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 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 CadianXV wrote:
The option I took to keep the hobby alive was to get involved with the 40k RPGs (mainly Dark Heresy).

I love the Universe of Warhammer, but whilst I can just about cope with the prices, I wince when doing so. The experience should instead be enjoyable. The RPGs allow me to explore the background, while keeping my spendings affordable.

Hence, my purchases are restricted because of the RPG engine. I don't need to drop huge money on troops, or Helldrakes or whatever. Instead, I can use individual GW minis, and 3rd party manufacturers to bring my games to life. Models can also easily be recycled into different characters.

Its a useful system that's kept me in the loop, when I was very close to leaving altogether.

If it is the setting that holds your interest then this is a very reasonable view to take.

Playing 'dead' games such as Mordheim or Necromunda can also hold that feel.

Mordheim at least is seeing fan support in the form of Coreheim - I do not lnow if similar support is available for Necromunda. (Played my first game of Necromunda in years a few days ago - dang, I was rusty.)

There is also fan made Death Squads for small scale 40K - I have not played since an early, early beta of the rules, but it was fun. (I just preferred Necromunda.)

So, yeah - for folks that want the setting, there are options.

The Auld Grump

For Necromunda look at Yakromunda.com

They've pretty much taken up the reigns and run with it. They have all the rulebooks and articles plus an updated Community edition which purports to tidy up some of the issues with the Living rulebook - yet to try this but the LRB stuff is still good enough for us.

 notprop wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 CadianXV wrote:
The option I took to keep the hobby alive was to get involved with the 40k RPGs (mainly Dark Heresy).

I love the Universe of Warhammer, but whilst I can just about cope with the prices, I wince when doing so. The experience should instead be enjoyable. The RPGs allow me to explore the background, while keeping my spendings affordable.

Hence, my purchases are restricted because of the RPG engine. I don't need to drop huge money on troops, or Helldrakes or whatever. Instead, I can use individual GW minis, and 3rd party manufacturers to bring my games to life. Models can also easily be recycled into different characters.

Its a useful system that's kept me in the loop, when I was very close to leaving altogether.

If it is the setting that holds your interest then this is a very reasonable view to take.

Playing 'dead' games such as Mordheim or Necromunda can also hold that feel.

Mordheim at least is seeing fan support in the form of Coreheim - I do not lnow if similar support is available for Necromunda. (Played my first game of Necromunda in years a few days ago - dang, I was rusty.)

There is also fan made Death Squads for small scale 40K - I have not played since an early, early beta of the rules, but it was fun. (I just preferred Necromunda.)

So, yeah - for folks that want the setting, there are options.

The Auld Grump

For Necromunda look at Yakromunda.com

They've pretty much taken up the reigns and run with it. They have all the rulebooks and articles plus an updated Community edition which purports to tidy up some of the issues with the Living rulebook - yet to try this but the LRB stuff is still good enough for us.

Thank you for that!

Aaand bookmarked!

The Auld Grump

The reason I'm planning a Vanilla SM army instead of BA/IG is the lower cost of starting up [I'm paying nearly £160 for a small army and codex].

Here's my 2cents to add to the chorus of whine and discontent.

The flame waned for me roughly 2-3 years ago, I'd say Games Workshop single handedly killed all of my interest in the hobby just as it first kindled it. I started back when Macragge was the newest thing and I was a young lad mowing lawns during summer and shovelling snow during winter to fund my little plastic addiction. Right off the bat, living in Canada I was hosed going to any physical stores, as product cost anywhere from 20%-40% more because reasons.
Immediately the inconsistency was noted and I bought exclusively from online stores in the US or ebay, saving me a huge chunk of cash because Games Workshop. I felt awfully guilty when I had used the FLGS venue to game at, yet never bought anything except for food and drink and the odd blister or two whenever I had store credit. Also copious amounts of paint and green stuff, but never actual models.

Being a high school student without daddy's and mommy's credit card means you're frugal.
Mind you I never went to 'official Games Workshop stores' simply because it was the single most depressing experience where I would be accosted every so often to buy more models because yes I definitely need another dreadnought, no, also a terminator squad and definitely a land raider to go along with it. Also check out the Chaos Marines they're like Marines but spikier, start a second army! The feeling of your friendly clerk breathing down on the back of your neck leaves a lasting impression I assure you.
Learning to convert my awesome crusaders for the Black Templar cause with newly acquired greenstuff and various bits to really personalize my little armed and armoured guys was exhilirating. Doing so while a clerk would try to push more plastic down your throat wasn't. With so many little ( 8 - 14 ) year olds walking in and out and the space always being rather cramped, after the second time it also became obvious I was unwelcome to paint if I wasn't buying more marines, as I was asked to give my seat to some little kid who just bought those new plastic wraithlords ( props to the kid, he has taste ).
Also some kid nicked one of my Templars off the crafts table.

Fast forward a few years, 40k is dying a slow death because of costs, assault cannons+rending, then Warmachine comes out, and I gave it a spin. At this point I realized I wasn't having fun with 40k, the 4th edition rules were obtuse, the newly released 5th edition rules had extremely wonky pitfalls like true line of sight. I wasn't having fun converting and painting; painting in particular became like some kind of masochistic ritual I had to go through just so I wouldn't put ugly gray marines down on the table. How many identical space marine after space marine can you paint before it gets dull? Not sure, but it became unbearable at about 90 of various types.
At my FLGS practically everyone started playing Warmachine or switched altogether and played Magic, 5th edition only temporarily ignited interest back, but only roughly two months later I again had no one to battle.

At one point I put a space marine next to some generic soldier from Warmachine, and I realize for the first time in years just how cartoony-deformed his anatomy is. I still don't understand how I did not notice the odd proportions.

Having invested a sizeable chunk of my only money into an army I would only seldom be able to use in a game, and having no spare cash to invest in yet another miniature game I had absolutely no interest in aesthetically, I just waited. And then new Imperial Guardsmen happened, and with them came big@%# flying units. Oh also Cadian infantry are now 10 per box instead of 20 per box. Did the price increase as well? I don't remember, but wouldn't put it past GW.
So yes, flying units. Size of a rhino. On a comparably tiny table. Maybe they're have a helicopter mode where they hover in place and move slowly. I don't know. I didn't bother to read the rules. Illusion was shattered, I simply stopped caring about 40k and miniatures in general. Maybe things will change later? I guess I'll wait a year or three, damned I be if I have to start a Warmachine army.

And yeah, things changed. In the past year: An enormous amount of questionable decisions. Antagonistic behaviour towards FLGS, cutting off and silencing online stores, unexplained extreme price hikes, Failcast, discontinuing metal models, flavour of the month models + overpowered rules to go along with them, increasingly convoluted/bloated rules, the list goes on. Statements like 'Games Workshop is in the business of selling toy soldiers to children' coming from the CEO himself make it loud and clear GW does not want my money.I simply do not wish to support such a company, whether they be making toy soldiers or cinnamon buns. And, in a way, I never really did all that much. Thank you ebay.

So after so many years, the first thing that pops up on Games Workshop's website are the Centurions. Three questionably deformed humans, inside of an armored suit, inside of another armored suit, for a 100 green. No. Plastic isn't worth that. My black crusade ends here, it's time to shake the sand from your boots and sail back home. If I am to be paying 'ferrari' prices, I want something better than Disney drek.

Something else has changed. Competition. The scant few FLGS that operate in my city play something besides 40k and Warmahordes for a change. Infinity looks and plays gorgeously. Malifaux does grimdark like 40k never did. Mantic's games though very hit and miss in terms of miniature quality, is growing in popularity around here. Kickstarter has produced a huge amount of new companies and incredibly high quality sculpts. I recently found myself painting miniatures again, with nearly all of my limited spare time taken by the brush and palette, pretty much only kickstarter to blame.

I'm not angry with the games, they're only games, and I had many years of fun with them, though perhaps the tone of my post doesn't translate that well. I am however very disappointed with Games Workshop and what it's been doing to the games and the hobby at large. And of course the crux of the thread; prices. The prices were to an extent justifiable 6+ years ago, GW really was the cream of the crop in terms of model quality, especially for dynamic multi pose multi part figures. That's no longer the case, and yet the average price for a mini did nothing but go up.

tl;dr I wish I had started working with miniatures and got into wargaming today, not nearly a decade ago.

Sorry for the rant, but it's been oddly therapeutic.

Honestly, for me, I'm a proud Ferrari owner, I know what you

mean though, and a lot of people have said enough is

enough. Me on the other hand, I just don't do things that

make it unaffordable. Like, drinking (anymore), movies, ect.

So, it's fairly easy for me to get what I want. Granted, I'm not starting

new armies every month, but I have two huge armies, and will

probably just stick with those two. And I might buy a thing here,

or a model there, but that's about it.

In high school I played standard magic. Most of those decks were about $4-600.

In college I rode ATVs. Between gas and parts it was about $500 a month. The ATVs themselves were $1000-3000.

During both those times I drank and partied a lot. That was about $100 a week. ( I don't drink at all any more)

Since college (2007) I have played warhammer. I spent and spend about $50-$500 a month on warhammer every month.

I pick a hobby I like and I go whole hearted into.

My biggest issue is with people who complain about the hobby and GW mostly and say they are out. Done. The price got to them.

Then why did you come to a forum mostly dedicated to 40k to tell us your not buying any more?

 spacewolved wrote:

Then why did you come to a forum mostly dedicated to 40k to tell us your not buying any more?

Because they were into it and active members and then decided to vent frustration at being priced out.

Some people don't think the current offerings are worth the asking price, and that's a perfectly valid opinion.

Herzlos wrote:

 spacewolved wrote:

Then why did you come to a forum mostly dedicated to 40k to tell us your not buying any more?

Because they were into it and active members and then decided to vent frustration at being priced out.

Some people don't think the current offerings are worth the asking price, and that's a perfectly valid opinion.

It absolutely is a valid opinion. I been there some times as well. My question is why are you coming to a place that talks about the hobby you no longer play to tell us you quit? It seems to me that you do that to see how many other people are upset as well to validate your reason to quit when you really weren't sure you wanted to in the first place.

If I quit the hobby I'm not coming back here to let every one know I'm done so I can make myself feel better about quitting. If I'm done, I'm done.

Because not all of them are quitting the hobby. Many people who are feeling priced out of GW stuff are continuing to play with older stuff, or playing different games, and are therefore still potentially active on dakka.

I know GW seem to think the 'Hobby' is currently 'Buying stuff from GW'*, the hobby is wargaming, and where you shop isn't relevant.

I buy almost nothing from GW, but I'm still pretty active in the hobby.


*Statement from someone in GW during the CHS lawsuit mentioned the hobby of buying GW's products.

OK but you still don't need to complain about the prices and how you are going to quit because of them. The only way for prices ever to change is for people to stop buying models. If enough people stopped buying gw product for a month I guarantee gw would drop there prices. In fact didn't that happen with a oil company once? People stopped buying gas for one day and they dropped the price of gas?

I don't think there's anything wrong with complaining about prices (if kept to threads and not turning every thread into a pricing rant), because it appears to be a major issue and one of the major barriers to entry.

A boycott may work, if you could get enough people to take part and not splurge the month after.
But since GW's customer base appears to be shrinking and the price keeps going up, I suspect a mass exodus will result in the prices going up rather than down, in order to maintain profit.

 spacewolved wrote:
OK but you still don't need to complain about the prices and how you are going to quit because of them. The only way for prices ever to change is for people to stop buying models. If enough people stopped buying gw product for a month I guarantee gw would drop there prices. In fact didn't that happen with a oil company once? People stopped buying gas for one day and they dropped the price of gas?

If it bothers you so much, why do you read those threads? Its not like the tittle is misleading.

 spacewolved wrote:
In fact didn't that happen with a oil company once? People stopped buying gas for one day and they dropped the price of gas?

No it didn't because idiots all went out and stocked up before the 'boycott' day and more people went out and did that than normal...

PhantomViper wrote:

 spacewolved wrote:
OK but you still don't need to complain about the prices and how you are going to quit because of them. The only way for prices ever to change is for people to stop buying models. If enough people stopped buying gw product for a month I guarantee gw would drop there prices. In fact didn't that happen with a oil company once? People stopped buying gas for one day and they dropped the price of gas?

If it bothers you so much, why do you read those threads? Its not like the tittle is misleading.

I don't. This is the first one I read through. But I can't help seeing the title. Its the same as the kickstaters. But that a different topic.

Well, next time don't look.

There is complaining, and will be more.

A lot of folks don't like what GW is doing as a company.

Some complain because they are angry.

Some complain in some vain hope that GW will fix the danged problems!

And some complain for bias confirmation - to make sure that they are not the only ones railing against the cosmos.

And most combine all three.

And... honestly? GW kind of deserves the complaints.

They managed to drive me out in several fashions at the same time - I do not like the latest rules, I do not like a lot of the latest models, and I do not like the prices.

I have not bought any GW in well over a year - and those were terrain models at a going out of business sale.

(GW was not responsible for the store going out of business - there was a messy divorce.)

The Auld Grump

This.

I like to play 40k but (see the above post).
I have stopped buying 40k, and am now selling off my marines. Mostly because i feel like a balance in a game is a good thing. I feel like the money i make now from my marines will help me buy into games that show some balance, that are fun to play, and dont devolve into a rush out to buy the new cheesefest the way gw is marketing their game.

I complain therefore i am

It's because GW has turned away from the one thing that made it successful, us gamers, i still a desk full of miniatures, but the amount of gw mini's are getting less and less.

I just see gw's price hikes as an excuse to justify splurging out on Fw toys. Much better designed and the books they create seem to create a much better universe.

I know some will disagree, but thats just me.