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I just play fluffy matches, my armies are built up of competitive built squads and units, with some "alright" units to offset, so i'll use mechvets with rough riders and ratlings. As well as chaos spawnKJAKJSAJDHAHSDASGAFLA......

Anyhow, i'm only after fun and tactical games, not the silliness where people throw 3 turkeys at me

40kReallySucks wrote:
So let me get this straight, You're upset because a company has decided to satisfy the MAJORITY of their customers (a pillar business strategy of every successful business in the history of the world) instead of satisfying a minority of their customers (a strategy that is what usually causes companies to go under)... and you are mad at them for doing this?

Except they aren't choosing to satisfy the majority of their customers instead of the minority, they're producing garbage that a lot of people happen to find adequate (mostly because few of them actually play the game). The minority could be satisfied without costing the majority anything, the only reason GW doesn't do it is their unbelievable laziness and incompetence combined with their obsessive focus on their next financial report over the long-term health of the game.

 Swastakowey wrote:
So question, if the rules are so bad and imbalanced, why does most of the wargaming hobby play them?

Because of the fluff and models, and because GW's previous dominance of the retail business gave them a huge "critical mass" factor where everyone plays GW games, so if you're a miniature wargaming newbie you're probably going to play a GW game because it's what everyone else in your area is playing.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Its only broken if you choose to exploit it. Thats players unable to exercise self control and so forth. Not rules being poor.

Err, lol? If the rules are so easily exploited and you have to depend on "self control" to avoid breaking the whole game then the rules are utter garbage. And I really don't see how the current situation is better than a new version of the game which is much harder to exploit and produces a fun game even between "casual" and "competitive" players.

 LeadLegion wrote:
A game with perfect balance produces two kind of players: novices, and masters who achieve that mastery after years of hard slog. Such games do not breach the gap between competitive and casual players. Such games widen it. Only a game that lacks perfect balance can maintain the interest of a significant number of people for a significant period of time.

This is hilariously wrong. Having flawed balance makes the gap wider, not smaller, because now on top of the advantages of superior skill and understanding of the game the "master" also gets the advantage of exploiting the most overpowered rules. Your hypothetical narrowing of the gap only occurs if the novice always uses the most powerful rules, while the master always uses weaker rules. In reality that's not going to be the case, and the novice is going to get crushed even more thoroughly than in a balanced game. And it's even worse when balance is as bad as it is in 40k, since skill is pretty much reduced to "identify the balance mistakes and exploit them" and the game has very little depth to hold anyone's attention. Take away the awesome fluff and models and hardly anyone would play 40k because it just isn't an interesting game.




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 ThunderFury 2575 wrote:
I just play fluffy matches, my armies are built up of competitive built squads and units, with some "alright" units to offset, so i'll use mechvets with rough riders and ratlings.

That doesn't sound very fluffy at all. A fluffy mechanized infantry regiment would have lots of mechvets and no ratlings at all. It seems like you're making the popular mistake of assuming that a "fluffy" army is one that is bad at winning games, not one that accurately represents something from the background fiction.

Chess is one of the most balanced (not perfectly), popular and widely played games in the world. It has a range of official rankings to reflect skill level.

Bridge is one of the most balanced (not perfectly), popular and widely played games in the world. It has a range of official rankings to reflect skill level.

Obviously the people who designed those games failed their game design courses.

All the way back to the OP... Sir, if you think Imperial Knights are breaking the game, or are over powered, you really don't understand the game well enough to have credibility. I hope every opponent takes 3 of the things. While very cool, they're a waste of points.

Bizarrely enough, walking but weak baneblades drive you out, but you stuck around for Seer and Screamer Star?!

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Chess is one of the most balanced (not perfectly), popular and widely played games in the world. It has a range of official rankings to reflect skill level.

Bridge is one of the most balanced (not perfectly), popular and widely played games in the world. It has a range of official rankings to reflect skill level.

Obviously the people who designed those games failed their game design courses.

Indeed they probably did from a "fun" perspective. In chess terms at least, most serious players (Class E or Category 4 and above, depending on which rating system you are using) view chess as a recreational intellectual exercise than a game played for enjoyment (bear with me and I'll provide the reference once I can find it). Both games have declining player bases (in fact, the stats are taking a nosedive according to some studies released by FIDA, the Chess International Governing Body) and require decades to master due to the lack of variables.

In this respect, Chess has two kinds of players: casual players and masters. It has an enormous gap between the two. It does NOT close the gap between masters and novices. In fact, the term master is generally understood to be "someone unlikely to be beaten by an amateur[u]".

The DBE Congress ruled in 1896 that to become a master, a player had to win 1/3 of the games at a premiere tournament. Since then various other international and national rating systems have been used.

Additionally, chess and bridge are both viewed as games practiced by a relatively small "elite" body within the wider community. Neither are exactly accessible to the wider community in terms of tournament or competitive level play precisely because it requires decades or near mono-maniacal practice in order to be able to the play either game at a professional level. Decades the vast majority of people are not willing to devote to a hobby.

Now lets look at why both games are balanced. It's because they are symmetrical. In Chess, every player has the same forces deployed in the same fashion. No options. No upgrades. In Bridge, there are slightly more variables but the game is still balanced because the same pieces are included in every game (ie the same deck of cards).

To make 40K more balanced, you would need to reduce the number of variables (such as unit upgrades, codex entreies, equipment options etc) which are a fundamental part of the game and, frankly, one reason why I liked it so much. Warmachine is slightly better balanced than 40k (but still only slightly) in large part because it has far fewer variables for the designers to keep track off. It has fewer units on the whole, fewer upgrades, and no options to swap out weapons in the board. A unit of sword knights played a guy in Japan will have the same equipment as a unit of SwordKnights played by every other player around the world. It might have a unit attachment in the form of an officer/standard bearer, but that's about it.

This lack of variation is one reason why I find Wamachine as dull as a can of baked beans.

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 Peregrine wrote:

 LeadLegion wrote:
A game with perfect balance produces two kind of players: novices, and masters who achieve that mastery after years of hard slog. Such games do not breach the gap between competitive and casual players. Such games widen it. Only a game that lacks perfect balance can maintain the interest of a significant number of people for a significant period of time.

This is hilariously wrong. Having flawed balance makes the gap wider, not smaller, because now on top of the advantages of superior skill and understanding of the game the "master" also gets the advantage of exploiting the most overpowered rules. Your hypothetical narrowing of the gap only occurs if the novice always uses the most powerful rules, while the master always uses weaker rules. In reality that's not going to be the case, and the novice is going to get crushed even more thoroughly than in a balanced game. And it's even worse when balance is as bad as it is in 40k, since skill is pretty much reduced to "identify the balance mistakes and exploit them" and the game has very little depth to hold anyone's attention. Take away the awesome fluff and models and hardly anyone would play 40k because it just isn't an interesting game.

 LeadLegion wrote:
Now lets look at why both games are balanced. It's because they are symmetrical. In Chess, every player has the same forces deployed in the same fashion. No options. No upgrades. In Bridge, there are slightly more variables but the game is still balanced because the same pieces are included in every game (ie the same deck of cards).

Yes, you've identified the reason why they're balanced. The problem is that you jump from identifying the reason to assuming that this reason is also the reason why there's a gap between professionals and casual players. In reality that's absolutely false. Chess doesn't have a huge gap because it is a balanced game, it has a huge gap because it's a simple game. More precisely, it is a game that is simple enough that it has already been solved. Every conceivable position can be analyzed by a computer, and the result is an indisputable correct move. This means that the game no longer has much meaningful strategy, and high-level play is reduced to a test of how well you can execute the perfect sequence of moves without making any mistakes. And obviously this is a huge knowledge gap because only the most dedicated professionals have any chance of making it through the tedious memorization required to play without making any mistakes.

Now let's try to "improve" chess by the GW method: destroying balance. Let's make it so each player chooses their color, and both players can play the same color. White functions exactly as it does now, but the black king has an additional rule that black automatically wins the game if the other player doesn't also play black. According to your model this should reduce the skill gap, but in reality it doesn't. No player with more than a basic understanding of the game is ever going to play white, so all you've added is an additional opportunity for an inexperienced player to lose the game.

Contrast this with the method for improving chess that has been proposed by actual high-level chess players: add a new piece or two to each side (typically some combination of two existing pieces). The sides remain perfectly symmetrical, but the slightly larger board and more complex situations are just enough to make it so that the game is no longer solvable (at least for now) and return it to a game of strategy instead of simply memorizing the correct play in every situation.

To make 40K more balanced, you would need to reduce the number of variables (such as unit upgrades, codex entreies, equipment options etc) which are a fundamental part of the game and, frankly, one reason why I liked it so much.

That's not true at all. 40k's balance could be improved significantly by fixing point costs alone, without removing any noticeable number of options. Things like re-rollable 2++ saves might have to go, but those aren't really deliberate options anyway.

Also, let's be honest here: most of the broken options in 40k aren't really options at all. The line in the codex where it says that IG veteran squads can take grenade launchers might as well be blank paper because there's virtually no situation where you'd ever even think about taking the "option". That kind of stuff is just clutter, not real depth. Get rid of it entirely and nothing of value would be lost.

@Peregrine: You're basically just talking nonsense now mate. "Dozens of world reknowned game designers at dozens of software houses around the world are wrong and I'm right because I say I'm right" is essentially what you just said.

No it isn't. I said that YOU are wrong. You're making the common mistake of quoting "perfect imbalance" as if it refers to "make blatantly overpowered options because you don't care about playtesting" instead of a very carefully constructed system in which you get things reasonably balanced and then use the metagame to do the rest, with a strong emphasis on making sure that for every strategy A there's a counter-strategy B that will become effective if A becomes dominant in the metagame and bring A back down in power. GW doesn't do this, they just throw out rules as fast as they can write them with little more than a rough guess about what the appropriate point costs are. That isn't deliberate use of imbalance to make an interesting game, it's just incompetent game design.

IDK about game theory but I've played many many games and they all have the concept of being balanced, even if they fail in the execution.

Perhaps we mean different things by the word balance.

40k has no balance what so ever. I don't think anyone is saying it does. I really think to keep playing 40k you have to influence your local community.

We agreed to no D weapons in non apoc games and no Void shield relays. That makes the games more enjoyable for us. The game really is well and truly broken.

Make what you want out of it and think it can still be fun. What is the alternative quit? I still enjoy the fluff, painting, and making custom models.

Peregrine wrote:

 LeadLegion wrote:
Now lets look at why both games are balanced. It's because they are symmetrical. In Chess, every player has the same forces deployed in the same fashion. No options. No upgrades. In Bridge, there are slightly more variables but the game is still balanced because the same pieces are included in every game (ie the same deck of cards).

Yes, you've identified the reason why they're balanced. The problem is that you jump from identifying the reason to assuming that this reason is also the reason why there's a gap between professionals and casual players. In reality that's absolutely false. Chess doesn't have a huge gap because it is a balanced game, it has a huge gap because it's a simple game. More precisely, it is a game that is simple enough that it has already been solved. Every conceivable position can be analyzed by a computer, and the result is an indisputable correct move. This means that the game no longer has much meaningful strategy, and high-level play is reduced to a test of how well you can execute the perfect sequence of moves without making any mistakes. And obviously this is a huge knowledge gap because only the most dedicated professionals have any chance of making it through the tedious memorization required to play without making any mistakes.

Now let's try to "improve" chess by the GW method: destroying balance. Let's make it so each player chooses their color, and both players can play the same color. White functions exactly as it does now, but the black king has an additional rule that black automatically wins the game if the other player doesn't also play black. According to your model this should reduce the skill gap, but in reality it doesn't. No player with more than a basic understanding of the game is ever going to play white, so all you've added is an additional opportunity for an inexperienced player to lose the game.

Contrast this with the method for improving chess that has been proposed by actual high-level chess players: add a new piece or two to each side (typically some combination of two existing pieces). The sides remain perfectly symmetrical, but the slightly larger board and more complex situations are just enough to make it so that the game is no longer solvable (at least for now) and return it to a game of strategy instead of simply memorizing the correct play in every situation.

To make 40K more balanced, you would need to reduce the number of variables (such as unit upgrades, codex entreies, equipment options etc) which are a fundamental part of the game and, frankly, one reason why I liked it so much.

That's not true at all. 40k's balance could be improved significantly by fixing point costs alone, without removing any noticeable number of options. Things like re-rollable 2++ saves might have to go, but those aren't really deliberate options anyway.

Also, let's be honest here: most of the broken options in 40k aren't really options at all. The line in the codex where it says that IG veteran squads can take grenade launchers might as well be blank paper because there's virtually no situation where you'd ever even think about taking the "option". That kind of stuff is just clutter, not real depth. Get rid of it entirely and nothing of value would be lost.

@Peregrine: You're basically just talking nonsense now mate. "Dozens of world reknowned game designers at dozens of software houses around the world are wrong and I'm right because I say I'm right" is essentially what you just said.

No it isn't. I said that YOU are wrong. You're making the common mistake of quoting "perfect imbalance" as if it refers to "make blatantly overpowered options because you don't care about playtesting" instead of a very carefully constructed system in which you get things reasonably balanced and then use the metagame to do the rest, with a strong emphasis on making sure that for every strategy A there's a counter-strategy B that will become effective if A becomes dominant in the metagame and bring A back down in power. GW doesn't do this, they just throw out rules as fast as they can write them with little more than a rough guess about what the appropriate point costs are. That isn't deliberate use of imbalance to make an interesting game, it's just incompetent game design.

QFT

Kilkrazy wrote:IDK about game theory but I've played many many games and they all have the concept of being balanced, even if they fail in the execution.

Perhaps we mean different things by the word balance.

Indeed.

I know I may be inviting flak by bringing this up, but there's plenty of examples of completely asymetrical factions being reasonably well balanced in various PC strategy games, and it's not as if we're demanding perfect balance here- we just want some effort to be put into making point values reflect in game value, some playtesting and some thought to be given to special rules and their interactions before they're published to prevent the more obvious rules exploits.

I don't expect them to find every rules exploit or anything, but some of the rules they release are so game breaking there's little doubt they don't really bother taking such things into consideration.

Also, FAQs fixing obviously broken rules that slipped past to release (rerollable 2++ saves for instance) would be nice.

 LeadLegion wrote:
One of the most deadly models in the game at one point was a space marine skimmer made out of airfix spares and (I am not kidding) a roll on deodorant bottle.

Wow! I had forgotten that!!

Those were the days...



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 Frazzled wrote:
Then you're ignorant. Say it to a cop or your grandmother.

Still waiting for the Great Wiener to take over the planet...

Why the delay?

Peregrine said:

"Now let's try to "improve" chess by the GW method: destroying balance. Let's make it so each player chooses their color, and both players can play the same color. White functions exactly as it does now, but the black king has an additional rule that black automatically wins the game if the other player doesn't also play black. According to your model this should reduce the skill gap, but in reality it doesn't. No player with more than a basic understanding of the game is ever going to play white, so all you've added is an additional opportunity for an inexperienced player to lose the game."

Actually, un-balanced versions of chess are a far better, much more enjoyable and far more accessible for new players. Ever played battle chess? I'm not talking about the old PC game from the 90's. I'm talking about the huge variety of "variant" rules systems which exist that make Chess a better game in terms of enjoyment. I'm talking about, for example, the type of Chess Game that includes playing cards with one off optional rules. Such as "play this card on any pawn you control. That pawn may move backwards one square".

These cards introduce more, fresh variables into the game, shrinking the gulf between master and novice at the expense of balance and in turn making a staid, stuffy old game into something new and fundamentally fun.

Now that's an enjoyable game of chess. A FUN game of chess. Is it balanced? No, because certain card combinations allow a novice to win the game against a Chess Master in a half dozen turns. But is is more fun than normal Chess? Hell yes. So as long as you don't define having fun as "winning".

This illustrates the point I'm trying to make:

Better Balance does not necessarily make a game more enjoyable to play.

In fact, the opposite is often true. As I'm about to illustrate.

So why is the card-enhanced version of the game more enjoyable? It's because, as you say, Chess has been solved. So there are no more surprises. Nothing new to delight people that play chess.

Any Balanced Game can eventually be solved. Because any balanced game pays pays vey strict adherence to adherence a mathematical formula, whether intentionally built into the game or not. That being said, a game not intentionally built on a certain mathematical formula is unlikely to be balanced.

Peregrine goes on to say:

"That's not true at all. 40k's balance could be improved significantly by fixing point costs alone, without removing any noticeable number of options. Things like re-roll-able 2++ saves might have to go, but those aren't really deliberate options anyway. "

You mean, by fixing the point values. In other words, by having the point values adhere precisely to the strict mathematical formula that balances the game? The strict formula that will eventually lead to having to memorize an incredible number of strategies that will allow "List A" to win if it comes up against "List B".

There is a reason that Games Workshop does not adhere as strictly to the formula used to calculate a models points value that was actually published in the Rogue Trader edition of the game. For those of who who weren't around that far back, GW used to set out exactly what any given stat score was worth in terms of points. That formula has been refined very often since then and GW continues to use it with one very important exception:

They no longer apply it as strictly. They allow certain models to cost less (or more) than their stats, weapons, special rules and other equipment would actually cost if they adhered strictly to the formula. The factors we know (from observation) that they consider when altering the points cost from their mathematical model include:

How many of these models do we want to sell?
How does the point cost compare to the points cost of miniatures in other codices which perform a similar function?
How will this miniature at points value X work to shake up the current meta, forcing gamers to go out and buy more of our other models to counteract the presence of this new model?

Although these factors sound as though they are driven entirely by financially concerns, they are also good for the game. Every new release changes the meta game to some extent, keeping it fresh and interesting (unlike simple, solved, balanced games with no meta such as Chess) but these under-priced models change the meta more than most.

Even producers of more balanced wargames (such as Warmachine) understand this concept, and deliberately release over-powered models to shake up the meta from time to time.

In World of Warcraft, the designers shake up the meta even more often with patches. Wow is even less balanced than 40K because there are even more variables to take into account (such as the sheer number of items available to characters of different classes and levels). This requires even more patches for WOW than 40K has FAQ's. However, can anyone deny that WoW is a good game? Do you want to tell 7.7 million subscribers that they are idiots because they're playing a game that isn't balanced? They don't care if the game is balanced. If they did, they'd be part of the 2.3 million people who have already stopped playing Wow.

Clarification here: I'm not suggesting that all those 2.3 million gamers stopped playing WoW because they aren't happy with balance or have moved on to other games. And neither should anyone else, because without seeing info on an actual exit survey, that would be stupid.

Peregrine also said:

"You're making the common mistake of quoting "perfect imbalance" as if it refers to "make blatantly overpowered options because you don't care about playtesting" instead of a very carefully constructed system in which you get things reasonably balanced and then use the metagame to do the rest, with a strong emphasis on making sure that for every strategy A there's a counter-strategy B that will become effective if A becomes dominant in the metagame and bring A back down in power. GW doesn't do this, they just throw out rules as fast as they can write them with little more than a rough guess about what the appropriate point costs are. That isn't deliberate use of imbalance to make an interesting game, it's just incompetent game design."

Nope, Peregrine is making the common mistake of not understanding that the "metagame" concept is not exclusive to games systems that work on the theory of "perfect imbalance".

Perfect Imbalance is only one way to create a meta-game. It is, in fact, the method that Privateer Press choose to use. However, it is not the only way to make a meta-game. The example of Perfect Balance that Peregrine uses her (champion A versus champion B) works directly for Privateer Press where newly released Unit A is often a direct counter to the slightly older release of Unit B.

In the evolution of 40K we've seen this pattern crop up from time to time, but because GW practice is to publish books consisting of all the units for one army, rather than to release books that have a smaller number of new units for every army) the concept of Imperfect Balance does not apply so much because the release schedule does not allow it. We do see some elements of the Imperfect Balance crop up from time to time (as I've mentioned before in earlier posts) when one codex is clearly mean't as a counter to another., but the Imperfect Balance model is an imperfect model to apply to 40K. Which keeps the meta healthy in other ways.

Incidentally, the context in which I first raised "Imperfect Balance" way, way back was when I used a video link that explains the theory to illustrate why actual "balance" in a wargame is not necessarily a good thing.

Peregine is also making the common assumption that GW do not play-test their games. This is utterly incorrect. How do I know this to be the case? Because I and other former hosts of of the Chaos of the Warp podcast (as well as many of our guest hosts, listeners and interviewees) have been play-testers for GW. As have many of the players who regularly attended Chaos of the Warp tournaments.

At this point, Peregrine will probably trot out his usual argument about "anecdotal evidence" just as he already trotted out his usual argument of "one does not follow the other" whenever someone makes a point that he is incapable of explaining away through reasoned debate and discussion. In this case, the anecdotal evidence is valid because it is being used to identify a statement meant by Peregrine (that 40K is not play-tested) to be false. Effectively, this anecdotal evidence is a "witness statement" rather a personal observation meant to justify someones opinion on the reasons behind a statistical tend.

So I'll also point out that every single person who actually plays 40K 6th edition (which does not, alas, include Peregrine) is essentially a play-tester for the game, as the very fact that GW releases FAQ's will attest. Granted, it would be better if these issues were picked up well before release (or at least before the books went to print, so we didn't have so many release-day FAQs) but at least they are being picked up and dealt with.

By the way, many Wow updates are also accompanied by a patch released a few hours or a few days later. This is a simple consequence of the fact that the relative handful of people who test or proof-read a computer game, table-top wargame or even a novel cannot pick up on every error. It's not until release (when the number of eyes looking over a product rises exponentially) that some issues get noticed. GW is no different from anyone else in that regard.

Basically, it comes down to this:

Fewer Variables make for a more balanced game. More variables make for a much better gaming experience that will hold player interest for longer. The secret to making a good, enjoyable game that satisfies competitive and casual player alike is to find a happy medium between the two.

I personally believe that GW has found that medium with 6th edition 40K. Other people clearly do not. It's not possible for any game company to completely satisfy 100% of the people 100% of the time. Which is why I'm bemused that many gamers cannot accept that "good enough for most of us" is, in fact, good enough.

 LeadLegion wrote:
I personally believe that GW has found that medium with 6th edition 40K. Other people clearly do not. It's not possible for any game company to completely satsify 100% of the people 100% of the time. Which is why I'm bemused that many gamers cannot accept that "good enough for most of us" is, in fact, good enough.

You keep saying things along these lines. I don't think "most of us" means what you think it means...

From what I could see 8th ed WHFB saw a lot of emigration of the local player base in my area to 40K and 3rd party games (mostly Warmachine), but following the release of 6th ed 40K and its its more prominent codices there has been a similar emigration of players from 40K to WHFB and yet more 3rd party games, the end result being that right now neither WH40K nor WHFB have anywhere near as many players in the local gaming scene as they had when I first started playing less than 2 years ago. Last year we had simultaneous 40K and WHFB league campaigns that had well over a dozen players each, but this year the 40K league simply flopped (the WHFB league is doing ok though).

Just looking at the miniature community FB page you see almost as many posts about Infinity as you do 40K, and those about 40K are almost all about the Imperial Knights rumors/pics or pretty painjobs people saw on the net and decided to put up- only one guy actually uploaded pics of his own 40K modeling efforts in recent weeks and there's one battle report from a second dude, while the Infinity posts are almost entirely from modeling efforts (along with a couple of battle reports).

This is one week from the closing of the registration for our country's first ever official GW endorsed 40K tournament.

I've also been noticing a major decline in the frequency of 40K games in the FLGS over the last year or so. When I first started playing I would rarely need to set up a game in advance- I'd just drop by and play a pick up game with whoever was free at the time (and I rarely had to wait very long, though sometimes there was some delay due to lack of tables), nowdays however I don't bother coming if I don't find an opponent in advance via FB as I would most likely end up twiddling my thumbs for an hour or two before leaving (this even happened to me once during a special event day FFS! I ended up joining a MTG cube game instead to salvage what I could of my time...).

This is not a sign that the silent majority is perfectly fine with the state of WH40K...

No, but neither is it a sign that the silent majority isn't perfectly fine with the state of WH40K. Just as the loss of 2.3 million WoW players does not necessarily mean that 2.3 million players left Wow because they don't like the game balance.

There are many potential reasons why 40K numbers could be dropping in your area. In my area, they are once again increasing as players who have been dabbling in other games return to 40K . Neither observation -yours or mine, means a great deal in terms of analyzing why 40K numbers are dropping in a wider context.

Even GW's lower profits this year do not actually mean that GW is losing money because people are unhappy with game balance. There are many possible reasons why sales have dropped:

Here are a few:

*Greater exposure to alternate game systems resulting in a player leaving 40K for something they think is better.
*Greater exposure to alternate game systems, resulting in players splitting their disposable income between GW and other companies
*Rising cost of the models
*Rising import tax rates/inflation/ further increasing the cost of GW models in various countries.
*Increase in basic wage rates failing to match the cost of living increase, resulting in reduced capacity to purchase luxury items.
*Growth of (and indeed, saturation of) the second hand GW model market
*Availability of cheap counterfeit models from China

If you look at luxury hobbies across the board, many market leaders (including World of Warcraft, the big daddy of MMO's in the same way GW is the big daddy of tabletop wargames) are suffering in terms of numbers. Even Hasbro reported a net drop of $3.3million in sales in the first quarter of 2013 and disappointing sales over the Christmas period. It's necessary to look at these things in context. There's a great thread about GW's end of year report elsewhere in the 40K General Discussion forum that covers the potential factors involved.

 LeadLegion wrote:
If you look at luxury hobbies across the board, many market leaders (including World of Warcraft, the big daddy of MMO's in the same way GW is the big daddy of tabletop wargames) are suffering in terms of numbers. Even Hasbro reported a net drop of $3.3million in sales in the first quarter of 2013 and disappointing sales over the Christmas period. It's necessary to look at these things in context. There's a great thread about GW's end of year report elsewhere in the 40K General Discussion forum that covers the potential factors involved.

Yes, there is such a thread and it has been pointed out over and over again that miniature sales as a whole have not dropped and practically all of GW's competitors are showing monumental growth figures (not to mention the kickstarter numbers).

In which case, we can reduce the most likely factors to

*Greater exposure to alternate game systems resulting in a player leaving 40K for something they think is better.
*Greater exposure to alternate game systems, resulting in players splitting their disposable income between GW and other companies
*Rising cost of the models
*Growth of (and indeed, saturation of) the second hand GW model market
*Availability of cheap counterfeit models from China

The only factors that the growth of other miniature wargames company sales might eliminate from consideration are:

*Rising import tax rates/inflation/ further increasing the cost of GW models in various countries (even this this might still be a factor in countries with their own burgeoning domestic wargaming/miniatures industry)
*Increase in basic wage rates failing to match the cost of living increase, resulting in reduced capacity to purchase luxury items (again, this may still be a factor as many other games have much lower start-up costs and a meta than evolves more slowly than that of 40K)

So that still doesn't necessarily mean that the game rules are the major factor in the decline of sales

 LeadLegion wrote:
No, but neither is it a sign that the silent majority isn't perfectly fine with the state of WH40K. Just as the loss of 2.3 million WoW players does not necessarily mean that 2.3 million players left Wow because they don't like the game balance.

There are many potential reasons why 40K numbers could be dropping in your area. In my area, they are once again increasing as players who have been dabbling in other games return to 40K . Neither observation -yours or mine, means a great deal in terms of analyzing why 40K numbers are dropping in a wider context.

Even GW's lower profits this year do not actually mean that GW is losing money because people are unhappy with game balance. There are many possible reasons why sales have dropped:

Here are a few:

*Greater exposure to alternate game systems resulting in a player leaving 40K for something they think is better.
*Greater exposure to alternate game systems, resulting in players splitting their disposable income between GW and other companies
*Rising cost of the models
*Rising import tax rates/inflation/ further increasing the cost of GW models in various countries.
*Increase in basic wage rates failing to match the cost of living increase, resulting in reduced capacity to purchase luxury items.
*Growth of (and indeed, saturation of) the second hand GW model market
*Availability of cheap counterfeit models from China

If you look at luxury hobbies across the board, many market leaders (including World of Warcraft, the big daddy of MMO's in the same way GW is the big daddy of tabletop wargames) are suffering in terms of numbers. Even Hasbro reported a net drop of $3.3million in sales in the first quarter of 2013 and disappointing sales over the Christmas period. It's necessary to look at these things in context. There's a great thread about GW's end of year report elsewhere in the 40K General Discussion forum that covers the potential factors involved.

A perfectly logical post, containing many ideas and concepts I agree with.

However, when given the opportunity to explain the fall off in sales in the interim report, Mr Kirby cited the changeover to the one man store model and associated disruption and loss of store hours as the reason, and nothing else.

Now, I don't know about you, but while I perhaps wouldn't want to be attributing falling revenue to my competition or the counterfeit market running away from me (a problem of their own making, happy customers buying well priced goods don't generally go looking for knock offs, at least not in the numbers it would take to hurt your bottom line too much) I would certainly feel more comfortable pointing to wider economic trends and backing that up with similar companies in comparable market positions suffering similar down turns. (Let's not lose sight of the fact that GW are making less money, not losing any - while remarkable, and possibly telling, it isn't a disastrous situation, at least yet.)

The fact he didn't is perhaps telling in itself, although of what, I'm not 100% sure of just yet, I await the year end report with interest.

Thanks very much

I agree that Mr Kirby is perhaps kidding himself here (or at least, trying to kid his shareholders). I also agree with you on why he wouldn't be willing to mention the other factors.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing the next financial report myself.

 LeadLegion wrote:
In which case, we can reduce the most likely factors to

*Greater exposure to alternate game systems resulting in a player leaving 40K for something they think is better.
*Greater exposure to alternate game systems, resulting in players splitting their disposable income between GW and other companies
*Rising cost of the models
*Growth of (and indeed, saturation of) the second hand GW model market
*Availability of cheap counterfeit models from China

The only factors that the growth of other miniature wargames company sales might eliminate from consideration are:

*Rising import tax rates/inflation/ further increasing the cost of GW models in various countries (even this this might still be a factor in countries with their own burgeoning domestic wargaming/miniatures industry)
*Increase in basic wage rates failing to match the cost of living increase, resulting in reduced capacity to purchase luxury items.

So that still doesn't necessarily mean that the game rules are the major factor in the decline of sales

* "Greater exposure to alternate game systems" is a direct result of people feeling the game is no longer "good enough" to keep them engaged. The primary driving force behind people switching over to other games is former 40K/WHFB players convincing them to try them, usually using "its a much better/more balanced/fun game" as their primary arguments.
* Something must be wrong if people are willing to shelve armies they've payed hundreds if not thousands of dollars for and invested untold hours of their time working on to spend yet more money and effort on starting a brand new army in an entirely different game, and "reduced capacity to purchase" does not make sense as an excuse.
* I don't know anyone who buys non-GW models for 40K or WHFB (in fact I know a Skaven player who ordered FW IG and Ork models for use in scratchbuilding Skaven war machines, and he's a well known 40K veteran who switched over to WHFB after shelving his DE army) and the FLGS allows only GW models or high quality scratchbuilds that makes use of GW bits in tournaments.

I have a friend who really loves painting GW models and had plans to start an Iron Hands army but then ended up starting a Warmachine army instead and does commission painting work to get his "painting GW minis" fix (he even volunteers to paint models he finds particularly awesome on occasion).

Try sugar coating it if you want, but I call'em as I see'em.

JPong wrote:

Me : "Did you see that ludicrous display last night? Attack"
RP : "Block. Totally, the problem with Arsenal is they always try and walk it in." *Marks life down*

I stopped reading after I saw this...
You, sir, win my internet today.
Have you tried turning it off and on again?

*Greater Exposure to Other Game Systems* is also due to the rising number of game companies, the increasing availability of cheap advertising and word of mouth via the internet, the ability to sell rules internationally and cheaply via Pdf's without having to pay expensive publishing costs and the current trend towards hard plastic/resin compounds that allow large production runs of relatively low quality models to be manufactured cheaply.

* People have been shelving armies to try something new for years. It's not a new phenomenon. Even historical gamers do it when they get bored with their current army or period or rules. I do it myself every now and again (as I mentioned in my post a few pages back where I explained my gaming background). Some gamers shelve a GW army and then go and buy another one. Other gamers shelve a GW army then go and play something else for a while. Some gamers shelve a GW army and never play a GW again. Others never play any wargame ever again. Just because some starts playing another game it doesn't necessarily mean they intend to stop playing 40K altogether. I have three 40K armies on my shelf at the moment: Dark Angels, Imperial Guard and Chaos Space Marines. They're sitting right next to my Warmachine, infinity, Malifaux, All Things Zombie, Noble Armada, Judge Dredd, Dark Ages, Wars of the Roses, Crusades, Chaos Warriors, Ork & Goblin and Seven Years War armies. Right now I'm playing Space Marines and working on my Eldar. Doesn't mean they other armies are never going to see the light of day again. Even the armies for other game systems tucked away in storage get brought out for a game every now and then.

Without more information (and a time machine) we can't know for certain if the guys shelving their 40K armies are gone for good or just playing something different for a change of pace.

*And now you do know someone who buys non-GW models for use in games of 40K. While I don't buy counterfiet GW models, I do use a lot of non-GW miniatures in my GW armies. For example, Copperstone Casting marines, USMC Marines from Defiance Games and a few figures from other companies here and there are sprinkled throughout my IG army.

Likewise, my Inquisitorial Detachment consists of Four Colour Figures miniatures that I use as Death Cult Assassins and Dreamforge Games Stormtroopers that I use as, well, Stormtroopers.

As for your friend who changed his mind about whether to buy a GW army or a Warmachine army, I wish him all the best. I wonder, does he still have a GW army, or did he sell all of his miniatures? Not that it affects the debate either way, I'm just curious.

 LeadLegion wrote:
*Greater Exposure to Other Game Systems* is also due to the rising number of game companies, the increasing availability of cheap advertising and word of mouth via the internet, the ability to sell rules internationally and cheaply via Pdf's without having to pay expensive publishing costs and the current trend towards hard plastic/resin compounds that allow large production runs of relatively low quality models to be manufactured cheaply.

* People have been buying and selling armies for years. It's not a new phenomenon. Even historical gamers do it when they get bored with their current army or period. In fact, your observation that people are selling armies shows that economic hardship might be more of a factor in GW sales dropping than you think. How many gamers are selling a GW army to buy another GW army? How many gamers are selling a GW army to buy an army for an another game system, while still retaining (and playing) at least one another GW army? Suddenly it' not so clean cut. Not everybody wants to keep an army they've gotten bored with on the shelf until they want to play it again. Especially if they can't afford to buy a whole new army outright.

*And now you do know someone who buys non-GW models for use in games of 40K. While I don't buy counterfiet GW models, I do use a lot of non-GW miniatures in my GW armies. For example, Copperstone Casting marines, USMC Marines from Defiance Games and a few figures from other companies here and there are sprinkled throughout my IG army.

Likewise, my Inquisitorial Detachment consists of Four Colour Figures miniatures that I use as Death Cult Assassins and Dreamforge Games Stormtroopers that I use as, well, Stormtroopers.

What gave you the idea the armies were sold?

A lot of these guys simply shelved them and started other armies, I can't think of anyone who actually got rid of his old models (at least not on a large scale, there was one guy who sold a portion of his 16k of nids to make room on the shelves for some more Tau, but he still has well over 10k of nids and hasn't left 40K so he's not really the "target demographic" we're talking about here). The DE veteran who switched over to WHFB still has all his amazingly painted DE models (you should see the basing of his whatsheicallit DE flier thingy, it's as if it flies around with a small residential area following it around ), he just got tired of getting wiped out by everyone he played against and moved on to greener pastures.

I'm sure he'd be willing to de-shelve that army if he thought he'd have a decent chance of winning the average game with it rather than just serving as a punching bag to the average opponent or playing second fiddle to a more powerful codex in a 2v2 match.

 LeadLegion wrote:
As for your friend who changed his mind about whether to buy a GW army or a Warmachine army, I wish him all the best. I wonder, does he still have a GW army, or did he sell all of his miniatures? Not that it affects the debate either way, I'm just curious.

He collected bits he planned on using for converting vanilla marines into Iron hands but he dropped the idea before making the actual purchases.

Sorry Galorian. I'd misread your post and went back to change the content, hoping I'd finish and re-post before you would have a chance to read it.

I'm afraid the old fingers weren't fast enough

I can completely empathise with the DA player. The DA codex was written before we'd had a chance to see just how much the new flier rules would upset the apple-cartl. It came out too soon after the edition change to properly take into account the new meta. Can I suggest he try using Mortis Dreadnaughts from Forgeworld? I used my Dark Angels right up until the Codex Space Marine release and did very well with them whenever I included A Dual Twin-Linked Lascannon Mortis or two in my army list. Dump Prescience on one and they clear the skies well enough (rivaled only by the likes of a Quad gun with a high BS character nursing it).

In World of Warcraft, the designers shake up the meta even more often with patches. Wow is even less balanced than 40K because there are even more variables to take into account (such as the sheer number of items available to characters of different classes and levels). This requires even more patches for WOW than 40K has FAQ's. However, can anyone deny that WoW is a good game? Do you want to tell 7.7 million subscribers that they are idiots because they're playing a game that isn't balanced? They don't care if the game is balanced. If they did, they'd be part of the 2.3 million people who have already stopped playing Wow.

I have to inject that this is incorrect. WoW is mostly balanced for PvE and has been for some time. PvP has never been very balanced and there have almost always been one or two horribly broken specs each patch or Arena season, but PvP has never been the game's focus.

I actually think that the turn sequence of 40K is only "bad" as a result of the GW viewpoint of making us field larger and larger armies for the same points builds. If you play a game of 2nd edition and then play a game of 6th edition, you will find things to be quite a bit different.

A 1500 point game of 2nd edition did not involve watching as an entire table edge of models got to take their turns whittling down your units before you even get a chance to respond, even with all the things in 2nd that improved shooting (like targeters all over the place). Armies were approx. 50% the size of modern 40K games of the same points level.

For instance, I play the game AT-43, which has alternating activations. When dealing with armies in that game that would rival what you can field with 2000pts of 6th edition, all that firepower coupled with an I go-You go turn sequence would end up exactly the same as 40K you watch as half your army is dead before you can even respond in kind, weakened, against an army that is completely untouched. It would suck tons of fun out of the game.

Modern-sized games of 40K would be quite a bit more tactical with alternating activations, but would require a large rewrite of that part of the game.

If you want to shake up 40K an easy way is to do a unit activation system using a pack of playing cards. There are all sorts of variations that can be done to the move/shoot/assault sequence without having to change any of the rest of the rules.

I agree with much of what you say. Back in 2nd ed a Devastator squad cost about 300pts. A landraider was still 220 points, but where vehicle costs have changed much (using Space Marines as a sample) infantry units tend to cost about 1/2 the base price. With the current number of models in a typical game, I think alternating unit activation or alternating phases would be a struggle. But I've no evidence to back that up. It's purely my gut feeling.

@taxmeyer: I never claimed that PVP was the games focus. But I disagree with you when you say that PVE is balanced. Certain classes are feeling the power creep more than others.

@killkrazy: A similar system works for bolt action. But I get then impression that many of the games critics want to reduce the random element in favour of player skill, so it might not be a popular move with the players who are already disgruntled with the degree that chance plays in determining the winner. Again, no evidence. Just a gut feeling.

Edited four times because I can't spell.

To me, the ability to deal with random factors is one of the things that distinguishes a good player (general) from a bad one.

When you think of it, the chance to get a move first with your entire army on the basis of a single die roll is a lot more random than unit-by-unit activation by card draw.

Absolutely. Alternating activations destroy the concept of Alpha-strike armies. But (usually) other parts of the turn sequence are also altered from what a game would use if it had IGUGO when looking at games that use alternating activations.

The largest problem with GW's system is the demand for us to use such large armies just to push more models. The amount of fire(or hand to hand attacks) you can focus upon an opposing armies best units is drastically heightened with IGUGO.

Hoo boy.

Just played a 1500pt vs. 30 GK Terminators and a Librarian as Thousand Sons with Ahriman, 5 spawn, a Predator and a Helbrute.

I won, and I didn't need a Heldrake to do it. That's not saying that I'm some uber player- No, his terminators did roll a lot of 1's and I had lots of good psychic tests..

Tell me how the game is broken?

Players make choices. You CHOOSE to bring that Wraithknight/Riptide x3/Imperial Knight. I'm not saying anything that hasn't already been said here, of course.. CHOOSE who and what YOU play against. Nothing wrong with that, friends. : ]

One game doesn't prove a point. The rules are shoddy, no amount of evidence of "But I won with <bad army here> against <good army here>" is going to change that.