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I dunno I feel like the Gulf War, if turned into a wargames scenario, would have been specifically made an imbalanced scenario. Maybe the Iraqi win conditions would have been just to last a certain number of turns, or launch all their Scud missiles, or successfully get your Saddam Hussein HQ model into base to base with the enemy's George Bush warlord model and beat him in a challenge.

Yes, that is the way that Avalon Hill games used to be balanced. The forces may be rather imbalanced, and the victory conditions are used to rebalance the scenario by giving the stronger side a more difficult objective.

And 40k is not consciously balanced in terms of mission objectives.

If it was, it would be a different story.

 Badablack wrote:
... but I gotta say the idea that it's okay to buy a toy that's not even put together for you, but it's not okay to fiddle around with the rules that go with it...is that irony, is that the word I'm looking for?

No, 'two completely unrelated things' is the term you're looking for.

It's perfectly ok to fiddle around with the rules, if you choose to do so. What's not ok is buying a game and having to fiddle around with the rules in order to make the game actually function.

That's a completely separate issue to having to assemble models. The whole point of a model kit is that you assemble and paint it.

 Badablack wrote:
People will sit in a room for hours at a time patiently and enthusiastically turning these sprues of unpainted plastic bits into the models on the box cover.

But altering any of the rules in the main book or the codices is absolutely going too far. GW is lazy hacks.

The gluing together part is trivial, that can be dispensed with as a factor. The painting part is something that most people enjoy as part of the hobby. They enjoy it both as an activity and as a means of making the models "theirs". Few people enjoying fixing rules sets as a hobby and making a rules set "yours" makes no sense when the purpose of a rules set is to provide a common standard so people can play together. Short version: choosing a colour scheme for your Guardians and painting them up is for most people a fun activity that results in something that distinguishes their possessions in a positive way. Fixing a rule set is for most people a chore that results in recurrent compatibility issues and time-devouring discussions every time you want to play someone else who wasn't part of your rule fixing process. Also, it adds a lot of confusion with multiple fixes flying around. Badly painted scorpions have few negative consequences. Poor rules and poor fixes, do.

So to answer the question you posted earlier, no, 'irony' is not the word you're looking for.

If you don't like building models you can buy ready-painted armies.

GW are supposed to provide ready written rules.

The rules-equivalent to painting/assembling/etc is playing the game. A game that is specifically designed to be a "build your own game" wouldn't have rules like 40k - it'd have a standardised rule system that allows players to create customised units and rules of their own, something like that thread that was popular a little while ago that had details for making your own stuff.

EDIT:

melkorthetonedeaf wrote:I would really like to add this one thought on this topic:

Throughout the course of human history, there has never been a single instance of a war that was "balanced". Think about drone strikes, or the conquistadors.

This isn't real war, it's a game. There's never been an instance of one angry person shredding their way through an entire enemy army either, but that doesn't mean that Protagonist Powers and Plot Armour don't exist in fiction, especially video games, for a reason.

x13rads wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

x13rads wrote:
You know the game is balanced by a point system. Everything has a point value. If you are going up against player A with army X, and you remember last time you guys played you slaughtered him, there is nothing stopping you to handicap yourself say 10% on the points side. Now same player with army Y might not need the handicap.

I have simply started keeping a list of who I play and what army they brought. If I have won the last 3 games we played I am simply gonna handicap myself 15%. If he beats me, then next time it might go to only 5%.

wat

That's not balance, that's shoddy rules that require you to handicap yourself in order to not slaughter somebody else. "Slaughtering" somebody else should never happen in a game, barring insane luck, unless that person takes outright ridiculous things (e.g. an entire army of Grots).

In what world does balance mean "I'm going to handicap myself to give you a fighting chance"?

Isn't it exactly what you want GW to do for you?

To balance the game all they have to do is go through every codex and assign points to every unit to better reflect their combat effectiveness. So just do it yourself on a more personal level. Only this way you are also balancing your own generalship against your opponent as well.

At this point you may as well say "Don't play 40k. All you have to do is make up your own miniature wargame!". What you just said is exactly what GW should be doing. It's kind of the point of them being the developers of this game.

A few thoughts:
Re-writing rules is fine and all but very few people are going to want to play a pick up game with a custom rule set.

If most people were capable of writing a good, balanced rule set then they would be working in the game business. Most people I know and play with are IT guys or young college kids - I am sure they are really good at their chosen profession but not good at writing rules.

Some random guy writing rules is most likely going to make his army very powerful - how many wasted games will we have to play to play test to balance out the new rules.

This is what we pay GW to do. It might be different if they were giving out free rule books but at $75 for a rule book and $58 a codex they damn well should have better balanced rules.

Well, I think Warmahordes is pretty balanced that the 35 to 50 pt level.
On the other hand, GW wants to make a cineastic game with built-in imbalances.

WayneTheGame wrote:


Two more quotes from Jervis which IMO sum up some real insanity:

"In the end, we are very satisfied with the place the Imperial Knights have taken in Warhammer 40,000," says Jervis. "This is because no one army can ever deal with all-comers. The holy grail of many hobbyists is to fashion a single, all-conquering army that can win in any eventuality, but in truth there is probably no such thing. It doesn't make the search any less fun, but there are just too many variables, and the Imperial Knight adds another wrinkle to it. What's good at killing a Baneblade is not necessarily much good at dealing with an Imperial Knight, and it almost certainly won't help against a Tyranid Hive Crone. All this encourages people to experiment with their tactics and their collections, and I think this is one of the things adding the Imperial Knight has done. As a games developer, the most important thing I have learned to be most wary of is cutting down options," Jervis concludes. "It's our duty to provide more choices and opportunities for people to have fun with their friends. I think the tactical challenge the Imperial Knight offers are going to do that."

and a bit about their design process:

So, though it may surprise some people, my first concern with rules is always that they are a fair reflection of the background behind the model. Once we get that nailed down, and we're happy with the character of the rules, we then turn our minds to other practicalities: how long will it take people to figure out the best ways to use them? Will people be able to develop counter-tactics once they have played a few games?

So there you have it. They don't like the idea that there exists a "take all comers" army, and thinks there shouldn't be one and I guess expect you to show up to a game, get the snot kicked out of you by 3 Titans, and then next week show up with a list to crush the 3 Titans. They WANT an escalating arms race, presumably because it involves buying more models.

Guess the designers have learned about perfect imbalance as seen in MMO's and CCG, but haven't been able to able to implement it properly. The imbalance needs to be subtle...

The classic Penny Arcade video summarizes it neatly:

In first edition you could design your own troops from points values. Vehicle Design Rules lasted into late 3rd edition.

 Antario wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:


Two more quotes from Jervis which IMO sum up some real insanity:

"In the end, we are very satisfied with the place the Imperial Knights have taken in Warhammer 40,000," says Jervis. "This is because no one army can ever deal with all-comers. The holy grail of many hobbyists is to fashion a single, all-conquering army that can win in any eventuality, but in truth there is probably no such thing. It doesn't make the search any less fun, but there are just too many variables, and the Imperial Knight adds another wrinkle to it. What's good at killing a Baneblade is not necessarily much good at dealing with an Imperial Knight, and it almost certainly won't help against a Tyranid Hive Crone. All this encourages people to experiment with their tactics and their collections, and I think this is one of the things adding the Imperial Knight has done. As a games developer, the most important thing I have learned to be most wary of is cutting down options," Jervis concludes. "It's our duty to provide more choices and opportunities for people to have fun with their friends. I think the tactical challenge the Imperial Knight offers are going to do that."

and a bit about their design process:

So, though it may surprise some people, my first concern with rules is always that they are a fair reflection of the background behind the model. Once we get that nailed down, and we're happy with the character of the rules, we then turn our minds to other practicalities: how long will it take people to figure out the best ways to use them? Will people be able to develop counter-tactics once they have played a few games?

So there you have it. They don't like the idea that there exists a "take all comers" army, and thinks there shouldn't be one and I guess expect you to show up to a game, get the snot kicked out of you by 3 Titans, and then next week show up with a list to crush the 3 Titans. They WANT an escalating arms race, presumably because it involves buying more models.

Guess the designers have learned about perfect imbalance as seen in MMO's and CCG, but haven't been able to able to implement it properly. The imbalance needs to be subtle...

The classic Penny Arcade video summarizes it neatly:

They seem to have cut the design process short somewhere well prior to the "no one choice can excel at everything" stage...

 Antario wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:


Two more quotes from Jervis which IMO sum up some real insanity:

"In the end, we are very satisfied with the place the Imperial Knights have taken in Warhammer 40,000," says Jervis. "This is because no one army can ever deal with all-comers. The holy grail of many hobbyists is to fashion a single, all-conquering army that can win in any eventuality, but in truth there is probably no such thing. It doesn't make the search any less fun, but there are just too many variables, and the Imperial Knight adds another wrinkle to it. What's good at killing a Baneblade is not necessarily much good at dealing with an Imperial Knight, and it almost certainly won't help against a Tyranid Hive Crone. All this encourages people to experiment with their tactics and their collections, and I think this is one of the things adding the Imperial Knight has done. As a games developer, the most important thing I have learned to be most wary of is cutting down options," Jervis concludes. "It's our duty to provide more choices and opportunities for people to have fun with their friends. I think the tactical challenge the Imperial Knight offers are going to do that."

and a bit about their design process:

So, though it may surprise some people, my first concern with rules is always that they are a fair reflection of the background behind the model. Once we get that nailed down, and we're happy with the character of the rules, we then turn our minds to other practicalities: how long will it take people to figure out the best ways to use them? Will people be able to develop counter-tactics once they have played a few games?

So there you have it. They don't like the idea that there exists a "take all comers" army, and thinks there shouldn't be one and I guess expect you to show up to a game, get the snot kicked out of you by 3 Titans, and then next week show up with a list to crush the 3 Titans. They WANT an escalating arms race, presumably because it involves buying more models.

Guess the designers have learned about perfect imbalance as seen in MMO's and CCG, but haven't been able to able to implement it properly. The imbalance needs to be subtle...

The classic Penny Arcade video summarizes it neatly:

I hate it when people post that video as an excuse for imbalance in a game. It just doesn't apply to GW. At least in the case of Riot, they are constantly releasing, updating, and balancing content. Additionally, they're constantly in touch with the playerbase and reacting to their feedback. While I don't agree with the notion explained in the video, Riot does a decent job of actually maintaining it. GW, quite plainly, does not.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 motyak wrote:
@OP

Yeah their view is a real worry, but hopefully they'll sort it out somehow. I'd even be happy with two lists, one of 'for fun, background flavoured' or whatever armies, and one of 'tightly written and balanced' armies, if they truly believe that it isn't possible to have both (something I disagree with whole heartedly, but hey)

@Swas

In how many different threads are you going to pimp your blog, seriously. And the people reading it must have a tolerance for poor grammar that is quite impressive.

Haha, yea im working on it. Funnily enough I do a lot of typing for my job...

and I want that post to be read becuase I used to just whine about GW a lot too. But after a while my group have started to work out ways of making the game a lot more enjoyable and everyone is moving back to 40k. Its been great. All that was needed was effort.

Is this like a New Zealand thing? Because I'm in the exact same situation. When you play with a small group of people consistantly you just change the rules you don't like.

If all I had were pickup games I'd honestly sell my models and go play boardgames instead. Playing with strangers 100% of the time would be weird and unenjoyable, not to mention needing to use the gakky rules as is

 Dakkamite wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:

 motyak wrote:
@OP

Yeah their view is a real worry, but hopefully they'll sort it out somehow. I'd even be happy with two lists, one of 'for fun, background flavoured' or whatever armies, and one of 'tightly written and balanced' armies, if they truly believe that it isn't possible to have both (something I disagree with whole heartedly, but hey)

@Swas

In how many different threads are you going to pimp your blog, seriously. And the people reading it must have a tolerance for poor grammar that is quite impressive.

Haha, yea im working on it. Funnily enough I do a lot of typing for my job...

and I want that post to be read becuase I used to just whine about GW a lot too. But after a while my group have started to work out ways of making the game a lot more enjoyable and everyone is moving back to 40k. Its been great. All that was needed was effort.

Is this like a New Zealand thing? Because I'm in the exact same situation. When you play with a small group of people consistantly you just change the rules you don't like.

If all I had were pickup games I'd honestly sell my models and go play boardgames instead. Playing with strangers 100% of the time would be weird and unenjoyable, not to mention needing to use the gakky rules as is

Agreed, I dont know anyone in NZ who plays pick up games. It seems every player I meet belonged/belongs to a club. I have also never met someone here not open to the idea of playing with house rules etc. I think its great really.

At which point, why even play GW's games in the first place?

To be sure that is GW's increasing problem over the past few years.

 Fafnir wrote:
At which point, why even play GW's games in the first place?

Because, paraphrasing Churchill's Democracy-quote, 40K is the worst miniature game, except for all those others that have been tried from time to time.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:

 motyak wrote:
@OP

Yeah their view is a real worry, but hopefully they'll sort it out somehow. I'd even be happy with two lists, one of 'for fun, background flavoured' or whatever armies, and one of 'tightly written and balanced' armies, if they truly believe that it isn't possible to have both (something I disagree with whole heartedly, but hey)

@Swas

In how many different threads are you going to pimp your blog, seriously. And the people reading it must have a tolerance for poor grammar that is quite impressive.

Haha, yea im working on it. Funnily enough I do a lot of typing for my job...

and I want that post to be read becuase I used to just whine about GW a lot too. But after a while my group have started to work out ways of making the game a lot more enjoyable and everyone is moving back to 40k. Its been great. All that was needed was effort.

Is this like a New Zealand thing? Because I'm in the exact same situation. When you play with a small group of people consistantly you just change the rules you don't like.

If all I had were pickup games I'd honestly sell my models and go play boardgames instead. Playing with strangers 100% of the time would be weird and unenjoyable, not to mention needing to use the gakky rules as is

Agreed, I dont know anyone in NZ who plays pick up games. It seems every player I meet belonged/belongs to a club. I have also never met someone here not open to the idea of playing with house rules etc. I think its great really.

The pick-up game thing seems to be almost exclusively a US thing; most of us play only in game stores not in a club that rents out a hall or plays in somebody's garage or whatnot. Sometimes you get a forum or Facebook group or something where you can communicate with people, but my local meta has a Facebook group and it's rare to see actual prearranging games beyond something like "Hey I'm gonna be at the shop at 6 tomorrow if anyone's up for a game". No leagues or campaigns that I've seen yet or regular group that gets together each week. To be absolutely honest I don't even know how a gaming club actually works, since I've never seen one before.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
At which point, why even play GW's games in the first place?

Because, paraphrasing Churchill's Democracy-quote, 40K is the worst miniature game, except for all those others that have been tried from time to time.

Except we find that to be increasingly not the case, as gamers are leaving 40k for other systems and not coming back.

These days, the only thing 40k has going for it is its ubiquitous nature, and the only reason I've ever seen players go back to it was because it was the game that already had a population.

Ill have you know you are missing out man!

Imagine having the freedom to do campaigns, events and games all pre planned and sorted weeks in advance. Imagine becoming friends with all the players around you and developing your own "meta" as everyone gets used to each others play styles. Just like in any group players become like minded in what they want during a game and just generally playing 40k (and a lot of other games!) how it was meant to be played. Eventually you will be in contact qwith all your member friends and well its just great at any age. Im a bit too busy at work to go indepth about how to set them up and run them and so on but trends have to start somewhere. Maybe the USA needs a new gaming trend haha.

It takes effort. But this is wargaming, everything takes effort.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Ill have you know you are missing out man!

Imagine having the freedom to do campaigns, events and games all pre planned and sorted weeks in advance. Imagine becoming friends with all the players around you and developing your own "meta" as everyone gets used to each others play styles. Just like in any group players become like minded in what they want during a game and just generally playing 40k (and a lot of other games!) how it was meant to be played. Eventually you will be in contact qwith all your member friends and well its just great at any age. Im a bit too busy at work to go indepth about how to set them up and run them and so on but trends have to start somewhere. Maybe the USA needs a new gaming trend haha.

It takes effort. But this is wargaming, everything takes effort.

To be honest I don't know what it is. I just know that in all the years I've off and on played or thought about playing any kind of game, Warhammer or otherwise, there has never been a "gaming club" at least not any that advertised itself, it's always been the FLGS has a "miniatures night" for Warhammer/Warmahordes/X-wing/whatever, go down there with your army and see who else decides to show up and basically go "Hey Bob! Up for a game?" and hash it out right there.

I'm actually intrigued by the concept of a gaming club, and I honestly don't know why we don't have one in my local area since we have a good number of people, just it's never come up, I guess maybe because schedules differ so it'd be hard for people to make it every week, I'm not exactly sure.

I always find these threads amusing.
Side A: Thinks the rules need major work. Doesn't like seeing Riptide Spam, Flyer Spam, or Screamer Stars because it hurts the meta and variety of armies both competitively and in friendly games.

Side B: Side A: Thinks the rules need major work. Doesn't like seeing Riptide Spam, Flyer Spam, or Screamer Stars because it hurts the meta and variety of armies in friendly games. But everything is fine, or as good as it can be. So long as you make up a bunch of house rules, limit heavily what options you're allowed to take, and even ban entire units/models from play.

That's how I always see this argument boil down. Side B, generally the "friendly and fun" side, never realizes how they actually limit their meta so much more heavily than the actual competitive meta is. Both sides have problems with the same things and would both benefit from an actual attempt at balance, however one side insists that things are just fine after naming off all the problems and their "fixes" to them.

In both of the cities I've lived in, I played at FLGS that ended up developing their own communities where most of us did know each other. But that didn't change the fact that we did get new players every once in a while.

That said, we did have campaigns and events planned out, but most of our games were just pickup games with one another. And that shouldn't require rewriting the book just to make things function.

Sure, a level of effort is required in wargaming, but why start with something that so desperately does not want to be played?
If a system works better across multiple players and communities, without the need for forced-on modifications, and allows a wider group of players to play together and all have fun, why stick with the thing that's broken to an insufferable degree, short of a sunken cost fallacy.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:

 motyak wrote:
@OP

Yeah their view is a real worry, but hopefully they'll sort it out somehow. I'd even be happy with two lists, one of 'for fun, background flavoured' or whatever armies, and one of 'tightly written and balanced' armies, if they truly believe that it isn't possible to have both (something I disagree with whole heartedly, but hey)

@Swas

In how many different threads are you going to pimp your blog, seriously. And the people reading it must have a tolerance for poor grammar that is quite impressive.

Haha, yea im working on it. Funnily enough I do a lot of typing for my job...

and I want that post to be read becuase I used to just whine about GW a lot too. But after a while my group have started to work out ways of making the game a lot more enjoyable and everyone is moving back to 40k. Its been great. All that was needed was effort.

Is this like a New Zealand thing? Because I'm in the exact same situation. When you play with a small group of people consistantly you just change the rules you don't like.

If all I had were pickup games I'd honestly sell my models and go play boardgames instead. Playing with strangers 100% of the time would be weird and unenjoyable, not to mention needing to use the gakky rules as is

Agreed, I dont know anyone in NZ who plays pick up games. It seems every player I meet belonged/belongs to a club. I have also never met someone here not open to the idea of playing with house rules etc. I think its great really.

The pick-up game thing seems to be almost exclusively a US thing; most of us play only in game stores not in a club that rents out a hall or plays in somebody's garage or whatnot. Sometimes you get a forum or Facebook group or something where you can communicate with people, but my local meta has a Facebook group and it's rare to see actual prearranging games beyond something like "Hey I'm gonna be at the shop at 6 tomorrow if anyone's up for a game". No leagues or campaigns that I've seen yet or regular group that gets together each week. To be absolutely honest I don't even know how a gaming club actually works, since I've never seen one before.

That's quite similar to how it works over here, only that our FLGS is fairly active and organizes leagues and tournaments (personally I've also got a regulation size gaming board and a fair bit of terrain at home so I occasionally invite people to play at my place).

However, at no point that I've seen did anyone actually modify the game rules beyond the fact that nobody ever bothers with mysterious terrain/objectives and the FLGS staff practically treat the BRB and other books as gospel so there's next to no chance of anything substantial on that end.

I'm basically keeping my Transcendent C'tan somewhere in the back of the army box as a form of insurance in case our Tau/Eldar players start abusing the cheese (I have to admit I find the cold war parallel here to be both hilarious and somewhat sad at the same time).

 Fafnir wrote:


I hate it when people post that video as an excuse for imbalance in a game. It just doesn't apply to GW. At least in the case of Riot, they are constantly releasing, updating, and balancing content. Additionally, they're constantly in touch with the playerbase and reacting to their feedback. While I don't agree with the notion explained in the video, Riot does a decent job of actually maintaining it. GW, quite plainly, does not.

It applies as far as GW purposely sabotaging TAC armies and creating a rock paper scissors environment that centers on the newest toys. The knight codex appears to be the second attempt to bring in super heavies, and the new Nid Skyblight formation rips up the scoring rules.

But it's still not a healthy metagame development. At least with Riot, the argument is that the metagame shifts around a specific offender. In 40k, the metagame becomes entirely dominated by it.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Ill have you know you are missing out man!

Imagine having the freedom to do campaigns, events and games all pre planned and sorted weeks in advance. Imagine becoming friends with all the players around you and developing your own "meta" as everyone gets used to each others play styles. Just like in any group players become like minded in what they want during a game and just generally playing 40k (and a lot of other games!) how it was meant to be played. Eventually you will be in contact qwith all your member friends and well its just great at any age. Im a bit too busy at work to go indepth about how to set them up and run them and so on but trends have to start somewhere. Maybe the USA needs a new gaming trend haha.

It takes effort. But this is wargaming, everything takes effort.

To be honest I don't know what it is. I just know that in all the years I've off and on played or thought about playing any kind of game, Warhammer or otherwise, there has never been a "gaming club" at least not any that advertised itself, it's always been the FLGS has a "miniatures night" for Warhammer/Warmahordes/X-wing/whatever, go down there with your army and see who else decides to show up and basically go "Hey Bob! Up for a game?" and hash it out right there.

I'm actually intrigued by the concept of a gaming club, and I honestly don't know why we don't have one in my local area since we have a good number of people, just it's never come up, I guess maybe because schedules differ so it'd be hard for people to make it every week, I'm not exactly sure.

Im throwing crap out there but most americans I know seem to be very against "communal" resources and effort. It always seems to have to be owned buy someone or someone needs responsibility for it. In our club everyone owns the terrain and the money is everyones. We need a committee to decide with the people what is needed and what needs to change. We all want the same thing, so we all get what we want.

pretty much all our weekly small fee (4 NZD) pays the rent at the community centre which has space and tables. Anything extra is banked. The yearly fees (30 NZD) pays for more terrain and board games. They also fun whole day events like the giant battle of kursk day where we had the half the hall a giant ww2 tank battle with hundreds of tanks etc, or the swap meet where people from all over came to sell and trade models and so forth. We elect a committee every year and everyone pitches in the cleaning and setting up.

Everyone finds a place and does their thing. Then every so often all the mini groups sort of get together and try their styles of play or different games. For example my mini group does flames of war and 40k, but I also started fantasy after playing with another mini group.

We are all friends and people keep coming and its great. So much diversity and always new things to try for the key reason that its planned and regular. If someone new is coming we can help them out buy planning ahead and lettign everyone know. Like the warmachine guys. We never had warmachine but when they came it was made into a big deal and heaps of people now play it. I personally havent but chances are I will one day because I know they will always be there to try.

I cant actually think of any downside to it.

 Fafnir wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
At which point, why even play GW's games in the first place?

Because, paraphrasing Churchill's Democracy-quote, 40K is the worst miniature game, except for all those others that have been tried from time to time.

Except we find that to be increasingly not the case, as gamers are leaving 40k for other systems and not coming back.

These days, the only thing 40k has going for it is its ubiquitous nature, and the only reason I've ever seen players go back to it was because it was the game that already had a population.

Except we find that gamers who have left 40K, are increasingly coming back when they find out that Malifaux/Warmachine/Infinity/etc.. aren't any better either.

These days, the only thing propping up the non-40K games is the persistent hype of the 40K haters. But virtually every time people genuinely try these alternatives, they are revealed to be largely hot air with no legs to run. Better to pay more for 40K, than waste money on some Warmachine or Infinity models that just collect dust.

 Fafnir wrote:

These days, the only thing 40k has going for it is its ubiquitous nature, and the only reason I've ever seen players go back to it was because it was the game that already had a population.

Actually, I'd say the main thing it has going for it is the fluff. Loads of us think the fluff is great. That's why I want to play an Eldar army and not whatever generic advanced race exists in some other wargame. Ditto for orks or Space Marines or Sisters or whatever else you like. WH40K has some of the best, if not THE BEST atmosphere and background that exists in wargaming. I suppose technically historical wargaming has a richer more detailed background... but they don't have a corpse emperor ruling a million worlds.

The problem is so many are here for the setting, or for the miniatures, and the weak side of the triangle is the rules. So weak that we actually lose players because of it. Both those who leave and those who would start but are put off. And then you have the cost that is necessary. I genuinely think GW might be heading for a fall one day in the foreseeable future. And weak rules are hastening that.

Regarding "pick-up games", it's not a binary category that something is either playing with close friends you game with regularly or playing with a stranger you've never met before. There's a whole spectrum between those two and the worse the rules are and the poorer the balance, the further satisfactory gaming is pushed back along that spectrum to end up at just the little clique of people who hang out with each other.

Which come to think of it, pretty much describes the core GW developers.

The thing that bears repeating endlessly to those who always object to these complaints, is that improving the rules and balance doesn't necessarily have any downsides. If you like tweaking rules, you still can. If you like not using particular troops, you still can. It's just that it's an improvement for everyone else without costing those who currently enjoy it. I've seen someone try to construct an argument that better rules will negatively impact them. (That poster is in this thread). It was painful to watch.