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Hi,
After playing and collecting 40k since 1st edtion,I'm finding things a bit
stale.I find battles boring.I find the background doesn't really have much
to do with the actual game.And that's the problem! Games in general do not
in anyway affect the 40k universe.You play a game,but does it actually
mean anything?
With planetstrike,we've been presented with a 40k variation,but the game
is still stuck in a rut.In the rulebook there is the timeline which brings
events more up to date.But where is the progression?Maybe I'm taking too
large of an overview,but what is the point of continual meaningless battles?
Campaigns are pure and simple linked series of games,but where do you go
from there?Another campaign?
The various books(esp.the HH) all have to a greater or lesser extent an effect
on the 40k universe,so why does the actual game not do so also?
A good comparison would be playing the same song on a cd over and over,
stagnation anyone?

In the grim future, there is only war.

Well, I guess it's a bit like TV series...they WANT it to stay more or less the same, so they don't run out of possibilites. I mean, if there would be some kind of plot or story involving all gamers about finally exterminating a xenos race - and they would succeed - well wonderful, GW can't sell the models for those guys anymore! At the moment, the universe is somehow "balanced", everyone is in the game and everyone has some reason to fight everyone.

It's about selling models for them, not about the best plot in the ooniverse.

Just my thoughts.

i think from what ive seen in my time in the hobby that the fluff and the game are better off being apart, unless you want to write fluff about your own army, which is cool.
i enjoy the fluff and love the game.
But i havent played for as long as you have. So maybe im still too fresh to r4eally stand back and see what you mean.

BoW- John

P.S ask me if i think its stale in another 3 rulebook editions

I've been around 40k for almost as long as the OP, and I guess it's just easier for me to accept that the background really can't change.
It's bad business to change things radically which is the only kind of change that would make things seem less stagnant.

Playing 40k is accepting that the Imperium is surrounded by enemies and in a long struggle to stay alive, and always will be. That isn't really different from any other game, let's take Warmachine for example, Cygnar is beset by enemies on all sides, though having lost significant territory in the recent war the front has now largely stabilized and conflict rages on a grand scale across all fronts(sound familiar?) That isn't to imply that Privateer is copying 40k just to say that it's a pretty common theme in game systems.

Flames of War is a historical game, it's background is set, we know who eventually loses the war so regardless of how many victories a German company might see on the table it won't change the end result. It's a fun game though, and 40k's a fun game and so is Warmachine, but the narrative of games will only ever go so far. You can't really have the story change and develop like it would in a novel or series of novels, all a developer can do is give you a world to play the games in, they can't really make those games part of an evolving story, you have to do that yourself, either through narrative games/campaigns or creating your own changes to the background.

Play WHFB, WotR, or some other tabletop game then.

40K's canon has changed a lot since it started. Space Marines used to be brainwashed psychotic killing machines instead of warrior-monks, and there are no more female Space Marines, which makes me want to cry.

I can sympathize in that I'm sorry I came into the hobby too late and missed the old world-wide campaigns, and wish some of the materials from them was still available for the sake of retrospective. To me, there doesn't have to be a game-changing narrative; nobody has to defeat the Imperium for there to be a narrative. But having periodic, regular events in which control of a sector of space is vied over, or a character ends up dying due to performance of his armies, etc. would add the personal connection to the setting and narrative as it exists. Also, GW needs to bite the bullet and start calling the game WH41k.