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" It's a beer and pretzels game"

It's too complicated for a beer and pretzels game. Settlers of Catan is a beer and pretzels game.

I think at this point unless you already have an army, wait until 8th edition in the summer. Rules are so conflicting about what it will/won't be that nobody is sure, and if you start now you run the risk of buying a bunch of stuff to have it invalidated later. I'm in a similar boat in that I've jumped to AOS but most of the people around me play 40k, so I am seriously thinking of picking it up now, but I can't justify possibly wasting a large sum of cash on a 7th edition list that gets turned on its head with 8th edition.


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Martel732 wrote:
" It's a beer and pretzels game"

It's too complicated for a beer and pretzels game. Settlers of Catan is a beer and pretzels game.

Yeah. Nothing about 40k is "beer and pretzels" other than the fact GW insists it is. A beer and pretzels game doesn't cost several hundred dollars, not to mention time and effort assembling and painting, to pick up. A beer and pretzels game doesn't take 4+ hours to finish. A beer and pretzels game doesn't require a bunch of thick rulebooks and codexes. GW is the only wargames company (regardless of what they want to say, they are a wargames company) that treats their game with this type of mentality.

As said 7th is not the best time to come back, but rumor has it 8th is dropping at the end of next month into April. So i would start buying building and painting, what ever you want. Then play in 8th.

Wayniac wrote:
I think at this point unless you already have an army, wait until 8th edition in the summer. Rules are so conflicting about what it will/won't be that nobody is sure, and if you start now you run the risk of buying a bunch of stuff to have it invalidated later. I'm in a similar boat in that I've jumped to AOS but most of the people around me play 40k, so I am seriously thinking of picking it up now, but I can't justify possibly wasting a large sum of cash on a 7th edition list that gets turned on its head with 8th edition.


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Martel732 wrote:
" It's a beer and pretzels game"

It's too complicated for a beer and pretzels game. Settlers of Catan is a beer and pretzels game.

Yeah. Nothing about 40k is "beer and pretzels" other than the fact GW insists it is. A beer and pretzels game doesn't cost several hundred dollars, not to mention time and effort assembling and painting, to pick up. A beer and pretzels game doesn't take 4+ hours to finish. A beer and pretzels game doesn't require a bunch of thick rulebooks and codexes. GW is the only wargames company (regardless of what they want to say, they are a wargames company) that treats their game with this type of mentality.

It is neither beer&pretzels game nor a strategic/tactical wargame, it's a hobby game with a 30 year of history and fluff, an unique combination of different aspects of different worlds. This is why it's so rage-inducing or addictive or immersive (depending on personal background and expectations), because it's realy one-of-a-kind phenomenon, and if one tries to label/compare it as any other games on the market it will always fail to fit category other than "GW game". The only time when 40K resembled other games was pre-codex 3rd ed, and transition from 2nd to 3rd was as rage-inducing throughout the community as WHFB-AOS transition is. As we are likely on a brink of something smaller in scale but somehow similliar with 8th ed (I assume that it will be a change comparable to 5th-to-6th, but in somehow opposite direction), I expect a LOT of negativity or flame wars on the internet between 8th ed haters and praisers in months to follow...

But one thing, that makes waiting for 8th ed before diving into the hobby realy irrelevant, is that if you are drawn into 40K because of models/faction background/aesthetics etc, rules really don't matter much - provided that you have someone to share common fun-centric approach to 40K, anything can be ballanced if involved parties are willing to do so. Again, as many others in this thread have wrote - in the end it's all about local community's attitude.

A big part of why the playerbase seems so negative is because of the people on the internet (including Dakka) whining every time something new comes out that *may* be more powerful than their current army, or when they don't like the update their army gets. Go talk to people who actually play around you and see how they talk about the game. I rarely find people playing who are anywhere near as negative as people on the internet. They may be unhappy with an aspect, but they deal with it and still play.

Additionally, you're going to need to talk with your local group(s) to see if they play for fun or play competitive lists all the time.

zerosignal wrote:

The game is great, just don't expect balance. It's a beer and pretzels game. If you want to play a competitive mind sport, play Magic: the Gathering.

200 pages of base rules with the requirements for several extra books all with slow-playing contradicting rules does not make for a 'beer and pretzels' game. That's a serious commitment to learn.

 troa wrote:
A big part of why the playerbase seems so negative is because of the people on the internet (including Dakka) whining every time something new comes out that *may* be more powerful than their current army, or when they don't like the update their army gets. Go talk to people who actually play around you and see how they talk about the game. I rarely find people playing who are anywhere near as negative as people on the internet. They may be unhappy with an aspect, but they deal with it and still play.

Additionally, you're going to need to talk with your local group(s) to see if they play for fun or play competitive lists all the time.

A lot of it is general frustration at GW's lack of caring about balance and just pushing new models all the time, coupled with what appears to be straight "power creep" with every new release to sell more figures. You can argue all the time they are a business etc. and there's nothing wrong with that, but GW alone of wargames companies seems to think of the game and balance as an afterthought. Also, and this is less frequent and potentially more rude, it's frustration at a very vocal crowd that find nothing wrong with any of this and even say it's a good way of doing business (by which I don't mean it won't be successful; lots of wrong business approaches turn out profitable but this doesn't make them good).

Regardless of those frustrations about balance, people are still buying things. So at some point you have to say "that's fine, but it still somehow works" or say "I quit, I've had enough". Now, if you're a tournament player or in a very competitive meta, sure, it gets frustrating if there are lists that are much stronger than others just based on the codex. If you're in friendly games, it's much less of an issue.

People like to whine on the internet, probably because internet is the only one who listens - or pretends to.

Magic is definitely not a particularly balanced game, especially the older formats - and it's certainly just as or more expensive than 40k.

troa wrote:A big part of why the playerbase seems so negative is because of the people on the internet (including Dakka) whining every time something new comes out that *may* be more powerful than their current army, or when they don't like the update their army gets.

So it's whining when you spend all that money, time and effort and then something changes that doesn't go to plan? I don't know, those seem like good reasons to be upset if something changes. People are allowed to say they are upset when changes are made. It's not whining. Maybe try and see through other people's opinion instead of thinking only your opinion is the correct one.

There are some brilliant responses here. I was expecting a bunch of complaints about my "attitude", but instead got a stream of intelligent debates. And this in itself backs up what everyone is saying: that the 40K (and by extension, GW) fanbase loves the game. And it also shows how much noise the complainers are making, it is tarring everyone else.

From reading the responses I realised that I do not look at army lists the way "competitive" players do. I would never have thought to put scatter lasers on every jetbike, and in fact would have been embarrassed to do so. I'd have maybe put a "fluff-friendly" shuriken cannon on one in three, although I'd probably have relied on Vypers to bring the heavy weapons and used the jetbikes as a flying cavalry.

I got into the hobby through Epic back in the early 90s, so I tend not to think about what I equip individual models with, I think about the army as a whole: what I want in it, how cool it will look fighting the enemy at close quarters, how it fits the fluff, what kind of story the game will tell and how many exciting and frustrating memories it will create.

I wish they would bring Epic Space Marine back. No-one cared that a Titan with four weapons, a head cannon, a tail and two AA turrets cost the exact same as a Titan with a Terminator-deploying pod and three guns. You could literally field fifty Leman Russ tanks and still have room for a Space Marine Battle company.

It is indeed whining when it occurs before even play testing the rules. If you still have those feelings after play-testing, it moves away from whining into validity. Unfortunately that eventually turns to bitterness if held on to for too long, which then distorts their view in the future and results in more negative reactions to any change. However, wayyyyy to many people just go "oh no, change!" and start complaining (which is indeed whining). Also, plenty of people whine when new things come out that has nothing to do with their army aside from potentially being something they'll have to face. Instead of going "huh, that'll be interesting to figure out how to beat" they simply complain without ever having faced it.

Maybe try to seek full understanding before jumping to conclusions. Though to be fair I did not set a distinction in that post.

wait for 8th edition

40k is worth getting into if you want to play a minis wargame, and you want the easiest chance, on average, of getting in a game. The only other game with the broad appeal is probably Warmachine/Hordes, and that's a fanbase with it's own quirks.

As for the negativity on Dakka, it's one of those things that everybody seems to agree exists, but somehow we assume it's everywhere. It isn't, it really isn't. If you only read news and rumors, or general discussions, then you'll see a lot of frothing opinions. Go slightly deeper, into tactics, or army lists, or the P&M sections, and you'll see tons of engaged, positive discussion.

But the reason for the negativity isn't a secret: 40k has (or had) a stranglehold on the market, and is the most popular minis game in the English speaking world. It also has deeply flawed rules, based on a 30 year old basic engine. Playing modern 40k using three step damage resolution and a WS to hit charts would be like still using Thac0 while playing D&D. The army rules are generally written at a semi-professional level, with laughably poor internal and external balance. The game is hilariously expensive. Compare something like Cadian shock troops, with 10 basic grunts for $29, with Warlords brand new US Airborne, which has 30 models and a huge range of options for $41. GW's prices are high, not because they are a "luxury good," but because their market share allows them to set the price.

That all said, the game can be fun. I enjoy the painting and modeling, and I like moving models around. I enjoy playing the game despite the rules, not because of the rules. (Compare this to say, Kings of War or Bolt action, both of whom have stronger, simpler rules which I enjoy a lot).

Only you can establish if something is "worth it" for you. It is an entirely subjective answer. For me - with all the content coming out at this time - my plastic crack urges are totally satisfied. Just last weekend I bought 3 new models and a codex and it gave me a whole new gaming experience. The look on my friends faces when I soul-bursted wraithgards in their faces was prices.

If you are into 40k because of the stories I don't think it will be worth it for you to play the game - the fluff doesn't live up to the table top.

If you enjoy strategy and list building and enjoy modeling and painting also - this game is awesome.

What do you want to get out of it?

I'm coming back after way more than 15 years. I've done my competitive gaming time, I don't need to do it again.

Casual, local and model/paint is my deal.

Then probably is worth it. Game's far more varied model-wise than ever before, and you can make far more varied armies than ever before, and there's untold billions of ideas out there for painting and conversion to make it fun.

 Polonius wrote:
Compare something like Cadian shock troops, with 10 basic grunts for $29

How are you getting models so cheap? I would kill for prices that low!

 Blackhair Duckshape wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
Compare something like Cadian shock troops, with 10 basic grunts for $29

How are you getting models so cheap? I would kill for prices that low!

When I built up my Skaven (sob, Warhammer!), Chaos Marines and Daemons of Nurgle armies, I got some utterly mind-bending bargains on ebay. Thetrolltrader was my favourite seller. Loads of people are dying to get rid of vehicles (especially walkers). I got two Predators, one broken, for fifteen quid and sold the broken one - for fifteen quid! It's not quite as easy to find Eldar bargains, although I haven't looked this week. You tend to get silly bargains after a new edition boxed set is released. I must have a hundred Clanrats and Slaves which were simply Isle of Blood models. Ones with shields and dangerous-looking weapons are Clanrats, ones without shields and armed with knives and tattered clothing are Slaves. I managed to make about twenty Plague Monks just by giving Clanrat models appropriate weapons.

Kill Team does sound like the best way to get involved without spending hundreds. The idea of a kill team of aspect warriors, or in desperate times even Storm Guardians, sneaking into an Imperial or Ork camp to assassinate someone sounds really appealing

nou wrote:

From my experience, compared to every other hobby I had been into over the last 20 years, 40K is one of the LEAST expensive hobbies in my life counted on cost-per-hour-of-enjoyment basis

Seems a bit odd to compare the expense of 40k to a different hobby, rather than just to a different game...

For the OP, I would disagree that the negativity is on the forums... The negative perception of GW and their games has been a thing for over a decade now, it just varies depending on the make-up of your local community.

The key to getting the most out of your hobby, whatever game you are playing, is just finding a like -minded group.


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 Elbows wrote:
I have to agree with the OP, mainly in regard to Dakka. It's definitely the most hostile gaming forum I think I've seen, .

I suspect that you haven't seen many gaming forums, then, to be honest.

 insaniak wrote:

nou wrote:

From my experience, compared to every other hobby I had been into over the last 20 years, 40K is one of the LEAST expensive hobbies in my life counted on cost-per-hour-of-enjoyment basis

Seems a bit odd to compare the expense of 40k to a different hobby, rather than just to a different game...

Just read my second post in this thread about 40K being "a hobby game" and it should make a lot more sense. I know of no other game (single game title) that has so much hobby potential as 40K. I do not treat 40K as simply game, because no other had given me even remotely similiar experiences. I have spent almost all my spare time last year on different 40K related activities (including 100+ actual games) and I still don't see an end to my reborn enthusiasm for it. I started in 2nd ed and quit 40K after 3rd ed came up, because I could no longer justify spending so much time and effort on something so shallow as 3rd ed (shallow both gameplay wise and immersion-wise). I came back to 7th when Hariles finally got their own Codex and been "catching up" with all those skipped years since and I'm enjoying it deeply. Other games don't catch me that way, other hobbies/passions do. Hope that clarifies the origin of that comparison for you...

nou wrote:
I know of no other game (single game title) that has so much hobby potential as 40K..

Really? I can't think of any that don't...

Miniatures are miniatures. The potential for all that 'hobby' stuff is in no way tied to a specific games system.

 insaniak wrote:

nou wrote:
I know of no other game (single game title) that has so much hobby potential as 40K..

Really? I can't think of any that don't...

Miniatures are miniatures. The potential for all that 'hobby' stuff is in no way tied to a specific games system.

Please, name one non-GW game, that has so vast model line (both current and OOP collectibles), 30 years of fluff and IRL history, so massive setting with that many factions, each and every so well defined and explorable hobby- and playstyle- wise, and so varied and large community, that we in fact have something resembling in-hobby "political" factions that create a whole new level of "thought feeding" experience. We must have very different definition of what "40K as a hobby" means to both of us, I'm talking about so much more than just "assembling and painting miniatures"...

I can only repeat - I know of no other game with so much hobby potential as 40K.

nou wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

nou wrote:
I know of no other game (single game title) that has so much hobby potential as 40K..

Really? I can't think of any that don't...

Miniatures are miniatures. The potential for all that 'hobby' stuff is in no way tied to a specific games system.

Please, name one non-GW game, that has so vast model line (both current and OOP collectibles), 30 years of fluff and IRL history, so massive setting with that many factions, each and every so well defined and explorable hobby- and playstyle- wise, and so varied and large community, that we in fact have something resembling in-hobby "political" factions that create a whole new level of "thought feeding" experience. We must have very different definition of what "40K as a hobby" means to both of us, I'm talking about so much more than just "assembling and painting miniatures"...

I can only repeat - I know of no other game with so much hobby potential as 40K.

Dungeons and Dragons to start with.
As for hobby potential, there's a huge huuge list of other games out there.
It's just that if you drop the 30 years of retconning and repasting stories for the last decade or so you could include other games to that list as well.

Also well defined playstylewise.... have you played this game lately? The only thing well defined is a lack of consistency.
Some people like to hate GW to hate GW, others are just disappointed in where the game has gone and seems to keep going. I'd rather have the "complexity" of having the armoury system back, of being able to build more unique characters over "well this guy has like 8 special rules you need to remember, but no one else uses them, but they're still in the USR section of the rulebook just in case".

I may enjoy the game, setting, and models; but I'm surely not ignoring the issues that exist nor deluding myself to see it as some sort of unique super hobbygame. To the OP the best advice would be if you're on the fence, give it a bit of a think as it's a big investment to start up; but when you do go for the models you like the look and feel of. Editions and what's strong and what's weak change all the time and to continually chase those especially if they're models you don't like will just lead you to being burnt out.

 Polonius wrote:
Playing modern 40k using three step damage resolution and a WS to hit charts would be like still using Thac0 while playing D&D. The army rules are generally written at a semi-professional level, with laughably poor internal and external balance.

I have just started 40K (more like just Dark Vengeance and extended Kill Team). I have already played a dozen other miniatures war game rule sets of various genres and scales most being pretty modern. That was my exact initial impression of 40K as an old tabletop role-player. There are game mechanic throwbacks practically date the game as a product of the 1990s (or late 1980s like AD&D 2nd ed) as almost no other game still creates games like this for a modern audience.

Additionally, I could tell that the mechanics are based on a system intended for a game size smaller than what most people play it at. There just seems to be way too many switches, buttons, dials, etc. that are either barely unified or not at all that give the false impression of choice or differentiation much like D&D 3rd edition's Feat bloat. There are a bunch or keyword abilities that do basically the same thing and a lot little special situation rules that should probably be streamlined (read: combined, dropped or altered) for game with more than 12 units or say 50" miniatures all doing their own little thing (such as multiple individual weapon load outs).

nou wrote:

Please, name one non-GW game, that has so vast model line (both current and OOP collectibles), 30 years of fluff and IRL history, so massive setting with that many factions, each and every so well defined and explorable hobby- and playstyle- wise, and so varied and large community, that we in fact have something resembling in-hobby "political" factions that create a whole new level of "thought feeding" experience. We must have very different definition of what "40K as a hobby" means to both of us, I'm talking about so much more than just "assembling and painting miniatures"...

I can only repeat - I know of no other game with so much hobby potential as 40K.

Yeah, it sort of sounds like you're equating 'hobby potential' with 'amount of stuff provided by the company that makes the game'.

I'll concede that GW has a bigger model range than most other companies out there at the moment (although most of those other games don't have portions of their ranges that people refuse to buy on account of the material they're made from being complete rubbish)... but a vast model range isn't required to provide endless possibility for modeling. Nor is 30 years of fluff ... if anything, 40K's fluff can actually be a little constraining when it comes to the hobby side of things. So often, cool ideas are disregarded or disparaged on the bases that 'But Space Marines wouldn't do that!'. Rogue Trader had the sort of limitless hobby potential that you seem to be seeing in the current game, but ever since then it's all just become increasingly narrowly-defined and stale. A process that has been made worse when GW got their nose whacked in their lawsuit against Chapterhouse and started amputating stuff that they didn't have models for.

For me, the depth of the hobby potential of a game doesn't come from whether or not some guy in a studio has given me a list of exactly which three breakfast cereals are approved for Astartes consumption, but simply by how much my imagination is fired by the models and the setting. Case in point - I'm currently rather absorbed in the Maelstrom's Edge universe. This is a game that is brand new, has only two factions (so far!) and a fairly small model range, and a background setting that is awesome but still in its infancy... and I am having an absolute ball with it, because right now, anything goes. I don't have '30 years of fluff and history' to contend with when I'm planning a conversion or a force... I have a whole galaxy to play in, that's currently largely made up of blank spaces just waiting to be filled in.

And that excites me a hell of a lot more than knowing whether or not the blue marines like their weapons to be noisier then the red marines.


Your mileage may vary, of course.

 Blackhair Duckshape wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
Compare something like Cadian shock troops, with 10 basic grunts for $29

How are you getting models so cheap? I would kill for prices that low!

USA: https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Imperial-Guard-Cadian-Shock-Troops - AUD 37.78 = GBP 23.28 = USD 29
Australia: https://www.games-workshop.com/en-AU/Imperial-Guard-Cadian-Shock-Troops - AUD 48 = GBP 29.59 = USD 36.85
UK: https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Imperial-Guard-Cadian-Shock-Troops - AUD 29.2 = GBP 18 = USD 22.41

This is the cause of a lot of the bad feeling against GW.
They restrict being able to buy from other markets, so they can keep their prices so wildly disparate.

The most negative people are those online who don't play 40k, or haven't played in a while, or who play other games. However 40k is extremely fun when it's not taken as an extreme sport. I truly do love the fact it's best feature is also it's worst. The fact you can build whatever army however you like with whatever models you have. In the last year+ I haven't played two players with the same list, because 40k is so completely expansive right now. No two games are ever the same.

Building an army is however expensive and needs to be planned out. Generally it's best to start with a start collecting box and holiday bundle box and your pretty much at a 2k pt army.