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gungo wrote:
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.

I completely agree, this is a game afterall, there's no need to win at any cost.

 insaniak wrote:

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.

This might be the exact point, where we differ in approach to 40K. I myself, being an old 2nd ed player, with no dependance on "local community", have realy no boundaries on "what goes" (in any regard, be it rules, models, conversions, factions etc) and with acces to those 30 years of "material" to draw inspirations (NOT boundaries) from. When I considered returning to tabletop hobby two years ago I did my research, and this "infancy" is what drives me away from things like Maelstrom Edge or Warpath - they are both tiny in comparison, and frankly feel too "generic" aesthetically for my taste (and Mantic games have this "clone" feel to them). New skirmish games are out of my scope, as I'm long time Necromunda fan and simply don't need anything new in that scale. Modeling-wise, from what I gather from Dakka, at the current state of 40K, there seem to be two major factions that limit people out there - they either heavily depend on other player's acceptance, or at local GW store management acceptance. I have no such constraints, there is no "GW police" to enforce their restrictions on me, neither there are "militia" players to cry "This is heresy!" and deny me games.

And I have not played a Marines player or had any real concern with Marines fluff for about two decades now (except for DOW campaigns). Other factions in this game, perhaps because of their continous neglectance from GW, are so much more interesting to me than "rainbow power armour guys"...

 n0t_u wrote:


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.

There was no D&D hype in Poland. This is one of those cultural differences resulting from "Iron Curtain" and limited influence of west '70 and '80 on Central and Eastern Europe. By the time we had free acces to western culture, we were already in mid '90 and everything prior to that had to compete with everything old and new at once.
Only games I know, that have more potential to explore different "lore", "factions" and scenarios are historical wargames - they indeed have endless possibilities, but they are not a well defined "single game" (which was crucial phrase in construction of my sentence).

And I don't really understand this argument about "playstylewise definition" of yours - what is lacking consistency? Each 40K faction has unique and well defined playstyle provided that you are not competetively focused and restricted to 2.5hrs games of "who has most broken combo". I'm most often playing Tyranid vs Eldar games that are usually close call, a thing that most people here on Dakka think unimaginable and utterly unbalanced. And the only thing required to have to achieve that is time to prepare a terrain, a scenario and enough time to play games through to their natural end.

As to "deluding myself to see it as some sort of unique super hobbygame" - you should realy try harder to insult me to have any effect. Or you could try harder to actually understand what I'm exactly writing about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

gungo wrote:
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.

Exactly this.

 insaniak wrote:

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.

Are interesting ideas really shot down that often? In my experience the two biggest fluff taboos were female space marines and missing legions. The former are often poorly done, and more than a little creepy (counterexample shout out to the Fighting Tigers http://www.fightingtigersofveda.com/), while the latter are a bit gary stu.

A lot of games, including historicals, Malifuax, and even Warmachine, make their armies recreations, either of specific formations, or of fairly tightly defined formations that "could have existed." So you can play a generic British Tank Company in North Africa, or a specific one, but you can't play a Soviet Infantry Company in North Africa. Other games have huge, wide open spaces, things like Kings of War, where you can create virtually anything, and it will fit into the space.

40k, somewhat uniquely, has both, while also having something rarer: gaps in the fluff. I don't mean wide open, anything can happen here spaces, but wiggle room. Things like: how is a typical IG company organized? How many space marines are actually in a chapter? Exactly what sort of organization does a 40k army represent? It also creates worlds and tropes that can be used, while also clearly allowing new stuff to be created. So sure, you can argue that replacing cadian heads with a third party vendors and giving them a new color scheme doesn't change too much, but it's enough to make that army unique and new, while also fitting firmly into the 40k universe. I've seen very few armies online, and none in person, that I really felt didn't belong in the universe, and they're mostly goofy stuff like the the MLP army, or the hello kitty army before that.

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.

40k has the same blank space. Outside of the Ultramarines or Deathwing or a few hyper defined formations, you can build almost whatever you want, with any codex. There is very little a hobbyist could do that violates the fluff. Maybe you spend more time with fluff purists, but i've never seen anybody really object to the background of an army, especially when done with any skill or effort.

 Polonius wrote:

Outside of the Ultramarines or Deathwing or a few hyper defined formations, you can build almost whatever you want, with any codex. There is very little a hobbyist could do that violates the fluff. Maybe you spend more time with fluff purists, but i've never seen anybody really object to the background of an army, especially when done with any skill or effort.

This goes even further with Xenos factions. I'm mostly into Eldar, and official range of miniatures/formations/rules barely scratch the surface of how broad depiction of this race is in the fluff and/or previous editions/games etc... It is so obvious "wiggle space", that even Forge World provided (semi-) official way to represent missed craftworlds by Pale Courts rules. Tyranid Hive Fleets have almost endless potential if one was to readapt the concept of mutation driven army construction from 3rd ed and dig deeper on cross-species breeding of Tyranid organisms with other factions. Outside of some parts of IoM, 40K setting is mostly open but detailed enough to "jump start" imagination but not confine it.

There's a simple answer to this. What's your player base? If your local store has a fun friendly group, then absolutely jump back into it.

If you're going to be going to tournaments or your group is all power games, then jump back in, but understand that's it's going to be all overpowered armies, so if you choose something on the weaker end, you're going to get destroyed.

 Polonius wrote:

Are interesting ideas really shot down that often?

That really depends on the ideas, and how well they fit with peoples' perception of the fluff. I've seen plenty of cool ideas over the years cop criticism for precisely that reason.

Don't get me wrong, I completely agree that 40K has plenty of blank space for your own creations... I just disagree that this is somehow exclusive to 40K. Having 30 years of established fluff doesn't give you more creative room than having a paragraph scrawled on a napkin... it just gives you more established fluff.

 insaniak wrote:

I just disagree that this is somehow exclusive to 40K. Having 30 years of established fluff doesn't give you more creative room than having a paragraph scrawled on a napkin... it just gives you more established fluff.

I have never said, that any quality is exclusive to 40K. This was in fact the very context of my first post in this thread. Let me rephrase: the unique quality of 40K comes from it being the only one with such a mix of properties, not from it being composed of unique properties. And because some of those properties come from vastly different areas (and even from different real life time periods), 40K experience as a whole is totally unique. Maybe this way it is more understandable...

And I strongly disagree, that paragraph scrawled on a napkin is worth exactly the same as 30 year old saga - that is quite ridiculous statement, not only in the context of 40K, but any other fiction. Great series of fully fledged books will always have more depth and content than even the greatest short story, and will generate a whole different level of immersion. Just to take this example to extreme: I could write down such paragraph myself, create a setting myself and then turn that paragraph into physical form of scratch built model(s). Been there, done that: wholly different experience than participation in something much larger than single person's imagination. Not worse, not better, just completely different.

nou wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

I just disagree that this is somehow exclusive to 40K. Having 30 years of established fluff doesn't give you more creative room than having a paragraph scrawled on a napkin... it just gives you more established fluff.

I have never said, that any quality is exclusive to 40K. This was in fact the very context of my first post in this thread. Let me rephrase: the unique quality of 40K comes from it being the only one with such a mix of properties, not from it being composed of unique properties. And because some of those properties come from vastly different areas (and even from different real life time periods), 40K experience as a whole is totally unique. Maybe this way it is more understandable...

To piggyback off that point, 40k provides a broad shared language for describing things, even if they are created out of whole cloth. For example, I can describe my army as "Catachan airmobile city-fighters" or "non-wulfen 13th company" or a "stormboys assault korps" and people would know roughly what I mean, without me having to explain it all long hand.

Plenty of games have a blank canvas, but 40k does a lot of colors to through on that canvas, ready made.

nou wrote:
Great series of fully fledged books will always have more depth and content than even the greatest short story, and will generate a whole different level of immersion.

Sure. My disagreement though comes from your apparent impression that creative freedom is reliant on content.

You can write an entire library of content for a game and have someone not be inspired to do anything with it, while instead having their imagination fired by a single line of text.



Don't get me wrong, I love the 40k setting, and have spent uncountable hours working on projects inspired by it. It's a great setting. But it's not inherently better inspiration than other games just because it has more stuff written down.



But I think I'm just repeating myself now, and this is really rather off topic anyway...

 insaniak wrote:

nou wrote:
Great series of fully fledged books will always have more depth and content than even the greatest short story, and will generate a whole different level of immersion.

Sure. My disagreement though comes from your apparent impression that creative freedom is reliant on content.

You can write an entire library of content for a game and have someone not be inspired to do anything with it, while instead having their imagination fired by a single line of text.



Don't get me wrong, I love the 40k setting, and have spent uncountable hours working on projects inspired by it. It's a great setting. But it's not inherently better inspiration than other games just because it has more stuff written down.



But I think I'm just repeating myself now, and this is really rather off topic anyway...

Ok, I think I see now when is the last bit of misunderstanding between us hidden: I'm not saying, that 40K setting is better in inspiring reaction, only that if and when your imagination is fired by 40K, there is almost endless supply of further inspiration available. You are far, far more likely to run out of new projects if a game has three pages of lore and two factions in it...

But you're right, this is quite off topic at this point. Cheers!

Another way to make the game fun is doubles games.

750 points each, single CAD, playing only Maelstrom of War /w objectives.

 Marmatag wrote:
Another way to make the game fun is doubles games.
.

To each his own... I have no words for how much I hate team games for 40k.

 NoPoet wrote:
Greetings, fellow Dwarfers. (You can take that to mean either Red or White Dwarf )

I've got all three basic Eldar Codices (Dark, Craftworlds, Harlequins) and these have finally swayed me away from Nurgle's embrace. But the problem is, starting an Eldar army of any description would be horrifically expensive, and all anyone seems to do these days is bitch about Games Workshop, 40K and AoS. It is literally the most negative fanbase I've ever been a part of.

Part of that may be warranted, and is a reflection of issues eith GW's product.

That said, 40k has nowhere near the most negative community around. Check out the Robotech Tactics threads around if you wanna see negativity, or peruse the forums of Leage of Legends or World of Warcraft, it'll blow your mind.

Also keep in mind that forums are a place for people to vent, most people arent negative donkey-caves while playing.

In this day and age of broken formations, power gamers and models which cost £70+ each, is it even worth bothering to collect and play 40K?

For me, as 7E stands, no its not anymore.

I think it all comes down to weather you have fun or not. That's the deciding factor. Although it is true most GW fans are whiny little bitches, it's not impossible to find somebody who's not a negative nancy

123ply wrote:
I think it all comes down to weather you have fun or not. That's the deciding factor. Although it is true most GW fans are whiny little bitches, it's not impossible to find somebody who's not a negative nancy

How ironic. Someone negative towards "most GW fans". So I take it you are part of the "majority" fans eh?

 NoPoet wrote:
Greetings, fellow Dwarfers. (You can take that to mean either Red or White Dwarf )

I've got all three basic Eldar Codices (Dark, Craftworlds, Harlequins) and these have finally swayed me away from Nurgle's embrace. But the problem is, starting an Eldar army of any description would be horrifically expensive, and all anyone seems to do these days is bitch about Games Workshop, 40K and AoS. It is literally the most negative fanbase I've ever been a part of. It also feels like I'm the only person in the world who wants to play for fun using the models I like, following the intended spirit of the rules. But all anyone else seems to do is BRING MOAR S7, BRING 30 FLESHHOUNDS BECAUSE THIS WILL WIN, then whine about THIS GAME IS BROKEN BECAUSE I SPENT EIGHT HOURS INVENTING A SCREAMERSTAR FORMATION.

In this day and age of broken formations, power gamers and models which cost £70+ each, is it even worth bothering to collect and play 40K?

Genuine answers only please, this is a genuine thread, not a rant.

I do have the pleasure to play with a good friend of mine who is not in the competetive scene. Usually we just come up with a scenario, make up some easy conventions and play using nothing more than the usual force org chart. We play solely for fun, without trying to go out of our way to win.
It still sucks to quite some degree. Not because units are OP, but because of the general game design. It takes ages to play a match. The IgoUgo-system is essentially flawed. The tons of USRs are difficult to remember (and every godemperor-damn unit nowadays has at least 3 of those) and basically just slow down the game by making you crossreference every other action.

Thus, my suggestion:
If you want to play something 40k-ish, play Killteam. You don't have to spend tons of cash on models required for a full army and the problems with ballance and a lot of the slowing stuff is gone.

If you just want to play, get Maelstorm's Edge, Infinity, TANKS (that one's a lot of fun, requires like 50 bucks for all the minis you could possibly wish and is really easy to learn), or whatever else our fellow dakkaites may suggest.

As some other people have stated, it is kind of subjective and if you are having fun with it. If you feel you are putting money into something you enjoy and feel you are getting something out of it then go ahead and play with a more causal group of players and friends. This said, there are other games out there that you can try and either supplement your 40k gaming experience and gather different points of view and experiences outside of 40k, AoS or GW in general. Of course it will not be like 40k as people will claim to be, and that is okay for the most part because if that it was the case then everything would be a bit bland and boring down the road.

Now, if you were to do a cost-benefit analysis and be as objective in your choice, then there are other games I do believe are better to start playing. One main are X-Wing if you are into Star Wars as the Core Set comes with two factions to start with to try the game out at the price of $40 USD and go from there. This way you can get down the basics with a friend, perhaps split the Imperials and Rebels depending on which one you and your friend want to play respectively. Granted if you want to fine tune and get more dice and the like, you do want to get a second core set and more, but in the long run, your cost tends to be lower than 40k and especially if you want to buy a new ship.

Though again, your mileage may vary and it is your prerogative if you are having fun with 40k and you want to continue with it. If nothing else, at least ask someone to run a demo of a different game for you to get some experience with other games.

Depends on your expectations. If you are into hobby parts, like painting and collecting, 40k is great. If you are looking at 40k as actual strategy game... well, lets say it's just a tabletop game. Beer and pretzel one. Like manchkin, but a bit more random.

The game itself is just excuse to put some nicely looking models on the table and watch the result. And that, ofc, require the proper gaming group. You can not just play pickup in current edition. A lot of hate was come from that swith from semi-balanced strategy game (4th and 5th editions, that's when I start, and actually I never played 3-rd one, so I will leave it behind my post) to semi-roleplay sandbox game (like rogue traider). A lot of players still want to see 40k as strategy game and angry at GW for opposite decision.

Silver144 wrote:
Depends on your expectations. If you are into hobby parts, like painting and collecting, 40k is great.

I do agree that 40k does have a nice feel to their models and great for conversion, but I would not characterize as the only game if you like painting and collecting. Hell, historicals tend to lend a good credence towards collecting and painting an representation of what a soldier from the annals in history and stories that are awe inspiring just like those in 40k. Then again, that is mostly apples to oranges some can argue but one thing 40k lends itself over most others is the plethora of customization on the level of conversion and kitbashing, which I do think is its major strength.

Probably all been said before, I'm at uni so dont have time to read the whole thread.

DakkaDakka is not indicative of the 40k community at all. It generally represents the powergaming/tournament side of things, and all the best/tactically superior stuff gets discussed.

When I started out I was on this religiously, finding out what combos work best and what ways I field my army. I would run these lists/ideas, and while they would work occasionally due to my 'Crons being one of the stronger Codexes, I felt underwhelmed by their performance.

I realised a while later that the armies I was facing were not tournament armies, hell they weren't even top tier codexes, and some of my friends did not think tactically/competitively at all when building their lists and playing their armies. The tactics/lists I was running were geared more towards armies that I am never going to see/play against as my personal meta is radically different to the tournament meta. The warhammer community I belong to is only about 10 - 12 regular players, not DakkaDakka or the wider community. If I posted the casual lists I play on this forum, I would get laughed off the internet. I dont, as I know they aren't competitive, yet that wasn't my aim when listbuilding, because the armies I play against are not Eldar/Tau/GSF etc

Your asking should you even start 40k. This is a hobby, and while it can be expensive, the main thing is that it takes a fair time investment if you want the most out of it. You shouldnt be asking 'Whats the point in starting when this whole thing seems so toxic'. You should be asking 'Can I see myself putting in the time to assemble and paint these models? Do I love the models? Am I generally interested? Do I have a bunch of friends who are also keen on the hobby?'

If you answer yes to these then jump right in! Sure the models can be expensive, but there is (at least here in Australia) a massive second hand market where you can pick up whole armies for a couple hundred dollars, usually with assembled models etc (saving you time!).

Sure players can be powergaming cheesemongers, but there are also heaps that love playing thematically and fluffy, which is the opposite end of the spectrum, and many people in between. I can guarantee you that you will find people on the same gaming wavelength as you.

Sure there are broken formations, the most broken I have come across when gaming with my friends is the Decurion, which is my own formation. And yes, I have fielded it in the past. But I don't field it anymore unless requested by my mates because of its power relative to their armies. Just because there are broken formations doesn't mean you are necessarily even going to come across them! Its going to be hard to come up against a riptide wing if no-one you know plays Tau And even if you do come across them, play them at least once, to understand your armies strengths and weaknesses against it, and if its not enjoyable, ask your opponent (if its a friend and not a PUG) to not bring it next time as it wasn't fun to fight.

The thing I have found, is that people are very flexible when it comes to what they bring, especially in a group of friends. No-one wants to fight the same thing all the time (it gets boring as hell), no-one wants to constantly get stomped (its depressing). If this happens your going to decline that person games, and if it keeps happening they are now not going to have anyone to play against, and since they love the hobby, they are going to adjust their lists so they can continue to play with their friends.

My friend loves himself IG, and his favourite play-style is a static gun line, with his big guns bubblewrapped by a majillionty troops. I have played it numerous times, and after a while I asked him not to bring it anymore, not because of the power-level of it (he was playing against my crons) but because I was tired of doing the same thing and using the same tactics every game. Next time, what do you know! He has Chimera's driving about, flyers, deepstriking in allied GK, a completely different army!

It is a multifaceted hobby, with lots of different aspects. You seem to be focusing on the negative stuff right now without looking at the positives! I love sitting down, putting on a battle report, and building and painting models and challenging myself to become better at painting, as I find it calming to do and super rewarding when I see improvements. Its nice laying down a perfect blend on a cape, its nice realising how steady your hand now can get when painting tiny details (my hands have always been fidgety)

I love list building and thinking creatively as to how to beat my opponents, and then deploying said army and executing it. This is also super rewarding! Also there is alot of fun to be had when things happen on the field of battle, like when my C'tan was tank shocked by a a whirlwind or basilisk or some IG tank, and I stood my ground and blew it to pieces! Such a cool mental image that you would never have conceived in your head.

In summation, its a physically and mentally rewarding hobby, with broad appeal to many different types of people, is very flexible with what you want to get out of it, a great way to spend your time if you have not much else to do. Its also a good way to spend time with friends, is harmless and keeps you out of trouble and sober

Klowny wrote:


DakkaDakka is not indicative of the 40k community at all. It generally represents the powergaming/tournament side of things, and all the best/tactically superior stuff gets discussed.

Anyone know how to get a load of tar that's been splashed on me off?

Ruin wrote:

Klowny wrote:


DakkaDakka is not indicative of the 40k community at all. It generally represents the powergaming/tournament side of things, and all the best/tactically superior stuff gets discussed.

Anyone know how to get a load of tar that's been splashed on me off?

Check for the paint stripping tutorials, that should help!

Klowny wrote:
DakkaDakka is not indicative of the 40k community at all.[...] all the best/tactically superior stuff gets discussed.

lol