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 PenitentJake wrote:
That's why I prefer 500 point battles to to 2k games.

I think 1k games currently are about perfect honestly. The updates to the scenarios in the recent deck and additional build restrictions make it a pretty great format that plays a lot snappier and has more reasonable collection requirements while still feeling like a proper game of 40k. I've gotten to where this is easily my preferred way to play and really only play 2k for events.

Whilst I’d never deny someone a game on the back of it? I’m not that into small points battle games.

Probably just Sad Old Git territory, where if I wanted a small skirmish I’d play Necromunda or Space Hulk or similar. But it just never feels right to me. Like it’s somehow wasteful of the game’s feel.

Also some bitter memories of 500 points 3rd/4th Ed Necrons being 20 Warriors, a Lord and some trinkets for said Lord. Because that was 500 points on its own. So whilst it was my mate’s army, every game was pretty samey, as there was nothing army selection wise he could to surprise me.

ZM is where I feel small games come into their own. Or boarding actions for 40k, I suppose.

Death brick units are largely excluded, and the dense environments mitigate blowouts.

That I can definitely agree with. There, your lack of resources is the challenge.

I feel sorry for anyone not getting games in due to having only a "rotated" KillTeam. I feel like GW should treat Kill Team like Necromunda, give it more narrative flair and some sort of campaign system; in that regard KT21 was indeed superior.

I am personally sick and tired with the edition churn of the main 3 games and absolutely will not participate in buying any sort of printed books for any of them anymore. I could perhaps still justify investing into the rules when they were offered as epubs, now with only dead tree editions available, I wont buy in. Plenty of ways to =REDACTED= what I need for games, in case I need to play.

Intentional or not, I feel like the "collecting models" part is the one I am prioritizing over all else the longer I am in this hobby. At least the miniatures have longevity beyond 36 months, which they frankly should, given how much it all costs.

 tauist wrote:
I feel sorry for anyone not getting games in due to having only a "rotated" KillTeam. I feel like GW should treat Kill Team like Necromunda, give it more narrative flair and some sort of campaign system; in that regard KT21 was indeed superior.

Another casualty of chasing the competitive dream, I suppose. Something fairly similar seemed to happen to the video game Overwatch, which tried its utmost to become the next big e-sport, with so-so results.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 tauist wrote:
I feel sorry for anyone not getting games in due to having only a "rotated" KillTeam. I feel like GW should treat Kill Team like Necromunda, give it more narrative flair and some sort of campaign system; in that regard KT21 was indeed superior.

Another casualty of chasing the competitive dream, I suppose. Something fairly similar seemed to happen to the video game Overwatch, which tried its utmost to become the next big e-sport, with so-so results.

Are you talking about that CGI pr0n franchise?

(Swear to god, never played a single game of Overwatch)

I played a bit of Overwatch 1 but quit well before it had any thoughts of a "sequel". It was a fine enough thing but coming across articles about it now and again is definitely a curious feeling.

Makes me wonder how much money there really is in that competitive dream. Probably some, but feels very prone to failure, in video games and tabletop both.

Competitive growth is fine and good. Where most games get in trouble is forgetting that the growth has to come from somewhere and loses their new player onboarding as they cater to the competitive crowd. Eventually the competitive players get tired of playing against each other and move on, causing the game to whither without new growth coming in to replace them.

Don't forget the middle ground too. The majority of players of any game are neither the hardcore comp players nor the new players who have only just joined, but the big block of casuals who stick around in a less intensive manner.

To use another video game example (I think there are many useful principles crossing over here), in World of Warcraft a shockingly large number of players never do raiding above Raid Finder level - ie, the sort of content that would be deemed "serious" (the disparity was even larger before the game introduced additional modes to try to bridge the gap).

In tabletop terms, players who attend tournaments are an extreme minority. They may generate attention and content, but it's very disproportionate to their population. Goonhammer ran a massive survey on this just a couple of years ago, and despite this survey already being pre-selected (ie, only players dedicated enough about Warhammer to bother going on Goonhammer and voting in article polls in the first place), the actual number of active competitive players was just a tiny fragment.

In GW's case, this subset of the community is not really a priority, which seems to be working out okay for them at least for now, but I can't help but wonder if they have really figured out the right balance.