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Phanixis wrote:

I feel like if I had to pick out a starting point for the decline it'd be the release of the 5e rulebook; before then you didn't see unplayable Codices languishing two editions behind the rules, newer kits didn't automatically trump older ones, the popular cheese armies were all more easily counterable, and the spread of power between Codexes was narrower. That's also about when they started letting Matt Ward write anything at all, his Necron and Grey Knight Codexes were the two worst Codexes in the history of the game in terms of game balance and in terms of fluff (he also broke Warhammer Fantasy so hard with his Daemons book that they had to release 8e just to nerf them, but that's a story for another day).

I second this. 4e certainly had its problems, see holofalcons, Nidzilla and lash of submission, but they were isolated problems. When 5e rolled around, it seemed the new codices just straight out outclassed the older ones, and the game became utterly dominated by the likes of IG, Space Wolves, Blood Angles, Grey Knights, etc. To GWs credit though, if it wasn't for Tau and Eldar, I think the 5e codices would have been on a level playing field with the 6e codices, although 6e is still plagued by the likes of the flyer rules, snap shots, challenges, and lots of tables (warlord, mysterious terrain, etc.).

YOu forgot daemons. EVERY Xeno codex has been better than EVERY meq codex except for maybe Tyranids. And for me, the jury is still out. I am very underwhelmed by the marine codex.

The thing about GW is they have grown exceptionally strong in many points, unfortunately and the cost of others. The elaboration of the Horus Heresy has been one of the best additions to the 40k universe they have ever brought in, it adds a depth of story to it that was no where near before. Being a thirty year old that has got back into after a 12 year hiatus, this is without question what drew me back initially. The quality of the minatures has sky rocketed, along with the ability to pose in all different forms allows for amazing creativity, the eldar dire avengers provides a perfects example of this when compared to the second edition ones. With the use of easier to cut plastics, the commercial release of green stuff (fianlly!) and all manner of internet tutorials has made achieving the miniature you have in your minds eyes exceptionally easy. These are all points that GW are extremely strong on.

This however has come at a cost. A cost not matched since the betrayal. They have stripped out the soul of the original game, white dwarfs are now written by sales men pushing their latest products, local stores staff have become bitter at how little they are told by upper management. If i want a set of termiantor bases from and official outlet i have to buy a bag of mixed bases which include 5 of the ones i want. Fire cast.......enough said. All these things mentioned and more are straight out of marketing 101 that allows them to extract money out of the customers wallet, without full scale rebellion.

But the question me and jonkofi discuss regually is why. What is the asset that GW have over music companies, film makers, comic book writers, computer game publishers? Their sole product cannot be downloaded, there is not a pirate bay out there that can download a squad of space marines.........yet.

With the price of 3D printers hurtling down day by day, in 3 years time it will be common place for people to have them in their household, and what will the average child, student, full time worker do the moment they can download 3D model files....download a squad of space marines. I certainly will do, one person with a 3D scanner and even rudimentary skills on max/maya will be able to tweak the scan, package it up, even add a few new guns. The world is their oyster at that point.

GW are far to intelligent to not see this coming, which is why, in my opinion, they are branching out into as many avenues as possible and reaping as much casheloa as they can, as the day an iron clad dreadnought comes up on pirate bay, is the day they start to make losses.

Harsh, but fair?

Depends on who you ask.

A lot of old-timers will tell you that it all went to hell back when White Dwarf stopping covering RPGs back in the late 80's.

6th is what killed the game. The reliance on ONLY shooting now, the inclusion of the riptide (my DKoK army still wipes whole tau armies in 3 turns, then loses to Riptides only), the stupidity of fliers, the highly imbalanced changes across all armies (BA and DE have been crying since 6th started while crons just laughed).

5th was a shooting edition also, but it had at least the threat of melee to make armies bring a counter-charge unit or redundancy in shorter range units. Even vs 5th GK i could compete with every unit they could field. Now games require things like spammed AP2 long range shooting and anti-flier ability, which just compartmentalizes lists into even more cookie cutter. I brought a huge variety of lists to tourneys and placed with some of the worst (My 1st tourney win was with trygon+ warrior+ genestealer nids). Now, 6th has just made the environment more hostile to less optimized lists with the increase in the SHOOTING power of each new army produced.

At this point, i think you would struggle to make an assault unit that would be truly strong without a 3++ at minimum. Even Wraith spam lists arent showing up much in competition, and look how AMAZING the stats on those were.

Allies made min-maxing lists SO much easier. Before you brought sub-optimal choices to deal with roles you couldnt deal with, but this was offset by your army's strengths. My 4th eldar codex's lack of great AT was offset by the huge power of harlequins crossing the board quickly and often untouched.

I didnt mind the 4th-5th change all that much. The golden age for me was the ups and downs from guard-GK. GK started the huge ramping of power creep that was continued in crons and then in 6th editions ruleset change.

I'd say it started with 4th edition.

There was a massive exodus of players when it came out and GW started gutting itself and blaming its own fans. Since then they have become ever growingly desperate to nickel and dime people to death.

Rick Priestly leaving was a pretty big deal. Its the most damning evidence when the guy who invented your game says you destroyed the soul to get money.

 Ravenous D wrote:
I'd say it started with 4th edition.

There was a massive exodus of players when it came out and GW started gutting itself and blaming its own fans. Since then they have become ever growingly desperate to nickel and dime people to death.

Rick Priestly leaving was a pretty big deal. Its the most damning evidence when the guy who invented your game says you destroyed the soul to get money.

Did he actually say that?

Well, I think that GW should be able to turn the tide. Look at the Dwarf deal with 59 miniatures for 100 pounds.

What would interest me is if the British players, painters or collectors have a higher affinity to GW (as a British company) than those from the rest of the world?

 wuestenfux wrote:
Well, I think that GW should be able to turn the tide. Look at the Dwarf deal with 59 miniatures for 100 pounds.

What would interest me is if the British players, painters or collectors have a higher affinity to GW (as a British company) than those from the rest of the world?

not quite...

Its their high street stores that did the job of making them dominant in the UK.

Really the internet has help promote the 'newer' games somewhat but the GW stores attract many as they are rather handy and do take the character of a 'childminders' every now and then (what that says about Uk parenting skills i have no idea )

Personally 5th was where things were quite good, many of the imbalances were not as glaringly obvious as they are now. GW really dropped the ball here, the base rules are actually fine, its each codex that may or may not be OP that is the problem. Its that issue that causes the 'complaints' moreso when warmahordes works like a dream everytime regardless of armies.

 zephoid wrote:
6th is what killed the game. The reliance on ONLY shooting now, the inclusion of the riptide (my DKoK army still wipes whole tau armies in 3 turns, then loses to Riptides only), the stupidity of fliers, the highly imbalanced changes across all armies (BA and DE have been crying since 6th started while crons just laughed).

People say the same thing in every edition. You could replace the 6th with 3rd and complain about hand to hand, blood angels rhino rush, how stupid white dwarf add-on lists are, etc.

Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Well, I think that GW should be able to turn the tide. Look at the Dwarf deal with 59 miniatures for 100 pounds.

What would interest me is if the British players, painters or collectors have a higher affinity to GW (as a British company) than those from the rest of the world?

Their "deals" are still crazy expensive to get into. $165UDF for 59 miniatures that just barely makes an entry-level force, plus you still need $125 for the rulebook and army book? They should offer these deals and throw in the army book/codex for free like they used to in the olden days; I recall the Mail Order Trolls used to always have deals like a 2,000 point army for $200 or thereabouts.

 pretre wrote:

 zephoid wrote:
6th is what killed the game. The reliance on ONLY shooting now, the inclusion of the riptide (my DKoK army still wipes whole tau armies in 3 turns, then loses to Riptides only), the stupidity of fliers, the highly imbalanced changes across all armies (BA and DE have been crying since 6th started while crons just laughed).

People say the same thing in every edition. You could replace the 6th with 3rd and complain about hand to hand, blood angels rhino rush, how stupid white dwarf add-on lists are, etc.

Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.

Just because 3rd was bad doesnt mean that things never got bad afterwords. 4th and 5th were hybrid editions where there were instances of both melee and shooting being the stronger type. 6th is so one sided that, as i said, you cant MAKE a melee unit without a 3++ or better (that wasnt flying or a MC) that would be top teir. The game has been relegated to nearly entirely shooting or synergy lists that try for the 2++ rerollable.

In terms of codexes, the game has always been up and down in terms of power. SW and IG were both very strong early 5th codexes. BA was weaker, but played well against the top teir armies. DE was considered the most balanced codex GW had put out in a long, long while. Then GK (OP as hell) and Crons (Wraiths, spyders, 1-upping MEQ) started throwing around power creep so hard something was going to break. 6th broke it. The huge nerfs to assault/vehicles and the introduction of fliers wrecked some armies (DE, BA) and created huge imbalances that have persisted until recently. Even now some armies dont have good solutions to fliers and suffer in both competitive and casual settings because of it. Its not fun to see 1/3 your ork army taken out by helldrakes, either in a competitive setting or not. GW apparently thinks this is acceptable . The vast majority of people i talk to disagree, along with myself.

I'm kind of finding it hard to not agree with pretty much everything Zephoid has said so far.

I've not played 40k for 6 months now and I'm really just not wanting to turn up to a game where there's every likelihood now of me playing against.

"A primary detachment of Three to Six Imperial Knights."

Where:

"They may also be taken as allies, you can include up to Three Imperial Knights as a single allied detachment."

That is genuinely illustrating perfectly how Warhammer 40000 is just simply not the game I want to play anymore.

I remember in 5th ed I was briefly involved with planning/running a large apoc event. Rules for the emperor titan showed up on GW's website. A local guy built one and wanted to bring it to the event.

Long story short, I dug my heels in and said "no sorry, it's just too much"(it was also 4000pts, each player was only allowed a couple thousand). The main event organizer got involved and more or less said "let him run it or I'll find someone else to run the apoc" and he went on to say something that really stuck with me, he basically said "we can't be impeding on other people's fun" to which I replied "his fun will come at the expense of many other's". I stepped down and decided not to involve myself, apoc is zany and crazy enough but having one side try and deal with like 28+ D weapon templates just seemed short sighted.

Games sometimes don't go our way, as players its hard to argue that a lucky vindicator shot killing 5 terminators is fun, but it's also something that doesn't happen every game and any player who has been around a while usually develops a thick skin and is able to shrug off a loss or a string of unlucky occurences. I liked 5th ed a lot, I tolerated apoc at best. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than the clusterfeth we have now.

Fast forward a couple years and now we're all essentially being forced to play apoc in so much as the firewall between the two games has been torn down for the benefit of faceless shareholders and entitled brats with too much money.

In the word of the bunk "Makes me sick, melon-fether, how far we done fell."




It's hard to peg exactly when things started going downhill, but I can't help but think it was the first time someone put 3 manticores on a skyshield.

It's not realistic to expect people to have noticed things going downhill before they started to play.

The fact that people didn't notice things going downhill before they started to play doesn't mean things weren't going downhill at that time.

 Compel wrote:
I'm kind of finding it hard to not agree with pretty much everything Zephoid has said so far.

I've not played 40k for 6 months now and I'm really just not wanting to turn up to a game where there's every likelihood now of me playing against.

"A primary detachment of Three to Six Imperial Knights."

Where:

"They may also be taken as allies, you can include up to Three Imperial Knights as a single allied detachment."

That is genuinely illustrating perfectly how Warhammer 40000 is just simply not the game I want to play anymore.

I never understood this argument. For the entirety of 40k, there have been people, lists and things that you don't want to play against. Yeah, playing against super heavies is no fun if you don't want to play against super heavies. Guess what? Don't play against them.

I have never played against someone or something I didn't want to in 40k. Choose your club, your friends or your events with your eyes open and you'll never have that problem.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I feel like if I had to pick out a starting point for the decline it'd be the release of the 5e rulebook; before then you didn't see unplayable Codices languishing two editions behind the rules, newer kits didn't automatically trump older ones, the popular cheese armies were all more easily counterable, and the spread of power between Codexes was narrower. That's also about when they started letting Matt Ward write anything at all, his Necron and Grey Knight Codexes were the two worst Codexes in the history of the game in terms of game balance and in terms of fluff (he also broke Warhammer Fantasy so hard with his Daemons book that they had to release 8e just to nerf them, but that's a story for another day).

Eh, no.

in all these cases, you are incorrect.

Or don't you remember orks and dark eldar being left from the start of third edition with their codices (heck, the ork codex didn't even have a list of weapon profiles, or armoury!) and no updates until fifth. Orks went for what? Ten years? Twelve? Without an update?
You saw plenty unplayable codices. The ratio of cheese to waste was as great as it is now. Guard sucked, bar one build (drop troops) for a lot of it.
Popular cheese armies were certainly not 'more easily counter able' or don't you remember triple wraithlord, starcannon, seer council, disruption table wielding, crystal targeting matrix equipped eldar armies back in third? Don't you remember the abomination of fourth edition iron warriors? That abomination of a chaos code single handedly destroyed fourth edition. Siren princes and nike lords still make me shudder in disgust.
The spread of power was as it is now. You saw some builds in some editions, others were pointless. Some codices were leagues ahead of others.
Matt ward? Yeah, try Pete Haines. Joke at the time being 'don't let Pete Haines write a codex for an army he plays'. They did. He did the chaos codex. And specifically gave iron warriors a level of cheese that would make grey knights in fifth edition blush.


Point being? The decline didn't start in fifth. Those things you saw happen then? Yeah, well I saw the same kind of faults, problems, and issues ten years before then. I'm serious about that. If someone who was a forum goer ten years ago reading portent, and was familiar with the moaning, complaining, and venting with regard to 40k that was then posted, and was to go through time to now, he'd shake his head - 'ten years, and nothing's changed? Same old crap. Wtf!'

Deadnight wrote:
Orks went for what? Ten years? Twelve? Without an update?

Orks - 2nd Edition - 1994
Orks - 3rd Edition - 1999
Orks - 4th edition - 2008

9 years, but pretty close.

Point being? The decline didn't start in fifth. Those things you saw happen then? Yeah, well I saw the same kind of faults, problems, and issues ten years before then. I'm serious about that. If someone who was a forum goer ten years ago reading portent, and was familiar with the moaning, complaining, and venting with regard to 40k that was then posted, and was to go through time to now, he'd shake his head - 'ten years, and nothing's changed? Same old crap. Wtf!'

Yep, you can still go back (which I do occasionally) and reproduce people's arguments today with pretty much the same argument 10-20 years ago with the magic of google.

Yeah, I can choose not to play X, Y and Z. And I have done so in the past

Since May 2013? Though. Well, 40k has left me long behind. It's not just X, Y, Z anymore, now it's A - W as well.

 Compel wrote:
Yeah, I can choose not to play X, Y and Z. And I have done so in the past

Since May 2013? Though. Well, 40k has left me long behind. It's not just X, Y, Z anymore, now it's A - W as well.

How many bad games did you have? Because, at least from your posts, this sounds more like a philosophical objection than an actual objection. I find that a lot of people object to things happening in 40k, but don't actually run into these things on the table.

Oh well, if you don't want to play, don't play. Just don't try to convince us that it is because 40k changed.

First of all, I'd like to state, that most of the guys I played were perfectly nice chaps but that's actually kind of the point, the way the game had moved on is the biggest problem.

There was the 9 Vendetta guy, 2 Hydra, 2 Manticore guy.
There was the Wraithknight with Long Fang spam doubles team.
Deathwing allies to someone else (think it was ultramarines.)
Everyone and their dog having a(t least one) storm raven now.
I wasn't far off from playing against an entire Tau army deployed on a skyshield.


I'm not whinging that these are uber powerful unbeatable armies or anything. Because, I know they're not, however they are just armies and forces I can't be bothered with anymore.

I think the armies currently being played at my gaming club are. Now, I'd like to repeat, these guys are my good mates but still...

Warhound Titan with Grey Knights. Or double Dreadknights.
Tau with Riptide and Allied Wraithknight.
Eldar with 2 Wraithknights.
Tau with supplement codex, crisis suit blob with 2 special characters and allied Eldar.
Raven Guard with... I want to say 2 storm ravens and a storm talon, but it might be the other way round.

And, that trend is continuing with this 'Imperial Knight' army idea.

So, it is a combination of philosophical and actual. I've played against the early parts of this trend, and didn't enjoy the gameplay and have since chosen to 'bug out' as the trend has continued.

I know the 40k universe is structured around people running up and hitting things with their chainswords, but honestly doesn't anyone thinks it's good that shooting is better than close combat? It's sci-fi for goodness sakes. The whole idea of a guy charging across a massive battlefield, getting shot the whole time, and somehow surviving to kill someone with a glorified knife is silly. If you like melee there are plenty of games where that is the focus. If you look at modern warfare the thought of someone intentionally focusing on stabbing an enemy is ridiculous, let alone after a dozens centuries of refining the process of "shoot at farther and farther distances".

It's fine that shooting is better, than CC, but CC units need to be priced accordingly, which they are not. And shooting units as well.

All I have to say is that GW is NOT the company it was back in the late 1990's, and not in the good way. Somewhere along the line the went off the rails, no matter what year you point that out as.

Though I say somewhere between 2000-05..

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Ravenous D wrote:
Rick Priestly leaving was a pretty big deal. Its the most damning evidence when the guy who invented your game says you destroyed the soul to get money.

Did he actually say that?

Not exactly. He made a comment in one of the Gates of Antares discussions to the effect that the separation between studio and the bean counters was what made their games work, and once the studio's decisions because directly influenced by the accountants they would lose their way.

 Compel wrote:
I'm kind of finding it hard to not agree with pretty much everything Zephoid has said so far.

I've not played 40k for 6 months now and I'm really just not wanting to turn up to a game where there's every likelihood now of me playing against.

"A primary detachment of Three to Six Imperial Knights."

Where:

"They may also be taken as allies, you can include up to Three Imperial Knights as a single allied detachment."

That is genuinely illustrating perfectly how Warhammer 40000 is just simply not the game I want to play anymore.

Amusingly enough, back in the days of 2nd Edition, we would have lauded GW for giving us Knights to play with. Anyone else remember all the cool stuff they published in things like the Citadel Journal? I still remember scratchbuilding my own Thunderhawk out of cardboard (and toilet paper rolls for the engines) when they published rules for it. There was a time when GW games were fun to just play, now too many people seem to think it's only fun if you win. We've forgotten how to play, and GW has forgotten how to make games.

GW killing the Black Templars didnt help their image either.

Well, I was 12 when I played 2nd edition. Lets play pretty much sums it up.

I'm not 12 anymore and want something a bit more from my toy sodjers.

It's not a binary thing, either going along with everything GW says as great for [strikethrough]forging a narrative[/strikethrough]Lets play or being a Win-at-all-costs munchkin.

There's another quality for me, something I'm sorry to say, I can't quite put into words. A certain feel to the game that for much of 5th edition (the GK release started making it fade though), I liked and was comfortable with. Sure, you had the people with 9 vendettas or 18 long fangs, or whatever it was. However, they were rare. Armies were made around a structure, a composition that I enjoyed.

Or, at least, the ones I played against were.

Now this setup of the game has changed completely, armies are barely recognisable anymore. It's not, say, one centerpiece model, it's now 2 to 3.

And I can't be bothered to get my 40k models out to play anymore, with the inevitable stress that actually comes with it.

Apparently I am still bothered enough about it to whinge on forums.

 Compel wrote:


Removing all hobby content from their main website
Replacing their entire paint range
Failcast
Introducing dual kit box sets and charging you 1.5 times what you would have normally paid for the one unit type you'll build out of them, unless you are a professional at magnetizing
Cease and desist the websites. All of them.
The Chapterhouse Case
More trade restrictions on independent stores.
6th edition Flyers Rules.
6th Edition Allies Rules (and by that meaning chaplains leading a unit of maxed out fearless kroot into battle and all sorts of other, completely unfluffy shenanigans - "forging the narrative" my ).
6th edition in general - hullpoints (debatable), close combat nerf (AP3 swords, AP4 mauls, overwatch, random charge ranges), wound allocation, challenge system etc.
Completely changing the face of the game from Warhammer 40,000 to Deathstar 40,000
More price rises
The Hobbit failure
Tau Codex and Riptide rules
Wraithknight rules
Games Day with no Games
The Khornemower
Making the Baneblade kit even more expensive
Escalation
Supplemental Codices for full codex price featuring 5% rules, 60% fluff, 15% missions you'll probably never find someone to play with and 20% miniature gallery
New Tyranid Codex - replacing a poor codex with a worse one.
Warhammer Visions.
Imperial Knights
Renaming the Imperial Guard to Astra Militarum
Rolling out 7th edition less than 2 years after the release of 6th and stuffing superheavies into it

Fixed

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Amusingly enough, back in the days of 2nd Edition, we would have lauded GW for giving us Knights to play with. Anyone else remember all the cool stuff they published in things like the Citadel Journal?

Sure do. I also remember all that cool stuff not generally being allowed in tournaments, along with Allies and Special Characters.

The players haven't changed as much as you think. There are still plenty of people who just want cool toys to play with. There are also, and always were, plenty of people who just want a clear ruleset that is suitable for tournament play. Some of them are the same people.

GW killing the Black Templars didnt help their image either.

Well, seeing as they started in 2nd edition as just another vanilla chapter in Codex: Ultramarines........