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 Kilkrazy wrote:
I do not think GW have decided to do whatever they can to piss off veterans. They just don't care if their changed strategy does piss off veterans or they perhaps mistakenly think veterans will welcome it.

To a veteran the result is the same however it comes about.

As you say, perhaps GW have lost sight of what veteran players may mean to them.

I think that GW is confused in that they claim to market to kids - in fact it could be rationalized that the entire concept of Unbound armies aims directly at a younger market who will pick and choose things based on what looks cool, and previously wouldn't be too thrilled (rather, their parents wouldn't be thrilled) with the idea that all those things you bought for Junior won't let him play the game, you need to buy more. Of course, that begs the question of if this is really GW's target market. I don't know about you, but I don't tend to see many 500 point or "1 HQ and 2 Troops" type of games going on, and even then with gross imbalances between factions "1 HQ and 2 Troops" means a lot of different things to different people. Maybe that works for a demo game, or the start of an Escalation League or campaign, but not more than that. I can't imagine that somebody who always turns up with minuscule points values is going to find a game more than a few weeks in a row at which point they'll be expected to turn up with a "real" army.

I definitely agree though that part of the appeal of 40k is that it's ubiquitous. Go to any games/miniatures store, and you're very likely to find that they sell 40k miniatures, and that 40k games go on. In fact I just had this talk with a staff member at my FLGS as we (and some others) have become enthralled with Warmachine, but interest has waned for unknown reasons; people started up, played games and enjoyed it, but have now gone back to Warhammer (Fantasy in this case) and there's only a handful of us who still actively talk about Warmachine (much to my chagrin). Both of us used to play 40k, although I no longer have any armies for it having long since lost them to the ether. We both made the comment that while we like 40k, we dislike GW for a myriad of things but most noticeably their disgusting business practices and the ever-increasing cost of their kit: The staff member made a point to show the Space Marine Reclusiam squad (with the Chaplain that's only available in that box). It costs $90 for 5 guys, a character and a tank; that's $90 for something that doesn't even give you enough to begin playing despite a hefty investment in buying it (IMO that box should be closer $65 in price; that would be reasonable). In comparison, you can buy a Warmachine/Hordes Battlegroup starter box for $49.,99 and get started playing, or you could buy the 2-player box for $100 and have everything needed to get started playing plus the rules. In comparison there is Dark Vengeance but the armies in DV are woefully imbalanced. That's a big issue to me, possibly the largest issue as outside of the big kits (Knight, Riptide, etc.) the cost of 40k tends to level out as you build your "collection", but it's the initial cost that makes most players balk. To get started playing, IMO one shouldn't have to spend more than $100 on an entry-level force. Even GW's Battleforces often run $100 or more and still don't give you enough to get started playing in many cases; this is unacceptable to me.

I wouldn't mind dropping $100 if I knew it would give me the entry-point of an army; it's when I have to spend $100 and still spend another $100 or more just on a basic force (to say nothing of almost $150 just for the rules) that other options start to look better and better - I can't justify that insane cost just to *get started* with anything. As has been said many times, the only thing luxury about the GW hobby is the price. A Space Marine Captain costs $30 for a plastic model with fixed options; in comparison one of the Khador Warcasters (Vlad2) costs $20 for a *metal* figure with fixed options. The SM Captain, barring the fact he's plastic and therefore costs less to make, would be tolerable at $20. At $30 it's taking the piss.

Part of my issue in particular is that I love the 40k fluff and background, but I can't justify paying the price GW asks with a game that's has not a care towards balance or fairness, where you can spend hundreds of dollars and screw yourself due to picking the wrong faction or wrong units, and to top it all off with a local meta that seemingly has nothing other than pick-up games and tournaments going on. I flat out told the staff member that I might be persuaded to actually give 40k a shot if, and only if, there were people playing it at the store and if there was some kind of league or campaign going on that promoted casual and fun games, not the typical tournament style games that go on at one of the other FLGSes in the area. I get that GW doesn't care for competitive play, but a good portion of the playerbase does and if your meta has those kinds of people, you're really between a rock and a hard place, and it's quite ironic that there's a good bit of competitive play for a game that doesn't want to be a competitive game, and too often said competitive play is what causes the least fun games; while yes the rules could be more balanced, I personally don't think the rules are an issue when you're playing in a more laid back environment. The abusive combos only tend to rear their head with competitive gamers.

WayneTheGame wrote:
As has been said many times, the only thing luxury about the GW hobby is the price. A Space Marine Captain costs $30 for a plastic model with fixed options; in comparison one of the Khador Warcasters (Vlad2) costs $20 for a *metal* figure with fixed options. The SM Captain, barring the fact he's plastic and therefore costs less to make, would be tolerable at $20. At $30 it's taking the piss.

That example gets even more obscene when you realize that GW does their own designing, sculpting, mold-tooling, and plastic production. They're not paying anybody else to do it, and there's no extra costs from contracting a sculptor and having a factory somewhere else produce the model and ship it to GW's warehouse. It's all GW.

Yeah, these days you can buy super detailed 'luxury' Kingdom Death or Wild West Exodus resin minis (that really are greatly detailed with high or higher quality sculpts) for $13-25 each mini, depending ont he mini.

Compare this to finecrap characters, or their plastic librarian clampack ($-ouch)... I love 40k, but I no longer love the price, especially when there are other games with better, more detailed, cheaper minis and just as good of fluff/gameplay.

GW used to give deals and had decent valued minis, but for the first time in 15 years I have no reason to defend them and have no desire to play anymore (after I read the new rulebook/changes).

Has anyone noticed that 40k seems to be played by 17-25 yo's, and once people reach 30+, they seem to get into other mini games?

If they dropped their prices, they would probably see many more people buying their products or returning to their game.
:(

 455_PWR wrote:
If they dropped their prices, they would probably see many more people buying their products or returning to their game.
:(

Yes, but like the restaurants on Kitchen Nightmares, they have this "vision" and think that lowering the price indicates a drop in quality.

WayneTheGame wrote:
Yes, but like the restaurants on Kitchen Nightmares, they have this "vision" and think that lowering the price indicates a drop in quality.

The funny thing about Kitchen Nightmares is that the exact same solution is eventually rolled out for every failing restaurant:

1) A re-establishment of working as a team rather than one individual dominating everything
2) A re-connection with the local community, up to and including apologies when needed
3) An acceptance that the product being offered isn't as good as they think it is.
4) A return to high standards in terms of operations and cleanliness.
5) A redesigned menu that is both simple, uses fresh and home made food that is cooked to order.
6) A product which is good value for the money
7) A spruced up decor to bring things up to modern times rather than being dated or filthy.

Some variation of this approach is what happens on nearly every episode. It's just such simple, normal business practice that I'm shocked that so many restaurants fail to acheive it. Yet here we are with GW showing the need for a plan that parallels this approach in surprising ways.

I don't really know that this is the case. I left 40k when 6th hit and I honestly don't know that I could be enticed back. Maybe if they went back to the specialist lines. I have long wanted to try things like Necromunda, BFG, Inquisitor and the like.

I just honestly have no desire to play that big of a game anymore. I like the feel of smaller sized games, I actually feel like its more in depth planing out moves for individual models in a 10 man unit and figuring out the best order of activation. And yes I know that this is my personal experience. I honestly would have never known that I was not as happy as I could have been with miniature games if I hadn't left the GW nest.

They don't have to get you darefsky, they just have to get enough of your friends.

Besides, a small scale game is some thing they're crying out for as a gateway product anyway, should things start to be run in a more orthodox manner, you may well get your wish.

 azreal13 wrote:
They don't have to get you darefsky, they just have to get enough of your friends.

Besides, a small scale game is some thing they're crying out for as a gateway product anyway, should things start to be run in a more orthodox manner, you may well get your wish.

Azreal, that's just it though.... at my FLGS its swung to the point of 70% WM/H, 20% 40k, and a rapidly grown 10% Firestorm Armada.

We have it kinda split that Wed is 40k night. Thursday is WM and Saturday is open play. I can still find a game on Wednesday nights for WM and Saturdays its us, the space ship guys, and the board gamers.

I do hope you are right and they are bringing back the specialist stuff. I don't mind throwing money at GW (I don't think they are the resurrection of the 3rd Reich or some such nonsense, that can go on around here at times.)

I'm not saying they will, but I really think a squad level, boxed game which shares rules DNA with the main core systems would be an intelligent move.

But my point was more that if GW really gets the message with the next 12 months or so of sales figures showing still further drop off, to the point where they make a concerted effort to improve the game, they don't need to entice you back directly, if enough of your Warmahordes and FA playing friends have their heads turned, you may eventually decide to play again purely because 40K is the game it's easiest to get.

Which is why a lot of us started in the first place!

 azreal13 wrote:
I'm not saying they will, but I really think a squad level, boxed game which shares rules DNA with the main core systems would be an intelligent move.

But my point was more that if GW really gets the message with the next 12 months or so of sales figures showing still further drop off, to the point where they make a concerted effort to improve the game, they don't need to entice you back directly, if enough of your Warmahordes and FA playing friends have their heads turned, you may eventually decide to play again purely because 40K is the game it's easiest to get.

Which is why a lot of us started in the first place!

I'm not necessarily a fan of small (Infinity level) skirmishes, but I really like the general size of Warmahordes where you have a big guy or two and a few units of infantry; that seems like the sweet spot where it's above a skirmish but not full-blown large combat - I personally think that the typical size of a Bolt Action game is where 40k should have stayed at. It's actually funny I was looking through some old White Dwarfs, and remembered that in 2nd edition when the game was still a skirmish game, they had an Imperial Fists Strike force that contained:

* Captain
* Chaplain
* Librarian (Epistolary IIRC)
* 5x Terminators
* 10x Tactical Marines
* 5x Bikers

and that was 1,500 points back then, and came in at 65 pounds in 1998. And then points were cut in half for 3rd edition, and since then it's been slowly getting larger and larger to where we have what amounts to 28mm Epic 40k now.

 azreal13 wrote:
I'm not saying they will, but I really think a squad level, boxed game which shares rules DNA with the main core systems would be an intelligent move.

But my point was more that if GW really gets the message with the next 12 months or so of sales figures showing still further drop off, to the point where they make a concerted effort to improve the game, they don't need to entice you back directly, if enough of your Warmahordes and FA playing friends have their heads turned, you may eventually decide to play again purely because 40K is the game it's easiest to get.

Which is why a lot of us started in the first place!

Maybe. I think that it depends on where we are recruiting new gamers from. We are seeing a good amount of recruitment from MTG players over to WM/H here. If there are a substantial amount of new table top players that are being brought in that have never been exposed to 40k or are already entrenched in other systems it might be a bit harder to pull off.

And I am right there with you with 40k I didn't even know I liked stuff like this till a friend from work brought me to his FLGS to "pick up a magazine" (and by that I mean get me hooked). I walked in and found a whole bunch of guys having a blast, being loud and the little plastic dudes looked cool. I was hooked in about 10 seconds.

 azreal13 wrote:
Perhaps they should ask us?

BLASPHEMY. It's like asking for directions! Doing it hurts your pride!

 darefsky wrote:

I do hope you are right and they are bringing back the specialist stuff. I don't mind throwing money at GW (I don't think they are the resurrection of the 3rd Reich or some such nonsense, that can go on around here at times.)

I think it's potentially too late for the specialist games; for each one there is inevitably a competing product already out there that'll both be better and cheaper. They do have the brand recognition so it might still work if they don't take too long.

 455_PWR wrote:

Has anyone noticed that 40k seems to be played by 17-25 yo's, and once people reach 30+, they seem to get into other mini games? .
:(

It says in their reports that their targeted demographic is 14 to 24 year old well mannered young males and their families. I think what you say is true, to an extent. Most of us got into wargames via 40k, lasted a while and then got into other games, whether as a side project to 40k, or as an outright alterative. That said, more and more young gamers are coming through the ranks having never played a gw game.

Here's an amusing one for you. Last year, or the year before, there was a big tourney event organised near the city -flames of war, 40k and warmachine tournaments were all run. I looked at the people attending each, and their age profiles, and couldn't help smiling - it was rather amusing.

Flames of war was mainly played by the older gents. Let's say 40+. Longbeards, and greybeards.
Warmachine was attended by the grown ups - twenty something's and thirty something's.
40k was played by kids. Early teens, if that. And a pair of fat, ungroomed grognards.

Kal-El wrote:
All the doom and gloom only hurts the hobby more. I don't think people are going to want to buy product to play if there is mass hysteria saying the company is failing. That's all I have heard since 6th hit the shelves. Hopefully this doom and gloom ends.

Just play the game and support the hobby IMO.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 slowthar wrote:
I dunno, I just spent the past few hours assembling the Warmachine 2 player battle box, and I can tell you that I model wise, I don't really feel like it's a better value. It seems like about the same dollar-to-plastic ratio that I paid with GW.

Yeah but you can play with that. In fact, two players can play with that. Individual comparisons between 40K and Warmachine are largely useless as you don't need 12 Warjacks in an army and 60+ infantry to play a game of Warmachine.

Warmachine and hordes is an entirely different point value system. Think of a jack or beast as maybe a dreadnought or a wraith lord. That game also has it's 5-10 man squads as well. It also has a lot of little individual models. The quality of PP plastic is horrendous and the mold lines and it's placement is in the worst areas and all over the mini.

GW has the best product on the market I'd say as far as quality and mold lines go.

Umm... Well apart from the obvious GW emergency White Knight account, you have some rather invalid points.

GW is not the Hobby. It is the HHHobby, something that it has been trying to be. Its rules are lacklustre and its models are stupidly expensive and resemble kiddies toys. Oh, and Finecast melts at room temperature.

GW does have MAJOR moldline issues. I got a Vampire Slaying Dwarf model from them and it looked as though the mold has slipped. I had to hack off half the detail from some places and then resculpt it. Compare this to the Bonejacks that I have for my Warmachine army. The moldlines where easy to remove and harmed none of the detail.

And if we are going to compare WM and 40K/WHFB: Well, I recently calculated the entry costs for a HE army. It would cost me close to £300-400 for a viable army and an army book, compared to around £100 for a WM army.
The starter sets that GW produce are lacklustre, with the current WHFB one having terrible balance issues. You have the Skaven army which is balance and actually not bad. Then you have the HE one that is a pile of crap. you have 2 units that are only in there to act as fillers and then you have the Swordmasters and the prince on his chickencat which is an illegal unit for the size of the forces. Then you have to buy the units to finish your armies off, usually around £300 worth.
The WM one comes with 2 armies that are fully completed and legal and need around £60-£70 worth of units/solos to finish. Oh, and their balanced.

TL;DR, GW is a dieing company. Its models are frequently made to resemble childrens toys and the games are unbalanced. Oh, and the products are overpriced.

The 40K box is meant to be as bad; the DAngels aren't a legal force (well, until Unbound) and has a significantly higher points cost that the Chaos side.

Herzlos wrote:
The 40K box is meant to be as bad; the DAngels aren't a legal force (well, until Unbound) and has a significantly higher points cost that the Chaos side.

The 40K box is meant to be an intro. They didn't intent it to be "bad". That's silly.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
The 40K box is meant to be as bad; the DAngels aren't a legal force (well, until Unbound) and has a significantly higher points cost that the Chaos side.

The 40K box is meant to be an intro. They didn't intent it to be "bad". That's silly.

Well it's terrible as an entry level product least because it doesn't provide you with a legal force. But then I guess everything is legal now... I know it includes forces for the narrative in the set.....I just got a sick feeling. ...maybe they think people love narrative gaming because of the number of starters sold. Ick.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
The 40K box is meant to be as bad; the DAngels aren't a legal force (well, until Unbound) and has a significantly higher points cost that the Chaos side.

The 40K box is meant to be an intro. They didn't intent it to be "bad". That's silly.

Yet it fails at an intro. The Chaos player isn't going to have a good time as their force isn't half as good, to say nothing of outnumbered, which it's debatable if that's the intent as GW constantly pushes Space Marines of all flavors and clearly set them up to be the "good guys". Which again goes back to the fundamental issue that GW cares more about telling an interesting story than having a balanced game, but the sheer fact they have points values assigned to units indicates some semblance of balance, and they don't exactly push imbalanced narrative battles as the core game either - all the missions to my knowledge are assumed equal points and therefore should be assumed balance with all else equal. It would be a different story if every mission was a narrative mission representing some type of conflict (similar to how WHFB used to have battles that had imbalanced forces e.g. Defender has 50% the points of the Attacker).

This is where personally I find the disconnect. If GW just pushed out things like the warzone books detailing a specific conflict (e.g. Taros, Badab, Damocles) and published ways to refight those battles or use them to make your own campaigns, balance wouldn't be such a concern as it would be clear the game is intended to play interesting battles. Instead, they try to be everything to everyone and therefore fail at everything. IMO they should focus on warzone books detailing campaigns, and campaigns themselves. That way there's zero ambiguity and more people are going to play narrative type games. Instead if you're in a competitive meta, there's a vast disconnect with how the game is meant and how people actually play.

WayneTheGame wrote:
Yet it fails at an intro. The Chaos player isn't going to have a good time as their force isn't half as good, to say nothing of outnumbered, which it's debatable if that's the intent as GW constantly pushes Space Marines of all flavors and clearly set them up to be the "good guys". Which again goes back to the fundamental issue that GW cares more about telling an interesting story than having a balanced game, but the sheer fact they have points values assigned to units indicates some semblance of balance, and they don't exactly push imbalanced narrative battles as the core game either - all the missions to my knowledge are assumed equal points and therefore should be assumed balance with all else equal. It would be a different story if every mission was a narrative mission representing some type of conflict (similar to how WHFB used to have battles that had imbalanced forces e.g. Defender has 50% the points of the Attacker).

This is where personally I find the disconnect. If GW just pushed out things like the warzone books detailing a specific conflict (e.g. Taros, Badab, Damocles) and published ways to refight those battles or use them to make your own campaigns, balance wouldn't be such a concern as it would be clear the game is intended to play interesting battles. Instead, they try to be everything to everyone and therefore fail at everything. IMO they should focus on warzone books detailing campaigns, and campaigns themselves. That way there's zero ambiguity and more people are going to play narrative type games. Instead if you're in a competitive meta, there's a vast disconnect with how the game is meant and how people actually play.

I never said that it didn't fail at an intro. I said it wasn't designed to be bad, because it wasn't. "Designed to be bad" implies conscious thought went into making it "bad", and frankly the people writing the rules don't understand those rules enough to intentionally make something bad. If it fails at an intro it's because the people who designed it didn't understand why a force consisting mostly of squishy humans and a single (bad) vehicle might have some issues against an army of Marines, Terminators, Bikes and an enemy Psyker.

The crazy thing I always found about the Dark Vengeance boxset is...

It actually would have been almost fair, if they had made a Chaos Sorcerer model instead of a Librarian.

I think someone suggested it before, but perhaps there should be separate rulebooks...

1. "Do what you like 40K" for beginners and people who need a rulebook to tell them that ignoring the rules is ok if you want a narrative game

2. "Veteran level / balanced 40K" for everyone else

 Flashman wrote:
I think someone suggested it before, but perhaps there should be separate rulebooks...

1. "Do what you like 40K" for beginners and people who need a rulebook to tell them that ignoring the rules is ok if you want a narrative game

2. "Veteran level / balanced 40K" for everyone else

That would be a welcome approach if 2. was done well. It would also fit their "There's a Hardcover for that" approach.

Deadnight wrote:

Flames of war was mainly played by the older gents. Let's say 40+. Longbeards, and greybeards.

I worked in an independent store some years ago. I'd worked in a GW years before that - quite a lot of the guys that came in to buy FoW had been kids when I had last seen them years before, and wanted to move on to something else after playing 40k or Fantasy for years. Other than the older 30/40+ fraternity that collected FoW, there were actually quite a few 16/17yr olds who would come in with their dads - their kids are studying history at school, and they wanted something that was beyond what was perceived as a childish pastime and the younger kids that occupied the GW store.

That being said I wonder how Battlefront have been doing financially, and whether the number of other companies producing high quality kits (for less money, most notably PSC) have hurt them at all - read about a store having stock flow problems with their goods, although don't know if that was an isolated incident.

Interestingly enough, even in the heavy competitive 40k FLGS, it's all adults (early 20s and up I'd wager through mid/late 30s or even 40s). No kids at all.

In terms of 40k rules trying to include a bit of everything to try to appeal to every one.
This is a strategy enforce by the sales department IMO to try to cover a wide demographic with as little effort as possible.

They seem to think that if they shoe horn all the cool ideas from the specialist games in to 40k they do not need any other games !

But not understanding game play issues ,fail to see the folly of this.

It is like putting starters, the fish course, main course and dessert , all mashed up together on one plate, it is not that appealing when you get to try to eat it!

Sure everyone sees a bit of their favorite food , but the taste when you eat it is just a diffuse and horrid mess.

This is the best annallagy I could come up with for current 40k rules!(Ascetics over function.)

IMO they should release a starter skirmish rule set, that is suitable for random pick up games , with an expansion with scenario driven campaigns, for more narrative game play.
9An easy in for new players.)

AND a battle game rules set , suitable for random pick up games , with an expansion with scenario driven campaigns.
(For those who want to try this out when they have large model collections.)

The battle game uses the same rules as the skirmish game , but focuses on unit interaction , rather than individual model interaction.

This way there is clear distinction between the sizes of the game, and the styles of play, so like minded games find other players much easier.

 Sir Arun wrote:
maybe 7th edition was GW's last desperate attempt to reignite the hobby? they might be closing shop by the end of the year

I'm pretty sure it was, they nuked 6th after 23 months. If it was a success then the people buying it are resounding idiots, completely unaware that by allowing that behaviour they are only asking for more, GW is pushing the boundaries of fullretard and how much punishment the sycophants are willing to take.

For me, GW have tried to recreate Epic 40K in 28mm. I know some people are like, "Big models, yay!", but the core rule system is inherently unsuitable for this type of play.

As Lanrak suggests, perhaps the answer is a tight set of rules for skirmish level play (involving troops and smaller vehicles / walkers such as Land Speeders and Wraithlords) and broader rules for big arse battles where Riptides and Imperial Knights reign supreme and entire Tactical Squads can be wiped off the board in the blink of the eye.

And before you ask, no I don't think Apocalypse/Escalation covers the latter game type because the core rules are still used at the moment making interactions between different units a bit fiddly.

As Killkrazy said earlier, what you definitely don't need is a set of rules giving you permission to indulge in narrative games. By all means give examples of wacky scenarios, but the "Do what you like" section of the book needs to be one page long max.

 Ravenous D wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:
maybe 7th edition was GW's last desperate attempt to reignite the hobby? they might be closing shop by the end of the year

I'm pretty sure it was, they nuked 6th after 23 months. If it was a success then the people buying it are resounding idiots, completely unaware that by allowing that behaviour they are only asking for more, GW is pushing the boundaries of fullretard and how much punishment the sycophants are willing to take.

Let's just clarify that a ~10% down turn in profits year on year is significant, but to try and parley that into "closing shop by the end of the year" would take such a ridiculous swing in fortunes as to be totally absurd.

GW are not going anywhere in the short to medium term, the best outcome we can hope for from the recent financials is an attempt to re-focus in order to turn things around, and that the attempt to re-focus brings them back to a place where they start to act with more respect for their whole customer base, and don't just treat it as a resource to be exploited.

Yeah there's still a while to go before they start losing money, but if they keep retreating they are going to start falling off a lot of gamers' radars