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40k will be fine, editions come and go.

Martel732 wrote:
Haha. These are likely the same people acting like boltguns are a real threat to MCs in the current edition. If they were, Riptide wouldn't be rofl stomping traditional marine lists.

Note that a riptide in the 7th edition is leaps and bounds tougher than the vehicles we've seen so far. Saves alone, most vehicles are sitting around 4+, compared to 2+ with a 5+ fnp on top of that. The riptide will save almost 5 times as many bolter wounds as the battle barge will, with both getting wounded on a 6+ by bolters in their respective edition.

Lol yeah 40k is dead. People are fleeing in droves (all 6 of them) over 8th edition. Everyone might as well just give up on it the Internet has spoken. Anyway back on track me and everyone I know can't wait for 8th and like others have said 8th is looking like it's going to reinvigorate the franchise and bring in new blood.

In my area the 40k players are optimistic after 7th (my opinion is that 40k was screwed primarily because of the codexs and formations not necessarily the core rules)
The 30k players kept to 6th edition from the start.


Among the dakka 30k community it's looking like a quarter of Horus Heresy players are sticking with 7th
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/725647.page

 SirDonlad wrote:
In my area the 40k players are optimistic after 7th (my opinion is that 40k was screwed primarily because of the codexs and formations not necessarily the core rules)
The 30k players kept to 6th edition from the start.


Among the dakka 30k community it's looking like a quarter of Horus Heresy players are sticking with 7th
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/725647.page

I dont blame them though, all their stuff is basically designed for 7th. 40k is not really big where I live anyway so no big deal there. We are trying to get a SW:A thing going at the FLGS, but other than the local GW, there is not much love for anything GW around here.

I don't know about anybody else in this thread, but 8th got me to actually want to play again after selling all my stuff off. Almost done buying my new army of 100+ Guard Infantry, 20 Rough Riders and vehicles.

 deviantduck wrote:
I would say the painting part of the hobby drives more sales than the gaming part.

I really believe GW has always prided themselves on just that. But you know what they say about pride.

the missed opportunity is for pre packaged pre painted miniatures. Yes I know the quality would be not up to a hobby standard, but far better than some armies I have seen.

Besides, most potential players buy a horde of models and then paint a unit or two then sell them on ebay, or worse just wont get into the hobby. Afterall most kids don't want to spend too much time on anything other than social media!

Imagine that there are some painted Boyz or tac marines and maybe 1 killerkan or rhino painted (1 base unit + 1 base vehicle) You tell the new kid he can pick up 3 or 4 of those units, then buy himself a snazzy dreadnought kit and a super hero commander and you have a starter army. Crazy as it is a little push could bring many many gamers/future hobbyist into the fold. Whats the hurt in tryin it out once.

 admironheart wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:
I would say the painting part of the hobby drives more sales than the gaming part.

I really believe GW has always prided themselves on just that. But you know what they say about pride.

the missed opportunity is for pre packaged pre painted miniatures. Yes I know the quality would be not up to a hobby standard, but far better than some armies I have seen.

Besides, most potential players buy a horde of models and then paint a unit or two then sell them on ebay, or worse just wont get into the hobby. Afterall most kids don't want to spend too much time on anything other than social media!

Imagine that there are some painted Boyz or tac marines and maybe 1 killerkan or rhino painted (1 base unit + 1 base vehicle) You tell the new kid he can pick up 3 or 4 of those units, then buy himself a snazzy dreadnought kit and a super hero commander and you have a starter army. Crazy as it is a little push could bring many many gamers/future hobbyist into the fold. Whats the hurt in tryin it out once.

Maybe on the other hand I appreciate the hobby aspect of 40k as much if not more then the gameplay.

 admironheart wrote:


I really believe GW has always prided themselves on just that. But you know what they say about pride.

the missed opportunity is for pre packaged pre painted miniatures. Yes I know the quality would be not up to a hobby standard, but far better than some armies I have seen.

Besides, most potential players buy a horde of models and then paint a unit or two then sell them on ebay, or worse just wont get into the hobby. Afterall most kids don't want to spend too much time on anything other than social media!

Imagine that there are some painted Boyz or tac marines and maybe 1 killerkan or rhino painted (1 base unit + 1 base vehicle) You tell the new kid he can pick up 3 or 4 of those units, then buy himself a snazzy dreadnought kit and a super hero commander and you have a starter army. Crazy as it is a little push could bring many many gamers/future hobbyist into the fold. Whats the hurt in tryin it out once.

What do you think this is, X-Wing?

I think there will be 3 major factors in how long 40k will continue:

1) the quality of the rules. They've been shockingly bad so far, this new edition is at least a chance to turn that around. Whether it will or not, however, remains to be seen. People have traditionally always been optimistic when a new ruleset comes in, getting all hyped and expecting things to be better. Maybe this time it will be, but gw's track record doesn't look so rosy at the moment.

2)the price of the minis. It was always an expensive game, sure, but the prices have been steadily rising to pants-on-head levels. The higher the prices, the less potential customers. There'll be a sweet spot for cost/customer, but are gw interested in finding it? Or will it just be continuing to raise prices with every new release?

3)the behaviour of gw as a company. Every company exists to make a profit, but how they do business can affect that. Attacking fans, screwing independant retailers, and generally being douches to the wider world (like spots the space marine) aren't good ways to improve your reputation. They keep insisting that they're nu-gw, well they're going to have to prove that.

I could only guess how long 40k will continue, but those factors above will play heavily in the outcome. As things were going? They were reporting less profit each year despite raising prices and cutting costs for quite a while. 10 years? As a random number pulled out of my hat, it'd be dependant not just on gw but the wider ttmg community and the popularity of other games. X-wing did really well, warmahordes was looking good until mk3. One good new game could potentially do it, or else a death by a thousand cuts as all these new kickstarter games are released.

The real question to me is: is this actually nu-gw? Are they actually responding to customer feedback? Or is this just the same thing we've seen all along? Which will require time to answer, and is needed to get a decent answer to the OP.

 deviantduck wrote:

 Kroem wrote:
Honestly, once interactive VR blue movies become available I think all other entertainment systems are going to struggle!

Exactly. That's why ever since chess was released in a digital form you never see people playing chess on a chessboard.

I would say the painting part of the hobby drives more sales than the gaming part.

That's also because Chess is incredibly boring to play in person with friends, compared to having a bunch of pretty plastic people on a table, rolling dice, and laughing and shouting and making explosion and tank noises. I can get the same experience of playing chess playing on my computer as I can playing in person.

Tabletop Miniatures Wargaming is a social activity. No technology can take the place of meeting in person, with friends.

Consider james bond franchise, that series could have lasted 4 movies as the first four films are the only valuable episodes of that franchise but it actually had 20+ sequels, lasting almost 60 years since dr no was released. Like james bond movies GW games can last decades even after their most popular releases as they will always have a solid base of supporters. Maybe bigger or smaller than now but solid enough to avoid ending their business. Maybe at some point western societies would become too different to appreciate hobby modeling in general but I think it will take decades.

 deviantduck wrote:

 Kroem wrote:
Honestly, once interactive VR blue movies become available I think all other entertainment systems are going to struggle!

Exactly. That's why ever since chess was released in a digital form you never see people playing chess on a chessboard.

I would say the painting part of the hobby drives more sales than the gaming part.

I gotta say absolutely not, especially when adjusted for how many people it keeps OUT. People always talk about how much it costs to get into 40k but they never really get where the biggest costs are. The models are actually only really a fraction of the cost of entry.

Take a basic box of fire warriors. A squad of ten is what? 40$ maybe, i don't play tau so don't know for sure but lets go with 40. So 10 fire warriors+the other random tau stuff they pack into the box takes maybe an hour to 1.5 for a new player to assemble. Then let's say that to get those models up to a solid tabletop+standard takes another 45ish minutes per model. That's up to 9-10 hours of work for that box.

To not exceed the cost of the models themselves the next most valuable thing you could do would have to return less than 7$ per hour.

 Kroem wrote:
Honestly, once interactive VR blue movies become available I think all other entertainment systems are going to struggle!

Electronic entertainment has always been predicted to kill off more traditional hobbies but rarely does. For what its worth, commercial computer games actually predate the founding of Games Workshop so I'm sure they won't be losing sleep just yet.

Earth127 wrote:
This forum is the place I see people be the most negative about 8th in general.
I have talked to people who dislike parts but virtually never the "whole" picture.

I've seen a TON of excessive positivity everywhere, to the extent of people who criticize anything wrong with 8th being publicly crucified.

I'm looking forward to it! The majority of players I've spoken to and interacted with are very positive about 8th edition.

I've also been playing since RT days, and every edition brings change to the game, and a lot of people dislike or even fear change. You have to adapt and roll with it, or walk away. Anything else you do will be a waste of your time and resources.

I'm calling it now...40k as we have known it since RT - 7th is OVER, this is our "End Times" just in a different way...make no mistake 8th and after is 40k in name and fluff only, welcome to AOS 40k.

Revenant78 wrote:
I'm calling it now...40k as we have known it since RT - 7th is OVER, this is our "End Times" just in a different way...make no mistake 8th and after is 40k in name and fluff only, welcome to AOS 40k.

Funny that you mention every edition since Rogue Trader, because 8th is closer to 2nd than anything else, really. It's just very different from 3rd-7th.

Also, what makes it not 40k aside from name and fluff, losing vehicle facings?

Revenant78 wrote:
I'm calling it now...40k as we have known it since RT - 7th is OVER, this is our "End Times" just in a different way...make no mistake 8th and after is 40k in name and fluff only, welcome to AOS 40k.

People have been saying that since AoS came out. What makes your pronouncement special?

 Traditio wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Traditio.

What?

There are certain aspects of 8th that I don't like. But overall, I am optimistic that 8th will be much better than 7th. It might even be playable.

I don't like the fact that vintage marines are effectively being squatted.

But then, at the end of the day, I can just use my vintage marines as counts-as nu-marines if the day should come that they stop having rules for them.

I also am not optimistic about Eldar and Tau...but then, Eldar and Tau are already game-breakingly OP now.

So worst case scenario is the status quo, and I simply don't play against Eldar and Tau armies.

Of course, it makes total sense that he's the flagbearer for 7th. 7th is so random, even a total scrub with zero listbuilding, zero strategy and zero tactics will occasionally win out on lucky Maelstrom draws. That's perfect for Trad, and why he's against 8th.

Would everyone please join me in reporting this?

This is just over the top.

It's not only totally uncalled for, but it's untrue.

And I wasn't even in this thread.

I just ignore him as a troll.

 Luciferian wrote:
A vast majority of people are at least cautiously optimistic that 8th will be better than 7th. I would honestly expect there to be some growth in the player base.

I totally agree- I feel like the player base went up consistently during the end of 7th edition just because of the amount of content GW was putting out. If 8th comes out an is actaully a big improvement over 7th - I think we are going to see an EXPLOSION of players.

Revenant78 wrote:
I'm calling it now...40k as we have known it since RT - 7th is OVER, this is our "End Times" just in a different way...make no mistake 8th and after is 40k in name and fluff only, welcome to AOS 40k.

Maybe you're right. 40k is definitely changing, so it isn't wrong to say it may become something different.

Was the answer to continue the way things had been going, though? I'd say definitely not.

Change isn't always a bad thing. And I think you'll find if you search your heart, and keep an open mind, the 40k that YOU like is still there, and whatever doesn't work for you is fixable. I've played 40k the same way for years, and although the rules or the fluff or whatever doesn't always line up with my expectations, I can still enjoy the game and the setting for my own reasons. Even if Orks have been comical football hooligans for ages, when my Orks hit the table they're brutal, grimdark killers, lore be damned!

 Jambles wrote:

Revenant78 wrote:
I'm calling it now...40k as we have known it since RT - 7th is OVER, this is our "End Times" just in a different way...make no mistake 8th and after is 40k in name and fluff only, welcome to AOS 40k.

Maybe you're right. 40k is definitely changing, so it isn't wrong to say it may become something different.

Was the answer to continue the way things had been going, though? I'd say definitely not.

Change isn't always a bad thing. And I think you'll find if you search your heart, and keep an open mind, the 40k that YOU like is still there, and whatever doesn't work for you is fixable. I've played 40k the same way for years, and although the rules or the fluff or whatever doesn't always line up with my expectations, I can still enjoy the game and the setting for my own reasons. Even if Orks have been comical football hooligans for ages, when my Orks hit the table they're brutal, grimdark killers, lore be damned!

I don't need to search my heart or open my mind, the art up till 7th was fairly good, if the art is a reflection of the craptastic special olympics style we have seen in the trailers GW will not be getting my money for any printed material, my plan is simply to buy the specific chaos god troops and use them both for 4th ( using 3.5 dex ) and 7th ed, otherwise my money will be going to finishing off my remaining armies, I currently play pure harlequins, genestealer cults ( heavily based off IG units and hybrids ) kdk ( all I will update is the marines and zerkers which im 99% sure will come ), DA lions blade, deathskull orks ( really the only army I'm looking forward to playing for 8th ) and deathwatch mixed with ordo xenos warband.

I've invested lots of money into 7th, I'm very pleased with what it is and I don't waste time with meta kiddies or waac types neither does my group we play for fun and enjoy 7th and other editions for what is, we still play 8th fb too, for me 7th is the last edition of real 40k.

The advancement is fine if it was not so over the top, but I dislike what it's turning into and I still have not bought any AOS to date other than khorne to stand in as marked marauders.

Change is fine when it's quality, often change is total gak and I call it for what it is, some people like gak some people don't.

Revenant78 wrote:
I'm calling it now...40k as we have known it since RT - 7th is OVER, this is our "End Times" just in a different way...make no mistake 8th and after is 40k in name and fluff only, welcome to AOS 40k.

Right, because 7th is so very similar to RT. 8th will be the first edition to change the game in any way.

Unless you mean 8th will be a much needed "ground up" rebuild of a game the is struggling with baggage from previous editions and bloat piled on top of a not so great core game? Which them serves to reinvigorate a stagnant and shrinking player base?
That's what AoS did, so yea, things are looking up for 40k.

That's a whole other topic, I don't think 8th is as extreme as the old world being killed off. A couple of things though...even since RT...sci fi/guns clearly won over FB and have ever since. That one has little to do with GW itself but what the player base wanted to buy over the other more.. GW tried many times to keep fantasy alive but due to dif reasons 40k still won. AOS is not a step up or anything vs WHFB as it is a totally different game and totally new world with only some minor similarities in names and some aspects of chaos.

8th edition fb was for the most part about very large troop units, 40k for a few editions has also been more about "big troop counts" if you look at points costs now and then. We have already had our end times though, it's not as stomach turning but for some of us there is not a whole lot we are happy about.

FB was generally more adult supported and tactical vs 40k, I would even claim it would have appealed to a more historical fantasy type gamer which has never been the majority since 40k came out. GW even said that "we would do RT and it would be cool but in the end everyone would come back to fantasy" well jes that did not happen did it but your still sculpting awesome minis.

40k on the other hand is more marketable to kids and many in general as plot armour marines and lots of guns is something many can easily latch onto vs a gritty dark fantasy world with heavy european influence and historical like block formations and tactics.

As a small twist, I'll aks "How much time does 7th edition have left?

My answer: A couple weeks. My local FLGS and GW store both received the "These current core 40K books are no longer available, and are eligible for credit on your account if returned by June 30th..."

It's gonna be a wild June!

 MattKing wrote:
With so many people pissed about eighth (I personally am exceeding excited) I've started to wonder how long we have left. It's great the game has lasted 30 years, but nothing lasts forever.
16th edition? 20th? Dead at 9th? How long do you think we have left?

Show me an update for Monopoly. People still play a game because they want to play the game. If GW got the edition right and it was near perfect balance, people will play 40k even if gw happened to go out of business.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
It won't die, but all the people who actually care about the game will have been replaced by people who just want to push models and roll dice and children who don't know the difference by the time 9th rolls around.

Getting chewed out as the Enemy of Fun for trying to remind people that a rulebook exists or pointing out that GW's marketing language is misleading is starting to become the norm already.

This hit the nail right on the head.

The game is not going to die, but they are just going to drive out their original customers, which is kinda sad. I mean im still gonna play 8th, rules i dont have an issue with really, but the story for 8th thus far is really hamfisted into the setting, and only exists to move more models, which is a really bad stratagy for the long term fans. I have just kinda accepted im not the target audience anymore for the game. So i have kinda turned my attention to just bigger large scale projects.

What's amusing to me is that 8th and things like SWA are actually doing the opposite for the folks in the 35+ age bracket.

The gaming group I roll with is about 14-15 people strong, and the youngest is around 35-36 years old, the oldest around 65. All of us used to play GW products back in the late 80's through the late 90's. We all fell out after 3rd or shortly into 4th...as the game was no longer something we were interested in.

You could argue these folks were actually the "original" customers. While we probably won't be playing 40K en masse in 8th, we've been playing a bunch of 2nd ed. lately and people have been enjoying SWA (not for me, but most). There's been more interest/talk about GW products than there has been in the past 15 years.

Many other forums are awash with people saying "Well, I haven't bought a GW product in 10-15 years...but I might pick X up...". So GW is doing something right if they're capturing that attention, even on smaller skirmish games.

If you skim off the edges of the internet, mainly the 15% of people who will stomp their feet and quit 40K...and the 15% of their old demographic who will come back because they disliked a current or previous version of 40K...I think the middle 70% will just carry on.

Thinking otherwise really means you're part of one of those 15% groups. Me? I'm ambivalent. I've played a few games of 7th simply because I met some guys recently who like to game 40K...and find 7th absolutely atrocious. I'll continue gaming 2nd, but I'd take a peak at 8th. I like some of the rules I've seen, dislike some of the others.

Again, i think so many people always get mixed up what people are upset about. I have come across like....2 people that are upset about the rules of 8th, and even then its only spicific things, like removing templates, or removing initiative, ect ect, things that can super easy be house ruled.

What i see a lot of people upset about, my self included, is the hamfisted lore of 8th, and the hand waving of established lore and rules with in the universe simply because "Muh Rowboat is back."