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 wuestenfux wrote:
We have a guy here who started 40k five years ago.
He said he had spent 30,000 Euro for all the stuff he bought.

I've been keeping a record (bad idea?) and I've spent £550 in the year I've been back. To be honest, it's not the most expensive of my hobbies...

 Brother Castor wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
We have a guy here who started 40k five years ago.
He said he had spent 30,000 Euro for all the stuff he bought.

I've been keeping a record (bad idea?) and I've spent £550 in the year I've been back. To be honest, it's not the most expensive of my hobbies...

right! i have been playing for quite a long time. if you buy over time it makes sense. I have gotten a box a month for over a decade rarely buying more than one box in a month with few exceptions (like 4 talons of the emperor boxes at once just to have a full custodes army but i called that a quarterly purchase). I have video gamer friends who buy a new title or 2 every month which means they are spending more than I do and those games do not gain value whereas i coudl sell my 40k models for a profit due to inflation by GW and the time i spent painting them. another hobby i have is wood working and... yea that sure does that add up fast, decide to make a nice new project for a friend, price out the hardwood and in 40k terms you cna buy a small army for lumber cost on a book case making a heirloom quality piece.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Kingdom Death and Privateer Press are both more costly on a model to model basis. The benefit for PP at least is that you generally need less models. But their models cost the same or more, individually. So ymmv.

man, with themes and CID always changing the landscape, plus needing two lists now with virtually no overlap, I did the cost on my khador pair vs my competitive aeldari army or my buddies ig soup and it was pretty shocking.
The IG souop army cost as much as my two list pairing (with WAY more models that look better in it) and my khador 2 list pairing was about 33% more expensive than my aeldari pairing.

happy_inquisitor wrote:

If you were to measure it by the amount you pay per opportunity to play with your plastic then it would come out as one of the cheapest. You can be reasonably confident that the plastic model you buy today will still be playable and that there will still be a player community in 5, 10 or 20 years. So the durability of that product as part of a playing experience is on a different scale to all the smaller companies which come and go.

Going that way, GW is even worse

Buying a 600$ 40k army now, it would have a lifetime of ~3 years
No chance to use it without further investment of new models after 5 years or even in 10 years.

I experienced this more than once, buying an army full price from GW, using it for an edition and after that if you can re-use 50% of it you were the lucky guy
With Age of Sigmar it is now better but the game is only in its 2nd edition, lets see what happens with its 3rd.

Comapring to historical games, they will be the same and useable in 50 years too, although they just cost a thrird or less compared to GW.

 Formerly Wu wrote:

This is an underappreciated point. GW's high prices partly reflect its investment in brick-and-mortar stores, a magazine, and a heavy community presence that's focused on bringing in new blood. That's the kind of stuff that keeps a wargame alive over the long term. You're effectively subsidizing the infrastructure that other game companies offload more of on to the community.

Dunno if I can defend the AU/NZ upcharge, though.

Their Magazine is just paid advertising. If they would give it away for free it would be an argument but as you have to pay for it.

Community presence is a thing but they do it with stores and those have to make money (a store manager that is not able to sell enough is replaced, a store that does not make enough money is closed sooner than later)

Other companies directly support the communities (sponsoring torunaments/events, giveaways for stores, exchanging old rules for free during an edition change etc), so nothing exclusively for GW but just different


And if GW need to 3 times more expensive on their stuff to keep their stores running, when other FLGS owners can life from their store, they are doing something very wrong.

 Brother Castor wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
We have a guy here who started 40k five years ago.
He said he had spent 30,000 Euro for all the stuff he bought.

I've been keeping a record (bad idea?) and I've spent £550 in the year I've been back. To be honest, it's not the most expensive of my hobbies...

This. The supercharger for my mustang was 2800, and i got it cheap, the stuff to install it (fuel lines, injectors, cooling, belts, etc...) was another 2000

hell, I have a multiple optics from trijicon for some of my rifles that cost more than any of my armies.

its all about what you love and what you love to do.

i love pushing man dollies, driving a fast car (though i dont do that anymore)), shooting, and hanging out with my daughter and wife, in reverse order!

I agree GW is very pricey and the price is based on the model in game not the cost of the model to make. Plus with GW not allowing stores to sell the stuff at prices they want means they control the market.

Take a commander model for example the commander might take 3 times as long to sculpt the original compared to a basic trooper but the cost to make is the same so why are commanders 4 or 5 times more? Plastic is cheap I have been around the hobby for years and and you can see how "special Characters" cost a lot more just like units that work well cost a lot more.

But having said that I do feel like the money spent vs the time spent in the hobby it pretty cheap to play long term compared to other hobbies. But that goes for any of the wargames on the market not just GW.

 kodos wrote:

Buying a 600$ 40k army now, it would have a lifetime of ~3 years
No chance to use it without further investment of new models after 5 years or even in 10 years.

I experienced this more than once, buying an army full price from GW, using it for an edition and after that if you can re-use 50% of it you were the lucky guy

That's always going to be the case if you play to chase the meta, no matter who you buy your models from. His point was that the game itself would still be around, and the core units from the majority of armies are still usable in anything but the most cutthroat competition.

Their Magazine is just paid advertising. If they would give it away for free it would be an argument but as you have to pay for it.

Community presence is a thing but they do it with stores and those have to make money (a store manager that is not able to sell enough is replaced, a store that does not make enough money is closed sooner than later)

Other companies directly support the communities (sponsoring torunaments/events, giveaways for stores, exchanging old rules for free during an edition change etc), so nothing exclusively for GW but just different

I highly doubt (though could be wrong) that White Dwarf / GW brick-and-mortar business is net profitable for the company. Those look like loss leaders to me.

And if GW need to 3 times more expensive on their stuff to keep their stores running, when other FLGS owners can life from their store, they are doing something very wrong.

A successful FLGS almost certainly doesn't live off GW product alone.

 kodos wrote:
Since HIPS has taken over historical wargaming and full metal armies are not necessary any more, GW is the most expensive by far.

Usually a full army ready to play is around 100-200$/€
An army were only metal models are available can still be more expensive. Take a smaller nation for Napoleonics were you need 200 models only available in metal for 1,5-3$ per model and you end up with 400-500.
But also a WW2 skirmish army can be around 400 if only metal/resin models (infantry, artillery and tanks) are available.

A reason why 28mm historical wargaming was not a huge thing until plastic was available as it was considered to expensive by a lot of people


And than you have GW games were a full ready to play army starts at 500$.
But of course you can start to convert snap fit models, add 3rd party bits and stick to an elite faction with core box models available to decrease the price to 200-300$, something you can also do with any other game (no need to buy an expensive metal Norwegian Army for Napoleonics if you can convert the infantry using the existing plastic boxes).

But your starting point for GW is there were most other games ends and compared to other games with a huge number of models, GW is double the price at best.

I don't know about that, most factions you can start out with a couple of Start Collecting boxes and then fill in the gaps to get a workable army. Is that really $500? It is far from that in the UK.

The size of a "full" army also matters. GW dropped their points values for their events to 1750 which was an instant 12.5% reduction in the cost of getting a full army on the table. Nothing to do with them if ETC/ITC want to stick to higher points values - actually given their approach of expecting people to do serious travelling for the tournament scene the cost of 250 points of models is perfectly rational to the ETC/ITC.

If we are talking the sort of army you need to be a regular player at big tournaments then it might cost a lot more because you need/want specific models rather than the cheaper sets GW sells - but quite frankly at that point the large majority of your spend is probably on travelling, hotels and so on rather than the models. Being a tournament player is expensive for all sorts of other reasons The couple of years I have bothered with travelling to play tournaments that has been the majority of my spend for those years and I have never been what you would call a serious dedicated tournament player.

If you are into the competitive side to any serious degree - which is the only time you actually need an expensive army for it to be viable - then the travel, hotel and tournament fee costs will almost certainly be the main part of your expense. The better supported and more popular the game the lower those might be as you will have more events closer to home. To this extent the GW games are some of the cheapest to compete in if you are a regular tournament goer who is still cost-conscious. Obviously if money is no object and you want to fly to the LVO and then fly to play in the ETC you can spend as much money as you want but really is the extra $5 for a box of minis any impact on the thousands of dollars you are spending on your hobby by that stage?

 kodos wrote:

happy_inquisitor wrote:

If you were to measure it by the amount you pay per opportunity to play with your plastic then it would come out as one of the cheapest. You can be reasonably confident that the plastic model you buy today will still be playable and that there will still be a player community in 5, 10 or 20 years. So the durability of that product as part of a playing experience is on a different scale to all the smaller companies which come and go.

Going that way, GW is even worse

Buying a 600$ 40k army now, it would have a lifetime of ~3 years
No chance to use it without further investment of new models after 5 years or even in 10 years.

I experienced this more than once, buying an army full price from GW, using it for an edition and after that if you can re-use 50% of it you were the lucky guy
With Age of Sigmar it is now better but the game is only in its 2nd edition, lets see what happens with its 3rd.

Comapring to historical games, they will be the same and useable in 50 years too, although they just cost a thrird or less compared to GW.

 Formerly Wu wrote:

This is an underappreciated point. GW's high prices partly reflect its investment in brick-and-mortar stores, a magazine, and a heavy community presence that's focused on bringing in new blood. That's the kind of stuff that keeps a wargame alive over the long term. You're effectively subsidizing the infrastructure that other game companies offload more of on to the community.

Dunno if I can defend the AU/NZ upcharge, though.

Their Magazine is just paid advertising. If they would give it away for free it would be an argument but as you have to pay for it.

Community presence is a thing but they do it with stores and those have to make money (a store manager that is not able to sell enough is replaced, a store that does not make enough money is closed sooner than later)

Other companies directly support the communities (sponsoring torunaments/events, giveaways for stores, exchanging old rules for free during an edition change etc), so nothing exclusively for GW but just different


And if GW need to 3 times more expensive on their stuff to keep their stores running, when other FLGS owners can life from their store, they are doing something very wrong.

What do you mean by life time, do you mean some models become obsolete, or do you mean they are nerfed in a way where other models are needed or some thing. Either way i really hate the idea of models you buy wonday becoming obselete, thats rubbish and if thats true i would rather pick another wargame maybe like historical. I hope they have some thing written some where that allows models you bought a long time ago to still be used. ( i would still buy cool looking models though just for display )


edit - UNless the model dies in the 40k universe some how and thats why they become obselete, then thats fine i dont mind that.

 kodos wrote:

happy_inquisitor wrote:

If you were to measure it by the amount you pay per opportunity to play with your plastic then it would come out as one of the cheapest. You can be reasonably confident that the plastic model you buy today will still be playable and that there will still be a player community in 5, 10 or 20 years. So the durability of that product as part of a playing experience is on a different scale to all the smaller companies which come and go.

Going that way, GW is even worse

Buying a 600$ 40k army now, it would have a lifetime of ~3 years
No chance to use it without further investment of new models after 5 years or even in 10 years.

I experienced this more than once, buying an army full price from GW, using it for an edition and after that if you can re-use 50% of it you were the lucky guy
With Age of Sigmar it is now better but the game is only in its 2nd edition, lets see what happens with its 3rd.

You only have that level of obsolescence if you are playing at a competitive level, in which case your other costs (travel, hotel, tournament fees) are way more than $100 per year which is what your costs above come out to (and you did not include selling the stuff you no longer want on ebay). If you are chasing the dragon of the competitive meta for any other reason than serious regular attendance of big tournaments then the price of GW models has nothing to do with what is going on in your life.

models rarely get squated. I have a few that have been out of print long enough to be index only. example my ork big mek with kff is no longer sold so it got index rules unsure if it will get brought over to 9th, but that model is at least a decade old at this point. most models I have including ones for basic troops and HQs that cna be in cases 20+ years old are still viable (mostly my older eldar aspect metal models). The biggest set i have that comes to mind are my harliquin jetbikes, i still use them for counts as windriders (not the new style i think there are from the late 80's) but they no longer reall have rules and have no had them since.. 4th?

 Stormatious wrote:




What do you mean by life time, do you mean some models become obsolete, or do you mean they are nerfed in a way where other models are needed or some thing. Either way i really hate the idea of models you buy wonday becoming obselete, thats rubbish and if thats true i would rather pick another wargame maybe like historical. I hope they have some thing written some where that allows models you bought a long time ago to still be used. ( i would still buy cool looking models though just for display )


edit - UNless the model dies in the 40k universe some how and thats why they become obselete, then thats fine i dont mind that.

Historicals get obsolete. Pretty weird but true. I started out my tabletop gaming with WWII and then moved onto ancients. None of those models are usable now because in the intervening years the scale at which people play has changed. Around the time I was getting into ancients 40K came along, pretty much any of the models anyone purchased then are still usable in the game now.

Hardly anything from GW gets obsoleted, yes it does/can happen but it is pretty darned rare. If you happen to be that person with a full Squat army then I salute you and suggest that I would be happy to play against you using them as an AM army.

 Warhawk77 wrote:
Take a commander model for example the commander might take 3 times as long to sculpt the original compared to a basic trooper but the cost to make is the same so why are commanders 4 or 5 times more? Plastic is cheap I have been around the hobby for years and and you can see how "special Characters" cost a lot more just like units that work well cost a lot more.

A lot of that is down to the mouldmaking costs - steel moulds for injection moulding plastic are very expensive and the costs need to be recouped from sales of the models. A lot of heroes and special characters are the sort of model where you don't really need more than one. If everybody buys one of the commander, and buys four troop boxes, then they sell four times as many troop boxes as commanders. Each commander they sell needs to carry a much larger share of its mould costs than the troop box does.

Fair enough, i guess most people would let you proxy older models since they are legit just older.

Seabass wrote:

 Brother Castor wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
We have a guy here who started 40k five years ago.
He said he had spent 30,000 Euro for all the stuff he bought.

I've been keeping a record (bad idea?) and I've spent £550 in the year I've been back. To be honest, it's not the most expensive of my hobbies...

This. The supercharger for my mustang was 2800, and i got it cheap, the stuff to install it (fuel lines, injectors, cooling, belts, etc...) was another 2000

hell, I have a multiple optics from trijicon for some of my rifles that cost more than any of my armies.

its all about what you love and what you love to do.

i love pushing man dollies, driving a fast car (though i dont do that anymore)), shooting, and hanging out with my daughter and wife, in reverse order!

Yep - my other hobby is cars too

Do people actually buy the official GW plastic bases? I looked into it when i needed some 32mm for an old box of necron warriors i had. I bought a pack of 100 off amazon for cheaper than buying 10 from GW

Asmodios wrote:
Do people actually buy the official GW plastic bases? I looked into it when i needed some 32mm for an old box of necron warriors i had. I bought a pack of 100 off amazon for cheaper than buying 10 from GW

depends on the base, the new biker bases i found cheaper through GW than I could on any 3rd party retailer. I picked up a few packs as i waned official gw bases for possible tournament use for my orks... otherwise i would have just 3d printed them.

Asmodios wrote:
Do people actually buy the official GW plastic bases? I looked into it when i needed some 32mm for an old box of necron warriors i had. I bought a pack of 100 off amazon for cheaper than buying 10 from GW

Ya know for the normal black ones yeah you can get way cheaper from other places.

but some times its really hard to get ones that are super specific like certain sized ovals and the really big stuff. and not everyone is crafty enough to make a perfect circle or oval with plastic or mdf.

now I will give GW those new plastic urban bases. they come with a 3mm hole for magnets and the convenience of not having to whip out the hot glue or green stuff to magnetize bases is REALLY nice for the price.

also you dont have to do toooo much more to the base to make them look nice while also being generally way cheaper than resin 3rd party scenic bases (though some scenic bases are way more dynamic)

 Desubot wrote:
Ya know for the normal black ones yeah you can get way cheaper from other places.

I've been using the clear acrylic bases because I'm lazy and it looks good. $8 for 25 off Amazon, another $7 for the cockpit glue.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Kingdom Death and Privateer Press are both more costly on a model to model basis.

That's not true for Kingdom Death, at least. The KD Core is proportionally cheaper than what you'd pay for similar sized GW models, and the expansions are priced no worse than what GW charges.

 Stormatious wrote:
I mean, i ordered just ONE black round base for The Great Unclean One and that costs 12$ ( pretty sure it costs about 5 cents or so to make that base, im just guessing ). Also it seems that citadel is the smallest paints you can get, also some of the worse design for a container for the paint. Half of my paint ends up gettin spilled over the sides of the container just because thats how it acts when i close the cap... And then theres the most expensive spray paints i have ever seen... etc etc


What are your thoughts on this?, do you think its a bit ridiculous that things seem to cost more and come in less quantity compared to every other war game?

edit - Also bought some green stuff, which is about the size of a 2 space marines ( the blue and the green together )... thought there would be alot more, and that was 24$


Any way, im not complaining to be fair, im more interested in what others think about this compared to other wargames, or what ever knowledge/thoughts they have on this.


edit - But if this seems just like me complaining please delete this thread and i apologise.

My thoughts:

It really depends on how you look at it. My CSM army cost me over 500$. I've been playing it for over a month now, and will get many years out of it.

My Tank Guard cost a similar amount. I'll be playing it for years, but half the fun of that purchase was in my interest in painting it.

My buddy plays competitive magic. So far this year he's dropped over 4,000$ as of last week, many of the cards he has aren't useable at all. Many more will only be useable for a set amount of time, and some of those might go into older formats to become parts of new combos and so on.

Games Workshop certainly charges a premium for their models. No doubt.

Most gamers though do not understand business dynamics and will insist it is all some "greedy ploy" to steal all of the money. Meh. Who knows.

 Bellerophon wrote:

 Warhawk77 wrote:
Take a commander model for example the commander might take 3 times as long to sculpt the original compared to a basic trooper but the cost to make is the same so why are commanders 4 or 5 times more? Plastic is cheap I have been around the hobby for years and and you can see how "special Characters" cost a lot more just like units that work well cost a lot more.

A lot of that is down to the mouldmaking costs - steel moulds for injection moulding plastic are very expensive and the costs need to be recouped from sales of the models. A lot of heroes and special characters are the sort of model where you don't really need more than one. If everybody buys one of the commander, and buys four troop boxes, then they sell four times as many troop boxes as commanders. Each commander they sell needs to carry a much larger share of its mould costs than the troop box does.

I understand that logic and agree it does play a role in the pricing. I don't think it is the reason for the prices being higher I feel it is based on a models game play value. Taking characters out of the example a 10 man space marine tact squad is $50, 5 man Assault squad $35 and 10 Astra Militarum $25. I could be totally wrong but having played 40k as it moved from RT to 5th edition you could watch model prices get higher as they became better in the game.

 Stormatious wrote:
I mean, i ordered just ONE black round base for The Great Unclean One and that costs 12$ ( pretty sure it costs about 5 cents or so to make that base, im just guessing ). Also it seems that citadel is the smallest paints you can get, also some of the worse design for a container for the paint. Half of my paint ends up gettin spilled over the sides of the container just because thats how it acts when i close the cap... And then theres the most expensive spray paints i have ever seen... etc etc

What are your thoughts on this?, do you think its a bit ridiculous that things seem to cost more and come in less quantity compared to every other war game?

edit - Also bought some green stuff, which is about the size of a 2 space marines ( the blue and the green together )... thought there would be alot more, and that was 24$

Any way, im not complaining to be fair, im more interested in what others think about this compared to other wargames, or what ever knowledge/thoughts they have on this.

edit - But if this seems just like me complaining please delete this thread and i apologise.

GW is definitely stupidly predatory when it comes to stuff you can get elsewhere. Glue, tools, green stuff, NEVER buy that stuff from GW, everything is 3x the price or more. One exception, those painting handles are like $10 CAD and well worth it.

Paint-wise, I'll use GW paint because it's easy to acquire, that's it. I have a sizable range of Reaper and Vajello paints a well, but some shades are just unique to GW and I can rely on getting replacement paints the next day, where if I need to order Reaper paints it's a couple weeks because no dealers are nearby. So there's a price for convenience I'm willing to pay.

Miniature wise, if GW is pretty much the most expensive. You could probably find corner cases, but in general, they are the most expensive.

Now, does that matter? Does GW provide value for the money? Obviously the people playing and collecting the game feel they're getting something out of it or they'd skip it. There are plenty of cheaper games none of us will play because we don't like the minis, the lore, the gameplay, even at one third the price of GW.

Yes it is the most expensive but value is relative, I buy one kit a month these days to paint and I get value from that so the expense is not as bad for me, people who chase the meta must spend a hell of a lot more than I do and they likely find value in that, if we do a direct comparison to other companies that are equal or better in quality though you start seeing less value in the prices, a few years ago the claim that GW made the best models in the world had some merit, not anymore, not by a long shot, since their reliance on CAD sculpts the quality has dropped as the detail has risen for me, the lack of options for conversions and the difficulty in doing so, even with plastic, has significantly lowered value for me compared to the cheaper alternatives.

From what I understand about other games being played at my store. If I took my 370$ and bought in to infinity or any of the WWII historial games, I would get 2-3 armies if I bought them at store price. Second hand I could get more. No idea if there are cheaper games, but I do know that I have never seen more expensive ones then those made by GW. On top of that the rotation in models or even entire armies is huge in GW games.

 wuestenfux wrote:
We have a guy here who started 40k five years ago.
He said he had spent 30,000 Euro for all the stuff he bought.

I assume that's commissioning entire armies worth of spend...

I dont feel nowhere near as bad for splashing on something every now and then.

I've recently gotten back into infinity and I have to say the price difference is pretty striking, in terms of fielding an army. The models work out more expensive per model, but £150 will get you a full army with lots of options.

And as for paints, I use Vallejo more than Citadel - better paints in better containers. Having said that, some citadel colours are just awesome - bad moon yellow, for instance, is the best damn yellow I've used.

Formerly Wu wrote:
I highly doubt (though could be wrong) that White Dwarf / GW brick-and-mortar business is net profitable for the company. Those look like loss leaders to me.

I would say they do, as I saw those things changing a lot over time and stores that were too large were scaled down (moved to smaller rooms that cost less with just one or no table to play), those that did not worked well closed and so on
Also what those stores had on stock changed a lot over time to keep them profitable

Of course in some cities/countries it might be different as just having the presence of a big GW store is worth it without making profit but they wouldn't do it if it is an overall los.

happy_inquisitor wrote:
I don't know about that, most factions you can start out with a couple of Start Collecting boxes and then fill in the gaps to get a workable army. Is that really $500? It is far from that in the UK.

Just got thru the numbers in a different topic, if just the cheapest boxes (start collection, core box, snap fit) is used you still end up around 400-500 depending on the army you play
before you start caring to win or talking about having the same 5 models 20 times to get the numbers.

Formerly Wu wrote:
That's always going to be the case if you play to chase the meta, no matter who you buy your models from. His point was that the game itself would still be around, and the core units from the majority of armies are still usable in anything but the most cutthroat competition.

happy_inquisitor wrote:
The size of a "full" army also matters. GW dropped their points values for their events to 1750 which was an instant 12.5% reduction in the cost of getting a full army on the table. Nothing to do with them if ETC/ITC want to stick to higher points values - actually given their approach of expecting people to do serious travelling for the tournament scene the cost of 250 points of models is perfectly rational to the ETC/ITC.

Stormatious wrote:
What do you mean by life time, do you mean some models become obsolete, or do you mean they are nerfed in a way where other models are needed or some thing. Either way i really hate the idea of models you buy wonday becoming obselete, thats rubbish and if thats true i would rather pick another wargame maybe like historical. I hope they have some thing written some where that allows models you bought a long time ago to still be used. ( i would still buy cool looking models though just for display )

happy_inquisitor wrote:
You only have that level of obsolescence if you are playing at a competitive level, in which case your other costs (travel, hotel, tournament fees) are way more than $100 per year which is what your costs above come out to (and you did not include selling the stuff you no longer want on ebay). If you are chasing the dragon of the competitive meta for any other reason than serious regular attendance of big tournaments then the price of GW models has nothing to do with what is going on in your life.

Jus to make things clear

I started Warhammer Fantasy at the end of 4th and beginning of 5th edition. Had a small group, tried to get everyone to play something different. I had a 3000 point Empire army and was just playing with friends, never competitive and also thought about a Khorne army just to have something different. And this was an expensive one as by that time a single Knight had nearly the price of Box plastic Infantry and ordering them at GW was kind of random as I wanted to have 10 Knight, 1 unit, with lances from one order and got 5 White Wolves, 5 from different knightly orders. Complaining on the Phone was complicated and the answer we got was that Knights in Blisters are packed randomly into Mail Orders.
Same with Artillery, I needed 3 Mail Orders until I got a cannon instead of a Mortar.

With 6th edition everything changed and my 3000 points were worth 1500 at best but did not fit the new restrictions anyway so it was more like 1000 points but with proxies as Haflings and some war machines were gone and never returned.

This was also the time I moved to a different city for job, so I stopped with Fantasy and started 40k with the local community.
Space Wolves in 3rd/4th edition

Guess what, things changed and I played Thousand Sons during 4th (a 3000 point collection as games were just 1500 but with some variation the army will grow. The whole thing is something around 1000 points with 8th edition Codex and no were near legal playable with the current rules)
.
As the game become worse over time the community shrinkend and we got into Warhammer again with 7th edition
My Empire army was still not useable (units never returned, army size changed as core units needed to be bigger now and so on) and I needed to start from scratch anyway so it dwarfs.
Again around 3000 points painted but only 2250 needed but just to have some variation

This was also the time I went to tournaments as my local Fantasy group did so and we played just for fun so I went there with a full melee army, which was also more expensive than the regular one.
Was a very fun time and so I decided to start the old dream of a Khorne army again.
A lot of expensive metal models again and a lot of conversions to get those Juggernauts from just one hero models.

This time I just bought what was really needed to get those 2250 points because I wanted to get it ready sooner and save money
8th edition hit, and my just bought Khorne army was not worth the points needed to play again (same for the dwarfs)

But this was also the big time of 40k here, as tournaments were bigger than for Fantasy (which was already declining at the end of 7th but just died with the edition change) and 5th was better than the previous ones

So back to Space Wolves and added some more units to play "Codex Hopper" with own colour scheme as I didn't want to buy 9 Rhinos just to have 3 grey, 3 blue and 3 green ones.
And I wanted to get around the problem that units just disappear/are removed from the game by playing different armies
Ended up with a lot more than before. Did not play with the meta but just what I wanted.
Still waited to get my 1kSons back to the game and with the new Codex the army split into CSM and Deamons. With the Sons not really being playable on their own (without regular CSM) I took the other half of the army and started Deamons
6th edition hit before I finished painting them

Family and Job things changed so 6th was over before I could play a game and than 7th came with the free unit inflating stuff
I played some games with Daemons, but as soon as formations hit my ~10k Space Marines could not make a single 1750 point army anymore (I had too many of the wrong units and too less of the others)


So you don't need to hunt down the meta to have the problem that your army becomes obsolete
Units get removed from the game, some may return and others are never seen again. Some you can use as proxy if the opponent/tournament allows it others are just nice models on the shelf.

Each time GW changes, the standard game size increases in 2 ways, total point cost rises and points per model decrease.
A 2000 point army in 3rd edition is now equal 1000 points in 8th.

Of course you can play 1000 points now and if you opponent allows proxies/count as and agree to play a non standard point size and so your initial investment lasted 20 years.
But in reality as long as there is no fixed group that does not changes over time (they are out there, I still know people who just play 5th edition 40k and never made the edition change) it is easier and cheaper to just shelf your stuff after and start from scratch


PS:
This is also a reason why Skirmish games are on the rise as no one wants to have a huge collection of an army on the shelf that will never be used again. (and it is also easier to get people playing an OOP skirmish game from time to time than to get people playing an old edition of 40k)

 kodos wrote:
I played some games with Daemons, but as soon as formations hit my ~10k Space Marines could not make a single 1750 point army anymore (I had too many of the wrong units and too less of the others)

I am extremely skeptical of this claim given the fact that the standard 5th edition FOC was still legal in 7th. I believe what you mean is that you couldn't make a competitive 1750 point army that exploited the "get free stuff" formations, which is not the same as not being able to make an army at all.

No point in playing a game were you auto loose turn 1 because your opponent brought double the amount of points.

7th was not the game of basic FOC armies against each other but about formations

If you wanted to have a competitive army you needed specific formation and allied forced. I am not talking about competitive or tournament armies here.

I played my Wolves several times in 7th with without formations, was wiped out turn 1 ever time and deployment took longer than the game itself

I don't consider this "you can still play the game" as it is not "playing" to place models on the table and remove all of them 15 minutes later without doing anything