Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
I still await the day when Tyranids progress past being the joke faction.

Not sure the tyranids are the joke faction. I think my joke faction has troubles dealing with your joke faction.

Sisters aren't the joke faction, they're the 'we wish people would just forget about them' faction.

I'll tell you what though - it's refreshing playing a game where you don't need to make such distinctions because every faction is properly supported.

 Mitranekh the Omniscient wrote:
Ok, I'm the first to admit that there are things about 40k I don't like (IK, LotD as a supplement etc). But when I look at all the hate on here, all I think to myself is;
-Well if you don't like it, don't play that list e.g. If there's a Taudar monster player and you think it's spammy, don't play it if you can (this is particularly easy with the expansions)
-Can we give GW a break?? I know they've made some stuff-ups, and possibly broken 6th and maybe the whole game. But they're trying. Without them there's no FW, no BL, no 40k. So please, back off.
-If you REALLY cannot get on with the game at all, take a break. Keep up with the hobby, expand your forces maybe, but don't play until you get a new rules set you can live with.
-Not everything is screwed up. 40k is supposed to be fun, so have fun! Play to the fluff, make custom games, whatever. Just enjoy the game, or at least the aspects you love.

I play (...my hobby is wargaming, in which I also paint, convert, & game, which can be hobbies too...) and I chose to do Warhammer 40k, a game created by and distributed by Games Workshop. I buy their minis, paints, and books, by choice. By choice. I agree that LOTD ecodex, which I bought, was a waste of $17.00, and that is where I typically will end my griping. Yes, GW has changed since I played from the Rogue Trader ages, but I have rolled with the punches, made the best of each new rulebook and codex, and had many fun and pleasant games with many folks. If I ever get to the point I find myself degrading the hobby I chose, I would take a good look at why I no longer like the hobby. Does the good points out weigh the bad? I am not like some of those posters who get so deep into the minutia of GW (like stocks, board meeting notes, who is the new head of this or that), and I don't do the rant and rave posts either. I might agree with a valid point, but that is it. I do 40k for the fun of it. If GW ever changes the game so drastically, it becomes a joke, then I would move on, not hang on. IMHO.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
I still await the day when Tyranids progress past being the joke faction.

Not sure the tyranids are the joke faction. I think my joke faction has troubles dealing with your joke faction.

I think the fact that there are two "joke factions" in contention says - well, just about everything that needs saying really. And just wait for an Ork player to see this...

And this, coming from a Tau player. Even the Tau players are saying "this isn't good enough". Lordy...

@Rotary, I had the same experience against a Helldrake. I had a 500 point army with almost no anti-flyer. That Helldrake, after gutting my army before sitting on my objective at the end of the game got me to thinking about superheavies in normal games, IKs and escalation, and I realised just how bad things were, even in relation to 5th.

 krazynadechukr wrote:

 Mitranekh the Omniscient wrote:
Ok, I'm the first to admit that there are things about 40k I don't like (IK, LotD as a supplement etc). But when I look at all the hate on here, all I think to myself is;
-Well if you don't like it, don't play that list e.g. If there's a Taudar monster player and you think it's spammy, don't play it if you can (this is particularly easy with the expansions)
-Can we give GW a break?? I know they've made some stuff-ups, and possibly broken 6th and maybe the whole game. But they're trying. Without them there's no FW, no BL, no 40k. So please, back off.
-If you REALLY cannot get on with the game at all, take a break. Keep up with the hobby, expand your forces maybe, but don't play until you get a new rules set you can live with.
-Not everything is screwed up. 40k is supposed to be fun, so have fun! Play to the fluff, make custom games, whatever. Just enjoy the game, or at least the aspects you love.

I play (...my hobby is wargaming, in which I also paint, convert, & game, which can be hobbies too...) and I chose to do Warhammer 40k, a game created by and distributed by Games Workshop. I buy their minis, paints, and books, by choice. By choice. I agree that LOTD ecodex, which I bought, was a waste of $17.00, and that is where I typically will end my griping. Yes, GW has changed since I played from the Rogue Trader ages, but I have rolled with the punches, made the best of each new rulebook and codex, and had many fun and pleasant games with many folks. If I ever get to the point I find myself degrading the hobby I chose, I would take a good look at why I no longer like the hobby. Does the good points out weigh the bad? I am not like some of those posters who get so deep into the minutia of GW (like stocks, board meeting notes, who is the new head of this or that), and I don't do the rant and rave posts either. I might agree with a valid point, but that is it. I do 40k for the fun of it. If GW ever changes the game so drastically, it becomes a joke, then I would move on, not hang on. IMHO.

I suspect you'll find that posters "who get into the minutiae of GW" like stocks etc.. like myself, probably already have a background/interest in the subject, and just apply that to the major player in the industry. That you refer to stock price (and therefore inherently financial performance) as "minutiae" speaks volumes as to how narrow your focus is on this topic.

Can I also reiterate, despite the fact it has been mentioned on multiple occasions, that GW isn't the hobby? I know you make an attempt to distinguish the two, but then half way through your post, you revert back to using "hobby" when really "GW" or "40K" would be better choices,

If I ever get to the point I find myself degrading the hobby I chose, I would take a good look at why I no longer like the hobby

suggesting you either don't believe or grasp that there's a difference?

krazynadechukr wrote:If I ever get to the point I find myself degrading the hobby I chose, I would take a good look at why I no longer like the hobby.

I've degraded the hobby ever since I started collecting... it's getting together with other men/boys and playing with little toy dollies, there's a plethora of ways to degrade it Doesn't mean I don't "like" it. In terms of 40k, I think the game itself is crap, doesn't mean I don't enjoy the hobby in general and doesn't mean I don't enjoy playing the game. I still want it to be better though. I think one thing that the 40k defenders don't realise, you can have fun playing a bad game, games are social activities, just because it's not the BEST game, doesn't mean you can't have fun playing it or have fun with all the other aspects of the hobby.

Just because someone is on here complaining about it regularly doesn't mean they aren't enjoying the hobby. It doesn't mean that in real life they are a grumpy guts who does nothing but complain about GW all day long.

TheCustomLime wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I could believe the complainers are in the minority simply because most people DO leave after some time. Of all my long term friends, I'm the only one still playing, there's one other guy who is working on an army but he's been working on it for the past 5 years and hasn't played a game with it yet, at the rate he's going he might have an army in another 5 years, lol. Everyone else has quit and their complaining can no longer be heard.

That poor fellow. Is it time, money or some other issue?

He talks about playing a game but I don't think he really cares that he's not playing. He just buys a regiment/squad/character and then spends the next 6 to 12 months painting it, occasionally taking 6 to 12 month breaks, lol.

Rotary wrote:I looked at this thread the other day and i have to admit i really agree with you. I don't hate gw, not that i love them either but they aren't horrible all the time.

Then i faced my tau friend who as usual sits in the corner of the map behind an aegis defense line, going to ground and pulling marker lights as needed for 5 turns.

I'm sorry but my nids really have very little to defend themselves against this. Assaulting gets overwatched by the entire army, my range isn't enough to out shoot him and while mawlocs are great for this situation they like to scatter off the board from time to time.

After games like these all i can think is feth you gw. My codex just came out and they didn't give my army a way to deal with the type of ranged firepower most armies are bringing these days.

Okay, end of my rant

-Loki- wrote:And to think that 18 months ago I was one of those people blindly defending this game. Exposure to the 'outside world' did my hobby a lot of good, it seems.

I still await the day when Tyranids progress past being the joke faction. Until then, I'll enjoy my hobby elsewhere.

The only solution to the crappiness of the Nids codex is the Dataslates (Namely the living Artillery, Skyblight swarm and maybe bioblast node formations in the 2nd and third dataslates)

Problem is, the need to have to buy dataslates to make up for the crappiness of the codex that you had to buy in the first place and then build specific lists in order to make your chosen army competitive and not a joke is part of the problem with the game

So, ah, I play World of Warcraft. I have 20 maximum level characters currently (got one more in the last stretch to being maximum level, and if I devote my full time to it she should be there in about a day or two). I'm a sporadic regular on the General Discussion forum on the official WoW forums. Some of the complaints have merit. Some of the complaints are just trolling to stir up a reaction for some bizarre reason that only trolls understand (and I don't mean the race). One night, I posted a small tirade about how I didn't really give a damn who was winning or losing in the story, so long as it was fun to play (the issue of who the development team loves more was and is a topic of great contention and inexplicable rage). About twenty minutes to an hour later, one of the Blizzard CMs (sorta a go-between for the developers and players. They browse the forums (and have other duties like writing patch notes or whatnot) and look for things that the developers need to be made aware of, as well as posting information from the developers where appropriate (but of course, no spoilers on upcoming plot)) made a post - which I presume was inspired by my thread - about how they actually enjoy seeing people get all riled up and complain about things. They like it because it means that players CARE about what's going on with the game. He said they like hearing positive feedback just as much as negative feedback, so long as it's constructive (so they don't like posts that consist of "this ability sucks" but they do like posts that say "this ability is currently broken, for these reasons, and here's a couple of ideas on how to improve it").

Besides. We're all gamers. We love to argue about our games just as much as sports fans love to argue about whether a rules call was fair or not. It's how we show that we care about the game we're fans of. And to be honest, I suspect that Games Workshop has people who browse the more popular wargaming forums looking for ideas and feedback. My evidence of this is that the photos I took of White Dwarf pages ended up getting removed from my Photobucket account less than two hours after I posted them here, due to copyright infringement. So GW is listening to what we say, and they want to know whether we're pleased with things just as much as we're displeased.

Oh, and if you want to know about forum gakstorms, you should've been on the WoW forums when they announced that their official forums for all Blizzard games were going to be using people's real names instead of fictitious pseudonyms. It was a number of years ago, and all hell broke loose. Eventually, to try to calm things down, one brave Blizzard employee (or so I heard) revealed his real name on the forums to prove it was harmless information (they were planning on doing this to cut down on the anonymity that trolls love to fester in). If the legends I heard were true, he had to change his home phone number to an unlisted one within a couple of days because of all the harassing and threatening phone calls being directed to his house. Admittedly, it was a bad example if it even happened, because he was trying to prove thousands of people's rage wrong, at least some of whom seemed to have above average stalking skills and the willingness to use them. But we've known some Blizzard developers' real names for years apparently without issue. For example, Greg Street is Ghostcrawler, and he was the number 1 scapegoat for all complaints in the game, including things he didn't have a hand in, like the story stuff. To the point where when he left Blizzard to go work for a competitor recently, people were confused because they didn't know who to blame for things. WoWpedia (WoW's equivalent of Lexicanum, except it goes beyond just lore) doesn't mention that thing about that employee's family being harassed, so it might not be true, could be just a rumor. Regardless, Blizzard changed their mind.

Perhaps they're looking for copyright infringement but I really don't believe that they care what they think because they give us very little of what we want, don't fix glaring problems that hurt the game and give us a bunch of stuff we don't want or need.

If they are listening, they don't listen very good.


Evidence A. Where's our legion specific rules? B. Plastic sisters of battle. C. Chaos Cult terminators?

 MWHistorian wrote:
Perhaps they're looking for copyright infringement but I really don't believe that they care what they think because they give us very little of what we want, don't fix glaring problems that hurt the game and give us a bunch of stuff we don't want or need.

If they are listening, they don't listen very good.


Evidence A. Where's our legion specific rules? B. Plastic sisters of battle. C. Chaos Cult terminators?

You could argue the same about World of Warcraft. There've been bugs that have gone unfixed since 2004, new bugs popping up almost daily, things like the Dance Studio which were listed as an upcoming feature for the expansion released in 2008 but still haven't come to fruition (and in fact, at the latest Blizzcon, they snuck it into one of their powerpoint slides to mess with people's heads and then virtually confessed to trolling their fanbase when confronted publicly at that same convention. I've been watching old Blizzcon footage from as far back as 2010, and there are things that they said yes, they would be upcoming in the following expansion, but still aren't here two expansions later... Hell, we can't even get our starter bag updated to have more slots because they "hardcoded" whatever that means, it into the game back when they first made it and changing it would really drastically screw up everything.

GW added a plastic Sternguard kit with a wide variety of bitz, ditto for plastic Vanguard kit. IIRC, they nerfed the cost of Vanguard to make them a more appetizing choice. When something is so bad that it never sees play, they make it better. When something is so powerful that it's a total no-brainer, it often sees the nerfbat because it was too good. This means they're trying to balance the game, even though a paranoid mind might see it as "unit A not selling well, make it better to make it sell well." And yeah, they're trying to make money, which they should be, but there is a direct correlation between how powerful a unit is and how often it sees use. People who like flavorful, lore-driven lists will use a variety of stuff based on their personal likes and dislikes, but the powergamers who tend to try to optimize their lists for the task at hand will all trend to a particular selection of units in various combinations. And unlike an MMO, GW can't exactly go fine-tuning every few weeks to every couple of months because they have no way to update our hard copy books, nor do they have a test server where a variety of players can test out the changes. But Forge World does that, and as I recall hearing, a brokenly overpowered model with the experimental rules tends to get the nerfbat before its stats get finalized. GW doesn't really have that for their upcoming units. (leave aside the argument about whether FW and GW are the same, as it's not relevant here).

 Pouncey wrote:
And unlike an MMO, GW can't exactly go fine-tuning every few weeks to every couple of months because they have no way to update our hard copy books, nor do they have a test server where a variety of players can test out the changes.

Fine-tuning isn't the issue here. GW's balance problems are so obvious that even basic playtesting should have caught them long before the books were published. The only reason we have these problems is that GW doesn't give a about the quality of their rules and would rather publish garbage than pay the development costs of making better ones.

As for the practical "problems", no. GW has FAQs/errata to publish new updates, and only has this problem at all because they insist on a release cycle where armies go years between updates and the top priority is making the customers pay for their rules instead of giving out new rules for free like other companies do. And GW could easily have the equivalent of a test server if they bothered to hire playtesters like every other successful game company does.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
And unlike an MMO, GW can't exactly go fine-tuning every few weeks to every couple of months because they have no way to update our hard copy books, nor do they have a test server where a variety of players can test out the changes.

Fine-tuning isn't the issue here. GW's balance problems are so obvious that even basic playtesting should have caught them long before the books were published. The only reason we have these problems is that GW doesn't give a about the quality of their rules and would rather publish garbage than pay the development costs of making better ones.

As for the practical "problems", no. GW has FAQs/errata to publish new updates, and only has this problem at all because they insist on a release cycle where armies go years between updates and the top priority is making the customers pay for their rules instead of giving out new rules for free like other companies do. And GW could easily have the equivalent of a test server if they bothered to hire playtesters like every other successful game company does.

Fine, you win. Sorry for trying to give a light side of things to someone whose view of these forums has given him or her an impression of WH40k as being the most terrible thing that exists in tabletop gaming. I'll shut up and go back to hugging people on the WoW forums for now.

Uh Games Workshop is a successful company, and probably does at least twice the volume of sales of any miniature company out there. I don't even have to look it up, unless Privateteer Press suddenly exploded without notice and who ever owns it is now a millionaire.

Of course it's a privately owned company.

Hollismason wrote:
Uh Games Workshop is a successful company, and probably does at least twice the volume of sales of any miniature company out there. I don't even have to look it up, unless Privateteer Press suddenly exploded without notice and who ever owns it is now a millionaire.

Of course it's a privately owned company.

Um.. am I reading that wrong or are you saying that GW are privately owned?

Also yes, GW is the biggest and was successful. Can't argue with either of those. At this point however GW aren't successful, they are in a rapid decline. For the last few years their financial reports looked like they were dressed up to hide falling sales and their latest has proven that they are falling quite fast.

I love how deeply involved we are as gamers into the financial well-being of GW...

Well it's an interesting subject, even if for no other reason than they are a company that make a ton of decisions that are completely contradictory to the way most other businesses run.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
Note I didn't say "make profits" because they're past that point and are trying to simply hold on financial report to financial report without gak hitting the fan for them. Otherwise the powers that be there hate the hobby and hate you.

Thanks for the perfect example of hyperbole that the OP was complaining about. The company made £6.6 million pounds of profit in the six months to December 2013.

Yes, GW do plenty of silly things but the fact that some schadenfreude-junkies assert that £6.6m is a negative number perfectly exemplifies the ludicrous over-reactions and misrepresentations that are spooled out here.

This is a very bad point. Every company makes money every month. Blockbuster video was also raking in millions each month in 2010. It doesn't mean the company has a promising future.

I honestly can't think of another company that is a specialty retailer like GW that sells and creates their own type of product like this.

 Pouncey wrote:
I'll shut up and go back to hugging people on the WoW forums for now.

Have an exalt because this line literally made me LOL.

Hollismason wrote:
I honestly can't think of another company that is a specialty retailer like GW that sells and creates their own type of product like this.

Clarks the shoe shop.
Lush the cosmetics shop.
Thorntons the chocolates shop.
The White Company the interior design shop.
and so on...

These are UK companies, of course.

GW is publicly owned. What difference that makes IDK.

viewfinder wrote:
I love how deeply involved we are as gamers into the financial well-being of GW...

That's because so many people want GW to fail in their current business practices. Also, given they are a publicly traded company, it's not a difficult task to just google their financial reports.

How could a fan of the 40k universe NOT hate on GW? That's the better questions IMO.

1) They refuse to entertain communication with their fans on a friendly/accessible level. They just shut down all the FW social media because it was "too popular to give it the time deserved"... LOL, seriously!?

2) Absolutely no tangible product support for their rules system (no playtesting, no FAQs, no attempt at balancing, etc).

3) Antagonist attitude towards people who any second year business major could tell you were actually helping their bottom line. Any moron could tell them that Faeit 212 or 40k Radio were generating tons of free publicity, positive buzz, excitement, etc for their products. Its the kind of free advertising that companies dream of... not ole Gdub... they go all angry lawyer CaD on everyone. Not to mention independent retailers, GT organizers, etc... Even GW's own financial report acknowledged that their earnings dropping off was impacted by independent retailer sales stumbling.

In short, we are increasingly the ones providing the value to their product. The community atmosphere, the brotherhood of gamers who play together every week, the FLGS that has the terrain and space to play, the TOs that houserule and FAQ all over the place to keep the meta at least interesting for the non-Eldar players, we are ones making it fun for us.

I think, when its all said and done, it's the "fact" that GW simply is an ignorant, sloppy jerk when it comes to customer interactions and rule support that generates the hate. I don't know why I can't like part of a company and still highlight my near hatred for the upper-management and the quality control/continuing support team(s). In fact, good ole democratic capitalism says that the best way to get improvements is to vote with my voice and my wallet... increasingly we're all heading that route and its GW's own fault that they refuse to listen.

EDIT: If anyone is a Chicago sports fan (Bears, Bulls, Cubs... not so much Sox or BHawks), you'll completely understand loving and hating the same company/product at the same time. Maybe its just an American thing.

Also, to the OP: welcome to the interwebz forums... psst, its where people go to vent (seriously, it really is, you'll see it here quite often).

 ClockworkZion wrote:


People have also made top tables with Sisters (and I've heard claims of them winning some big tournaments too). Heck the really bad Daemons codex used to make top tables in the hands of one player. Just because people can win with the weakest options out there doesn't mean they're good. It means someone knows how to play counter the meta very well or got really lucky or both.

I'll have to disagree. What's perceived as bad is not necessarily bad. Those casters I mentioned? They're not the weakest, merely not popular. Mohsar has a great game against hordes armies, and Cassius, while he requires a mastery of the game, has some great and interesting options. Here's one for you. Kromac. The guy who won the uk masters multiple times a few years ago hares him. According to him, kromac doesn't have a game. Ask others.mive win about 80% of my games with him. Some top us players swear by him. Good or bad, or just personal preference?

The point us this: fir every time you see someone go and say 'if you play army x, you need units a, b and c' or 'unit d is terrible, don't go near it' you'll see someone stand up, disagree, and go off and win a tourney with it. I've given some examples.ive seen too many similar stories over the last three years to think the game has been solved, and to casually dismiss those non-netlist wins as 'getting lucky, or countering the meta'. The two or three list format pp enforce fir their tourneys certainly helps mitigate both bad match ups and helps increase variety. Everything has it's place, and outside of a handful of outliers, pretty much everything sees table time.

I maintain what I said. There is very little in the game that is objectively 'bad'. There is plenty variety out there.

Deadnight wrote:
I maintain what I said. There is very little in the game that is objectively 'bad'. There is plenty variety out there.

Which is a world of difference from 40k where plenty of units are objectively "bad" and some are so good that you're actively hurting yourself by not taking them.

For me at least that's the main appeal of WM/H - that I can really pick an army that I like and not be totally gimped. I get there's a possibly stronger meta due to the more competitive nature of the game, but in the research I've done I've never seen half as much "Don't take unit X" in WM/H. Case in point I frequent the Bolter and Chainsword forum; someone posted a fairly fluffy Crimson Slaughter list for review, and replies to it were the typical "GIve your Lord MoN, drop CSM squads for Plague Marines" responses, which basically said to strip out everything that made the army Crimson Slaughter other than the name of the sourcebook being used.

That's the kind of thing that annoys me about 40k - if you want an actually true-to-fluff army you can actively impede your chances of winning a game because some units are objectively better than others.

 Rotary wrote:
I looked at this thread the other day and i have to admit i really agree with you. I don't hate gw, not that i love them either but they aren't horrible all the time.

Then i faced my tau friend who as usual sits in the corner of the map behind an aegis defense line, going to ground and pulling marker lights as needed for 5 turns.

I'm sorry but my nids really have very little to defend themselves against this. Assaulting gets overwatched by the entire army, my range isn't enough to out shoot him and while mawlocs are great for this situation they like to scatter off the board from time to time.

After games like these all i can think is feth you gw. My codex just came out and they didn't give my army a way to deal with the type of ranged firepower most armies are bringing these days.

Okay, end of my rant

So instead of your friend being a douche, you blame GW? Then again, you reserve the right not to play your friend until he changes his play style.

Yes I agree GW makes unbalanced rules and codices, but GW DOESN'T force people into making lists that they "have to win with plastic toy soldiers". How is it's GW fault when people are Richards?

Too OP: Its not hate, I just know they can do a better job. It would be a great loss if GW died.

 Rune Stonegrinder wrote:
Too OP: Its not hate, I just know they can do a better job. It would be a great loss if GW died.

It'd be a loss if they died and took 40k with them, if gw went down but someone else bought 40k and warhammer and did a better job that would be a plus.

Davor wrote:
So instead of your friend being a douche, you blame GW?

40k has got to be one of the few games where you can be a douche for playing to your ability and trying to win against an opponent of similar skill level.

hobojebus wrote:

 Rune Stonegrinder wrote:
Too OP: Its not hate, I just know they can do a better job. It would be a great loss if GW died.

It'd be a loss if they died and took 40k with them, if gw went down but someone else bought 40k and warhammer and did a better job that would be a plus.

And if they didn't do a better job? Then people will just be complaining and crying that they are whipping out a 40K product line they just bought, and making things just for money, and not love of the hobby or fluff.

Another company can actually do worse. So much worse.

Davor wrote:
Another company can actually do worse. So much worse.

Given how the way GW runs the game flies in the face of pretty much every established way of doing business, I find this hard to believe barring something like taking the 40k IP and making it into a Heroclix game or the like.

hobojebus wrote:

 Rune Stonegrinder wrote:
Too OP: Its not hate, I just know they can do a better job. It would be a great loss if GW died.

It'd be a loss if they died and took 40k with them, if gw went down but someone else bought 40k and warhammer and did a better job that would be a plus.

I'd have no problem with a new company doing it right.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Davor wrote:
Another company can actually do worse. So much worse.

true as well