral begins. And GW can't blame this on a temporary weak economy because other game companies are doing really well, it's a sign of problems with GW.

2) Sales volume is declining or stagnant while the market as a whole is growing. GW's prices are increasing, as a combination of increasing the prices on existing products and introducing more expensive new products. However, GW's revenue is not increasing to match. This means that GW is selling a smaller number of boxes at a higher profit per box. And since other companies in the market are not suffering a similar decline in sales volume this means that GW's market share is dropping. And market share is a very important thing for a community hobby like miniatures gaming, if GW loses too much market share they can find themselves in the beginning of a death spiral even if each box is still selling at a profit (for a short time).

3) GW's continued profits have been supported by aggressive cost cutting and side revenue from things like video game licenses. Obviously it's good to cut costs, but at some point you run out of things to cut. And if your continued profitability depends on cutting $X worth of costs to make up for $X worth of lost revenue you're in the death spiral once you run out of things that you can cut without suffering a drop in quality. Video game licenses are a similar problem. It's nice to get the money where you can, but it should be a red flag when a company is depending on revenue from things outside their main product lines and outside of their direct control to keep making a profit.

4) GW management proudly brags about things like not doing market research, or how "we tell the market what it is going to buy". This is a giant warning sign that GW doesn't understand why they're in trouble, doesn't understand how to get out of their current problems, and may not even acknowledge that they have a problem. GW isn't in the death spiral yet, but it's hard to have any confidence that they'll be able to reverse the bad trends before it's too late.

TL;DR: GW made a profit last year, but even companies that are making a profit can be in a bad position for the future.

Total War Warhammer will be an easy cash cow form now until Total War itself dies as a franchise, the game is just that good.

And, as pointed out, GW doesn't get that money. Warhammer Total War is probably an easy cash cow for the publisher, but GW is only getting the license payments from it. And GW, in a display of amazing incompetence, killed off the game that Warhammer Total War was licensed from. Now instead of saying "you played it on your PC, now play it on the table" the best GW can do is "we have this game which is kind of like the Warhammer universe". Instead of a powerful recruiting tool for their core products all GW is getting is some license payments.

People do 'love to hate' GW, I have read posts that claim GW suck because of the Start collecting boxes, because they were cheaper than buying the boxes separately and this was a desperate and sleazy move. So for some people even lower prices are not worthy of merit.

So? How many people are complaining that GW sucks because they offer starter sets at a discount? You can't just take a minority of stupid whiners and act like that means the people offering legitimate criticism of GW "love to hate".

GW could save alot of money by dropping their retail chain, but they would probably be reducing their potential for growth. Then where would we get new Wargaming buddies from? I imagine that they would have to come in (Lego style) from external IP's such as Star Wars. I am not sure how Warlord is doing with Terminator, or Prodos is doing with Alien vs Predator though, so maybe it is just a PPP thing?

Or they'd come in from independent stores selling GW products. I don't know how it works where you live, but in the US GW stores are a joke. There are lots of independent game stores everywhere that offer better prices on GW's own products, better store hours, better gaming space, better selection of non-GW products, etc. If every single GW store in the US closed overnight the hobby would continue on with minimal disruption, and hardly anyone would miss those stores.

 Azreal13 wrote:
There is zero evidence to support this, unless you're in possession of information beyond that included in the financial reports?

It's in the report last time model sales were down 5% the report before that it was 4%, added to the 10% from the two reports before that they have lost overall 19% of their model sales.

That's their core business that's shrinking.

Where? I'm going to need page numbers here, because that's nothing I've heard before.

All the PDFs are still on the GW Investor relations site.

Plus your maths is faulty regardless, because if something drops 10% year on year, the 10% drop in the second year is based on a lower starting figure (because it was already 10% down on the year before.)

 Azreal13 wrote:
Plus your maths is faulty regardless, because if something drops 10% year on year, the 10% drop in the second year is based on a lower starting figure (because it was already 10% down on the year before.)

Faulty, but not meaningfully so in this case. After 10%, 4%, 5% losses you're down to 82% of your starting point. The difference between 18% and 19% is irrelevant here, nobody is going to say "but it was only an 18% loss, everything is fine!" over that 1%.

(This is, of course, assuming that the 10%/4%/5% loss numbers are accurate and it's just about the math mistake.)

Nope. As I've already said, 135-118m in the last three reports.

So about 12.5%.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Nope. As I've already said, 135-118m in the last three reports.

So about 12.5%.

Then someone's numbers are wrong. A 10% drop followed by a 4% drop followed by a 5% drop leaves you at 82% of your starting point, or an 18% drop. So either your numbers for the starting and ending points are wrong, or hobojebus' numbers of 10%/4%/5% declines are wrong in addition to the math mistake.

My numbers aren't wrong. Taken straight from the reports.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Although hobojebus is conflating "model sales" with total revenue it seems, so probably not the most incisive interpretation.

hobojebus wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
There is zero evidence to support this, unless you're in possession of information beyond that included in the financial reports?

It's in the report last time model sales were down 5% the report before that it was 4%, added to the 10% from the two reports before that they have lost overall 19% of their model sales.

That's their core business that's shrinking.

Where did the last report say model sales were down 5%? If I recall correctly revenue from sales went down 0.9% last year and there was no info in there to translate it to "model sales".

Just checked, the previous year was 3.6% and the year before that 8.2%.

Multiply that out and it's 12.5% in total.

As far as I'm aware GW don't offer any numbers to isolate "model sales" from "sales revenue".

wuestenfux wrote:
Indeed, the 4th CSM codex has been one of the worst codices ever. Uninspired, unimaginable, un...

It could have been worse. You could have gotten the Tyranid treatment.

Byte wrote:I'm dont champion GW in any way. Thats whats so weird about this conversation. Ive said their prices suck. Ive said I dont buy retail, only used, Ive said their marketing and business approach arent the best. Heck, Ive even said that I don't care about their profit margin or returns. Yet, here I find myself with a cape with GW on it slung on my back. Bizarre. There is a section of gamers that do demonize GW. Yet they trudge on. Thats all I said.

You were very quickly told why people had an issue with what you said. You repeated a dismissive assertion that people have read on these forums for a long time. And when someone called you on it and showed that it's actually not the case (they are unhappy with specific things GW has done wrong and are don't just generic "haters." ).you got all dramatic about putting someone on ignore. And then you couldn't help yourself and you just had to read and reply to people you just dramatically declared to be on your ignore list.

As for your original statement, GW did not just "rumble on." Since the LOTR bubble burst they have closed multiple national divisions, laid off hundreds of employees, had declines in their core business that were only made up for by video game revenue and currency fluctuations, and totally gutted their interior support staff to the point that you have local store employee -> continent wide manager -> board of directors. In the last report Rountree admitted this was a mistake and they are rebuilding their European retail team to include more regional staff.

GW "rumbled on" for all defintions of "rumble on" that include massive lay offs, closing of national offices, shrinking market share and falling and stagnating revenue and profit.

Another thing I noticed is you painted people with a board brush saying that people have been predicting GW's demise for decades or whatever, but no one is really doing that in this thread. Or for similar threads on dakka going back years. Every now and again a single poster will be more definite in the predictions of GW's demise (Wayshuba and his death spiral come to mind) but it's been years now when people come into threads and say "people have been predicting GW's doom for years and they are still here!" and everyone looks around and goes "who the feth is predicting GW's doom here?" I think the vast majority of those with a negative view of GW's future prospects think GW is on a slow decline into irrelevancy, not a collapse of their business.

They'll figure out the direct sales thing enough and hike their prices enough that a core audience of chumps (ex employees have reported GW has a culture that can be very dismissive of their own customer base) will buy their products at very high prices and they'll have good margins but a much lower overall level of revenue. A few years back I was saying that Forge World proves that GW has a core group of customers that will pay a lot for a model and they will bring their regular plastic prices in line with Forge World. They've now done that. And Forge World's sales continue to grow, so they're going to keep putting their prices up. Fortunately for GW, Rountree recognized that while they have high prices, they need products at lower price points as well.

It's not all just haters and fanboys. People are talking about specific reasons for their opinions.

-

I started playing non collectible miniatures six years ago and I remember everything was about Warhammer 40K and Fantasy. Other games like Warmachine and Infinity were not well known.

Now, we have a boom of other games:

X-Wing
Dropzone Commander
Infinity
Malifaux
Warmachine
Kings of War
Bolt Action
Dystopian Wars
many more...

The money invested on these games did not went to GW and I think the youtube revolution gave a boost to all these other games.

I have collect games workshop for the past 25 years and watch a number of friends drop out of the GW hobby over those years..
Most left was because of bad rules or having to buy the new miniature to keep competitive.. but now you have to much competition
to be the company that GW once was.. I would say half the players that play xwing or warmachine are not new players they
came from other games.. most cut their teeth on GW and left for what ever reason.. GW hemorrhaged players in the past few years
and newer players are not making up for those losses

The sad truth I was a fan boy and big supporter of GW up till last year, The breaking point being the release of Age of Sigmar and
the splitting up of the white dwarf magazine .. on top of the sky rocking cost of models... It forced me to end my monthly subscription
and walk away from them for other games, I still have my stuff and will keep it till I die.. now there is no feelings for any new releases
and my hobby money is allotted to other things.

What would bring me back... honestly they are on the right path.. nice starter boxes.. lower model count games, but now there
is this fear, they could return to old at any moment.. so the trust is not there... plus the new fantasy world is too spacey for me..
I liked the grit of the old world and not everyone on the battlefield was veteran battle lords

Personally I love Warhammer, I don't love GW and that is how it has always been.

I will call out GW for their bs while also defending Warhammer for how awesome it is.

I think the issue for me IMO is that people equate the company with the game. Personally nothing has beat warhammer for me in what I enjoy and like about miniature gaming.

I like to think most people look at GW like your best friend who got addicted to drugs, you put up with them for a long time and tried to help, eventually you got fed up. Now they are clean and trying to get their act together but we are wary.

 Leth wrote:
I think the issue for me IMO is that people equate the company with the game. Personally nothing has beat warhammer for me in what I enjoy and like about miniature gaming.

40k is a very, very badly balanced game. Atrocious. The fact that competitive groups need to come up with their own comp systems, FAQs and 'house rules' to make tournament somewhat balanced says a lot about the game. I haven't seen any other mainstream game that required so much outside input to make it balanced. That alone drives people away. It's got nothing to do with not liking the Warhammer universe or disliking the game because the parent company is terrible and has everything to do with whether it's worth even trying to play the game.

So people move on. They find games they can enjoy just as much, and lets face it, it's not the nineties anymore. The market is saturated with good, well balanced games, and with GW driving so many sales to direct while having fewer and fewer of their own retail outlets forcing people online or to independent stores, and then treating independent stores worse than ever, that competition is going to be front and centre.

There's only so many times you can spend half an hour setting up your army only to see it be systematically taken to pieces simply because you either chose the weakest army (hint - there shouldn't be a 'weakest', or even 'strongest' army) or chose units that are weak (hint - there shouldn't be 'weak' and 'strong' units) before you start wandering around the tables, watching people play those competing games and having fun and eyeing the product on the shelves.

The main problem with people defending GW's games (see, not GW themselves) is they make up broad brush assumptions about those who are dissatisfied to justify their continued support of the game rather than accept that they may have valid criticisms.

Which isn't a surprise, human nature being what it is. Much better to have the other people be wrong than admit you've hitched your wagon to a lame horse. A very expensive, very time consuming wagon.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Which isn't a surprise, human nature being what it is. Much better to have the other people be wrong than admit you've hitched your wagon to a lame horse. A very expensive, very time consuming wagon.

Which is an opinion. I never said that other games were worse or better objectively. Personally I have tried other games and while the rules may be tighter the entire experience of playing the game is not as fun. I don't have a universe that is even close to the experience I get with 40k. For others that is not as important but for me it is a part of the calculation

I said that just because GW makes poor decisions doesn't mean that warhammer 40k in its entirety is bad. Now you may have a different opinion and that is perfectly fine and valid. However it does not mean that it is universal and should be presented as such. It's far easier to assume everyone shares your opinion in your echo chambers than to assume that there is a wide variety of views and opinions and that yours might not necessarily be in the majority.

In regards to balance I agree, 40k is not balanced and it gets very frustrating. However GW made a decision that they were going to increase the number of options, make it so you can play whatever game you want to play, at the expense of balance. However this places the onus of deciding what type of game you want to play on the players to decide. Hence many tournaments creating a series of rules to say "this is the game we are going to play at this event". If I am going to my local shop I always ask "what type of game do you want to play today?" And use a list accordingly, this works for me, however I 100% respect that does not work for others and so this is not the game for you.

It is the nature of diversification that individuals will find something that is more appealing than the current offering. Nothi wrong with jumping ship. However it is equally human nature to create a justification for why they are jumpi ship that offsets the sunk cost mentality. One of the easiest ways to rectify this conflict is to demonize what they used to do as bad rather than just say "it doesn't work for me anymore". The more that was invested, the stronger the demonization of the old ways. We see it all the time in almost every walk of life outside of just hobbies, no reason it would be any different here.

 Leth wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Which isn't a surprise, human nature being what it is. Much better to have the other people be wrong than admit you've hitched your wagon to a lame horse. A very expensive, very time consuming wagon.

Which is an opinion. I never said that other games were worse or better objectively. Personally I have tried other games and while the rules may be tighter the entire experience of playing the game is not as fun. I don't have a universe that is even close to the experience I get with 40k. For others that is not as important but for me it is a part of the calculation

That's a valid point, though personally I've never understood it. Aside from reding the background, which other games are starting to get respectable quantities of, I've never felt connected to the fluff when I'm playing. I don't throw my Tyranids down and think 'man, this is just like the assault on the polar bases on Macragge!'. I'm just shooting the gak with my opponent while having fun pushing figures around the table and rolling some dice.

The problem comes that the imbalances are so bad in 40k that even in such a casual environment, they're game breaking. If it comes down to not enjoying the 3 hours I spend with a friend every few weeks playing the game due to those imbalances, or just picking something I get less frustrated with due to tighter rules, GW's games fall by the wayside.

 Leth wrote:
I said that just because GW makes poor decisions doesn't mean that warhammer 40k in its entirety is bad.

Warhammer 40,000 as a setting is good, and they've done good games in it. That's why I have nearly 3000pts of Tyranids languishing in a cupboard. The game, as it is right now, has gotten so atrociously bad that it's not worth playing. The great thing is I can still read novels or play Dawn of War and enjoy the setting.

 Leth wrote:
Now you may have a different opinion and that is perfectly fine and valid. However it does not mean that it is universal and should be presented as such. It's far easier to assume everyone shares your opinion in your echo chambers than to assume that there is a wide variety of views and opinions and that yours might not necessarily be in the majority.

I never said I was in a majority. I was merely criticising the use of broad generalisations to dismiss people criticising Games Workshops games rather than trying to refute them.

People criticise 40k, and all I ever see is 'well, all you guys just hate the company'. No, people criticise the game because the game has gotten so amazingly terrible of late that they can't find the enjoyment in it they used to anymore.

 Leth wrote:
However GW made a decision that they were going to increase the number of options, make it so you can play whatever game you want to play, at the expense of balance.

No they didn't. GW decided that they were going to put zero effort into making good rules out of a combination of "the rules don't matter" and saving money. We as players got nothing in return. There is nothing about having lots of options and customization that inevitably leads to poor balance, you can have those things and still have a balanced game if you are willing to invest the effort required to do it right.

 Leth wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Which isn't a surprise, human nature being what it is. Much better to have the other people be wrong than admit you've hitched your wagon to a lame horse. A very expensive, very time consuming wagon.

Which is an opinion.

Of course it is, but it is an opinion informed by years of observation and widely supported by the whole concept of the sunk cost fallacy.

I never said that other games were worse or better objectively. Personally I have tried other games and while the rules may be tighter the entire experience of playing the game is not as fun. I don't have a universe that is even close to the experience I get with 40k. For others that is not as important but for me it is a part of the calculation

One of the best things GW ever did for their business is engender the belief that their universe and rules were somehow wed to one another.

I said that just because GW makes poor decisions doesn't mean that warhammer 40k in its entirety is bad. Now you may have a different opinion and that is perfectly fine and valid. However it does not mean that it is universal and should be presented as such. It's far easier to assume everyone shares your opinion in your echo chambers than to assume that there is a wide variety of views and opinions and that yours might not necessarily be in the majority.

Dakka is many things, an echo chamber it is not. Besides, who's arguing that 40K is bad in its entirety? There's much good about 40K. Little of it has anything to do with the game, but there is good, certainly. There's certainly a much better case for 40K being objectively worse as a strategy game than most of its competition, and much of what is bad, GW has had ample opportunity to address, but chosen not to, or, worse, simply ignored. Which is one of the main bug bears with the company I read.

In regards to balance I agree, 40k is not balanced and it gets very frustrating. However GW made a decision that they were going to increase the number of options, make it so you can play whatever game you want to play, at the expense of balance. However this places the onus of deciding what type of game you want to play on the players to decide. Hence many tournaments creating a series of rules to say "this is the game we are going to play at this event". If I am going to my local shop I always ask "what type of game do you want to play today?" And use a list accordingly, this works for me, however I 100% respect that does not work for others and so this is not the game for you.

That's rubbish. Firstly the assumption that GW somehow chose to make an unbalanced game and secondly that somehow choice is mutually exclusive to balance. What you're trying to sell as a feature is actually a bug.

It is the nature of diversification that individuals will find something that is more appealing than the current offering. Nothi wrong with jumping ship. However it is equally human nature to create a justification for why they are jumpi ship that offsets the sunk cost mentality. One of the easiest ways to rectify this conflict is to demonize what they used to do as bad rather than just say "it doesn't work for me anymore". The more that was invested, the stronger the demonization of the old ways. We see it all the time in almost every walk of life outside of just hobbies, no reason it would be any different here.

Yeah, this is about GW, not 40K specifically, although that's a distinction without a difference for many, and there are plenty of completely legitimate reasons to have issue with GW and their conduct completely independently of any of their product.

Congratulations on dressing up the "haters gonna hate" argument in some extra flowery language, but the same rebuttal still applies. If those people were just demonising for their own sake, they wouldn't be able to back that up with evidence and logical, objective aguments that they do.

Except that those "logical and objective arguments" have as a basis a specific value which is personal. For example many people think GW models are over costed. Well that is a subjective value of an item which is 100% how an individual values certain aspects of an item. If it is over costed and you buy it then you are an idiot. If it is more than you want to pay for an item that is a completely different story. Micro economics 101

Also yes unique options and balance are relatively opposite. The more you have of one the less you will be able to have of the other. The shear number of options and interactions makes it borderline impossible to balance without additional restrictions. Am I saying that is the best way to do it? No, I am saying that is the decision they went with.

When did I say anything even remotely like haters gonna hate. I specifically said that people's views are valid and if they no longer like a product that is completely understandable. Way to feel attacked when I said nothing of the sort. Haters have legitimate reasons for not liking GW however the extent of the Vitriolic responses seems very high for people who don't like it. I got less value, they made my army less useful. So you stop buying/investin in it. Same with everything else in life, doesn't mean I sit around complaining about it all day.

I hated playing war machine, didn't like the models, the lack of customization, the way the rules played. I didn't like how the fluffy armies I tried to play kept gettin completely smashed. I did not get my value from that game. Yet I dont spend a single moment going out of my way to post on privateer press forums or in warhahordes threads about how much I didn't like it to those who still enjoy it. That seems to be a nearly exclusive 40k/GW phenomenon. I have no problem talking about warmahordes, hearing about new stuff that is coming out for them without getting angry or talking about how bad my experiences were with the entire system.

 Leth wrote:
Also yes unique options and balance are relatively opposite. The more you have of one the less you will be able to have of the other. The shear number of options and interactions makes it borderline impossible to balance without additional restrictions. Am I saying that is the best way to do it? No, I am saying that is the decision they went with.

This is not true at all. Having lots of options means you probably have to do more playtesting to get everything balanced, but it doesn't mean that balance is impossible. MTG has way more potential interactions between its ~15,000 unique cards than 40k does between its relative handful of units, and yet MTG has much better balance. The difference is that GW throws together whatever garbage someone comes up with in 15 minutes and calls it a codex, while WOTC spends months designing and playtesting a new set to make sure that everything works right and is willing to ban cards after they're printed if it is necessary to correct a balance problem.

 Leth wrote:
Except that those "logical and objective arguments" have as a basis a specific value which is personal. For example many people think GW models are over costed. Well that is a subjective value of an item which is 100% how an individual values certain aspects of an item.

Except you can assess the cost of a model in the context of other similar sized models made by the same processes. Whether they are worth the premium is a subjective thing, whether they are more expensive than the completion is entirely objective.

Also yes unique options and balance are relatively opposite. The more you have of one the less you will be able to have of the other. The shear number of options and interactions makes it borderline impossible to balance without additional restrictions. Am I saying that is the best way to do it? No, I am saying that is the decision they went with.

This is simply not true. The more options you have, the more effort it will take, but GW have made zero effort.

When did I say anything even remotely like haters gonna hate. I specifically said that people's views are valid and if they no longer like a product that is completely understandable. Way to feel attacked when I said nothing of the sort. Haters have legitimate reasons for not liking GW however the extent of the Vitriolic responses seems very high for people who don't like it. I got less value, they made my army less useful. So you stop buying/investin in it. Same with everything else in life, doesn't mean I sit around complaining about it all day.

"Haters" dont need a legitimate reason, however, "critics" are a lot more common, and they generally do. Your argument was people create reasons to dislike GW because they don't play GW games any more. It was, essentially, still "haters gonna hate."

I hated playing war machine, didn't like the models, the lack of customization, the way the rules played. I didn't like how the fluffy armies I tried to play kept gettin completely smashed. I did not get my value from that game. Yet I dont spend a single moment going out of my way to post on privateer press forums or in warhahordes threads about how much I didn't like it to those who still enjoy it. That seems to be a nearly exclusive 40k/GW phenomenon. I have no problem talking about warmahordes, hearing about new stuff that is coming out for them without getting angry or talking about how bad my experiences were with the entire system.

That's cool. I didn't much care for Infinity either, didn't feel compelled to go shouting it about either. But, critically, Corvus Belli don't go around doing stuff that seems utterly antagonistic to its customers (if it did, I'd probably comment in a thread on that too, even if I didn't play Infinity) and Infinity wasn't a game I once enjoyed that, thanks to Corvus Belli, had now become a game that I didn't, and I didn't become frustrated at Corvus Belli for failing to do the simplest things that a business really should be doing if it is serious about continued success.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Leth wrote:
Also yes unique options and balance are relatively opposite. The more you have of one the less you will be able to have of the other. The shear number of options and interactions makes it borderline impossible to balance without additional restrictions. Am I saying that is the best way to do it? No, I am saying that is the decision they went with.

This is not true at all. Having lots of options means you probably have to do more playtesting to get everything balanced, but it doesn't mean that balance is impossible. MTG has way more potential interactions between its ~15,000 unique cards than 40k does between its relative handful of units, and yet MTG has much better balance. The difference is that GW throws together whatever garbage someone comes up with in 15 minutes and calls it a codex, while WOTC spends months designing and playtesting a new set to make sure that everything works right and is willing to ban cards after they're printed if it is necessary to correct a balance problem.

Months of testing and they still release cards that they ban (nice of the that) because they are unbalanced (presumably after much. "oMG OP" from the paying players). And that's a card game that doesn't deal with 3 dimensions on top of faction rules and has historically been one of the most risably money driven games I've heard of.

As you say balance is impossible but as a counter point to some of the criticisms of GW it falls flat on its face.

 notprop wrote:
Months of testing and they still release cards that they ban (nice of the that) because they are unbalanced (presumably after much. "oMG OP" from the paying players).

They only ban cards very rarely, and only a very small percentage of the total number of cards in the game. For example, in Standard (the most popular format) there are currently zero cards banned. And really, the occasional ban is a strength of WOTC's method, not a weakness. Playtesters are human, in a complex game mistakes are occasionally going to happen. The question then is what you do about those mistakes. When WOTC lets a game-breaking balance problem slip through playtesting or some card from 10 years ago gains a new interaction with the latest cards WOTC steps in to fix the problem. When a similar thing happens in a GW game GW does nothing about it until maybe the unit gets new rules in the next codex (which you have to buy).

So, really, the existence of bans in MTG is only a problem for the straw man of 100% perfect balance. Getting to 99% is more than enough for most people and would be a significant step up from the almost nonexistent balance in 40k right now. And games like MTG have demonstrated that you can have very good balance in an extremely complex game.

And that's a card game that doesn't deal with 3 dimensions on top of faction rules and has historically been one of the most risably money driven games I've heard of.

Neither of these differences are significant. 40k's rules are broken when rules interact with each other, units have the wrong point costs, etc. The very limited 3d state of the game is rarely a factor in these problems, and shouldn't make the game any harder to balance. I can't think of a single balance problem right now that exists because the game is 3d. And, if anything, the faction rules make it easier to balance 40k because it limits which combinations of units are likely to exist (since nobody uses unbound). In MTG, on the other hand, any one of those 15,000 cards (outside of a very short ban list) can be in a deck with any other card. Just considering two-card pairs that's 225 million potential interactions to balance. If you want to consider three-card interactions that number goes up over 3 trillion.

Never tell me the odds 3PO!

The point is that even with the rather more linear framework of a card game there are still imbalances. Decrying game balance seems pointless, the question should be is it fun?

Allot of people think so.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Leth wrote:
Also yes unique options and balance are relatively opposite. The more you have of one the less you will be able to have of the other. The shear number of options and interactions makes it borderline impossible to balance without additional restrictions. Am I saying that is the best way to do it? No, I am saying that is the decision they went with.

This is not true at all. Having lots of options means you probably have to do more playtesting to get everything balanced, but it doesn't mean that balance is impossible. MTG has way more potential interactions between its ~15,000 unique cards than 40k does between its relative handful of units, and yet MTG has much better balance. The difference is that GW throws together whatever garbage someone comes up with in 15 minutes and calls it a codex, while WOTC spends months designing and playtesting a new set to make sure that everything works right and is willing to ban cards after they're printed if it is necessary to correct a balance problem.

MTG held up as an example of balance, really?

The designers even explained that they do not aim for balance in card design but for love instead.

 StygianBeach wrote:
The designers even explained that they do not aim for balance in card design but for love instead.

{citation needed}

This claim rather directly contradicts the fact that they spend months on extensive playtesting and development for each set they make with the intent of making sure everything is balanced. They certainly start with love in the conceptual stage of design, but love doesn't mean a card can't have the appropriate mana cost/rarity/etc. They will work very hard to make a concept work by adjusting the details if they love it enough, but they have said over and over again that if a card can't be balanced or has rule clarity/function problems that can't be resolved R&D says "that's too bad" and throws it out.

Yeah, listening to Rosewater's podcast, I get the sense that the development team on a given set can be pretty merciless. And they have procedures in place to ensure that things don't get through just because they were someone's pet idea (like having separate design teams and development teams).

If anyone wants one of the most balanced game experiences in their life, get 2 of all the commons and 1 of each uncommon from the current two sets and shuffle them up and make "packs" and draft it with 4-8 people. I only leave the rares out because it still works without them and they can be more expensive on the secondary market, include 1 per random pack if you want to.

I played 40k for a years and then got into WM/H and was like "Wow, GW is bad at game development.". Then later I got into MTG and modern board games and was like "Wow Privateer is bad at game development.". Now when it comes to miniature wargaming, I tend stick to rules made by people who do don't also sell miniatures so I know the rules are standing on their own merits and are not just marketing tools used to drive miniature sales.

Capt. Camping wrote:The money invested on these games did not went to GW and I think the youtube revolution gave a boost to all these other games.

Same for me, my money went else where in stead of GW. I don't think Youtube revolution gave a boost to all the other games. It was GW poor and horrible decisions they have made that made people want to go to other game systems.

I know if GW have better rules, more fun rules and FAIR BALANCE my money would have never went to PP, Dropzone Commander and other games. These companies gave what people wanted, and GW didn't give people what they wanted. Pretty simple sadly.

Hmmmm... picked up some Deathwatch to stick my toe back into 40k
I really know how to pick armies that suck.
They definitely are not "complete" in themselves.
BUT I LIKE Deathwatch from the fun they were in the past.
I knew this was going to be a bit of an uphill battle with the "Sternguard" stealing their thunder with the special ammo.

One lesson learned that is really killing GW is "Do not make rules for models you do not have.".
These mixed groups with bikes and jump packs and then a strange mix of leaders who cannot pick said bikes or jump packs because they have not made the model yet.

So there are a few holes in selection for that army, strange choices where the "best equipped" marines in the universe have less selection than vanilla SMs.
Plus the special rules for DW is worse than the Imperial Fists for shooting misses.

Plus their flyer is happily advertised as a troop transport that can fly in and deliver troops "like a drop pod"... ummm no.
I defy anyone to use it for that purpose.
Fly in from reserve, hover, deploy troops at the earliest 3rd turn (2nd if starting on landing pad).

Again, you write a bunch of fluff, people get all excited that the new army comes out and the silly gits cannot write any rules to reflect the fluff they describe!

Let me pause for a moment:


It is a similar feeling I got with Skitarii where certain elements seem incomplete or "broken" (not in a good OP way).
The models are awesome but you scratch your head as you try to get decent use of them on the table.

GW made some bad decisions. Rules in particular are a big problem. They're getting really clunky and more often than not they're hard to keep track of. Balance is also an issue which seems to come up, as evidenced by the previous posts.

Price hiking, degrading rules quality, and removing a core product doesn't exactly please the customer base.

But GW is the big kid on the block still (not remotely as big, and I'd even argue not as involved with the community at large) in terms of notoriety and for a lot of people GW represents something different. It's changed a lot over the years, and thus it's the best possible target for vitriol.

 Cryonicleech wrote:
It's changed a lot over the years, and thus it's the best possible target for vitriol.

You never hear people complain more than when they are used to a certain level of service and then you take it away.
It USED TO be pretty clear many of the more public employees were fans of the game as well as the provider of services.
The view the past couple years is that upper management could barely restrain themselves of making fun of their customers.

I am happy with many good choices they have been making recently, the various game / starter packages is a good step at addressing need and making great "pick-up" games to get people into the 40k universe without buying a full army.

BUT my continuing gripe is they release new models and try to fit the rules to the models made and no further.
So if they rush an army out the door you get these "incomplete" armies that are not fleshed out: they NEED allies in order to function.
I despair to ever see complete armies with inherent strengths and weaknesses ever again: we can mix and match to suit if you do not have a favorite army that is less than optimal.

But like the advent of the first "Apocalypse" rules, they are bent and determined for you to be able to play "anything you want!!!" because it is cool BUT you will never ever have a "proper" competitive game.

 notprop wrote:


The point is that even with the rather more linear framework of a card game there are still imbalances. Decrying game balance seems pointless, the question should be is it fun?

Allot of people think so.

There's no accounting for taste.

It seems to be there's a lot of people who don't find an unbalanced game any fun as well.

But you do get the delineation between WOTC "we tried, we made a mistake, we've done our best to put it right" attitude and GW's "we didn't try, we don't care, sort it out yourselves" even if you do subscribe to the slightly dubious notion that Magic is somehow easier to balance.

@Talizvar "The view the past couple years is that upper management could barely restrain themselves of making fun of their customers" --I think one of my biggest problems reading this thread is the notion of a company hating its fanbase. And not that you specifically said this, looking at the thread itself. It seems absurd to me. Losing touch with or not collecting and using feedback, sure, OK. But actively operating to hate their customers...I doubt it. Especially when you interact with the staff. Better yet, go to Warhammer World and see the staff, hobbyists and gamers who enjoy this hobby. I just don't see how any company can operate like that, especially for so long. (Don't bother with the financial report here )

There's so much Bullgak on the internet (especially for gamers) so I just personally dont buy into that line. Can't speak for what goes on behind those magical walls as I'm not in there and who knows what happened over the past decade but the past two years have been promising, even great this year so far imo. I'm hoping it continues on this trend. As for 40K getting it's oversized, angry rules pimple popped, I agree, the gal could shed a couple hundred pounds. Looking forward to seeing what the new campaign brings. I don't care for competitive 40K so admittedly I run into these crazy situations less often, and we have great gaming groups so we just keep it enjoyable and don't try to abuse the things that are clearly problematic. Also I agree with you on rules and new model releases.

Please excuse my formatting, dunno what happened. My response is in green.

Edit: Fixed, thanks!

 Azreal13 wrote:

But you do get the delineation between WOTC "we tried, we made a mistake, we've done our best to put it right" attitude and GW's "we didn't try, we don't care, sort it out yourselves" even if you do subscribe to the slightly dubious notion that Magic is somehow easier to balance.

I don't think GW is quite so nonchalant about the rules for 40k, but it isn't a huge stretch, either. I'm inclined to agree, mostly. Like many others, I have experience with MMOs and there is always some level of imbalance among factions, classes, etc. But for the games I stuck around with (Asheron's Call, WoW), the devs continually tweaked the game in an effort to balance things out, and thereby improved the game and retained customers by making them happy - or as happy as possible, I guess. There was never a perfect state of balance, but they were genuinely trying.

Is this a perfect analogy for GW and 40k? No, it's an entirely different product with a different business model, but it illustrates a company's commitment to acknowledging the voices of its customers and responding by giving them what they want - in a sense. That is a whole other topic that need not be fleshed out right now, but I think you all get my point.

I think it goes without saying (but I will anyway) that companies have to make money, have responsibilities to their stakeholders, etc. But this is a game we play, and we're not all just model collectors. Yes, we still buy tons of expensive toys because they look cool and we love the universe, but a fun and well-designed gaming experience is a crucial element to the product that isn't even neglected per se, but executed rather poorly. I'm sure it's challenging, and I'm not going to pretend I could do better if suddenly hired to do the job, but it feels like there is no cohesive vision for the game's rules, and a huge part of that is imbalance.

I think it's accurate to say GW isn't about hyper-competitive gameplay with their system, and that's fine. Players will always min/max and such if they're so inclined. Don't care, go for it; what I'm saying is look at the 7th edition Eldar and Tyranids codices. Feel free to disagree, but they weren't even written on the same planet. They seemingly have totally different visions, philosophies, what have you, guiding gameplay with those factions. Is balance even remotely a part of it, with any new rules? I think the frequency of updates and the format by which they do so hinder the overall possibility of balance, but I have no idea how they even operate. If it was purely "new model should get amazeballs rules to sell sell sell," I'd say even that is inconsistent.

There is something to be said about a company's right to release a product, and then leaving it up to the customers to buy it or not; plenty of long-term hobbyists leave when the system they prefer changes too much, which will happen. But when people are essentially saying, "If you put more effort into better gameplay, rules, and balance, then I would give you more of my money," how is that not worth it?

Maybe I'm totally wrong and most people have no problem with the rules and balance of the game, but I can't help but feel (based on the very existence of this thread, for example) that there's some kernel of truth here.

 Wolf_in_Human_Shape wrote:
Please excuse my formatting, dunno what happened. My response is in green.

It's because you have one too many "quotes" and not enough "end quotes", remove the quote that says "quote=notprop 700313 8867823 d0ffbde7bf9bb9b1f98fa6c20273c376.jpg"

You can believe what you want, but it was evident in the fact that they:

1) Continue to raise prices for no real reason, including when moving to Finecast and then Plastic, which are cheaper materials than metal (case in point: Other companies produce high quality plastic/resin/metal miniatures for typically lower prices)

2) Ignored the aspect of their games that were competitive to push the notion of having a "collection" sitting on a shelf somewhere with "rules" that occasionally made them get brought out

3) Continually pushing the game larger and larger to sell more and more, despite it causing a breakdown in the rules

4) Retreating from social media instead of dealing with criticism

5) Suing/threatening to sue anyone who so much as posted points costs, despite that not being something you can copyright, not to mention going after people for "Space Marine" which they didn't even invent (see: Spots the Space Marine debacle)

6) Turning their beloved magazine into little more than a catalog designed to sell more product instead of showcase the hobby

7) Adamantly stating that the hobby is only buying their figures; not building, modeling or painting, certainly not playing, but just being a GW customer.

8) Gutting support for GW stores from hobby centers to one-man shops that barely have enough room for games.

Should I go on? I won't deny that there's a lot of hatred online, but believe me most of it is very well founded towards the GW of the past.

 Peregrine wrote:

 StygianBeach wrote:
The designers even explained that they do not aim for balance in card design but for love instead.

{citation needed}

This claim rather directly contradicts the fact that they spend months on extensive playtesting and development for each set they make with the intent of making sure everything is balanced. They certainly start with love in the conceptual stage of design, but love doesn't mean a card can't have the appropriate mana cost/rarity/etc. They will work very hard to make a concept work by adjusting the details if they love it enough, but they have said over and over again that if a card can't be balanced or has rule clarity/function problems that can't be resolved R&D says "that's too bad" and throws it out.

You are the only one who believes this.

WayneTheGame wrote:
You can believe what you want, but it was evident in the fact that they:
-----
Should I go on? I won't deny that there's a lot of hatred online, but believe me most of it is very well founded towards the GW of the past.

That is a beauty of Dakka discussions over some other forums
I do believe there is mucho hatred online and these posters believe it is well founded. But I also very much do believe that GW is in a much better place this past year than many years before it and continued to be impressed with the speed of change. I enjoy their games more than any other and it's been a huge part of my life for years so maybe I'm just coming from a different perspective. GW's return to social media and events, videos coming out regularly and of varied topics and allowing its staff to open up to interviews and other community engagement have been wonderful to see.

 VeteranNoob wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
You can believe what you want, but it was evident in the fact that they:
-----
Should I go on? I won't deny that there's a lot of hatred online, but believe me most of it is very well founded towards the GW of the past.

That is a beauty of Dakka discussions over some other forums
I do believe there is mucho hatred online and these posters believe it is well founded. But I also very much do believe that GW is in a much better place this past year than many years before it and continued to be impressed with the speed of change. I enjoy their games more than any other and it's been a huge part of my life for years so maybe I'm just coming from a different perspective. GW's return to social media and events, videos coming out regularly and of varied topics and allowing its staff to open up to interviews and other community engagement have been wonderful to see.

I agree, there are few who have been as vitriolic about GW in the past as I have and if you'd read my posts 4 or 5 years back, I was busy slamming their head in the car door on a daily basis, there's certainly plenty of room for further improvement as well, but for now, just the fact that it's not more bad news, that there are good things happening again, has really boosted my spirits and lowered my antagonism to the company.

I'm optimistic about GW for the first time in a long, long time.

HandofMars wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 StygianBeach wrote:
The designers even explained that they do not aim for balance in card design but for love instead.

{citation needed}

This claim rather directly contradicts the fact that they spend months on extensive playtesting and development for each set they make with the intent of making sure everything is balanced. They certainly start with love in the conceptual stage of design, but love doesn't mean a card can't have the appropriate mana cost/rarity/etc. They will work very hard to make a concept work by adjusting the details if they love it enough, but they have said over and over again that if a card can't be balanced or has rule clarity/function problems that can't be resolved R&D says "that's too bad" and throws it out.

You are the only one who believes this.

You do realize that the developers for MTG talk about the process, right? And have written detailed articles on how they make new cards/sets? Unlike with GW we don't have to speculate about their process. So if you're going to suggest that WOTC employees are lying when they say "we spend months on extensive playtesting and development" then you'd better have more than just vague "you're the only one who believes this" statements.

Aside from simply finally putting out an FAQ for the first time in years, what genuinely makes people think GW is turning over a huge new leaf? The FAQ's themselves are just as awkwardly handled as in previous editions (though are very artistically presented), the rules are increasingly bloated and insanelty unbalanced, there's no atrenpt by GW to correct that or reign it in, the prices rise ever higher, and longstanding issues continue to go unaddressed.

It seems like people are taking any tiny thing GW gets halfway right and seizing on it as some sort of new paradigm. I want to be positive about GW, but opening up a FB page back up for the 3rd or 4th time and doing a round of FAQ's very slowly isn't exactly inspiring.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 VeteranNoob wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
You can believe what you want, but it was evident in the fact that they:
-----
Should I go on? I won't deny that there's a lot of hatred online, but believe me most of it is very well founded towards the GW of the past.

That is a beauty of Dakka discussions over some other forums
I do believe there is mucho hatred online and these posters believe it is well founded. But I also very much do believe that GW is in a much better place this past year than many years before it and continued to be impressed with the speed of change. I enjoy their games more than any other and it's been a huge part of my life for years so maybe I'm just coming from a different perspective. GW's return to social media and events, videos coming out regularly and of varied topics and allowing its staff to open up to interviews and other community engagement have been wonderful to see.

I agree, there are few who have been as vitriolic about GW in the past as I have and if you'd read my posts 4 or 5 years back, I was busy slamming their head in the car door on a daily basis, there's certainly plenty of room for further improvement as well, but for now, just the fact that it's not more bad news, that there are good things happening again, has really boosted my spirits and lowered my antagonism to the company.

I'm optimistic about GW for the first time in a long, long time.

Excellent!
I get the history and see more and more posts acknowledging change I just hope eventually some of those folks let it happen and maybe they'll be somewhat happy eventually. Maybe the new norm will be the good stuff we're seeing now. I'm sure they could use a good 'ed slammin' now and then but I can not stress how important it is to actually communicate your feedback to GW via official channels where they will see it and pass it on to the folks who actually make those decisions. Emails are still the best to offer any (and I do mean any) advice, question or request. Facebook is great now to ask respectful constructive questions but email is of course a record on your end. The folks you want to see your comments can be reached this way but it's nice to see the community team active an this community engagement (first, existing) improving.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Aside from simply finally putting out an FAQ for the first time in years, what genuinely makes people think GW is turning over a huge new leaf? The FAQ's themselves are just as awkwardly handled as in previous editions (though are very artistically presented), the rules are increasingly bloated and insanelty unbalanced, there's no atrenpt by GW to correct that or reign it in, the prices rise ever higher, and longstanding issues continue to go unaddressed.

It seems like people are taking any tiny thing GW gets halfway right and seizing on it as some sort of new paradigm. I want to be positive about GW, but opening up a FB page back up for the 3rd or 4th time and doing a round of FAQ's very slowly isn't exactly inspiring.

They're trying, which is more than they were doing a year ago.

I agree, much of it is very small things and still misses more than it hits, but the Rah-rah-rah is that people want to GW to continue, hoping the more involved and interactive they get, the better the outcome will be. Right now, they seem to be trying to apply a bandage to the gushing bloody stump they've extended, and we're all hoping they'll have the sense soon to sew it up and get a replacement - to fix their prices and rules in practical terms. First though, we've got to het them out of that ivory tower, though.

ShockTroopahs wrote:
I can't really see what the problem is with them. I just started playing Warhammer, and I can understand that a drastic price increase in items for the game is considered unacceptable, but it's just the company trying to bring in more sales. Have you seen their stocks lately?


And you'll have to forgive me if I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm only saying this based on the little information I've seen so far.


They're honestly just doing their jobs by pulling in more money from kits and such. If you think that the prices of Warhammer minifigs are too much, then you should see how much a single meta-game card in MTG will go up for.

Probably already been said but here's my 2 cents. I used to mildly hate GW for the price increases ever since i started in '07. Yes that's about 9 years. I started when the '300' movie came out to give a time frame. In that time the game was more balanced. Now it's crap in balance (at least 40k). They murdered fantasy which was mostly supported by loyal hardcore fans and destroyed every bit of lore, models, rules and everything they could get their grimy little hands on and considered any who didn't follow their pied piper song to be "not true fans" and therefore not wanted anyway. I want you to know that Warhammer Fantasy players often spent hundreds or more on their armies and they presented Age of Sigmar up to a day or two before release as being 9th edition Warhammer Fantasy. There was no way we wouldn't be pissed. They basically only had a rough draft which was free but it was like a very rough copy and was poorly done. If a student did it they'd have gotten a C or a B for letter grade and this the top wargaming minis company we're talking here. Also the game was meant for 40k fans and the humor was so childish most were in shock and utterly embarrassed. I kid you not it was set up like an awful practical joke. Not only that but if you want to play Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition or otherwise GW won't let you play. That's right. You buy hundreds of dollars worth of models and want to play but GW won't let you play their game in their shop. A previous primary game can't be played whereas every other game is allowed to be played including lord of the rings and all the specialist games. That's why Fantasy players hate them. The heads at GW are scum.

We had to deal with metal going to finecast and then plastic with price increases each time for crappier materials. They made BS claims like when 5th edition imperial guard came out they split the box in half (20 models for 35 USD to 10 models for 22 USD) with the claim it has more detail (similar to their finecast BS claims which was a lie and had bubbles in material as well as other crap). Currently those same 10 guardsmen models now cost 29 USD. Basically they IP lawyered whenever possible and when they couldn't have it both ways they tried protecting their IP more by calling imperial guard 'astra militarum' or some mouthful garbage nobody would ever say so that they could protect the IP more. I mean crap look into Age of Sigmar and sigmar's realm seems to have the words sigmaron or sigmarillion or sigmarite in there as if they could just use it to slap an IP on it. Christ at this point it feels like Sigmar just wants to die and wants people to pull the plug on that game already.

So basically high costs, IP lawyering, alienating the fanbase, lack of balance between army factions, lore changes or outright destruction of it and games and more. They've even tried to sue blizzard and i heard at one point they supposedly won. If you played Warhammer Fantasy you probably hold the company in contempt and compared to the 40k whine about Mat Ward he never did nearly as much damage as Kirby did to the company or to any game setting. Fantasy deserved better. R.I.P. Fantasy you were my favorite fantasy setting even topping Lord of the Rings.

I hear that Kirby was kicked out though being british they probably should've done an old fashion throw rotten food at the fool or hung him or something or at least neutered him to prevent him from spreading his seed. Sadly he just stepped down. I hear the new guy in charge is doing good things and shocking people in a good way. It's hard to undo all that bad blood though. I probably should've just left for a cheaper and smaller company. Maybe i should just move on to X-wing. It does sound pretty cool from what i've heard.

 Stormonu wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Aside from simply finally putting out an FAQ for the first time in years, what genuinely makes people think GW is turning over a huge new leaf? The FAQ's themselves are just as awkwardly handled as in previous editions (though are very artistically presented), the rules are increasingly bloated and insanelty unbalanced, there's no atrenpt by GW to correct that or reign it in, the prices rise ever higher, and longstanding issues continue to go unaddressed.

It seems like people are taking any tiny thing GW gets halfway right and seizing on it as some sort of new paradigm. I want to be positive about GW, but opening up a FB page back up for the 3rd or 4th time and doing a round of FAQ's very slowly isn't exactly inspiring.

They're trying, which is more than they were doing a year ago.

I agree, much of it is very small things and still misses more than it hits, but the Rah-rah-rah is that people want to GW to continue, hoping the more involved and interactive they get, the better the outcome will be. Right now, they seem to be trying to apply a bandage to the gushing bloody stump they've extended, and we're all hoping they'll have the sense soon to sew it up and get a replacement - to fix their prices and rules in practical terms. First though, we've got to het them out of that ivory tower, though.

Bring back Warhammer Fantasy in some shape or form. If you don't have a re-envisioning of the Old World and old game then let us play 8th edition or whichever one we choose. They said the game was dead themselves. If that's the case and every other game is allowed then they should allow us to play their games in their store. The have flipped off Fantasy players so hard i don't think almost any old Fantasy players still play the game. Everybody with 2,000 pts of an army and several years behind them was bitter about this.

 Talizvar wrote:
It is a similar feeling I got with Skitarii where certain elements seem incomplete or "broken" (not in a good OP way).
The models are awesome but you scratch your head as you try to get decent use of them on the table.

The link in my sig paints a complete picture of my frustrations with GW and how 7th Ed drove me away (after completely buying into 6th), but the part that always gets to me with their rules, more than anything else, is that even if I can live with the core rules - and with 6th I could - they always feth up the Codices. Always.

I play Tyranids. I play Chaos. I also have an Ork army. Is it fun knowing that my chosen armies are the NPC races of the game, and are destined to always have gak books? It's even more maddening when you know that the dev team acknowledged that the previous 'Nid Codex had some major deficiencies but when it came time to do the new one made things objectively worse for almost every unit in the book.

The Mechanicus books are the same. I think they're great, because I'm a die-hard AdMech fan, but it was very clear that they weren't complete books. The first one didn't come with an HQ. What??? The Harli book was the same. They couldn't put a 'Great Harlequin' statline in the book, and use the parts from the Troupe kit mixed with the parts from the skimmer/jetbikes to make one?

The Deathwatch book is just as frustrating, with weirdly arbitrary wargear limitations and restrictions that just don't make sense. X unit can have Y weapon, but not if they're in Z armour, even though unit A wearing Z armour can take Y weapon. The cynic in me says that the rules are that way because GW don't make that exact model and are so paranoid about 3rd parties that they won't make rules for things that cannot be built specifically from a single kit, and the optimist in me says that they just didn't realise they wrote it that way (like the way Chaos Terminator weapon options are worded in the current Codex). And the worst part is, neither is a good option. When you're optimist option is that they just don't know how to write rules, what hope is there?

So even if they fixed up their core rules, the books for the armies are still atrocious.

And then you remember that the Eldar Codex exists, and you begin to believe that they design everything in a vacuum.

Haven't they stated that they basically just go with this would be cool and not really think about how it affects the game

WayneTheGame wrote:
Haven't they stated that they basically just go with this would be cool and not really think about how it affects the game

This is really the only way they could have ended up with what they currently have.

Mostly because its so easy, and the frothmatic GW defenders are a lot of fun, well fun in the sense of seeing their 'facts' amusingly dismantled, usually leading to even more outlandish claims

Be careful, they could be making us to think they are trying to do things better.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
[The cynic in me says that the rules are that way because GW don't make that exact model and are so paranoid about 3rd parties that they won't make rules for things that cannot be built specifically from a single kit, and the optimist in me says that they just didn't realise they wrote it that way (like the way Chaos Terminator weapon options are worded in the current Codex). And the worst part is, neither is a good option. When you're optimist option is that they just don't know how to write rules, what hope is there?
So even if they fixed up their core rules, the books for the armies are still atrocious.
And then you remember that the Eldar Codex exists, and you begin to believe that they design everything in a vacuum.

I agree with much of what you said.
My first / main army was Chaos in general (CSM, Daemons all gods) then Inquisition in general (Grey Knights, Inq., now Death Watch), Black Templar, AM/IG (originally to be conscripted into Inq.) and Skitarii. I sure know how to pick a whole lot of suck, rules wise.

I am absolutely certain GW is making rules ONLY for whatever they managed to make for models.
With the lawsuit they pretty much learned that you got the rights if you got the model so if your competitor gets it out first, they are in trouble.
What they choose in the Deathwatch codex can ONLY be that since it is so targeted (HQ that does not get a bike, but gets a jump-pack, etc.).
Correction, not ONLY, the Deathwatch Darkstar is a fine example of a specifically made "troop transport" and it completely sucks in doing that.

They should just wave the white flag and mark-up the models and do like Warmahordes and put the rules on cards and occasionally sell expensive update card packs.
Broken codex's with supplements as they release new models is irritating.

Another alternative is make White Dwarf more expensive and release full sheet (heavy stock) rules for any and all models as they are released. It would also address my issue of not being able to keep up on what everyone's armies do since there is so much material and expensive. A bit of 6th edition and mostly 7th edition is the first 40k where I did not know what all the armies do, I really am dependent on my opponent knowing their stuff and being honest. Heck, they can make a nice expensive BL compilation that gets updated people could subscribe to electronically.

Again, there are many other more "humane" ways to monetize and still get rules out that do not need to be written by committee.
This is why GW gets to be "demonized", they are so close to being able to do things right and somehow wander off the path.

Players demonise GW because GW treat players as nothing more than a wallet to rinse cash out of, then to be disposed of ASAP once they dry up.

To me personally:

- Raising of prices every so many months.
- Closing down of local stores
- Dis-allowing of webstores
- Bringing in Finecast and saying it's cheaper to make, but then raising the prices again
- Going back to plastic, then keeping the raised prices
- Legal arguments over other companies making models while also copying stuff from other people (think of the STST(name?) the imperial walker vs the star wars version, also think of Metallica suing other groups/companies and how it hurt their image
- Dirty excuses to some of the armies I played. (We want to simplify the game so we are simplifying your codex. Let's start with CSM. Oh wait, a few months later, here's the new SM codex with even more rules, some of which are ones removed from the CSM)


There are quite a few more things that made me face palm hard, but they are not coming to mind. Probably because of all the face palming.

I do agree that there is some truth when you see the memes:

 notprop wrote:
And that's a card game that doesn't deal with 3 dimensions on top of faction rules...

Just because this is a bugbear of mine...

I don't have the numbers for Warmachine MK3, but in MK2 there were some 140 unique Feats, 150 or so unique spells and at last count over eight hundred and thirty special abilities- not including the basic icon abilities like Pathfinder or Weaponmaster (oh I forgot animi). You may not like Warmachine, but it demonstrates clearly that even with tabletop rules, factions and massive numbers of interactions a game can be more balanced than 40k.

 Peregrine wrote:

HandofMars wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 StygianBeach wrote:
The designers even explained that they do not aim for balance in card design but for love instead.

{citation needed}

This claim rather directly contradicts the fact that they spend months on extensive playtesting and development for each set they make with the intent of making sure everything is balanced. They certainly start with love in the conceptual stage of design, but love doesn't mean a card can't have the appropriate mana cost/rarity/etc. They will work very hard to make a concept work by adjusting the details if they love it enough, but they have said over and over again that if a card can't be balanced or has rule clarity/function problems that can't be resolved R&D says "that's too bad" and throws it out.

You are the only one who believes this.

You do realize that the developers for MTG talk about the process, right? And have written detailed articles on how they make new cards/sets? Unlike with GW we don't have to speculate about their process. So if you're going to suggest that WOTC employees are lying when they say "we spend months on extensive playtesting and development" then you'd better have more than just vague "you're the only one who believes this" statements.

They spend far more than a few months testing. They are at minimum over a year ahead of the market. That's why interns like Gerry Thompson, a pro player, are not allowed to play in competitive magic, or even talk about sets for a year after they leave WOTC.

MTG is extensively playtested. I have a friend there, and it's ridiculous.

xraytango wrote:

Well, see there is the assumption that the card has that value while in the package. Anyone could wind up pulling that card from the pack and have bought it brand new for the price of a package of MTG cards.

That card is only worth an exorbitant amount on the secondary market, of which WotC sees exactly zero dollars only after having been purchased for the price of the card pack (about $3.99 iirc?)

I know this is off topic from the OP, but I had to respond to this comment. This is very misleading to say that WotC sees no benefit from a strong secondary market in MtG. Having those high dollar cards on the secondary market absolutely benefits WotC, because those secondary sellers will buy cases of boosters just to get those high dollar cards, which benefits WotC because without that secondary market, booster sales go way down. Its the primary reason that the power cards are almost always rare (and of course WotC generally knows before they release a set what cards are going to be power cards and what aren't). The entire business model for MtG seems to rely on the secondary market (tournaments drive sales, and you can't have tournament worthy decks without that secondary market).

So while they aren't GW, Wizards isn't exactly a shining paragon either.

You want a good example OP? This months white dwarf comes with a model for $10. They are charging (I gak you not) $30 for it on their site. $30 for a single model that has no options or poses. And it's not even a big model. It's the size of a space marine.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 VeteranNoob wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
You can believe what you want, but it was evident in the fact that they:
-----
Should I go on? I won't deny that there's a lot of hatred online, but believe me most of it is very well founded towards the GW of the past.

That is a beauty of Dakka discussions over some other forums
I do believe there is mucho hatred online and these posters believe it is well founded. But I also very much do believe that GW is in a much better place this past year than many years before it and continued to be impressed with the speed of change. I enjoy their games more than any other and it's been a huge part of my life for years so maybe I'm just coming from a different perspective. GW's return to social media and events, videos coming out regularly and of varied topics and allowing its staff to open up to interviews and other community engagement have been wonderful to see.

I agree, there are few who have been as vitriolic about GW in the past as I have and if you'd read my posts 4 or 5 years back, I was busy slamming their head in the car door on a daily basis, there's certainly plenty of room for further improvement as well, but for now, just the fact that it's not more bad news, that there are good things happening again, has really boosted my spirits and lowered my antagonism to the company.

I'm optimistic about GW for the first time in a long, long time.

QFT, I as well am slowly joining that camp. With the stuff I've picked up lately, (Lost Patrol, and Space Hulk) rather surprised by it myself, I am hopeful... but at the same time apprehensive on the upturn and excellent rate in which the direction is changing. I was all the way to the point of apathetic about GW... NOW, they seem to even slowly, get the spark back, and are starting in a more positive direction then they have in quite sometime. I'm not all ready to just start drinking the Kool Aid, but at the very least, I'm watching their change of direction, and liking what I am seeing. I'm on the fence, just yet, so I don't get the rug pulled out from under me when the Spanish Inquisition shows up, because... no one expects the Inquisition.

 Kojiro wrote:

 notprop wrote:
And that's a card game that doesn't deal with 3 dimensions on top of faction rules...

Just because this is a bugbear of mine...

I don't have the numbers for Warmachine MK3, but in MK2 there were some 140 unique Feats, 150 or so unique spells and at last count over eight hundred and thirty special abilities- not including the basic icon abilities like Pathfinder or Weaponmaster (oh I forgot animi). You may not like Warmachine, but it demonstrates clearly that even with tabletop rules, factions and massive numbers of interactions a game can be more balanced than 40k.

Ah yes Warmachine; A game so tight and balanced you need to take 2 or 3 armylists to a competition.

Don't get me wrong I'm not anti-WMH or anything but no system is without it's flaws. Mk3 seems to have died on its arse at the club I attend, many of the things I have seen listed are being stated about PP too.

I play games for fun so am not at all obsessed by the perfect system or wedded to one system so quite happily take it or leave it.

 Kojiro wrote:

 notprop wrote:
And that's a card game that doesn't deal with 3 dimensions on top of faction rules...

Just because this is a bugbear of mine...

I don't have the numbers for Warmachine MK3, but in MK2 there were some 140 unique Feats, 150 or so unique spells and at last count over eight hundred and thirty special abilities- not including the basic icon abilities like Pathfinder or Weaponmaster (oh I forgot animi). You may not like Warmachine, but it demonstrates clearly that even with tabletop rules, factions and massive numbers of interactions a game can be more balanced than 40k.

A large part of that is because of solid game design and clear language. Each unit has its own card, as well as rules being based on keywords that act and mean the same across all factions. Fire is always Fire etcetera. Any variation or iteration has to satisfy the base rule first and then any additional effects take place, additional effects that are also beholden to keywords.

This is a strength of Warmachine / Hordes and is a good design that GW's designers could learn something from.

GW suck at using language, both from the sentence construction point of view (to create ambiguous sentences) and also from defining specific keywords and sticking to those definitions.

It's stuff that should be found by a decent editor which has always given the impression the rules were written off the cuff and didn't pass the desk of the editor before being published.

Has there ever been an editor credited in one of their rule books or in a codex?

I've proof-read rulebooks before. I'll do it.

 notprop wrote:

I play games for fun so am not at all obsessed by the perfect system or wedded to one system so quite happily take it or leave it.

As a very casual player, I hate being stuck with "how does this work?" or "what happens now?" questions, that aren't easy to figure out. Whilst that wasn't unique to 40K (I had a few questions about X-wing that wasn't clear from the core rules), it certainly takes up the most time.

Herzlos wrote:

 notprop wrote:

I play games for fun so am not at all obsessed by the perfect system or wedded to one system so quite happily take it or leave it.

As a very casual player, I hate being stuck with "how does this work?" or "what happens now?" questions, that aren't easy to figure out. Whilst that wasn't unique to 40K (I had a few questions about X-wing that wasn't clear from the core rules), it certainly takes up the most time.

I've always been baffled why people say "the terrible rules don't bother me because I play for fun".

What do those people think the rest of us do, play to be miserable? Other than a few freaks I'm pretty sure everyone plays for fun.

Just because we care about the quality of the rules doesn't mean we aren't playing for fun, it's just getting bogged down in junky rules and playing biased games isn't our idea of "fun".

Not caring about the rules isn't synonymous for "fun", it just means your standards are lower

I always took that playing for fun argument as meaning they pop open some beers and throw some dice without really bothering with the rules.

To be fair, that's largely how we had to play 40K; making half of the game up on the fly just to keep it flowing, and not paying too much attention to balance or fairness.
The added bonus is that we pay such little attention to the rules that there's no reason to keep up to date on them

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

 notprop wrote:

I play games for fun so am not at all obsessed by the perfect system or wedded to one system so quite happily take it or leave it.

As a very casual player, I hate being stuck with "how does this work?" or "what happens now?" questions, that aren't easy to figure out. Whilst that wasn't unique to 40K (I had a few questions about X-wing that wasn't clear from the core rules), it certainly takes up the most time.

I've always been baffled why people say "the terrible rules don't bother me because I play for fun".

What do those people think the rest of us do, play to be miserable? Other than a few freaks I'm pretty sure everyone plays for fun.

Just because we care about the quality of the rules doesn't mean we aren't playing for fun, it's just getting bogged down in junky rules and playing biased games isn't our idea of "fun".

Not caring about the rules isn't synonymous for "fun", it just means your standards are lower

I doubt anyone has ever said "the terrible rules don't bother me because I play for fun", I suggest that you are adding the terrible yourself you strengthen your point. I also doubt that that only you care as to the perceived quality of the rules, it is clearly a consideration that we all have. Unless you have greater perception that most other people?

Flaws exist in all things, we can all see beyond the flaws in rules to enjoy the majority aspect. I would suggest that you appear to be hung up on the flaws that many many people are otherwise happy to go along with which strikes me as a bit fussy.

Having an enjoyable game is synonymous with fun, dismissing others because your opinion is somehow more valid isn't, perceived tight ruleset or otherwise. Still so long as your having fun.....

Herzlos wrote:
I always took that playing for fun argument as meaning they pop open some beers and throw some dice without really bothering with the rules.
To be fair, that's largely how we had to play 40K; making half of the game up on the fly just to keep it flowing, and not paying too much attention to balance or fairness.
The added bonus is that we pay such little attention to the rules that there's no reason to keep up to date on them

Madness!
My friends like games for competition so getting too loose with them gets us all upset.
As GW rules get more strange we keep having to write down house rules to keep things moving.
The discussions/arguments/debates sometimes reached epic proportions so getting it written down was to protect us from repeating the process again.
We are a bit stuck: we love the 40 models and stories but the rules.... not so much.
So we make it work with a few tweaks.
I just wish we get to tweak less and play more.

I tried making up cheat sheets and stat cards for mini's and then just, well, gave up.
I've got other games for serious gaming with clear rules and mental stretching*, and we still have fun pew-pewing with 40K, especially on WHW scenery, but we've long given up the pretense of playing "proper" 40K. Which is a shame, because a tournament/event would probably be quite fun.


*I've got FoW & Malifaux for when I want to think.

 notprop wrote:


I doubt anyone has ever said "the terrible rules don't bother me because I play for fun", I suggest that you are adding the terrible yourself you strengthen your point. I also doubt that that only you care as to the perceived quality of the rules, it is clearly a consideration that we all have. Unless you have greater perception that most other people?

I don't think "terrible" is used, but it's a pretty common theme in rules quality discussions that tight rules are for WAAC or "that guy", whilst GW's approach to the rules are narrative. I've never been able to narrow down what that means though.

Yeah, it's a recurring theme, regardless of the verbiage used.

The "this doesn't work" statement is often countered with "me and my buddies don't care, we just roll off for it (or whatever) and keep having fun."

Which completely ignores the fact that
a) for some of us, the fun is knowing we won or lost because we did/didn't make the best decisions, not because a dice roll arbitrarily decided the outcome of a crunch point, or that we conceded a rules interpretation we disagreed with, but was legitimate, in order to keep the peace and/or keep the game flowing.

b) there's been 30 years to nail it all down.

 Azreal13 wrote:
b) there's been 30 years to nail it all down.

They appear to subscribe to "change for change sake".
We still see certain models are written out of the rules only to appear again many years later.
Good models become not as competitive then good again.
There is this rather cyclical turning things on their head to get the people who just got into the game a year or two ago to get something else.
If you have been in this for a decade or so you know that your model will be seen again eventually.
My 28mm original Obliterators I pull out on occasion to blow minds.
My original metal Deathwatch upgrade bits and models I have that were waiting for this new Codex for instance.We are just facing an unprecedented "special rules bloat" of proportions not seen in 40k ever.
30 years to nail it down... unfortunately it has been "patches" applied not doing a lessons learned and re-write the rules to fix the problems and streamline things.
Plus with the Armageddon type rules for Allies, there is no freaking way you can balance armies as they stand now: too many combinations to deal with.
I keep looking at the Bolt Action rules and think that those rules are what 40k should be today.
Just the I-get-first-turn-I-win has had so many work arounds applied it is ridiculous (deep strike, night fighting, reserves, purchased/points cost terrain, shrouded/invis, target closest model and opponent ensures he is kitted as a tank, not allowing getting into melee first turn... etc.).

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

 notprop wrote:

I play games for fun so am not at all obsessed by the perfect system or wedded to one system so quite happily take it or leave it.

As a very casual player, I hate being stuck with "how does this work?" or "what happens now?" questions, that aren't easy to figure out. Whilst that wasn't unique to 40K (I had a few questions about X-wing that wasn't clear from the core rules), it certainly takes up the most time.

I've always been baffled why people say "the terrible rules don't bother me because I play for fun".

What do those people think the rest of us do, play to be miserable? Other than a few freaks I'm pretty sure everyone plays for fun.

Just because we care about the quality of the rules doesn't mean we aren't playing for fun, it's just getting bogged down in junky rules and playing biased games isn't our idea of "fun".

Not caring about the rules isn't synonymous for "fun", it just means your standards are lower

When Kings of War first came out, I was not all that impressed - four pages of rules? Pfffft! (First alpha.)

Then I was hired to run a class on wargaming for a bunch of over caffeinated adolescents....

Hello four pages of rules that I can download off of the internet and hand out to each of the players!

Twelve kids in their early to mid teens - and they could be dropped into the game on the first day.

It was awesome! The kids and I had a blast!

These kids were about as casual as you could find - on summer holiday, this was something that they wanted to try.

At least three of them are still in the hobby - and still casual.

Clear, concise rules do not prevent 'fun'.

Badly written and confusing rules do not make 'fun'.

The Auld Grump

 notprop wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

 notprop wrote:

I play games for fun so am not at all obsessed by the perfect system or wedded to one system so quite happily take it or leave it.

As a very casual player, I hate being stuck with "how does this work?" or "what happens now?" questions, that aren't easy to figure out. Whilst that wasn't unique to 40K (I had a few questions about X-wing that wasn't clear from the core rules), it certainly takes up the most time.

I've always been baffled why people say "the terrible rules don't bother me because I play for fun".

What do those people think the rest of us do, play to be miserable? Other than a few freaks I'm pretty sure everyone plays for fun.

Just because we care about the quality of the rules doesn't mean we aren't playing for fun, it's just getting bogged down in junky rules and playing biased games isn't our idea of "fun".

Not caring about the rules isn't synonymous for "fun", it just means your standards are lower

I doubt anyone has ever said "the terrible rules don't bother me because I play for fun", I suggest that you are adding the terrible yourself you strengthen your point. I also doubt that that only you care as to the perceived quality of the rules, it is clearly a consideration that we all have. Unless you have greater perception that most other people?

Obviously I was paraphrasing the common discussion that usually goes something like this...

Person 1: 40k has bad rules because of X, Y, Z and A,B and C.
Person 2: Well I just play for fun.

I would suggest that you appear to be hung up on the flaws that many many people are otherwise happy to go along with which strikes me as a bit fussy.

Either we are a bit fussy or you have low standards I guess.

FWIW, when I started playing 40k, I totally had low standards. The first couple of dozen or so games I was more than happy to "pew pew pew" my way through them.

For me it was the natural act of maturing as a gamer that I started to care more about the finer points. Never have I cared whether I win or lose, but I care about WHY I win or lose. And yes I still have fun playing wargames, it's a silly argument to assume other people don't play for fun just because they care about whether the rules are a train wreck.

I would definitely be less harsh on 40k if it weren't for the fact it hasn't matured over the decades, if it were a game in its 1st or 2nd edition, I could give it a pass (though frankly many of the flaws are things an editor should catch regardless of whether it's the 1st edition of the 100th edition).

Having an enjoyable game is synonymous with fun, dismissing others because your opinion is somehow more valid isn't, perceived tight ruleset or otherwise. Still so long as your having fun.....

The funny thing is, my point wasn't about dismissing others at all, my post was pointing out how people dismiss complaints with asinine arguments like "I play for fun" or "Flaws exist in all things".

The former is insinuating other people don't play for fun, the latter is like crashing someone's car and saying "well all cars get some damage eventually, that other car has a scratch on its door!".

xraytango wrote:

 Kojiro wrote:

 notprop wrote:
And that's a card game that doesn't deal with 3 dimensions on top of faction rules...

Just because this is a bugbear of mine...

I don't have the numbers for Warmachine MK3, but in MK2 there were some 140 unique Feats, 150 or so unique spells and at last count over eight hundred and thirty special abilities- not including the basic icon abilities like Pathfinder or Weaponmaster (oh I forgot animi). You may not like Warmachine, but it demonstrates clearly that even with tabletop rules, factions and massive numbers of interactions a game can be more balanced than 40k.

A large part of that is because of solid game design and clear language. Each unit has its own card, as well as rules being based on keywords that act and mean the same across all factions. Fire is always Fire etcetera. Any variation or iteration has to satisfy the base rule first and then any additional effects take place, additional effects that are also beholden to keywords.

This is a strength of Warmachine / Hordes and is a good design that GW's designers could learn something from.

GW has. It's called Age of Sigmar and a lot of people in the 40K threads are having a kinipship over it and don't want 40K simplified or people having fun. They just want it their way and don't want nothing like Warmahordes or AoS. I would say AoS has like what the Xraytango said, about MKII having so many combinations, that AoS has that as well if not more.