I thought it was an interesting listen, and came away with more thoughts and questions afterward - which I'll share below as some conversation openers.
(#1)
There was an initial hint at talking about earlier golden ages ("growth phases") in the game, but not really much discussion of that other than references to 5th edition landing at a time when lots of new players hopped on board the game (towards the end of 5th).
(#2)
I thought the comment that many 40k'ers fall into two camps - (a) "old guard" that started way back (1st or 2nd edition) and stuck through to today and the (b) "new crew" that are people that either came with the release of 8th edition (and never played the "classic version"). They hinted at another group that were players that got in towards the end of 5th, and "suffered through 6th & 7th" and thus really welcomed the changes in 8th edition.
I think when a given person jumped into the hobby has a big impact on their outlook and jades whether the current era is a "golden age" or not. It's all relative to your past experience.
(#3)
What a golden age even is was a topic of discussion. It mostly came down to three broad angles. The first is that a golden age is a statistical phenomena when, ideally, all factions have win-rates that fall within a certain bound (+/- 3% from 50% or so). The second was framing it in terms of periods when lots of new players were coming into the the game. The third angle regarded the game providing a breadth of ways to experience the 40K universe - whether competitive play, casual, campaigns/RPGs, amazing miniatures to paint, lots of lore being published, etc.
I do think all of those are important to driving sustained engagement - and GW overall seems to have a relatively coherent plan for bringing in players and making money.
(#4)
I was surprised about how little was discussed in terms of the actual rules and gameplay however. Whereas I agree generally with the metrics above being important and being, perhaps, strengths of the game right now - the state of the core rules and gameplay depth (as we've discussed here at length) seems to be shallower now than compared to earlier editions, and there really wasn't much discussion of whether the actual table-level play is any better/worse now than in the past. Would've liked to hear that discussed more.
For me, I think if we're moving into a golden age it's because of all of the things influencing the market other than the rules themselves. The quality and consistency of models is going up (with the exception of a few ranges that need an overhaul still), the amount of content creation going on is increasing, the amount of marketing and cross-selling (i.e. "good" GW-IP videogames) bringing in players, etc. How much of these successes are actually a function of the rules themselves and it being a "better game" supporting growing engagement?
(#5)
I think 40K is having success despite the rules and gameplay (being poor IMHO), not because of it. All the other factors swirling around the gameplay itself is contributing to it's current perceived success. And so for me, we can't have a golden age when the core gameplay is lackluster. I'd reserve the "golden age" nomenclature for when the gameplay itself was really singing, and for me that was probably late 4th through mid-5th edition.
Maybe we can instead make the case we're entering a renaissance (after the dark age of 6th & 7th ed)?
I have been playing since the very beginning of fifth (played a couple games of fourth but actually bought my first army with the AOBR box set in fifth.) and by the end of fifth, was a major person helping to run a comparatively pretty large playerbase. I'm in an area where you're absolutely spoiled for choice when it comes to places to play - there's easily 4 game stores within an hour/hour and a half of where I live that have decent 40k communities, with a few coming and going over the years.
I would 100% focus on the size and ubiquity of the playerbase and the dominance of 'alternatives to 40k' games.
I would characterize the following ebb and flow:
Throughout fifth, pretty much a golden age. 40k is a dominant game in every store in my area, you could go to any of the locations on their respective game nights and find 5-10 games of 40k going on.
6th the primary source of decline is the golden age of WMH as an alternative wargame. Basically, this was the first time I started to see large numbers of people starting to play the role of "Game Leech" where they come into a given playgroup and try to convince the people there that the game they are playing sucks, the rules are trash, the models are bad, the tactics are bad, and what they should REALLY be playing is the game THEY want to play.
The release of 7th and the '7.0' codexes actually woke the 40k scene back up quite a bit. People liked the freedom from the miserable flyer/aegis defense line meta, people liked the new alternate ways to construct a list, people joined in because early formations let them play "their dudes" in ways that they hadnt been allowed to in a long long time.
The second decline in late 7th was almost exactly the same as in the heyday of WMH, but for 30k. And it was even more dominant and even more effective at leeching from the 40k player pool because often, you could use some of the miniatures you already had. 30k claimed the most dedicated, longtime hobbyists who were extremely bought in to their 40k miniature collections, and interestingly, that helped to create the 8th ed launch surge.
The 8th ed launch surge was, personally, the biggest acceleration of playbase size and healthiness in the time I've been playing. A HUGE number of brand new players joined in, and with a large chunk of the people who had 5000-10000 points of stuff removed to 30k, they didn't feel like they had to spend a ton of money to get in. Accessible starter boxes, start collecting boxes, and board games also helped create this explosion - we had an escalation league at my store, and 2 dozen new or returning players showed up to start new collections, basically doubling our numbers overnight.
The state of 9th is basically a huge question mark at this point. The pandemic has shut down organized gaming basically in its entirety, and we're right on the cusp of things coming back. Will there be a new player surge as people get to come out of the house for the first time post-vaccination? I don't know. Maybe. We certainly have a ton of folks active on our discord that I've never met in person, if even half of them convert to bodies in the store, we'll be at higher than our pre-pandemic numbers.
Mezmorki wrote: Frontline gaming held a podcast talking about whether they think 40K is entering a new golden age.
I don't think it is, I think sometimes content creators are pushed towards being hypemen, that is probably my bias, I am perfectly willing to accept their critisism but their praise I find dubious.
#1 #2 They also talked about 8th edition. I don't think there is anything weird about saying 1st, 5th and 8th were the big growth editions for 40k.
#3 I think a golden age would be one where people don't get derided for their army list choices, I don't think 40k has ever come really close to that, but there have been some super bad periods in the game that make the more mundane periods feel like golden ages. In reality the game was not much better than any other game, just good enough to not be worth quitting and popular enough that it is easier to find players for compared to other game systems.
#4 I think Reece touched on it with bloat, something that makes learning and getting good at the game less fun. Streamlined rules have to be part of a golden age, I think not turning the game into tic-tac-toe is obvious but think the majority of these players simply love the new style of play, they helped shape it, it's not weird. GW is catering to them to a larger degree than you because they've proven their skill at hosting tournaments and helping host a ranking system.
For me, I think if we're moving into a golden age it's because of all of the things influencing the market other than the rules themselves. The quality and consistency of models is going up (with the exception of a few ranges that need an overhaul still), the amount of content creation going on is increasing, the amount of marketing and cross-selling (i.e. "good" GW-IP videogames) bringing in players, etc. How much of these successes are actually a function of the rules themselves and it being a "better game" supporting growing engagement?
On first blush, I don't think these factor into a golden age but I guess I did have Dawn of War around the time I joined. I think it's more about having hobby groups available where you can have games with strangers.
#5 I agree more or less, I didn't think 5th was that amazing, the formations were too loose and the game lacked dinosaurs.
We're not yet in a balance golden age, but I think we heading that direction.
Gameplay? People who think 5th ( or 2nd/3rd ) was better are wearing rose tinted glasses. We are fortunate that we didn't have the same level of analysis and discussion back then as we do now. There's still gameplay changes I'd like to see so also not a golden age, but heading the right way.
If someone is discussing a 'golden age' while its theoretically happening, it isn't worth listening to, as they don't understand the concept. A golden age is pretty much just nostalgia via historical writing, the idea that things were 'so much better' back 'then.'
For 9th edition 40k, the edition has barely started, only a handful of factions have been updated, the power scale isn't clear, and actual games played is still fairly suppressed. People need to take a pound of salt and wait to see how things work out.
Maybe in a year we'll have a vague idea if this edition is even on track to being reasonable.
Talking about a golden age when most armies don't have an updated codex, and when we're already seeing significant codex creep even in the few that have been released, to the point that early releases like Necrons and even to some extent Space Marines are already starting to look dated...yeah.
Voss wrote: If someone is discussing a 'golden age' while its theoretically happening, it isn't worth listening to, as they don't understand the concept. A golden age is pretty much just nostalgia via historical writing, the idea that things were 'so much better' back 'then.'
For 9th edition 40k, the edition has barely started, only a handful of factions have been updated, the power scale isn't clear, and actual games played is still fairly suppressed. People need to take a pound of salt and wait to see how things work out.
Maybe in a year we'll have a vague idea if this edition is even on track to being reasonable.
That's not necessarily true with regards to things having a golden age. Even historical examples prove this isn't the case. For example, the Age of Enlightenment was without a shadow of a doubt a golden age of politics, science, art, and philosophy and people definitely knew it at the time.
I've been in the hobby since 5th-ish and while I prefer the 30k game and AoS background, I would still say 40k has hit a good stride with 9th. The models have been pretty good so far, some have been brilliant, the few tournaments that are running aren't seeing huge imbalances AFAIK and there are not half the attendees walking in with the same armies, the background has been advanced and there are more opportunities for both official and personal stories to be written. I've only had the chance to play a couple of games of 9th but so far it's so much more focused on tactics/placement/objectives rather than "bring 3 of the best things and stomp the enemy to dust". TBH I only use power and play very casual games with whatever I like the look of best so that might not be how some people measure the game.
I've said before I didn't enjoy 5th, but that might just be a reflection on me and the people I was playing with at the time. I think, especially in the second half, its when people started to optimise lists - and imbalances became more explicit.
For example, 3rd edition Starcannon Spam was undoubtedly overpowered. But if everyone's Eldar armies (and all factions really) were like what you saw in a White Dwarf (basically a soft highlander) it wasn't much of a problem. I guess I was one of those people who went "40k isn't meant to be a competitive game, you are ruining my pretzels".
Maybe the people who joined were more competitive or maybe we changed. I think the fact people had disposable income (we weren't 14 any more) undoubtedly had an effect. If you thought GK were the most broken thing since sliced bread, just go buy yourself a GK army.
But yeah roll onto 6th and WMH and X-Wing would definitely enter the scene and start leaching players. 30k was always more niche. Perhaps strangely the death of Fantasy prompted a lot of people to at least cast an eye to 40k (after a 6-12 month or so period of mourning), and when 8th arrived jumped in.
7th was kind of weird in hindsight - because it was a game people loved to hate. I.E. we would all say it was a broken unbalanced mess but then play it anyway. I think partly because WMH stalled and then imploded with 3rd edition, while X-Wing had run out of actually iconic stuff. Like 40k both had to embrace bloat to continue as a business, and became progressively less attractive as a result.
And then yeah, 8th was very good, clean, and actually with the indexes achieved a reasonable level of balance before certain broken things inevitably started to repeated. Admittedly though, the reign of the Castellan really killed my interest in playing 40k in late 2018 - as arguably did Marines in 2019/2020. (But at least my friends didn't own FW character dreads or massed assault Centurions or whatever. By contrast my friends could and did buy a Knight and show up with it glued together the next week.)
Frontline Gaming may as well be the GW ministry of propaganda so... time will tell. But given that GW keeps following the same trends it will likely be like 8th was.
Tyel wrote: I've said before I didn't enjoy 5th, but that might just be a reflection on me and the people I was playing with at the time. I think, especially in the second half, its when people started to optimise lists - and imbalances became more explicit.
For example, 3rd edition Starcannon Spam was undoubtedly overpowered. But if everyone's Eldar armies (and all factions really) were like what you saw in a White Dwarf (basically a soft highlander) it wasn't much of a problem. I guess I was one of those people who went "40k isn't meant to be a competitive game, you are ruining my pretzels".
I've noticed this with a lot of games. I've really enjoyed Apocalypse, Epic, and BFG, but you can break those games every bit as hard as 40K if you optimize competitively. It's as much about culture and environment as the game itself- but I would argue that GW has a role in shaping that.
I think it's way too early to be making big proclamations about the state of play. Several armies will struggle until they get their codices, and it remains to be seen how balance will shake out.
Any time in the media when an article posits a question in the title the answer is always "no".
So there we go. No, we are not in any kind of "golden age" of 40k. If a bloated mess of strategems and metagaming that is more akin to a CCG yet is masquerading as a tabletop game is a "golden age" then I don't know what to think...
Grimtuff wrote: Any time in the media when an article posits a question in the title the answer is always "no".
So there we go. No, we are not in any kind of "golden age" of 40k. If a bloated mess of strategems and metagaming that is more akin to a CCG yet is masquerading as a tabletop game is a "golden age" then I don't know what to think...
I agree with you on the rules dept. However, as far as I'm concerned, we are living a golden age of 40K miniatures. the quality of the models as well as the vast amount of kits and terrain these days is huge, and so much is available in plastic now that the scope for kitbashing and unique conversions is near limitless. Add to the fact that 40K is space fantasy so you can mix stuff in from the fantasy ranges, game over..
Not sure what I think about the current lore. I preferred when things were more laid out like a "setting" instead of a strict storyline.. Things being more open to interpretation always trumps hard "canon" IMHO
(#2)
I thought the comment that many 40k'ers fall into two camps - (a) "old guard" that started way back (1st or 2nd edition) and stuck through to today and the (b) "new crew" that are people that either came with the release of 8th edition (and never played the "classic version"). They hinted at another group that were players that got in towards the end of 5th, and "suffered through 6th & 7th" and thus really welcomed the changes in 8th edition.
I think when a given person jumped into the hobby has a big impact on their outlook and jades whether the current era is a "golden age" or not. It's all relative to your past experience.
If you don't think 2nd ed was the golden age, I castigate thee!
(#4)
I was surprised about how little was discussed in terms of the actual rules and gameplay however. Whereas I agree generally with the metrics above being important and being, perhaps, strengths of the game right now - the state of the core rules and gameplay depth (as we've discussed here at length) seems to be shallower now than compared to earlier editions, and there really wasn't much discussion of whether the actual table-level play is any better/worse now than in the past. Would've liked to hear that discussed more.
I am not. The rules have always been the weakest part of 40k. While GW have done excellent rules sets (wargames wise Warmaster is probably the high point and the most ported), 40k has never been one of them. The game relies a lot on list building, optimisation and small tweaks to load outs. The actual on table tactics have often devolved into target selection order and cunning use of special abilities/cards. Strategy and tactics in the form of manoeuvre, reserves, controlling areas of the board having on table consequences, dealing with incomplete information, fog of war, etc. etc. all married to a simple, intuitive and fast rule system that can be played without constant rules reference is pretty much the ideal. Few games have all that. 40k has next to none of it - but it does have great theme, look and feel, a potentially immersive narrative and a supply of opponents. In general we love our models, tablescapes and background, the rules aren't that much of an issue (to test this try using your guard vehicles in a game of What a Tanker! by TooFatLardies - objectively far more fun than using them in a game of 40k, but it still doesn't fit the mental imagery we have of our armies in battle).
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catbarf wrote: I've noticed this with a lot of games. I've really enjoyed Apocalypse, Epic, and BFG, but you can break those games every bit as hard as 40K if you optimize competitively.
I challenge thee on EpicA! Whilst you do have better and worse builds, in general the optimised builds are thematic for each army and to date no list has dominated (check out the Epic tourny records page for the past 15 years of lists and results http://epic-uk.co.uk/ukepicachampionship/racevrace.php).
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tauist wrote: Not sure what I think about the current lore. I preferred when things were more laid out like a "setting" instead of a strict storyline.. Things being more open to interpretation always trumps hard "canon" IMHO
Yes the past was superior here, even Rick Priestly came out with a gripe against it, though he recognised it drove sales more effectively.
I'm close to being able to call it a golden age from my perspective because I love Crusade, and I feel like I've been waiting for it since 1989.
I can also say that because my "Golden Age" has to include a current range for both sisters and GSC. As good as the game may or may not have been from 3rd- late 7th, it wouldn't have mattered spit to me because GSC weren't there. I give 3rd a passing grade because it was so good for Sisters, even though it was the ed that killed the GSC.
Similarly, I can't give 7th a passing grade because the GSC were only there for the last six months of the edition and the sisters range at the time was stagnant.
I said that I was close to being able to call 9th a golden age. They need to address the Aeldari situation in order for me to be able to completely endorse it. And they don't have to get it perfect, but they do have to move the needle quite a bit.
As someone who started in 2nd edition I can say for some part that we are in a golden age. Warhammer is big right now with large tourneys and a lot of fresh new faces. GW is also keeping things fresh with frequent releases(one codex per edition was unheard of in the old days) and the regular point updates are a welcome change.
Basically 40k has never been this popular and easy to get games. The rules are also fun and engaging.
I would also say that the game is more balanced than it used to be, at least on a tournament level. Could of course be better, but it is a far cry from the old editions where things were a mess.
However, there are also things that leave a bad taste like the recent price increase and the space marine model focus in releases.
FLG should be viewed with such skepticism that a Flat-earther would be shocked.....
I believe the term for what this is, is called "Marketing" or maybe even feeding off the teat of GW and not wanting to sour the milk.
GW is the Pimp and FLG are their hoes.
Toe the line or else....someone else will in your place.
These guys are some of the worst things to happen to 40k since....(insert worst thing from your perspective)!
Daedalus81 wrote: Gameplay? People who think 5th ( or 2nd/3rd ) was better are wearing rose tinted glasses
There were plenty of issues but what I think some people including myself miss (other than the nostalgia) was the positioning and development aspect of the game. Your first turn never involved a charge into combat in your opponents deployment while reaching for a deck of cards and a pick n mix scoop of dice.
Seeing as we are still stuck in an outdated turn system, already dealing with bloat at the beginning of the edition, and we can already see where Power Creep is going to begin...we're just getting the same old GW. Also FLG is a bunch of people paid to say nice things overall so I'm not choosing to believe them.
40k is a dominant market force because of non-wargaming exposure (novels, video games) and availability. It's absolutely in a golden age of non-wargaming exposure and availability; the largest marketing exposure any other minis wargame has is usually game store shelf space, and COVID has shut that down completely, so there's very little competition and there's a great flood of new people who think "I want to paint toy soldiers in lockdown!" and assume they should do 40k.
40k's rules are as bad as they've ever been right now and show no signs of getting better, but unfortunately wargaming market share has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the rules.
Daedalus81 wrote: Gameplay? People who think 5th ( or 2nd/3rd ) was better are wearing rose tinted glasses
There were plenty of issues but what I think some people including myself miss (other than the nostalgia) was the positioning and development aspect of the game. You first turn never involved a charge into combat in your opponents deployment while reaching for a deck of cards and a pick n mix scoop of dice.
This^^.
I mean, sure, GW is golden, stonks are up, but the game has devolved imho. Along with restartes, I am in the “no” camp.
The game itself is now essentially the metagame. For those players that enjoy finding any and all the crazy cool combos and broken units in their codexs and coming up with lots of ideas for how to manipulate them within a points value, then yes, this is a golden age. If you want to play and win via battlefield tactics, then absolutely not. The core game design is simply based around making people think about how their army is composed rather than how THEY should play in the moment.
Epic Armageddon shows GW can make a great thematic 40k ruleset if they want to.
Golden age was 4th Ed, imo. 2nd was great, but it was a strange game overall. 4th Ed was when the game was most mature as a war game and the customization in the codexes was at it's peak.
Daedalus81 wrote: Gameplay? People who think 5th ( or 2nd/3rd ) was better are wearing rose tinted glasses
There were plenty of issues but what I think some people including myself miss (other than the nostalgia) was the positioning and development aspect of the game. You first turn never involved a charge into combat in your opponents deployment while reaching for a deck of cards and a pick n mix scoop of dice.
Grimtuff wrote: Any time in the media when an article posits a question in the title the answer is always "no".
So there we go. No, we are not in any kind of "golden age" of 40k. If a bloated mess of strategems and metagaming that is more akin to a CCG yet is masquerading as a tabletop game is a "golden age" then I don't know what to think...
I like stratagems, so nyah!
I'll 100% agree on the metagaming bit though. Too many things try to position 40k as a metagame-compatible item. Metagame does nothing but ruin the game overall for everyone. When every new release decries X or Y based upon "The Meta"(cause every area I guess has the same meta?), it's a huge drag.
Grimtuff wrote: Any time in the media when an article posits a question in the title the answer is always "no".
So there we go. No, we are not in any kind of "golden age" of 40k. If a bloated mess of strategems and metagaming that is more akin to a CCG yet is masquerading as a tabletop game is a "golden age" then I don't know what to think...
I like stratagems, so nyah!
The idea is alright, the execution has gone overboard.
I played the game in 3rd and 4th but only paint now. I like to keep up though, and it seems to me that progressive scoring, stratagems, yearly point adjustments and the huge selection of units have improved the game a lot. A well presented battle report is more interesting now than then, with the focus on the objectives all game rather than just killing enemy units and standing in the right place when it was over.
Most of the things I disliked about the game seem to have been largely fixed, such as:
1. Unkillable death stars
2. Flyers you could barely interact with
3. Static gunlines
4. Soup lists, including combining chapters/hive fleets/clans in the same list so that the shooting units get the shooting buffs, the fast units become faster etc.
5. Strength D
6. Respawning tons of models for free (tervigons, horrors etc.) and crazy 'decurion' buffs like free transports
I could go on but I'm very open to the idea the game is the best it's been
On the one hand, it's very hard to call any era in which viruses stalk the land and most people can't play games a "Golden Age" of anything tabletop.
On the other hand, my SO and I have been more engaged than ever with painting and the state of 40K despite the pandemic.
On the other other hand, we've been really going in hard on the possibilities of 3D printing and GW alternatives because of many aspects of the state of 40K, including pricing, Marine fatigue and rules release schedules/formats that leave people in the dust while charging others absurd amounts for paper that doesn't need to be paper.
On the other other other hand, the Marine crap seems to have died down somewhat, hopefully for a few years(Grey Knights notwithstanding). The 9th codexes that have been released have been mostly quite well received, and coronavirus vaccine distribution is ramping up hard.
On the other other other other hand, they're running Day 1 DLC for those codexes in $60 books and not too long ago tried to run a bizarre terrain scam that everyone mostly ignored, so GW is still GW'ing.
On the other other other other other hand is a large clawed appendage useful for opening clams.
No, I don't thinks its a golden age. I'd say we are in an upswing from a steep decline but 8th started the come back and now 9th is showing signs of some things that made 6th and 7th feel bad.
Golden age would have been around 5th for me, though I thought they learned things and 8th would be it, I was for the most part wrong however.
There is a lot that is currently bad and heading in a worse direction, only time will tell but improved models with extra expensive costs doesn't lead to a very good golden age and when the old guard cashes out, I wonder exactly how willing new whales will be to step up.
Early 8th was probably the closest to "living in a golden age" and they really threw baby out with the bath water as the edition progressed. It certainly had its flaws - stratagem and general rules bloat, the easy with which cheap troops could be spammed to farm CP, and the absolute raw cynicism and greed of PA at the end.
But mechanically, none of the most glaring problems in that edition have been meaningfully fixed, and we're instead very early in a new edition that has done nothing but bloat in a really asymmetrical, unbalanced way. This reflects model releases, which are completely lopsided, and reflect an abject lack of planning or direction on GWs part.
Models in particular are really pretty far from "Golden Age" material.
While sculpting has certainly improved from a technological perspective, and GW are certainly, slowly, starting to realize the apatite that fans have for some of the more flavorsome parts of the setting - admech, gsc, the various characters from BSF - there are a lot of trends in GW minis of the current "age" that are pretty obtuse. Options seem to be a thing GW doesn't really know what to do with, and most modern kits customization potential has been severely hobbled. Ostentatious sculpting by the studio - smoke and other effects, hyper-dynamic posing, and needlessly large plastic bases - a la belakor, or the Triumph of St. Katherine.
While this is all very impressive, it constrains the piece as a gaming miniature, and as a hobby project.
As far as gaming goes, the GW range is a total mess. Some - marines - are bloated to the point of farce. Others have significant gaps, have had options stripped out, or are left with minis that, as legacy pieces, are excellent, but are also out of step with the rest of the model range. GWs policy of "retiring" sculpts, too, or FOMO-esq last chance to buy and made to order sales illustrate that they understand, at least to a point, that older models are sometimes still well liked by customers, but that scarcity is something that the company is happy to manipulate.
GWs fan interactions are also an area in which they really stand to improve. Their commitment to 'smoke and mirrors' marketing is a decent way of generating buzz around potential upcoming releases. But it's also deeply confusing, and leads to uncontrolled frustration amongst fans, especially when GW leaves their intentions completely unsaid, and frequently misleads the "community" with regards to playtesting etc. Warcom and White Dwarf are largely patronizing, very thinly-veiled adverts, with sparse actual hobby or gaming content, and the way they use social media to get pictures of painted products to use in their advertising material, effectively taking free labor from fans, is honestly bordering on scummy.
Their internal conversion rates are frankly shocking - anyone remember the collective outrage at the FW hikes for antipodes a few years back? Died a bit of a death, that outrage, huh? - and show no signs of abating, nor do their consistent price hikes.
These are all moans, but they only exist because I love 40k so much. GW are okay, and the current 40k climates could certainly stand to be worse. But it's also so fething far from a golden age, and anyone who says so either isn't looking hard enough, or else is (probably at best, only hoping to be) getting paid to say it.
Yeah I'd have to agree, the only gold is probably that lining GWs pockets from the price increases or perhaps what is in the models to begin with growing their cost matched only by the pace at which they release book after book of rules to drown us in. All the while of course saying how " simple " and " intuitive " the whole edition is.
I'm not sure why anyone would take FLG seriously when talking about GW. Their business is primarily based on selling GW stuff and running tournaments for GW games. They're hardly the poster boys for balanced opinion pieces.
For me the answer is "almost certainly not". The only reason I don't say "no" is because it's almost impossible to tell where we're at with the game in the middle of a global pandemic. I estimate I've probably played around 5% of the number of games I would have expected to play of 9th edition had it launched in normal times so getting an idea of where the game is at is not so easy.
We don't know how good balance is right now, except to say there are a bunch of outliers at both ends of the spectrum thanks to the fact many armies don't yet have a 9th edition Codex. We also have so few Codices it's too early to tell how well GW will manage power creep. My bet would be on them continuing their inability to design balanced books throughout an edition, or even stick to one basic design paradigm for that time.
Player counts are also hard to judge. I can only base my opinions on the last year or so of 8th, but I definitely saw a larger number of people looking to start the game in that time, while also seeing a much larger than usual number of people never get beyond that stage. Often this was down to price but I think it was also down to the gaming experience as well. The fantasy of playing some deep tactical game of play and counterplay is quite quickly dispelled for even the most novice of gamers in the first couple of games, or even just by watching some games. It looks to me as though GW has done a good job of getting their message out there and drawing in new players but a relatively bad job of retaining them.
Miniatures? That's a hard no from me. Technically they're excellent. You just need to look at the stuff from the Indomitus box compared to the Dark Imperium box to see how they've progressed. The razor-thin tolerances they can now cast to are way ahead of the rest of the industry. However, that comes at the price of ease of assembly. I've just finished putting the new Flayed Ones together. If this is how GW are going to continue with their models they can feth off. Loads of fiddly pieces that are almost impossible to support while they dry and equally difficult to clean up combined with small contact points is a recipe for frustration. I also hate the inconsistent way options are approached for each set. The move towards huge centrepiece models is also extremely annoying, from a gaming and transport point of view as well as the tiresome assumption that bigger must be better. The new Belakor is a good example. Looks pretty cool but there's no need for it to be anywhere near that size and it doesn't need a silly scenic base either. The move towards "dynamic" posing and scenic bases is annoying and unnecessary. Finally, the newer sculpts often lack soul. They're technically great but all this smoke, warp energy, fiery swords and silly posing means the character of the model itself often suffers. It also means you can end up with a weirdly incoherent army with your characters standing on three different types of scenic base and units sometimes looking like they're jumping off in different directions. We've lost the collective spectacle in favour of the individual.
So, in summary: rules still bloated and shallow and the models are technically great but lacking in a lot of ways. The playerbase is good which means 40k is the one game you're almost guaranteed to be able to play wherever there's a gaming store or club. It's also still a pretty good game to play with likeminded friends, provided you don't try to go too competitive with it. I don't think we're in a Golden Age and given the direction GW are going I feel like we're moving further away from one rather than getting closer.
It's entirely subjective. I've hated 8th edition for example, and I mostly play orks. The point is I don't really care about gameplay and the most broken combos as I typically play pre-arranged games anyways. IMHO the most important factor is the kinds of lists that work: 8th edition ork codex was hand down more competitive than 7th edition one but if I have to play with 6 characters and 9 troops just to make my army work (or even 4 HQs and 6 troops) I'd play 7th edition anytime. Not to mention that I was stuck with a crappy index for half edition.
9th started amazing as it completely removed that issue and now lists look much more balanced in terms of units brought to the table. Terms of scoring are also much better now.
Ruleswise - no
Miniatures - possibly, my nostalgia goggles kind of prefer the older silly models but I'm aware that is why
Content - probably, they're putting out a lot of stuff, should be way less lopsided in terms of faction releases though
Engagement with community - nah, they were probably better with White Dwarf alone back in the day but they have improved.
Number of players - Seems so
£££ - definitely
Wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments that it’s subjective. The current states does have a lot going for it. Whilst good, I wouldn’t call it golden.
9E does have a lot going for it.
Ruleswise/ Gameplay:
For:
The fresh start (relative to 7E) was arguably at least an edition overdue, and the core system is sleek and easy to use.
Against:
8E suffered a lot from rules bloat (the PA series added a lot of books, with relatively few, but nonetheless useful rules), and whilst covid has no doubt affected release dates I donn't see how Drukhari getting content in a splat book released alongside the Codex can be a good sign.
The cover rules for 8E were absolutely abysmal, and are much expanded in 9E.
Whilst I acknowledge that I’ve played 40k for a long, long time I am really against T1 charging into the opponent’s deployment zone. The overall pace of the game seems to have taken a turn for the worse, with terrain and manoeuvring taking a back step (can’t comment on 9E haven’t had the chance to test it out much). Balancing melee vs shooting (and other abilities) seems is always a tricky one, but having a range of options to traverse no-mans land and charge the enemy lines before the enemy has even got to move seems to make the balancing act more difficult (e.g. if you give some assault troops the ability to move perform a T1 charge, is it surprising that shooting gets even more lethal…) What may be wanted here is a de-escalation of abilities and a reduction in that initial lethality.
Models
For:
GW continue to produce very pretty models. SoB in plastic, Beast Snaggas incoming, Revamp of Necron range
Against - As others have brought up, they whilst very detailed the models, especially characters, often compare unfavourably to their predecessors in terms of posabiliy and customisation/ options which does detract from the hobby aspect a lot. I think the hobby, and thus the game losses out when characters who are often centre piece models for an army are monopose have virtually no wargear options (Primaris Captains are a prime example of the new ethos). With the alignment between datafaxes and the current models available this has had a direct knock-on affect to the game with various much loved options have consigned to Legends, and various other having their options much reduced.
As a prime example whilst it was good to see Orks get a load of new (and very orky) buggies in 8E, this has come at the cost of old buggies/wartrike/skorcha and many character options… I would be surprised if I was alone in voicing the opinion that I’d have rather seen a slightly smaller range of entirely new stuff and a new kits for replace previously extant options (e.g. kit for Character on Bikes, Boss in Mega-armour etc...).
Updating of kits/ ranges seems to be quite erratic and release schedule dominated by marines...
Re: models it's a double edged sword. Quality wise they are astounding. But there's a point where things become detailed to the level of ridiculous versus being useful as gamepieces. Just take a look at the recent Lumineth models. Absolutely ridiculous poses that do not need to be done like that and an increasing amount of minor details just for the sake of saying look at how detailed this model is. It used to be regular models had a certain level of detail because they were regular rank and file models and then the real detail was saved for character models and things like that.
I feel that it's gotten to a point where even the basic models I have way too much of a level of detail that they don't need and I don't think that's a good thing Even though visually it would appear to be.
On the rules front I think they have already, this early in the edition, started to blatantly show codex creep and signs that they are going to do the same thing they did that started to bloat 8th and ruined 7th . In fact I would say that they just doubled down on all the problem points for 9th.
No. It is the golden era for corporate interests, not necessarily for us.
Balance wise, things have always been bad, but now they are monetizing metas.
In terms of models, it depends. This is subjective, but some old model were really good and I like them over modern ones; this is more the case for the fantasy side (i.e. dwarf slayers vs fyreslayers). I dislike primaris but I am also not fond of some of the early marines. However, some metal ork models were really good. Now, I starting to suspect the build models with breakable pieces on purpose.
All in all, I think they are riding the charm of something some nerdy lads created 30-40 years ago. As time goes by, it is increasingly dilluted in the new settings, but what sets it appart from the competition, foundation wise, is the setting.
Daedalus81 wrote: Gameplay? People who think 5th ( or 2nd/3rd ) was better are wearing rose tinted glasses
There were plenty of issues but what I think some people including myself miss (other than the nostalgia) was the positioning and development aspect of the game. Your first turn never involved a charge into combat in your opponents deployment while reaching for a deck of cards and a pick n mix scoop of dice.
I won't litigate the issue, because we could go for 20 pages on it, but out of curiosity have you been able to play 9th much?
Daedalus81 wrote: Gameplay? People who think 5th ( or 2nd/3rd ) was better are wearing rose tinted glasses
There were plenty of issues but what I think some people including myself miss (other than the nostalgia) was the positioning and development aspect of the game. Your first turn never involved a charge into combat in your opponents deployment while reaching for a deck of cards and a pick n mix scoop of dice.
I won't litigate the issue, because we could go for 20 pages on it, but out of curiosity have you been able to play 9th much?
You can pretty easily put together an army of space marines with the innate ability to execute an army-wide turn 1 charge should they go first. it's less rampant than it was mid-8th when you could deep strike and still move after deep striking, but it is way more possible than in older editions.
personally though, I'm of the opinion that a lot of people just don't remember fifth and how many turns it generally took a game of fifth to actually resolve. The real 'kill all your gak turn 1 before you get to do anything" is still and has always been long range shooting armies, and those one hundred percent existed in fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth edition. They've never been weaker, and turn 1 tempo assault armies in 9th are theoretically possible...but extremely impractical because you're basically giving yourself a 50% chance of a huge advantage and a 50% chance of a nearly guaranteed loss.
On the rules front I think they have already, this early in the edition, started to blatantly show codex creep and signs that they are going to do the same thing they did that started to bloat 8th and ruined 7th . In fact I would say that they just doubled down on all the problem points for 9th.
Uh huh uh huh uh huh tons of codex creep that's why of the codexes they've released so far, there's *checks notes* one pulling above a 55% wr, one at a 43% wr, and the rest sitting squarely at 48-52%.
Loooooooooooootsa creep, yes sir, none of those 8th edition books stand a chance, certainly the first, second, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh highest winrate factions are not using older 'dexes. factions like Harlequins and Sisters of Battle stand no chance against the 9th ed dex juggernauts and codexes released in the first quarter of eighth like adeptus mechanicus and daemons, fahgeddabouddit, the creep has crooped and they are dunzo.
the_scotsman wrote: You can pretty easily put together an army of space marines with the innate ability to execute an army-wide turn 1 charge should they go first. it's less rampant than it was mid-8th when you could deep strike and still move after deep striking, but it is way more possible than in older editions.
For sure though not necessarily a winning strategy.
personally though, I'm of the opinion that a lot of people just don't remember fifth and how many turns it generally took a game of fifth to actually resolve. The real 'kill all your gak turn 1 before you get to do anything" is still and has always been long range shooting armies, and those one hundred percent existed in fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth edition. They've never been weaker, and turn 1 tempo assault armies in 9th are theoretically possible...but extremely impractical because you're basically giving yourself a 50% chance of a huge advantage and a 50% chance of a nearly guaranteed loss.
*shudders from memories playing against T'au* I recall making sure there were towers on the board so I could at least deploy my havocs somewhere that might let them survive to shoot if I didn't go first.
8th undoubtedly had power creep - but the real issue was going to "oh and you need Vigilus" and then "oh you definitely need Psychic Awakening".
So for example it sort of rankles that I don't have the Strife stuff in the DE codex. But if I'm honest - I don't have the stuff to play full wych cults, its not something I've ever had more than a passing fancy in, and frankly I prefer the other cults than Strife anyway. Am I missing out on super-super death Succubus? Perhaps, but I'll get over it.
By contrast, I feel the above were essentially mandatory purchases for GSC. If you didn't have those bonus rules, you were obviously worse, and being a nerfed faction, you needed all the help you could get.
It seems like the 9th codexes are well balanced - partly because, cue memes, it does seem to be the most play-tested edition ever. If as some testers hint at, there's a broad outline for all the factions floating around (even if it won't be out for another 12+ months), the game could enjoy a 2 year or so golden age.
Unfortunately I think bloat must inevitably end it - because GW have to sell you things. And I'm not sure sidegrades are never overly attractive, even if the models are good.
the_scotsman wrote: personally though, I'm of the opinion that a lot of people just don't remember fifth and how many turns it generally took a game of fifth to actually resolve. The real 'kill all your gak turn 1 before you get to do anything" is still and has always been long range shooting armies, and those one hundred percent existed in fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth edition.
In 5th edition it was considered even, if not advantageous to deploy second.
Counter-deployment system, high cover saves, limited and often fairly immobile heavy slots, armour facings, and armour rules all factored into this - the second player could be sure to obscure their heavy tank from lascannons or railguns, but might also use it as cover in its own right against plasma weapons for instance. Though the objectives also disproportionately favoured the second player.
But 5th did also get stuck between two competing areas of rules change and codex creep. Transports were flaming coffins of death in 4th so GW made them cheaper, then 5th made them more durable, and then they also started making heavy weapons cheaper to deal with them. Firepower just ramped up and up, not helped by Cruddace and his early guard codex setting the standard for gunline excess.
I think you know where i am on this one. from 3rd -5th i played the GAK out of 40K getting in on average 3-5 games every weekend usually on the same day (that's 2 hours per game plus down time you can do the math).
with the current incarnation i have stopped following the game entirely and have gone back to playing 5th ed with a few houserules with friends.
GW has never got the rules right as you know with your prohammer project. they had some really great rules in one edition only to toss them out in the next edition when fixing some un-related issue.
The game has gone up and down with popularity and editions. the main thing driving the concept that FLG is pushing right now is the mainstreaming of the game and IP through the modern age of information sharing/social media and all the different markets the IP is being expanded into. this board is an example of the old way. this is all we had for online discussion back between 3rd-7th.
Will 9th be as big once everybody gets to actually full on gaming levels again? before 10th ed drops and changes everything again in a couple years? hard to say, i mean i remember when GW said 8th ed was going to be the "last" living edition that would just get periodic updates.
Like others have said it depends on how you define it.
To me 9th edition is the second worst the game has ever been (after 6th) as far as rules and mechanics go especially when i can play so many different non GW games out there that are better.
Until some market change causes serious damage to GWs ability to make a profit i do not see their behavior changing anytime soon. who knows maybe in 5 years they will only be selling STL files for the minis for you to print on your own. so perhaps the idea of expanding into different markets is the way they see staying alive in the future business model.
From a player base perspective in my area, GW products have been in a fairly consistent golden age since 8th. New players all the time, vast explosion in the number of players. However, I wouldn't necessarily say it is entirely a 40k golden age. AOS, especially in the last two years, has entered boom town territory and is siphoning off veteran and new players alike in my area.
From a broader cultural perspective, I'd say this is the single greatest "golden age" that has existed in the history of the company. I have played warhammer fantasy, 40k, battlefleet gothic, etc. for 20+ years now, and I have never run into people who were aware of 40k (even vaguely) who didn't actually play 40k/lotr/etc. or frequented the comic/hobby stores. Now I run into people who are aware of it but are not part of the tabletop wargaming culture. I have no doubt that a huge part of that is Warhammer total war and, to a lesser extent, Space Marine, Dawn of War, etc. But it's also online content like the Astartes series, popularity of 40k at cosplay/comicon events (which themselves have grown over the past decade). I wouldn't say it is anywhere near going mainstream quite yet, but I've never seen anything like its brand recognition that it currently enjoys.
I think 40K is in a very good spot right now, rules and balance are the best they've ever been, but the game is still not very deep concerning tactics (still deeper than before though).
There seem to be some problems building up though, which were thought to be left behind when 8th started:
- Rising prices: when 8th started GW put in many efforts for cheap starterboxes and deals, they didn't lower prices, but they gave you some good deals, nowadays these deals feel more like they're using fomo more than anything else and all start collectings have been made more expensive
- Tournament Edition: the eternal war missions are better than any prior versions, however, there's only eternal war missions left and they're still only interesting if you're new in the game or play tournaments, there's little in there for narrative players (even most of the crusade missions are eternal war missions with little variation), I hope we get proper missions back with asymmetrical design or a strong focus on the narrative.
- The 40K App was and is a desaster. They tried to react to people wishing for a move to digital rules but totally failed.
- No models, no rules: yes, due to legends it's not so much a problem so far, but looking at the miserable Plague Marine or Blightlord datasheet this could build up to really discourage building "your dudes",
- combine that with new sets having very limited options or monopose models. There are perfect sets in the range like Ork Boyz or nobz or the CSM Terminator Lord and then there are kits like the Deathshroud where you have to rely on 3rd party producers after the first 3 models if you don't want clones.
This all sounds pretty negative, but so far all of these problems are on a small scale and can be fixed. As I said, 40K really made a jump the last 3 years and is in a good position, but they really have to be careful.
On the rules front I think they have already, this early in the edition, started to blatantly show codex creep and signs that they are going to do the same thing they did that started to bloat 8th and ruined 7th . In fact I would say that they just doubled down on all the problem points for 9th.
Uh huh uh huh uh huh tons of codex creep that's why of the codexes they've released so far, there's *checks notes* one pulling above a 55% wr, one at a 43% wr, and the rest sitting squarely at 48-52%.
Loooooooooooootsa creep, yes sir, none of those 8th edition books stand a chance, certainly the first, second, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh highest winrate factions are not using older 'dexes. factions like Harlequins and Sisters of Battle stand no chance against the 9th ed dex juggernauts and codexes released in the first quarter of eighth like adeptus mechanicus and daemons, fahgeddabouddit, the creep has crooped and they are dunzo.
Lol, c'mon Scotsman, you more than anybody have posted about manufactured discontent, which is 100% true. No, those new armies may not be winning handily, but GW continues to throw more bells and whistles and rules layered on rules that playing an actual 8th codex feels like Indexhammer. Yes, some armies can still stack up winning lists. And duh, late 8th books like PA Harlequins and SoB can stack up with 9th, nobody's saying otherwise. But the creep from, say, 8e Eldar to 9e Dark Angels is 100% a thing, you're just being contrarian if you deny it.
- Tournament Edition: the eternal war missions are better than any prior versions, however, there's only eternal war missions left and they're still only interesting if you're new in the game or play tournaments, there's little in there for narrative players (even most of the crusade missions are eternal war missions with little variation), I hope we get proper missions back with asymmetrical design or a strong focus on the narrative.
You should check the crusade books there are some slightly more asymmetrical missions out there. I haven't see the DG or Rust missions though.
On the rules front I think they have already, this early in the edition, started to blatantly show codex creep and signs that they are going to do the same thing they did that started to bloat 8th and ruined 7th . In fact I would say that they just doubled down on all the problem points for 9th.
Uh huh uh huh uh huh tons of codex creep that's why of the codexes they've released so far, there's *checks notes* one pulling above a 55% wr, one at a 43% wr, and the rest sitting squarely at 48-52%.
Loooooooooooootsa creep, yes sir, none of those 8th edition books stand a chance, certainly the first, second, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh highest winrate factions are not using older 'dexes. factions like Harlequins and Sisters of Battle stand no chance against the 9th ed dex juggernauts and codexes released in the first quarter of eighth like adeptus mechanicus and daemons, fahgeddabouddit, the creep has crooped and they are dunzo.
Lol, c'mon Scotsman, you more than anybody have posted about manufactured discontent, which is 100% true. No, those new armies may not be winning handily, but GW continues to throw more bells and whistles and rules layered on rules that playing an actual 8th codex feels like Indexhammer. Yes, some armies can still stack up winning lists. And duh, late 8th books like PA Harlequins and SoB can stack up with 9th, nobody's saying otherwise. But the creep from, say, 8e Eldar to 9e Dark Angels is 100% a thing, you're just being contrarian if you deny it.
Some of the early 8th codexes back when they were basically doing copy/pastehammer to get the first few books out definitely do feel super gakky. But in my opinion right now, the 2.0 marines through PA was the 'rules bloat/excess' period, and the new codexes if anything are trimming that back somewhat.
Things the 9th books have been removing or reducing:
1) Hyper-reliable deep strike out of charge
Blood Angels lost it, Space Wolves lost it, Dark Angels lost it, Deathwatch lost it, Necrons lost it, Drukhari lost it as an army-wide thing (they used to have blanket 58% chance to get in off deep strike army wide starting turn 2)
2) Super crazy aura hammer and some excessive die rolling in general
Chapter Master went from a CP upgrade to a points upgrade and went from rerolling everything within 6 to rerolling everything for one unit and rerolling 1s for CORE within 6. Necrons have like 5 core units. Drukhari never had crazy auras before, but now also have CORE to contend with. Changes to FNP (they've removed it as a blanket army wide thing on 2 factions already) further help with reducing the die rolling bloat
3) open ended strats you can just use to give anything crazy combat power
anything that double fights or double shoots is now unit-locked and often also subfaction-locked, which means GW can actually have a balance lever to reign it in. hit and wound mods are locked to -1/+1 now.
4) Ability to use the CP resource to artificially make units way more powerful is greatly reduced.
Unit upgrades via stratagems for units is being replaced in favor of making them cost points, making them more balanceable than before
5) durability is being added (and in more interesting ways to break up the profiles of useful weapons) in addition to lethality.
I love the fact that since PA, gw has introduced:
-widespread "+1 to save" items introducing 1+ armor save models
-Models that can only be wounded on an X+
- "- damage" abilities
- 'only x number of wounds per phase' units
-Reworked res protocols
^that is FANTASTIC for the game overall, and some of the ways in which they've been introduced have been really excellent. Dreadnoughts having a -1 to damage ability at the same time as all marines go to W2 standard is absolutely great, gives a good, organic toolset to make your defenses more diverse and makes it harder to 'solve' the meta and find a single best offensive profile to run.
we've had 3 factions who at least have a part of their identity in 'durable' and all three of them use wildly different defensive mechanics and have wildly different weaponry that you want to use to attack them. The game has needed this addition FOREVER, EVERY EDITION has had one single best general 'type' of weapon and now, finally, they're getting that they can't rely on a single hit/wound/save system to determine how everything does or does not survive incoming attacks.
Late 8th books can stack up with 9th books, and mid 8th books, and early 8th books - admech was what...third in 8th? And there were so few changes from the index I literally bought the datacards and used a pen to update my index, there was like 5 changes to statlines.
The approach GW is taking with codexes in 9th is night and day better than the approach they took with the post-codex 8th content. Night and day. The worst thing they can do at this point is fail to carve off and discard the worst excesses of PA when they get around to the factions that are the most able to abuse it to win.
On the rules front I think they have already, this early in the edition, started to blatantly show codex creep and signs that they are going to do the same thing they did that started to bloat 8th and ruined 7th . In fact I would say that they just doubled down on all the problem points for 9th.
Uh huh uh huh uh huh tons of codex creep that's why of the codexes they've released so far, there's *checks notes* one pulling above a 55% wr, one at a 43% wr, and the rest sitting squarely at 48-52%.
Loooooooooooootsa creep, yes sir, none of those 8th edition books stand a chance, certainly the first, second, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh highest winrate factions are not using older 'dexes. factions like Harlequins and Sisters of Battle stand no chance against the 9th ed dex juggernauts and codexes released in the first quarter of eighth like adeptus mechanicus and daemons, fahgeddabouddit, the creep has crooped and they are dunzo.
Lol, c'mon Scotsman, you more than anybody have posted about manufactured discontent, which is 100% true. No, those new armies may not be winning handily, but GW continues to throw more bells and whistles and rules layered on rules that playing an actual 8th codex feels like Indexhammer. Yes, some armies can still stack up winning lists. And duh, late 8th books like PA Harlequins and SoB can stack up with 9th, nobody's saying otherwise. But the creep from, say, 8e Eldar to 9e Dark Angels is 100% a thing, you're just being contrarian if you deny it.
Some of the early 8th codexes back when they were basically doing copy/pastehammer to get the first few books out definitely do feel super gakky. But in my opinion right now, the 2.0 marines through PA was the 'rules bloat/excess' period, and the new codexes if anything are trimming that back somewhat.
Things the 9th books have been removing or reducing:
1) Hyper-reliable deep strike out of charge
Blood Angels lost it, Space Wolves lost it, Dark Angels lost it, Deathwatch lost it, Necrons lost it, Drukhari lost it as an army-wide thing (they used to have blanket 58% chance to get in off deep strike army wide starting turn 2)
2) Super crazy aura hammer and some excessive die rolling in general
Chapter Master went from a CP upgrade to a points upgrade and went from rerolling everything within 6 to rerolling everything for one unit and rerolling 1s for CORE within 6. Necrons have like 5 core units. Drukhari never had crazy auras before, but now also have CORE to contend with. Changes to FNP (they've removed it as a blanket army wide thing on 2 factions already) further help with reducing the die rolling bloat
3) open ended strats you can just use to give anything crazy combat power
anything that double fights or double shoots is now unit-locked and often also subfaction-locked, which means GW can actually have a balance lever to reign it in. hit and wound mods are locked to -1/+1 now.
4) Ability to use the CP resource to artificially make units way more powerful is greatly reduced.
Unit upgrades via stratagems for units is being replaced in favor of making them cost points, making them more balanceable than before
5) durability is being added (and in more interesting ways to break up the profiles of useful weapons) in addition to lethality.
I love the fact that since PA, gw has introduced:
-widespread "+1 to save" items introducing 1+ armor save models
-Models that can only be wounded on an X+
- "- damage" abilities
- 'only x number of wounds per phase' units
-Reworked res protocols
^that is FANTASTIC for the game overall, and some of the ways in which they've been introduced have been really excellent. Dreadnoughts having a -1 to damage ability at the same time as all marines go to W2 standard is absolutely great, gives a good, organic toolset to make your defenses more diverse and makes it harder to 'solve' the meta and find a single best offensive profile to run.
we've had 3 factions who at least have a part of their identity in 'durable' and all three of them use wildly different defensive mechanics and have wildly different weaponry that you want to use to attack them. The game has needed this addition FOREVER, EVERY EDITION has had one single best general 'type' of weapon and now, finally, they're getting that they can't rely on a single hit/wound/save system to determine how everything does or does not survive incoming attacks.
Late 8th books can stack up with 9th books, and mid 8th books, and early 8th books - admech was what...third in 8th? And there were so few changes from the index I literally bought the datacards and used a pen to update my index, there was like 5 changes to statlines.
The approach GW is taking with codexes in 9th is night and day better than the approach they took with the post-codex 8th content. Night and day. The worst thing they can do at this point is fail to carve off and discard the worst excesses of PA when they get around to the factions that are the most able to abuse it to win.
Okay, fair points, I agree with basically all of this. I just hope they do better on consistency than they've ever done before as well (mostly good signs on that so far, minus the Charadon crap).
Don't get me wrong - the entire concept of a codex release roll out where they go one at a time and prioritize factions that have an upcoming model release to coincide with the codex rather than the factions that need the attention the most is absolutely still manufactured discontent marketing.
All I'm disagreeing with is the fact that there's an escalation going on with the 9th dexes. If anything, what we're seeing right now is a de-escalation from the period of egregiously sloppy, utterly imbalanced, thrown together cash grab garbage that was the entire 2.0-PA period.
Someone did a much more thorough, much higher quality job with the early codex books of 9th (and hopefully all of them) than they did with the early codex books of 8th. I suspect the early codex books of 8th were the result of heavy crunch because they spent a TON of their development time making the index profiles for every single unit in existence, and only around Guard did they start to finally catch their breath, while with 9th they had that entire period where the monthly book was something an intern could have tossed together in 20 minutes, plus all the downtime created by the pandemic to thoroughly work through and actually test the 9th dexes.
Insectum7 wrote: Golden age was 4th Ed, imo. 2nd was great, but it was a strange game overall. 4th Ed was when the game was most mature as a war game and the customization in the codexes was at it's peak.
+1 The 4th Ed. Rule book was the last book to include more realistic abstract terrain rules (instead of true line of sight), actual templates for creating bunkers/scenery, tips for customizing and kit bashing models (something GW does not seem to encourage much anymore), kill team and campaign rules (today’s Kill Team and Crusade are not new concepts folks. . . ), and introduced a simple set of universal special rules that worked well for all factions. I like 2nd a lot but that is mostly from nostalgia. 4th felt more like a tabletop wargame should to me.
Grumblewartz wrote: From a player base perspective in my area, GW products have been in a fairly consistent golden age since 8th. New players all the time, vast explosion in the number of players. However, I wouldn't necessarily say it is entirely a 40k golden age. AOS, especially in the last two years, has entered boom town territory and is siphoning off veteran and new players alike in my area.
From a broader cultural perspective, I'd say this is the single greatest "golden age" that has existed in the history of the company. I have played warhammer fantasy, 40k, battlefleet gothic, etc. for 20+ years now, and I have never run into people who were aware of 40k (even vaguely) who didn't actually play 40k/lotr/etc. or frequented the comic/hobby stores. Now I run into people who are aware of it but are not part of the tabletop wargaming culture. I have no doubt that a huge part of that is Warhammer total war and, to a lesser extent, Space Marine, Dawn of War, etc. But it's also online content like the Astartes series, popularity of 40k at cosplay/comicon events (which themselves have grown over the past decade). I wouldn't say it is anywhere near going mainstream quite yet, but I've never seen anything like its brand recognition that it currently enjoys.
I have to agree on warhammer having a much wider reach as far as culture goes, many people who wouldn't have ever known of it do now. That said product placement doesn't matter when all it ends up as is a novelty to most. Building, painting, time you need to play the game and over all the heavy cost to play the game turns off most people as soon as they look into it. The amount of people I'd talked to who would start but say " hell no " once they view the cost and time spent to do so are massive. Granted that is just my take on it and what I've experienced. To me, some of that is a huge red flag. So yeah they can end up very well known but it won't translate into the main game unless they stop making their models out of solid gold and actually put real effort into a sustained, good edition. The burn and churn can only go so long, and without fresh blood by a large margain the system won't just keep pressing forward. The whales of today won't be so forever and normal folk see what we all know, it's way too pricey and only getting more so.
40k isn't cheap to be sure, but I always think the complaints about it lack a certain perspective.
Look at the cost of parts and tools to restore a car, or owning a motorcycle or sailboat. Heck, go look up the price of a good revolver. As hobbies go 40k isn't anywhere near the top of the price list.
Yeah, dont even get me started on restoring a car(been there done that and currently doing it). 40k is my least expensive hobby. Encroaching on Golf, but not there yet.
+1 The 4th Ed. Rule book was the last book to include more realistic abstract terrain rules (instead of true line of sight), actual templates for creating bunkers/scenery, tips for customizing and kit bashing models (something GW does not seem to encourage much anymore), kill team and campaign rules (today’s Kill Team and Crusade are not new concepts folks. . . ), and introduced a simple set of universal special rules that worked well for all factions. I like 2nd a lot but that is mostly from nostalgia. 4th felt more like a tabletop wargame should to me.
First off- respect your opinion, especially the part about "feeling like a wargame should" - While I love 9th, I do relate to this feeling; I wouldn't describe 9th as Wargame anymore either- Crusade makes it closer to something I would describe as an analogue MMORPG/ RTS game. I love that- I think it's a better fit for what I've always looked for in a game than a more conventional "Wargame."
If I wanted a wargame, I'd try matched play, and like many other Dakkanaughts, I might be disappointed.
So yes, I'll give a shout out to all the books that came before which tried (and failed) to do as good a job as Crusade has at being more than a mere wargame. The first BRB Kill Team was AWESOME, and I still prefer the way it handled upgrades as actual equipment; I've made my peace with equipment strategems, but I do prefer equipment that just behaves like... Well, equipment.
But Crusade is orders of magnitude beyond those first few experimental steps that designers took in messing with the scale of the 40k Core game. And Crusade could only work with 9th's attention to the impacts of game size- it's not a big deal to run an escalation campaign when there are no mechanical differences between a 500 point match and a 3000 point match. But now, it affects the number of detachments you bring, the size of the table, the number of secondaries/ agendas you pick and the missions you play- and all of these factors have trickle-down consequences both for other rules interactions and for the narrative. All of these things create the environment in which the Crusade system can thrive; without this, escalation has a limited impact on how the game feels beyond, "Oh, I get to bring another unit of ______"
I only have the SM dex, the DW supplement and the DE dex so far, so I can't talk about the bespoke Crusade content from other books, but the Dark Eldar Codex really showcased the potential for Crusade- the Raid Point/ Territory system in that book... It was like buying a Codex and loving it as a Codex, but also finding within it a separate minigame which is just as good or BETTER than the game for which it is supplement. I'm serious- fighting in Commorragh against other DE combat patrols for territory to see who can become the most powerful crime lord is at least as much fun as standard 40k. I'd say it's harder to find players, but it isn't really; if you've got a DE army that's 2k points, you can supply 5-8 players with all the models they need to play in your Drukhari-munda league.
I suspect that the DA supplement comes close in allowing you to play against the Fallen in a similar way. It almost makes me want to buy the DA supplement to see if there's more to the DA vs Fallen minigame than what was previewed on Warcom.
As for a few of the other things you mentioned: the bunker templates and such- those were cool; I liked them, and I'd like to see them return to WD. But there are a few things here: at the time that stuff was available, GW's boxed terrain offerings were nowhere near what they are now. Those templates could never compete with any of the terrain in the range, and of course it comes at a cost... But damn it makes a table look good. Also, at the time, there wasn't a community of e-start-ups doing paper templates like there is now.
And as for conversions: you're definitely correct that they don't provide as much source material for this as they used to- I had the Rogue Trader era 40k Compendium with the famous deodorant battle skimmer in it. But this sort of thing is still there if you're looking for it. That same DE dex I was raving about for it's Crusade content also gave us 6 new units without models. I think I'm going to mash-up the extra shard carbines from the scourges with the splinter rifles of my Kabalites to convert a unit of Trueborn. In time, I'll do up all 6 units, but I'm a Crusader, so my army has a lot of growing today before I can field Master HQ's and their favoured retinues.
If you want some additional conversion inspiration, I'd recommend the Realms of Slaanesh article in WD 461- if you haven't seen this yet, and you like Slaanesh or the Emperor's Children, it's pretty amazing, though it does stop short of detailed "How-to" pages, which is a shame. But it's pretty inspirational.
Just my two cents- Like I said, I respect the opinion, and I get it. I just like to show off the other side- it isn't going to be everyone's taste; I get that. But like I said earlier in this thread, I can't say it's my golden age yet, but it is on track to become that if they keep it up as they have so far.
Nostalgia is powerful. For me, 2nd Ed circa 96 to 97 was a Golden Age (when I started playing) followed by early 5th Edition (when my son started playing). Parking emotions, if we consider a timeframe to be a Golden Age based on the positive energy flowing around the game then, outside of General Discussion, it is possible that we are in about as Golden an Age as you could hope for during a pandemic.
8th Edition was great with its admitted moments of wonkiness. It did, though, start to spiral towards the end. Psychic Awakening seemed like a fever dream rules wise, not to mention a cynical cash grab.
The 9th Edition rules are, to me, an improved 8th Edition with Terrain and Mission meaning something. The 9th Edition Codexes, as Scotsman points out in good detail above, do seem to be a more balanced set of books harnessing the lessons of 8th Edition. The games and tourneys that I have played in (between lockdowns) have had great variety in terms of Top Gun.
Will 9th be a Golden Age looking back in twenty years? It will seem more Golden than 4th, 6th and 7th for sure.
The Newman wrote: 40k isn't cheap to be sure, but I always think the complaints about it lack a certain perspective.
Look at the cost of parts and tools to restore a car, or owning a motorcycle or sailboat. Heck, go look up the price of a good revolver. As hobbies go 40k isn't anywhere near the top of the price list.
I look at it in the cost of other games, this is far and away more expensive. Restoring a car this is not, and not even everyone does this as a hobby alone. As well the car restoration is done not only out of love but to build something of quality that can really rise in value, outside the outrageous cost of GW games it doesn't actually value up. Nor does it do as much for you as say a motorcycle or sailboat. I'd say as well the revolver might be more expensive than one army but that isn't true for all factions nor does it equal a couple or a few armies.
As much as people want to go round and round GW stuff is expensive and only growing more so each release.
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TangoTwoBravo wrote: Nostalgia is powerful. For me, 2nd Ed circa 96 to 97 was a Golden Age (when I started playing) followed by early 5th Edition (when my son started playing). Parking emotions, if we consider a timeframe to be a Golden Age based on the positive energy flowing around the game then, outside of General Discussion, it is possible that we are in about as Golden an Age as you could hope for during a pandemic.
8th Edition was great with its admitted moments of wonkiness. It did, though, start to spiral towards the end. Psychic Awakening seemed like a fever dream rules wise, not to mention a cynical cash grab.
The 9th Edition rules are, to me, an improved 8th Edition with Terrain and Mission meaning something. The 9th Edition Codexes, as Scotsman points out in good detail above, do seem to be a more balanced set of books harnessing the lessons of 8th Edition. The games and tourneys that I have played in (between lockdowns) have had great variety in terms of Top Gun.
Will 9th be a Golden Age looking back in twenty years? It will seem more Golden than 4th, 6th and 7th for sure.
I think its funny you think PA was the hiccup in the goodness of 40k, PA was what they want 40k to be and we'll see soon enough with 9th. IT isn't the bad it's what they want it to be for us, cynical cash grab on rule bloat. Time will tell but considering they proved me right on what PA would shake out to be, I am pretty confident they will again. It's the nature of this beast.
This is a golden era. Player skill is more important. I have seen good players play armies against "bad matchup" armies and they still win. And skew lists are less of a thing. You don't really see that many skew lists (except maybe something like Magnus plus Mortarion).
Almost all armies have HQs, troops, etc etc. Very few army lists try and go overboard and end up being a meta tounament beating list.
The lists no longer play themselves. A good player can take a "subpar" faction he is familiar with and still have a decent chance at beating a poor player piloting an internet list.
The Newman wrote: 40k isn't cheap to be sure, but I always think the complaints about it lack a certain perspective.
Look at the cost of parts and tools to restore a car, or owning a motorcycle or sailboat. Heck, go look up the price of a good revolver. As hobbies go 40k isn't anywhere near the top of the price list.
40k isn't expensive to be sure, but I always think the complaints about it lack a certain perspective.
Look at the low cost of buying a second hand guitar and learning to play, or owning a single games console and a few games. Heck, go look up the price of a good gym membership. As hobbies go 40k isn't anywhere near the bottom of the price list.
The "well there are more expensive hobbies" is a moot point. There's always a more expensive hobby.
Most people talking about price are either talking about prices VS prices a few years ago, or from the perspective of countries outside the US/Eurosphere, and value for money, something GW have been doing increasingly poorly on, between the last few years of annual price "adjustments", the finecast debacle, and the hikes to the antipodes. Outside of maybe "travel" which is a loose-y goose-y one at best, combining a whole slew of my interests, warhammer is far and away my most expensive hobby. And I have a whole bunch of weird, stupid hobbies, that I can't even ride, like a motorcycle, or murder people with, like a revolver.
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Racerguy180 wrote: #1 could literally be anything if you go by Dakka's track record.
Yeah, if anything, this thread is pretty indicative that there is no consensus here, really. Dakka has black knights, white knights, whales, consoomers, anti-GW grognards, and also just a bunch of regular humans who kinda don't fall smoothly into any bracket...
...just like *gasp* almost any cross-section of society.
I never get tired of the "see guys it's not so bad collecting luxury cars is more expensive!" Argument. When compared to other wargames, you know the hobby of miniature wargaming of which Warhammer is just one part of, gw is far and away the most expensive relative to what you need to field a typical force. Price per model it's not but when you factor in how much you need it skyrockets.
Wayniac wrote: I never get tired of the "see guys it's not so bad collecting luxury cars is more expensive!" Argument. When compared to other wargames, you know the hobby of miniature wargaming of which Warhammer is just one part of, gw is far and away the most expensive relative to what you need to field a typical force. Price per model it's not but when you factor in how much you need it skyrockets.
Yeah, the argument that it's not expensive seems to ignore the concept of value in favour of just directly comparing prices. 40k is neither the most expensive nor cheapest hobby but that's not really important to most people. The most important thing is whether it feels like good value and usually that means comparing it to similar hobbies or looking at the time investment vs cost. 40k is an expensive wargame. It's expensive in absolute terms (the models cost a lot for what they are) and it's expensive in relative terms (very few non-GW wargames are as expensive to get to a point where you are playing a standard game). OTOH many players have models they bought over a decade ago still in use so there is some long-term value in your initial investment.
For a new player, though, the costs can be prohibitive and I think a big part of that problem is that GW don't provide the full rules for free. They say they do, but the detachment rules and missions aren't in the free rules PDF. GW are one of the only remaining gaming companies that charge for the core rules, then they double down by charging for faction rules on top of that too. I've seen more than one player drift away from the hobby when they realise they'll need to spend over £100 just to get the rules and painting materials needed before they can even start thinking about putting an army together. Even then, more of them get disillusioned when it turns out the army they loved the look of and background for is terrible in the game. Most new players don't expect to win their games when they start out but seeing the realisation dawn that they've sunk hundreds of pounds into an army that sucks is really, really disheartening.
Until GW addresses these issues I'm not sure we can call any time period a Golden Age.
Wayniac wrote: I never get tired of the "see guys it's not so bad collecting luxury cars is more expensive!" Argument. When compared to other wargames, you know the hobby of miniature wargaming of which Warhammer is just one part of, gw is far and away the most expensive relative to what you need to field a typical force. Price per model it's not but when you factor in how much you need it skyrockets.
Yeah, the argument that it's not expensive seems to ignore the concept of value in favour of just directly comparing prices. 40k is neither the most expensive nor cheapest hobby but that's not really important to most people. The most important thing is whether it feels like good value and usually that means comparing it to similar hobbies or looking at the time investment vs cost. 40k is an expensive wargame. It's expensive in absolute terms (the models cost a lot for what they are) and it's expensive in relative terms (very few non-GW wargames are as expensive to get to a point where you are playing a standard game). OTOH many players have models they bought over a decade ago still in use so there is some long-term value in your initial investment.
For a new player, though, the costs can be prohibitive and I think a big part of that problem is that GW don't provide the full rules for free. They say they do, but the detachment rules and missions aren't in the free rules PDF. GW are one of the only remaining gaming companies that charge for the core rules, then they double down by charging for faction rules on top of that too. I've seen more than one player drift away from the hobby when they realise they'll need to spend over £100 just to get the rules and painting materials needed before they can even start thinking about putting an army together. Even then, more of them get disillusioned when it turns out the army they loved the look of and background for is terrible in the game. Most new players don't expect to win their games when they start out but seeing the realisation dawn that they've sunk hundreds of pounds into an army that sucks is really, really disheartening.
Until GW addresses these issues I'm not sure we can call any time period a Golden Age.
Yes and given how despite all of that GW is more successful than ever, they will never see it as an issue that needs to be fixed. It's a testament to how GW fans are that these issues are glossed over or made out to not be a big deal, and therefore not something worth fixing in the first place.
Wayniac wrote: I never get tired of the "see guys it's not so bad collecting luxury cars is more expensive!" Argument. When compared to other wargames, you know the hobby of miniature wargaming of which Warhammer is just one part of, gw is far and away the most expensive relative to what you need to field a typical force. Price per model it's not but when you factor in how much you need it skyrockets.
Yeah. For example, try building a force for a 15mm ww2 game. You need a similar number of miniatures typically for a company level game as you do for 2000 points of a GW flagship game. The miniatures are about 1/2 the size, but are they 1/2 the price? Naw it's more like 1/10th. I'm building russians (the traditional "horde army" in ww2 games) and one single 40$ box of plastic infantry contained all the rifle conscripts I needed for my army - 130 of them. all told my 2000pt army cost me less than 200 dollars to build, including the relevant rulebook, which also got me missions from the campaign it was centered on and effectively was a 'codex' for 4 different armies instead of just the one I was building.
obviously, art generation is going to be massively cheaper for a historical game as opposed to an original scifi or fantasy game, because nobody owns a tank, but every single page of this 300 page book that I got for 35$ is covered in studio-painted miniatures in terrain and many pages included original drawings/diagrams copyright the company that made the game, they're not just using public domain photos from WW2.
It's just that there's enough of a profit margin present in, for example a GW codex, that you can pretty easily make a book three times the length, drop the cost by 40% and still have a profitable product.
I think the votes would fall almost exactly along the lines of who has a shiney new 9th edition codex full of OP toys, and who is still getting their butt kicked with 1W Power armor 8th rules.
The golden age?
Ruleswise, that is debatable, still a better than average edition but debatable.
Modelwise/ factionsrulewise?
Between Eldar sculpts older than posters on this forum factions and sub archetypes being removed recently to legends despite them being lorewise incredibly relevant (cue drop troops for AM not every sector has marine babysitters for assaults... NVM the footsoldiers of chaos being not represented...)
eehhh
That is a very debatable argument.
And the pricing certainly didn't get lower, especially in countries like Japan, or anyone not using £ really due to fantasy conversion rates ala GW.
The "well there are more expensive hobbies" is a moot point. There's always a more expensive hobby.
Most people talking about price are either talking about prices VS prices a few years ago, or from the perspective of countries outside the US/Eurosphere, and value for money, something GW have been doing increasingly poorly on, between the last few years of annual price "adjustments", the finecast debacle, and the hikes to the antipodes. Outside of maybe "travel" which is a loose-y goose-y one at best, combining a whole slew of my interests, warhammer is far and away my most expensive hobby. And I have a whole bunch of weird, stupid hobbies, that I can't even ride, like a motorcycle, or murder people with, like a revolver.
True, but if you consider the most popular hobbies then it really isn't a very expensive one. For example here a lot of people pay to watch football games on tv or at the stadium, which is even more expensive, go out to the clubs on the weekend and play videogames. It is even extremely common to do all three activities and each one of those "hobbies" alone is actually much more expensive than completing a 2000-3000 points army over a period of 2-3 years. In the long run all of them are extremely more expensive than wargaming.
This hobby requires a high investment at the beginning, that's what makes it gatekeeping for many. But I'd rather pay 200 in a day and be ok for an year than paying 300+ over the whole year for the same purpose (aka enjoying an hobby). Not to mention that the miniatures can be sold at any time, getting back some of amount that has been invested. That is not true for many other hobbies, even for videogames and their consoles since their values drop dramatically after a few years, if not even months.
So, why playing at videogames is considered a "cheap enough" or reasonable hobby and wargaming is not? Or getting a couple of drinks each ven and sat?
Well, today will probably be the golden age of 40K for the majority of players that start now (especially if they are in their early teens) and stick with it / return to the game after dropping out in their later teens / early 20s.
For those that went through that "first-giddy-teenage-love-with-warhammer" experience in a previous edition, that "golden age" isn't coming back.
Sunny Side Up wrote: Well, today will probably be the golden age of 40K for the majority of players that start now (especially if they are in their early teens) and stick with it / return to the game after dropping out in their later teens / early 20s.
For those that went through that "first-giddy-teenage-love-with-warhammer" experience in a previous edition, that "golden age" isn't coming back.
Thats a very good point, too. I started in 1995 so I saw what I would consider the "golden age" as 3rd/4th edition. What we have now is sort of like the Byzantine Empire; it's good enough but a pale shadow of the old glory.
So, why playing at videogames is considered a "cheap enough" or reasonable hobby and wargaming is not? Or getting a couple of drinks each ven and sat?
Video games can be an extremely extremely cheap hobby if you're OK with being a couple years behind the super-hotness. I've been basicaly buying games once they go on the first 66-75% off sale on steam and I'm able to get pretty great enjoyment out of them. Between old AAA games and indy titles I rarely need to spend over like 20$ a month on games.
Video games can be an extremely extremely cheap hobby if you're OK with being a couple years behind the super-hotness. I've been basicaly buying games once they go on the first 66-75% off sale on steam and I'm able to get pretty great enjoyment out of them. Between old AAA games and indy titles I rarely need to spend over like 20$ a month on games.
Wargaming can also be super cheap if you only buy used lots with a huge discount price. I actually never bought a single GW product at full retail price in my life, over 20+ years in the hobby: always at 25% or better discount. Used stuff even at 70-80% off. Painting the models also can require just 3-5 colours, if you go for the cheap route and the most prevailing tone could be applied by a colored primer spray.
I don't spend over 20$ a month on average for wargaming for example, and I have more than 10k points of models.
Video games can be an extremely extremely cheap hobby if you're OK with being a couple years behind the super-hotness. I've been basicaly buying games once they go on the first 66-75% off sale on steam and I'm able to get pretty great enjoyment out of them. Between old AAA games and indy titles I rarely need to spend over like 20$ a month on games.
Wargaming can also be super cheap if you only buy used lots with a huge discount price. I actually never bought a single GW product at full retail price in my life, over 20+ years in the hobby: always at 25% or better discount. Used stuff even at 70-80% off. Painting the models also can require just 3-5 colours, if you go for the cheap route and the most prevailing tone could be applied by a colored primer spray.
I don't spend over 20$ a month on average for wargaming for example, and I have more than 10k points of models.
WARGAMING can be a very cheap hobby - many wargamers do tons of custom scratch-build hobby work to basicaly build their terrain and accessories out of dollar store junk and trash (check out Eric's Hobby Workshop on youtube for some very fun and relaxing trash terrain videos, I use his techniques all the time).
The Games Workshop Hobby TM is almost always more expensive than any given other wargame, though. When people say 'gw is expensive' this is what they're comparing it to: my ability to buy a 2000pt historical ww2 army with no discount or bargain-hunting for the same price you can get a beaten up thick coated sloppily glued broken secondhand GW army. Or my ability to get a functional Infinity army by buying like 3 boxes of figs and downloading the free rulebook and integrated army-building app.
More axpensive than any other (or most of) wargame I agree, more expensive than the majority of the most popular hobbies is what I believe to be completely wrong.
Blackie wrote: More axpensive than any other (or most of) wargame I agree, more expensive than the majority of the most popular hobbies is what I believe to be completely wrong.
I'm not even sure that's true. Depends what you classify as "the most popular hobbies". As an example, I play tennis and guitar as my other main hobbies. My wife plays chess, my brother plays golf and does jigsaw puzzles. Along with most of my friends I play video games. Of all of those only golf is arguably more expensive as an ongoing hobby.
Yes, my guitar and games console cost more than any single wargames purchase I've made, and a set of golf clubs is definitely not cheap. But in all those cases, the expenditure is usually a one-off or very infrequent. My main guitar is now over 20 years old, for example, so the cost per year of that hobby is miniscule. It's theoretically possible to have bought, say, an Eldar army 20 years ago and use it unchanged for all that time, thereby making the GW Hobby (tm) fairly cheap. But even then you'd have rulebooks and Codexes to buy at the rate of one of each every edition, which adds up over time. More realistically, players will spend a decent amount each edition updating their army as the edition churn changes what's good and what isn't. That's not always a bad thing because part of the point of a hobby is spending time doing something you enjoy and many people enjoy the process of building and painting armies.
Blackie wrote: More axpensive than any other (or most of) wargame I agree, more expensive than the majority of the most popular hobbies is what I believe to be completely wrong.
The majority of hobbies are rather cheap. This is for no better reason than the average/modal income isn't that high and couldn't afford much GW while keeping home and family.
The Newman wrote: 40k isn't cheap to be sure, but I always think the complaints about it lack a certain perspective.
Look at the cost of parts and tools to restore a car, or owning a motorcycle or sailboat. Heck, go look up the price of a good revolver. As hobbies go 40k isn't anywhere near the top of the price list.
You could always compare it to owning a fully functional nuclear reactor as a hobby too. Or you know, look at hobbies like scale modeling, where the largest, most detailed kits usually go for as much as standard GW fare.
The Newman wrote: 40k isn't cheap to be sure, but I always think the complaints about it lack a certain perspective.
Look at the cost of parts and tools to restore a car, or owning a motorcycle or sailboat. Heck, go look up the price of a good revolver. As hobbies go 40k isn't anywhere near the top of the price list.
You could always compare it to owning a fully functional nuclear reactor as a hobby too. Or you know, look at hobbies like scale modeling, where the largest, most detailed kits usually go for as much as standard GW fare.
(AKA the reason Tau didn't actually capture the japanese market.)
"So, this model, it is about 1/2 the size of the gundam I just bought, correct?"
"Yes."
"And it has no articulation"
"Nope"
"The plastic is also not colored so if I don't paint it it doesn't look roughly correct"
Blackie wrote: More axpensive than any other (or most of) wargame I agree, more expensive than the majority of the most popular hobbies is what I believe to be completely wrong.
The majority of hobbies are rather cheap.
In my country the most popular hobbies are:
1) Watching sports live or on tv/other platforms
2) Going to the clubs and drinking
3) Videogames
4) Riding a bike or motorcycle
5) Comics
6) Playing one or more instruments
All much more expensive than wargaming in the long period, and lots of people have multiple of those options as their hobbies. There are also other hobbies that aren't super popular but still not more uncommon but still much more expensive than wargaming like snowboarding, photography or soft air. Among the very popular hobbies maybe just reading is the one than is reasonably cheaper than wargaming, as long as comics are not involved.
Blackie wrote: More axpensive than any other (or most of) wargame I agree, more expensive than the majority of the most popular hobbies is what I believe to be completely wrong.
I'm not even sure that's true. Depends what you classify as "the most popular hobbies". As an example, I play tennis and guitar as my other main hobbies. My wife plays chess, my brother plays golf and does jigsaw puzzles. Along with most of my friends I play video games. Of all of those only golf is arguably more expensive as an ongoing hobby.
Yes, my guitar and games console cost more than any single wargames purchase I've made, and a set of golf clubs is definitely not cheap. But in all those cases, the expenditure is usually a one-off or very infrequent. My main guitar is now over 20 years old, for example, so the cost per year of that hobby is miniscule. It's theoretically possible to have bought, say, an Eldar army 20 years ago and use it unchanged for all that time, thereby making the GW Hobby (tm) fairly cheap. But even then you'd have rulebooks and Codexes to buy at the rate of one of each every edition, which adds up over time. More realistically, players will spend a decent amount each edition updating their army as the edition churn changes what's good and what isn't. That's not always a bad thing because part of the point of a hobby is spending time doing something you enjoy and many people enjoy the process of building and painting armies.
Cost per year can be minuscule as well in wargaming. You can litterally just buy a cheap used lot on ebay and stick with that for years, if not for decades, just needing to buy the codexes at most. And some people play with free sources of rules anyway.
According to the internet in the UK the most popular hobbies are... reading, walking, eating out and gardening. Eating out could cost my than my model habit, though there is a wide range of prices and part of that involved money you have to spend on sustenance anyhow. Gardening is another widely varying one, but for the majority is quite cheap.
According to eurostat most common pastime is watching TV (cost starting at £159 per year, plus electricity and equipment) - about half their free time is spent doing this, followed by socialising. Between 20-25% of free time is spent on sport and hobbies.
(AKA the reason Tau didn't actually capture the japanese market.)
"So, this model, it is about 1/2 the size of the gundam I just bought, correct?"
"Yes."
"And it has no articulation"
"Nope"
"The plastic is also not colored so if I don't paint it it doesn't look roughly correct"
"Yep, gray plastic"
"And it costs... more?"
I'm pretty sure Tau weren't intended to capture the Japanese market, they were intended to capitalize on the burgeoning anime craze and get all the Western anime fans interested in tabletop wargaming.
(AKA the reason Tau didn't actually capture the japanese market.)
"So, this model, it is about 1/2 the size of the gundam I just bought, correct?"
"Yes."
"And it has no articulation"
"Nope"
"The plastic is also not colored so if I don't paint it it doesn't look roughly correct"
"Yep, gray plastic"
"And it costs... more?"
I'm pretty sure Tau weren't intended to capture the Japanese market, they were intended to capitalize on the burgeoning anime craze and get all the Western anime fans interested in tabletop wargaming.
Capture the market by delivering none of the quality and none of the cost of entry whatsoever.
I've been playing since 3rd edition, and this is my favourite time to be in the hobby, but I've felt that about other times too. I'm sure there will be another golden age in the future too.
I don't think there has really been a time I didn't like the game lol.
Wayniac wrote: I never get tired of the "see guys it's not so bad collecting luxury cars is more expensive!" Argument. When compared to other wargames, you know the hobby of miniature wargaming of which Warhammer is just one part of, gw is far and away the most expensive relative to what you need to field a typical force. Price per model it's not but when you factor in how much you need it skyrockets.
Youre assuming people are actually interested in those other wargames....
What you say is not strictly true. Look at wmh. A competitive infernals army can set you back thr best part of a grande, and a lot of the legacy stuff is competitively worthless. Outside of this, I've built lists in the past (eg charge of the horselords and vlad 3) that would make your eyes water. Pp models are exorbitant, especially outside of the US and quality is often questionable. Never mind the fact there are other approaches to playing 40k (ie avoid the competitive scene, gamebuild,buy second hand eyc) that drastically reduce their high costs. It all depends on how you play and who you play with.
And in fairness to gw, 40k is only one way of approaching the game. Kill team is always an option and if you're up for specialist games like shadespire, warcry or newcromunda the buy in is very, very reasonable for very enjoyable games.
In any case, price isn't everything. Value for money often comes up, and as an enjoyer of the painting side, when I put 4 hours into each model, a box that cost me £30 or whatever is great value, never mind the fact I'll be using these dudes in 20 years. I can confirm that after having stripped some pp iron fangs (OK, pp, but the same counts for gw...) whose tab said 2003, and I've had them since the mid naughties.
Also 'Other hobbies are expensive is an extremely valid point. All hobbies compete for your time, for your money, for your effort. Not even hobbies. Commodities Pint of beer costs me £4. A bottle of decent whiskey costs me £60. And I've shelled out a lot more than that fir a bottle!The former lasts 20 minutes, the latter a month or less unless its very very special (ah, my lagavulin....). Filling my car with diesel is £40 and I literally just burn it up. My wife's best friend is a serious runner. She will quite literally run through a £200 pair of trainers in a month or two. And frankly, none of this is as miserable as being a Scottish football season ticket holder for a team that's struggling. You want to talk commitment? Value for money? 40k might cost me some, but at least I'm inside and warm, and not cold, wet, shivering and worse, watching miserable football for an afternoon. :p (but its for Mrs deadnight, so you know, I stoically grin and bear it)
Everything else costs time, money, effort or all 3 crying out that you can only compare 40k to some hobbies of your choosing that you can compare favourably whilst ignoring everything else is verging on the intellectually dishonest. Wargaming is a hobby I've loved for half my life. I've played and enjoyed games and models outside of the gw sphere for years. But the last 3 years? Gw all the way. Frankly I've not enjoyed my painting modelling and gaming this much in years.
Sunny Side Up wrote: Well, today will probably be the golden age of 40K for the majority of players that start now (especially if they are in their early teens) and stick with it / return to the game after dropping out in their later teens / early 20s.
For those that went through that "first-giddy-teenage-love-with-warhammer" experience in a previous edition, that "golden age" isn't coming back.
Thats a very good point, too. I started in 1995 so I saw what I would consider the "golden age" as 3rd/4th edition. What we have now is sort of like the Byzantine Empire; it's good enough but a pale shadow of the old glory.
This is a good point, and interestingly enough, it's why 8th felt good to me when everyone else was posting negatively: in my formative GW years, 1989-1997, my favourite army was GSC, and there was a real sense of army as warband (Blanchitsu style!). Beyond my formative years, there were Witch Hunters- Sisters plus Inquisitors.
Then those things disappeared for a decade.
When they came back, so did I. To say that golden ages can't return is not true. When I saw the GSC dex at the end of 7th, my entire body went numb. I had been telling everyone for decades about the army I used to love that was now gone. It felt like someone in the games studio might have been one of the kids I taught or worked with in rec programs all grown up; obviously that isn't true- they're all Brits and I'm a Cannuck. But I couldn't shake the feeling that designers were reading my mind.
Two months later, they announced new plastic Sisters. Eight months after that, I was holding in my hand a plastic Rogue Trader! Then there were two more. And an Ambull, and a Zoat! And a Xenos Inquisitor!
And I've been saying since the Witch Hunter dex that Celestians should have shields and CC weapons. I'm sure you've seen today's Warcom article. The trend is continuing in 9th, though they had to put out the fantasy WHQ game before the 40k version, which could come in 2022, or more likely early 2023. Trueborn, and Blood Brides had the same feeling, but didn't come with models... Yet. But Celestians with shields didn't drop right away either.
I want GW to get spammed with hundreds of pics of converted Trueborn, Blood Brides and Haemoxytes to let them know that we want this. I do believe it will come. We are still too early in the edition to see how far GW will go with these kinds of updates- squig riders aren't exactly Cyboars, and Paragons and Castigators aren't echoes from the past either...
Looking forward to seeing how it continues to unfold.
I started in early 4th ed and left midway through 5th ed. I returned at the start of 8th. I think the idea of a “golden age” is a nostalgic thing, we tend it forget the bad parts of the hobby when we look back and gloss over the bad parts. Also when you look at the editions you have to remember how old you were at the time and how you played and experienced the game, mostly it was school clubs and very relaxed games back then.
Also miniature gaming isn’t the most expensive hobby going, I’ve spent more money on gyms and associated costs for fitness than I have for mini’s (wasted more money on stupid gimmick supplements as well). The problem is GW is on the high end price wise, other systems are stupidly cheaper compared to it. People not in on the hobby will baulk at the idea of mini’s (and super cereal scale modelling) because of the idea of paying that much for plastic, though dropping £30 on a tub of flavoured milk by-products is completely acceptable to most.
Wayniac wrote: I never get tired of the "see guys it's not so bad collecting luxury cars is more expensive!" Argument. When compared to other wargames, you know the hobby of miniature wargaming of which Warhammer is just one part of, gw is far and away the most expensive relative to what you need to field a typical force. Price per model it's not but when you factor in how much you need it skyrockets.
Youre assuming people are actually interested in those other wargames....
What you say is not strictly true. Look at wmh. A competitive infernals army can set you back thr best part of a grande, and a lot of the legacy stuff is competitively worthless. Outside of this, I've built lists in the past (eg charge of the horselords and vlad 3) that would make your eyes water. Pp models are exorbitant, especially outside of the US and quality is often questionable. Never mind the fact there are other approaches to playing 40k (ie avoid the competitive scene, gamebuild,buy second hand eyc) that drastically reduce their high costs. It all depends on how you play and who you play with.
And in fairness to gw, 40k is only one way of approaching the game. Kill team is always an option and if you're up for specialist games like shadespire, warcry or newcromunda the buy in is very, very reasonable for very enjoyable games.
In any case, price isn't everything. Value for money often comes up, and as an enjoyer of the painting side, when I put 4 hours into each model, a box that cost me £30 or whatever is great value, never mind the fact I'll be using these dudes in 20 years. I can confirm that after having stripped some pp iron fangs (OK, pp, but the same counts for gw...) whose tab said 2003, and I've had them since the mid naughties.
Also 'Other hobbies are expensive is an extremely valid point. All hobbies compete for your time, for your money, for your effort. Not even hobbies. Commodities Pint of beer costs me £4. A bottle of decent whiskey costs me £60. And I've shelled out a lot more than that fir a bottle!The former lasts 20 minutes, the latter a month or less unless its very very special (ah, my lagavulin....). Filling my car with diesel is £40 and I literally just burn it up. My wife's best friend is a serious runner. She will quite literally run through a £200 pair of trainers in a month or two. And frankly, none of this is as miserable as being a Scottish football season ticket holder for a team that's struggling. You want to talk commitment? Value for money? 40k might cost me some, but at least I'm inside and warm, and not cold, wet, shivering and worse, watching miserable football for an afternoon. :p (but its for Mrs deadnight, so you know, I stoically grin and bear it)
Everything else costs time, money, effort or all 3 crying out that you can only compare 40k to some hobbies of your choosing that you can compare favourably whilst ignoring everything else is verging on the intellectually dishonest. Wargaming is a hobby I've loved for half my life. I've played and enjoyed games and models outside of the gw sphere for years. But the last 3 years? Gw all the way. Frankly I've not enjoyed my painting modelling and gaming this much in years.
Sunny Side Up wrote: Well, today will probably be the golden age of 40K for the majority of players that start now (especially if they are in their early teens) and stick with it / return to the game after dropping out in their later teens / early 20s.
For those that went through that "first-giddy-teenage-love-with-warhammer" experience in a previous edition, that "golden age" isn't coming back.
(shrugs) My own "Golden Age" Warhammer-wise is WHFB 3rd ed, not 40k.
I started 40k in the closing days of RT & my overall favorite era of play to date has been 3rd/4th ed.
The "well there are more expensive hobbies" is a moot point. There's always a more expensive hobby.
Most people talking about price are either talking about prices VS prices a few years ago, or from the perspective of countries outside the US/Eurosphere, and value for money, something GW have been doing increasingly poorly on, between the last few years of annual price "adjustments", the finecast debacle, and the hikes to the antipodes. Outside of maybe "travel" which is a loose-y goose-y one at best, combining a whole slew of my interests, warhammer is far and away my most expensive hobby. And I have a whole bunch of weird, stupid hobbies, that I can't even ride, like a motorcycle, or murder people with, like a revolver.
True, but if you consider the most popular hobbies then it really isn't a very expensive one. For example here a lot of people pay to watch football games on tv or at the stadium, which is even more expensive, go out to the clubs on the weekend and play videogames. It is even extremely common to do all three activities and each one of those "hobbies" alone is actually much more expensive than completing a 2000-3000 points army over a period of 2-3 years. In the long run all of them are extremely more expensive than wargaming.
This hobby requires a high investment at the beginning, that's what makes it gatekeeping for many. But I'd rather pay 200 in a day and be ok for an year than paying 300+ over the whole year for the same purpose (aka enjoying an hobby). Not to mention that the miniatures can be sold at any time, getting back some of amount that has been invested. That is not true for many other hobbies, even for videogames and their consoles since their values drop dramatically after a few years, if not even months.
So, why playing at videogames is considered a "cheap enough" or reasonable hobby and wargaming is not? Or getting a couple of drinks each ven and sat?
Video game playing is far cheaper. If you know what you are doing a comp isn't a hard process, getting some components currently might be but hopefully that won't be so forever. Game consoles are far cheaper. The cash outlay for the system is around the cost of a small to moderate army and if you get games ? Even that is cheaper when you look at keeping up with burn and churn of books and models that are usable in your army from book to book. If you use something like game pass you are spending much less and have instant use on hand as opposed to all the nuance that goes into getting a game ready let alone played of warhammer.
Now I love warhammer, I have for a long time but this isn't the cheaper choice neither in cash or more importantly as you get older in time.
On the subject of other hobbies in general. anything that is not a necessity is generally considered an "extra" expense.
Our hobbies also change over time given our age and life situation.
When i was in my teens and 20s i was an avid mountainbiker and off road trail and street (motorcycle) rider. while i still have my mountain bike i don't get to use it much anymore. as one does not go into the wilderness areas alone in case of emergencies.
so you have to align
.weather
.travel time
.partners
.maintenance
etc.
i really stopped when i ran out of people to go with,
I also enjoy firearms and shooting sports, but the cost is currently prohibitive for a casual hobby and i have to travel to specific locations to engage in it.
I am also a huge metal head and spend a good chunk of money on physical albums, merch and concerts
I am an old school (started before anime was a "thing": in the USA in the early 80s) anime fan...and you do not want to see the price tag for all the DVDs, laser discs, toys, models, figures, plushies, manga, cosplay etc.. i have spent over the years.
Mini gaming has currently become my main hobby for very simple reasons
.it is social activity with friends
.we play indoors so weather is not an issue
.it is not physically exhausting
.one my models are built and painted there is no additional cost
.it provides non repetitive entertainment as no 2 games are the same.
So yes all hobbies by their very nature are expensive. the big rub with GW in particular is the buy in cost is greater than just about any other game system to have a complete playable force.
we can go through the nuts and bolts of production costs, overhead, markup etc... but the reality is that you are paying a premium for the IP. much like you do when you buy any other "brand name" item.
The lore and market share makes them the top dog in available player base even if they are not the best at making a game system and the minis are overpriced. .
The_Real_Chris wrote: According to the internet in the UK the most popular hobbies are... reading, walking, eating out and gardening. Eating out could cost my than my model habit, though there is a wide range of prices and part of that involved money you have to spend on sustenance anyhow. Gardening is another widely varying one, but for the majority is quite cheap.
According to eurostat most common pastime is watching TV (cost starting at £159 per year, plus electricity and equipment) - about half their free time is spent doing this, followed by socialising. Between 20-25% of free time is spent on sport and hobbies.
In the UK, reading? Surprised but good news!
Eurostat, tho, OMG that is depressing. People watch TV then talk about it. That fact indeed explains why The world is drowning in a sea of cultish delusion.
Video game playing is far cheaper. If you know what you are doing a comp isn't a hard process, getting some components currently might be but hopefully that won't be so forever. Game consoles are far cheaper. The cash outlay for the system is around the cost of a small to moderate army and if you get games ? Even that is cheaper when you look at keeping up with burn and churn of books and models that are usable in your army from book to book. If you use something like game pass you are spending much less and have instant use on hand as opposed to all the nuance that goes into getting a game ready let alone played of warhammer.
Now I love warhammer, I have for a long time but this isn't the cheaper choice neither in cash or more importantly as you get older in time.
Correction. It can be far cheaper.
I just spent a hundred quid on valhalla. No regrets, this game is amazing. But That's also a rulebook and 3 factions boxes for necromunda.
Back when I got it, and to be fair I got a great deal, I dropped £400 on my xbox 1 and a whole bunch of games. Great investment, I love it greatly and get a lot of enjoyment out of it etc, but it's hardly cheap. Gamepass is still a hundred quid a year for games you might never actually play as well. And in my 30 odd years of playing video games I've played plenty that once you play through once in a couple of hours, you're done with them since the replay value is nil. Not a great return on twenty quid, or even sixty. I can't say the same for my 40k dudes or wmh dudes - I've had some of my stuff for half my life now and still enjoy fielding them.
With respect,if you are 'in the know' for ttg's you can cut right down on the costs too. Similarly, 'keeping up with the churn and burn' isn't a requirement unless you insist on chasing thw meta.Oldcromunda was kept alive by fans for 20 years without either new models or books. In any case while I'm.not disagreeing, Im pretty sure if you kept chasing the dragon for the very latest computery wotsits as well, it would verge on the exorbitant very very quickly.
The truth is that if you're even a little bit savvy, it's not hard to save on your money, whether that's video games or table top games. You're right, the time component is huge for ttgs, but I dont mind it. I spent 3 hours painting bronze armour on my iron Golems last night. Just the bronze, lol. In terms of cost, warhammer or whatever your choice of game is, might cost a bit but if you're into that kind of thing, the value is also there.
Video game playing is far cheaper. If you know what you are doing a comp isn't a hard process, getting some components currently might be but hopefully that won't be so forever. Game consoles are far cheaper. The cash outlay for the system is around the cost of a small to moderate army and if you get games ? Even that is cheaper when you look at keeping up with burn and churn of books and models that are usable in your army from book to book. If you use something like game pass you are spending much less and have instant use on hand as opposed to all the nuance that goes into getting a game ready let alone played of warhammer.
Now I love warhammer, I have for a long time but this isn't the cheaper choice neither in cash or more importantly as you get older in time.
I disagree. Even buying a single new game per month is utterly expensive. And consolles/pc must be updated very frequently, every 3-4 years maybe? So in the long period videogaming is very expensive. At least that's what most of the videogamers does. Of course if you're just interested to play a couple of games per year then it's far cheaper but at that point it's not your primary hobby. But at the same time you might stay in the wargaming hobby without investing much. I haven't bought a single model between 2017-2020, just a few sprays and paints. If I consider the entire amount I paid, including the value of gifts I've received, since when I started (22-23 years now) it's definitely less than 20$ per month, and I have over 10K points of models. The amount of cash required to watch on tv the football team that I support is higher, a bit more than 30$ per month. And that is something that millions are willing to do without blinking an eye.
All my friends' hobbies are far more expensive than warhammer, some of my other hobbies also are. Let's not even mention smoking, which is also bad for people's health.
Our hobby is very expensive to start, but in the long period it really isn't compared to lots of other popular hobbies and activities.
About the matter of the topic I think that for people who started in the last 10ish years (during 6th, 7th or 8th) this is definitely the golden age of 40k. Core mechanics are quite strong and after ages there's balance between the shooting and close combat phases. Most competitive lists using 9th edition codexes finally look like reasonable collections of models rather than super skew builds. There's also a vast amount of factions that aren't that far from the top tiers, which is also healthy.
You can say the same about most hobbies though. Most hobbies can be really expensive if you want it to be, or quite cheap. Most people who play video games probably don't average one new release a month, for example. If you play an instrument you could spend thousands on a top-quality instrument or a few hundred and still get something that will last, literally, a lifetime if taken care of. Some of the people I play tennis with have only spent money on club membership and a pair of trainers about once every 3 years. They're using the same racquet they had 5 years ago and it's still perfectly fine.
Wargaming's no different. You can scour eBay looking for the best deals, buy cheaper paints and brushes and build terrain from scratch for next to nothing, or you can buy an entire FW army and get it pro-painted for more money than most people spend buying a car. The fact remains that relative to other wargames, GW's stuff is expensive both in absolute terms and, especially, in relative terms when you consider that's needed to play a standard game.
Slipspace wrote: or you can buy an entire FW army and get it pro-painted for more money than most people spend buying a car. .
I want to see an escher tank company and orlock drop trooper company.
Slipspace wrote: or The fact remains that relative to other wargames, GW's stuff is expensive both in absolute terms and, especially, in relative terms when you consider that's needed to play a standard game.
I disagree somewat though, Slipspace. While you are not wrong, and yes, gw stuff is at the higher end snd is more expensive than a number of 'budget' alternatives for sure I've given the example previously of warmachine which has some disgusting price points for competitive builds. Infinity will cost you as well, but for the terrain, not the models. There are also plenty boutique miniatures whose costs are frightening. 'Standard' games are a myth, there's never been more ways of playing.
On the other end of the scale I can alsi get playing necromunda for the gangs of necromunda book, and a box of escher. 20% off an online order and I have a very good game on a limited budget. Same with warcry. Simple, but very very enjoyable game I find.
I do agree that it's an expensive hobby, with some mitigating factors. And I do enjoy it so for me it's worth the price.
It's exactly my point. Relative to other wargames GW stuff is definitely more expensive than average but compared to most of the popular hobbies (or wherever people like to dump their well earned money) it really isn't.
I know people who buy a phone every 2-3 years spending hundreds, if not a whole thousand everytime. I change my phone ever 10ish years and I've never paid more than 150-200 to do it. Now consider 10 years, how many models, paints, books and tools could those people obsessed with phones have buoght if they just got 1 or 2 (much) cheaper phones in that period? Or even 1 or 2 of the most expensive ones instead of 4-5?
Getting a 3000 points painted army and playing with it isn't really that expensive if we consider a period of 3-5 years for example. The hobby of course can be utterly expensive for those who demand everything now or those who chase the flavour of the month, which isn't the standard behaviour thankfully.
Video game playing is far cheaper. If you know what you are doing a comp isn't a hard process, getting some components currently might be but hopefully that won't be so forever. Game consoles are far cheaper. The cash outlay for the system is around the cost of a small to moderate army and if you get games ? Even that is cheaper when you look at keeping up with burn and churn of books and models that are usable in your army from book to book. If you use something like game pass you are spending much less and have instant use on hand as opposed to all the nuance that goes into getting a game ready let alone played of warhammer.
Now I love warhammer, I have for a long time but this isn't the cheaper choice neither in cash or more importantly as you get older in time.
I disagree. Even buying a single new game per month is utterly expensive. And consolles/pc must be updated very frequently, every 3-4 years maybe? So in the long period videogaming is very expensive. At least that's what most of the videogamers does. Of course if you're just interested to play a couple of games per year then it's far cheaper but at that point it's not your primary hobby. But at the same time you might stay in the wargaming hobby without investing much. I haven't bought a single model between 2017-2020, just a few sprays and paints. If I consider the entire amount I paid, including the value of gifts I've received, since when I started (22-23 years now) it's definitely less than 20$ per month, and I have over 10K points of models. The amount of cash required to watch on tv the football team that I support is higher, a bit more than 30$ per month. And that is something that millions are willing to do without blinking an eye.
I'm not disagreeing with you entirely about the fact that wargaming has a bigger up front cost that peters out with time unless you keep expanding your collection, but you seem to be overestimating how expensive videogames are. Unless you are falling down the gatcha hole and whaling hard, you have the up front costs of the computer/game system, and then the games you want, which unlike warhammer models, go on sale fairly often, or are made available for super cheap in bundles. I think I have purchased a single full price videogame in the past 10 years, and the time I spent more than 50% on one I can probably count on my fingers. Also, unless you are obsessed with the bleeding edge, you can get away with letting your pc age more than 3-4 years. My last one I ran with for 9 years, and only in the last year was it starting to show its age with newer games.
Factor in that a pc is used for everyday life - from watching movies, random videos, standard internetting, chatting with friends, and looking up ideas for paint schemes and the like, and it is hardly an investment to go from a computer that does that to adding the gaming stuff.
PenitentJake wrote: This is a good point, and interestingly enough, it's why 8th felt good to me when everyone else was posting negatively: in my formative GW years, 1989-1997, my favourite army was GSC, and there was a real sense of army as warband (Blanchitsu style!). Beyond my formative years, there were Witch Hunters- Sisters plus Inquisitors.
Then those things disappeared for a decade.
Snap! Well on GSC. My all time favourite army, indeed end of rogue trader I even had my genestealer invasion force (defeated by anything that hovered...).
I always wondered if I was responsible for GW killing it off - at the 2nd Int 40k grand tourney a baffled Paul Sawyer taking questioned exclaimed 'why the (insert words) a Genestealer cult was top, where did they come from...' (I sadly got crushed by one or both -long time ago!- of the two powergamed armies on Sunday, an Eldar with vortex grenade and Ork with 50% of the army non scoring characters on bikes with flamers - the army won by being physically impossible to give away more VPs than it lost...). Still prefer that army to the current incarnation, not just because I got to have a IG landspeeder but because I got to have brood brothers, hybrids and genestealers and all were great!
I'm not disagreeing with you entirely about the fact that wargaming has a bigger up front cost that peters out with time unless you keep expanding your collection, but you seem to be overestimating how expensive videogames are. Unless you are falling down the gatcha hole and whaling hard, you have the up front costs of the computer/game system, and then the games you want, which unlike warhammer models, go on sale fairly often, or are made available for super cheap in bundles. I think I have purchased a single full price videogame in the past 10 years, and the time I spent more than 50% on one I can probably count on my fingers. Also, unless you are obsessed with the bleeding edge, you can get away with letting your pc age more than 3-4 years. My last one I ran with for 9 years, and only in the last year was it starting to show its age with newer games.
Factor in that a pc is used for everyday life - from watching movies, random videos, standard internetting, chatting with friends, and looking up ideas for paint schemes and the like, and it is hardly an investment to go from a computer that does that to adding the gaming stuff.
You yourself are not wrong on what you say. It can be reasonable, so long as you don't obsess on needing all the consoles and staying current with tech.its still not exactly cheap though.
However, leading on from this I think folks need to be careful on the comparisons they make too (I'm not directing this at you by the way) when they compare a 'savvy' or smart take on a different hobby and compare it directly to the most expensive and outrageous expression at the 'bleeding edge' of the buying gw hobby (buy all the books, chase the meta and churn etc) with the deliberately intention of making the gw one look bad in comparison. It verges, whether intentionally,or in all likelihood accidentally on the dishonest.
As you say, you can be smart with video games and tech stuff.
It can end up being very reasonable. Same goesfor ttgs. And if we compare a 'chasing the meta' approach for 40k, it should be against a 'chasing the meta 'approach for video games and technology, and needing all the latest toys to stay current, rather than 'its a decent 4 year old computer, it'll do...'approach.
Yeah, and honestly, if you're actually painting all the miniatures you buy rather than buying new ones and having a huge pile of gray...it's gonna take a WHILE to get through enough minis to be wasting lots of money.
I'm not disagreeing with you entirely about the fact that wargaming has a bigger up front cost that peters out with time unless you keep expanding your collection, but you seem to be overestimating how expensive videogames are. Unless you are falling down the gatcha hole and whaling hard, you have the up front costs of the computer/game system, and then the games you want, which unlike warhammer models, go on sale fairly often, or are made available for super cheap in bundles. I think I have purchased a single full price videogame in the past 10 years, and the time I spent more than 50% on one I can probably count on my fingers. Also, unless you are obsessed with the bleeding edge, you can get away with letting your pc age more than 3-4 years. My last one I ran with for 9 years, and only in the last year was it starting to show its age with newer games.
Factor in that a pc is used for everyday life - from watching movies, random videos, standard internetting, chatting with friends, and looking up ideas for paint schemes and the like, and it is hardly an investment to go from a computer that does that to adding the gaming stuff.
You yourself are not wrong on what you say. It can be reasonable, so long as you don't obsess on needing all the consoles and staying current with tech.its still not exactly cheap though.
However, leading on from this I think folks need to be careful on the comparisons they make too (I'm not directing this at you by the way) when they compare a 'savvy' or smart take on a different hobby and compare it directly to the most expensive and outrageous expression at the 'bleeding edge' of the buying gw hobby (buy all the books, chase the meta and churn etc) with the deliberately intention of making the gw one look bad in comparison. It verges, whether intentionally,or in all likelihood accidentally on the dishonest.
As you say, you can be smart with video games and tech stuff.
It can end up being very reasonable. Same goesfor ttgs. And if we compare a 'chasing the meta' approach for 40k, it should be against a 'chasing the meta 'approach for video games and technology, and needing all the latest toys to stay current, rather than 'its a decent 4 year old computer, it'll do...'approach.
You're sorta missing the point. Said video game is an investment that you'll still be able to always use, whereas you don't know whether your model purchased will be any good. This has nothing to do with "chasing the meta", those Kroot some people have are still absolutely terrible.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, and I can definitely wheel out my Renegades and Heretics units for your average PUG of 40k-
-wait no I can't. Thanks GW.
Welcome to the wonderful world of funhammer/oldhammer/prohammer/hybrid 5th ed where we don't give a **** what the current game or meta is and everything is still legal to use.
Oh and that chapter approved kroot army from 5th ed era...had a buddy who LOVED to play it and it was actually kinda scary.
You're sorta missing the point. Said video game is an investment that you'll still be able to always use, whereas you don't know whether your model purchased will be any good. This has nothing to do with "chasing the meta", those Kroot some people have are still absolutely terrible.
Say that to my dreamcast...
Youre saying a load of tosh here slayer. I've got plenty games I've played once and then deleted or never bothered with again. Waste of £££ if you ask me. As 'investments' go, terrible. To be fair, i've kept most of my games going back to my mega drive (sentimentality is a thing...) but being brutally honest, outside of the sentimentality factor most of them are not worth anything anymore, haven't aged well and really, are not worth going back to play. For every metal gear solid, there's a hundred titles that will be forgotten days after release.
Whereas ive got plenty ttg models from back in the mid naughties, and my mates gave wargaming stuff from before then they still use.ive got 60 kroot and they're still some of my favourite aliens and I still love the models. I played the absolute hell out of them in fourth, they were my absolute favourite unit in the tau codex and even if all I ever do with them in the future is keep them in my display case, they've been worth every penny of the time I've put into them and the value I've gotten out of them.
There's more ways to play than competitive/tournament, and only valuing the 3% of the roster this approach values, though it's an approach you refuse to acknowledge or consider. And 'good' is a very nebulous term...
the_scotsman wrote: Yeah, and honestly, if you're actually painting all the miniatures you buy rather than buying new ones and having a huge pile of gray...it's gonna take a WHILE to get through enough minis to be wasting lots of money.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah, and I can definitely wheel out my Renegades and Heretics units for your average PUG of 40k-
-wait no I can't. Thanks GW.
Welcome to the wonderful world of funhammer/oldhammer/prohammer/hybrid 5th ed where we don't give a **** what the current game or meta is and everything is still legal to use.
Oh and that chapter approved kroot army from 5th ed era...had a buddy who LOVED to play it and it was actually kinda scary.
Unfortunately, I have found it WAY easier to start up entirely new games with entirely new minis than to convince the local area folks to play an earlier edition of 40k with most of the minis they already have.
