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I have been playing 40k for about 6 years now and it appears that the bleeding concerning both popularity and customer base,
will ultimately never stop. I saw our con bring about 68 people in 2009 to only 28 for Saturday 40k tournament and only 8 people
on Sunday match up.

I am sure there are a multitude of reasons why however its hard to nail down the one main thing as to why this just keeps getting worse.


I have seen 9 really good friends who shared this hobby of war gaming with me just pick up there dice and walk away. Now that
I have completed a really cheesey tournament with socially back ass wards rule bending 20 something yr old virgins who suffer from
a extreme and rare form of ausbergers.

I realize that maybe I may need to pick them up myself, this game is not what it was 6 years ago that is for sure.

My question for those who have been in the game of 40k for a few years is this

Do you see yourself playing this game as a tournament style game a year from now ?

If so why ?

If not why?

Before I walk away I really would like feed back from the old school war gamers if there any left out there...

Thanx for taking the time to read this. I just wonder how many are pondering the same thing as I.

I'm not too sure.

I've just moved back home after three years in university. When I left there was a thriving 40k community. Now it has dried up quite a bit. I have quite the large force but no one to play with. If I want weekly games, I'll have to jump ship fully to warmachine/

I started playing back in RT. I just got sick of the crappy rules and bland fluff. I looked outside of GW and found much better games That now get my time and money. Unless GW changes completey I won't be back.

I too am an RT era player, no reason to stop now.

SJ

I've only been playing for about a year and a half so far, but I love my new Necron codex, and I overall like how the new codexes have been (bar Eldar, mainly because of the amount of cheese available). Will I be playing a year from now? Yes. My local store as bloomed again with wargamers, my girlfriend is playing more, some friends are coming back into it, ext. Do I play competitively? Hell no. This game is far too unbalanced to play competitively, and thus I will never even attempt it.

Codex creep?
Overpowered Eldar?

Nothing new here, it’s been going on for decades. Stay calm and bolter on.

It might make things rough for pick up games and tournaments, but for a group of cool guys at the FLGS, the game is still quite playable. I’ve been collecting since the RT era, and I don’t see me stopping anytime soon.

Will I play it as a tournament game? No, because I never have, and I never intend to, and it was never designed for that.

That said, I fully intend to keep playing 40k as long as there is a 40k to play, and even after if it comes to it. I still find the game amazingly fun, and have everything I'd need to keep playing even if GW goes bust tomorrow in one form or another. It's almost 5 years to the week since I first started playing, and in that time, none of the supposed decline of 40k has affected me; I ignore or fix the bits I don't like, expand the bits I do, and keep on playing.

I'll buy other games, maybe even better ones, but that doesn't mean I have any reason to quit 40k.

I think a better question will be if people see themselves continuing to invest in 40k.

I personally very much enjoy my Dark Eldar and Ork armies. That being said, I scaled down and then ditched my Imperial Guard army, and have been cutting out absolute everything that isn't DE or Orks. I had some temptation to start an Adeptus Mechanicus army, but knowing how the game is, and seeing GW try to sell me their rules for $70 has resolved me to not do that. The DE and Orks may continue to atrophy as I only keep the bare minimum for gameplay purposes.

I think I will play 40k with either an older rule set or just make the absolute basic purchases for 7th rules, however I can get them for the absolute lowest price. But I've definitely gone way past the point of growth, and have moved into other games and away from GW. I'm planning on keeping these armies for years to come, but I won't be continuing my purchasing with the company.

I don't really see it as a lot. While GW has been very successfully sinking their two remaining flagship games, a lot of great options have popped up. I think 40k is going from the dominant game to an option among a plethora of games like Infinity or WM/H.

Already spent $200 on this hobby and there is no going back (not that I want to in the least).

I agree with the OP, I've also noticed a distinct decline in the last five years.

I started in mid 5th having been on hiatus since the end of 2nd/beginning of 3rd.

Shortly after, a local club started, initially it was almost exclusively 40K, not by design, just by dint of the popularity of the game. Recent years has seen attendance to the club fall away, and fewer and fewer games of 40K happening while other systems have gained popularity.

Personally, the latest Eldar book has simply snuffed out all desire I currently have to play. I'm not angry about it, I just don't care enough anymore to waste that sort of energy. I'll still keep working on armies as painting projects (I've got a trunk full of back catalogue to work through) as I primarily paint anyway, but I'll keep my game time for X Wing, and perhaps the occasional 40K game for nostalgia, and simply retain a mild optimism that things will pick up again in the future.

 krodarklorr wrote:
I've only been playing for about a year and a half so far, but I love my new Necron codex, and I overall like how the new codexes have been (bar Eldar, mainly because of the amount of cheese available).

> Admits to playing and loving the 2nd most OP codex in W40K.

> Wants to bar Eldar because their new codex is too OP.

This was hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.

I've been collecting for over a year, playing for almost a year. I have too much invested in this game to quit now. Besides, I like the models too much, and there is a pretty good community for 40k where I live. So I easily see myself still playing a year from now. Probably far longer than that (unless life happens, y'know?)

Of course! My friends are playing it and I like this fast pacing of things.

 dragoonmaster101 wrote:
Already spent $200 on this hobby and there is no going back (not that I want to in the least).

You now have all the rules for 1 army. You better buy some models so you can play...

 Stinkyninja wrote:
Now that I have completed a really cheesey tournament with socially back ass wards rule bending 20 something yr old virgins who suffer from
a extreme and rare form of ausbergers.

 Azreal13 wrote:
I agree with the OP, I've also noticed a distinct decline in the last five years.

I started in mid 5th having been on hiatus since the end of 2nd/beginning of 3rd.

Shortly after, a local club started, initially it was almost exclusively 40K, not by design, just by dint of the popularity of the game. Recent years has seen attendance to the club fall away, and fewer and fewer games of 40K happening while other systems have gained popularity.

Personally, the latest Eldar book has simply snuffed out all desire I currently have to play. I'm not angry about it, I just don't care enough anymore to waste that sort of energy. I'll still keep working on armies as painting projects (I've got a trunk full of back catalogue to work through) as I primarily paint anyway, but I'll keep my game time for X Wing, and perhaps the occasional 40K game for nostalgia, and simply retain a mild optimism that things will pick up again in the future.

This is something I'm seeing a lot of and feel myself. There's just not as many people showing up as there once were on game nights and local events, tournaments at many places aren't run as frequently, affordability is rapidly declining, and the rules are increasingly simply insane and feel more and more out of place for the scale the game is intended to play at.

40k was once the 800lb gorilla with Fantasy as its 600lb sibling dominating a room with the occasional 10lb visitor monkey, now Fantasy appears to have died a slow and undignified death, while 40k is down to the 400lb gorilla in a room with a bunch of 250lb chimps swarming around it.

 Nevelon wrote:
Codex creep?
Overpowered Eldar?

Nothing new here, it’s been going on for decades. Stay calm and bolter on.

It might make things rough for pick up games and tournaments, but for a group of cool guys at the FLGS, the game is still quite playable. I’ve been collecting since the RT era, and I don’t see me stopping anytime soon.

This, +a lot.

People need to relax about the "OMG ELDARGEDDON OVERPOWERED THE SKY IS FALLING!" crap. You're all young. Well, most of you probably are. Any of you who think that GW gives a single crap about your feelings, game balance, coherent rules, or ANYTHING except making a buck are simply adorable. I can tell you right now this is a simple pattern for GW. Back in 2nd edition, it was SW Termie Lords with Powerfields standing in front of entire armies of Wolf Guard Termies with Cyclone Missile Launchers, or Ork Pulsa-rokkitt Spam. Nothing like laying your minis down and standing them up again, turn after turn, as you got stomped on by Orks. Or just picking them up after a pizza-sized missile templates obliterates them. 3rd edition was launched us into Razorback Plasmaspam and other stuff I'd rather not remember, then we got Godzilla lists, the Necrons in general, all Drop-Pod spam, Wave Serpent spam, etc. etc. etc. blah blah blah. It literally never ends, kids. Step back, take a breath and laugh. GW isn't kidding you when they say that it's your game and to mod it how you need to in order to have fun. That's why there are restricted leagues, comp'ed tournaments, 'Ard Boyz events (for those who like that), etc. GW has never, and will never, do this for you. With few exceptions, every new Codex that comes out is designed to be the "next best thing" to sell models. Just remember...you STILL have it better than us poor slobs who love Fantasy too. OMFG...look up "overcompensation" in the dictionary, and you will see a picture of the next WFB edition. It's like watching a pendulum swing from edition to edition...Herohammer! No, Core Troops are all powerful! No, Magichammer, No, Monsterhammer! No, back to Cavalry! Schizo!

Instead of whining and complaining, start your own group, or league, or volunteer at the next con you attend to run the 40k tournament. Get some reasonably minded people together, and decide a few things, like having some sort of Comp system. You'd be amazed at how the quality of games go up when only 2/3rds of your points come from winning games, and the other 1/3rd come from Painting, Comp, and Sportsmanship scores. Yes, you will always have that assclown who shows up with the minimum 3 colors and a fistful of Wraithknights, but he won't actually win, even if he does win all his games. He will probably ruin a couple people's days (unless they let it roll of them, like they should), until his Sportsmanship scores prompt you to ask him to leave. And the next time he tries to sign up, you simply say "sorry, no." Eventually, they get the message. Or go hump their friends in the garage with WK spam. Who cares?

Again: GW DOESN'T CARE. They haven't cared about game balance or anything else for 30 years now. They aren't going to start. In fact, I think they are functionally incapable of writing a series of balanced rules and codices. They get it right once in a while, on one-off books, but the next book with be ridiculous garbage (usually overpowered, sometimes worthless). Get used to it.

Me? I've had an Eldar army since 2nd edition. I missed out on RT by a couple months. I'm not about to change that now because my Codex is broken. No one forces me to take WK's (don't own one), put a SL on every Jetbike and then spam 40 of them (I'll probably have a half-dozen or so in my Corsair list). All I have to do is show a modicum of self-control, and play with like-minded individuals. Which means you probably won't see me at an unrestricted tournament. Or if you do, it's to accept I am going to lose while laughing at the guy across from me and doing my best to make him feel like a douche. Sort of it's own version of twisted fun.

Lets all come up with a chronological list of the whine-inducing broken nonsense over the years and editions!

I only just came back within the last few months. Even when I don't play a game, I'm having fun army building, but I can't really see myself ever going to a tournament at all. While I do just play amongst friends really, I feel like the game has changed alot from the way I used to see it. And the expense to get in now is amazingly high compared to the early 90's, so I definitely buy less and at a slower pace.

If I do decide to play anything else though, I want it to be games that are squad based. I see people always talking about the various skirmish based games out there as alternatives, but I don't actually enjoy rolling dice for each individual model. I like scifi, squads, and tanks, so it kinda limits which games I'll really get into. In that regard GW will probably get to keep me around for awhile. Besides, I do really like their models.

Not everyone has the resources, ability, time or inclination to start their own playgroup or run their own events. Lots of people just show up on game night a couple times a month and are looking for a couple hours of fun. To put the onus on them to fix things is a bit silly, because it's not going to happen.

What's going to happen is that many of them stop playing and buying things. And we've seen that, GW is not the monster amongst the wargaming industry it once was, shelf space at many places is often considerably less than in previous years, and other games are much bigger.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Not everyone has the resources, ability, time or inclination to start their own playgroup or run their own events. Lots of people just show up on game night a couple times a month and are looking for a couple hours of fun. To put the onus on them to fix things is a bit silly, because it's not going to happen.

What's going to happen is that many of them stop playing and buying things. And we've seen that, GW is not the monster amongst the wargaming industry it once was, shelf space at many places is often considerably less than in previous years, and other games are much bigger.

And, at that point, you get out of it what you put into it. Put nothing in, get nothing out. Just like any hobby. Sorry, but that is a true statement. GW has a proven 30-year track history of NOT fixing it. Starting to get the picture? They don't care, as long as minis sell. And minis still sell. They target new players, and the young. I've noticed something different from your observations...it's not that there are fewer players, it's that they are newer, and tend not to stay when they realize it's not fun out of the box. That they might have to put effort into it. GW, again, doesn't care...they already sold the minis and books at ridiculously inflated prices.

Eventually, they might change, if it bites too far into the bottom line. Until then, it's on you to make it fun, if you want to.

And, yes, there are plenty of fun games out there. I have armies/warbands for Wargods of Aegyptus, Dark Age, Epic, BTech, BFG, Star Fleet Battles, Mordheim, Necromunda...all more fun than 40k or WFB. And a HELLUVA lot harder to find other players or events. Hell, Epic is what 40k should always HAVE been. WAY more fun. Does away with the whole IGO-UGO crap, and a host of other problems. And GW doesn't support it anymore because there is no real profit in 6mm or 15mm minis. I've never had more fun in a league than when we used to play Mordheim or Necromunda for weeks on end. GW doesn't support those (or BFG) because there is no profit in 10-model warbands/fleets. Which is precisely why the other games I mentioned are not going to knock GW off their throne either. Small-scale skirmish wargames are fun, often more fun, but are far from being the 250-pound chimp I have read them described as.

Yes, absolutely.

 the_kraken wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:
I've only been playing for about a year and a half so far, but I love my new Necron codex, and I overall like how the new codexes have been (bar Eldar, mainly because of the amount of cheese available).

> Admits to playing and loving the 2nd most OP codex in W40K.

> Wants to bar Eldar because their new codex is too OP.

This was hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.

Glad I'm not the only one who got a chuckle out of this. "How dare their cheese out-cheese my cheese! Harumph! Harumph, I say!"

 Stinkyninja wrote:


I have seen 9 really good friends who shared this hobby of war gaming with me just pick up there dice and walk away.

So nine of your really good friends decided to shelve 40k? I am curious as to what they said there motivation for moving on was.

Most people would love to have a group of really good friends to game with, and having that many is pretty much having your own gaming club. I would think that some simple discussion amongst friends could smooth over any rough patches regarding gameplay mechanics.

I see a lot of 'sunk cost fallacy' going on.
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/how-the-sunk-cost-fallacy-makes-you-act-stupid.html

I started playing in 1996, with the release of the 2nd edition Chaos Codex. Their Terminator models... still my rapidly beating heart.

I liked the move from 2nd to 3rd. 2nd is for nostalgic people that think things were better in the olden days. It was a broken, nearly unplayable mess, but it was still better than WHFB . I liked 3rd to 4th, because I wasn't into transports so being able to more easily stall a Rhino Rush was awesome for me. I started Dark Eldar in 3rd, and started dabbling with IG and Space Marines. I also liked the move towards "objective based" missions instead of just Kill'em'all.

I was a little wary of the move from 4th to 5th. It was quite obvious to me that vehicles and powerfists were the way to play, with the maligned wound allocation rules cheesing up certain codices. I found the game to be about as balanced as it has ever been, although my army didn't use much in the way of assault. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE had a Powerfist wherever they could stick one. I saw a guy model a Powerfist onto a foot of a model, so he could kick people with a Powerfist, because he was holding a Combi-Weapon and thought it would look silly to put it on his hand.

That's a joke, but really, it could have happened.

I wasn't terribly fond of the move to 6th. I LOVED the move towards a more shooting focused game. It's war in the 41st millennium, after all, and we're punching each other out like Rock'em Sock'em robots? I think I enjoyed 6th more than any other edition. It was significantly more loose than 5th, but allowed for some fun games, and since we ditched most of the random objective, random terrain garbage we still had a pretty playable game. I didn't like that Knights became a thing, but I didn't see them much. I didn't mind snap shots too much...

7th isn't fun for me. Too little structure. If I wanted to forge my own narrative, I'd play Dungeons and Dragons. I want a game. Not random for the sake of random. Not rolling a hundred dice to see some minor impact on the game. Snap Shots piss me off now something severe. I roll 60 dice for overwatch, 10 to wound dice, 4 go through, and then they all get saved. Then my opponent rolls dice to see if he makes it to me? Such a pathetic drag on time. 80 dice rolled to see if he makes a 4" charge range. On top of everything else that's random.

And the codices? For the love of the Emperor. I see so many Knights now, and they just kill the game for me. I asked a buddy of mine to borrow one of his Knights, just to have some kind of playing field leveler. My gaming group of 20 years has never had to impose "changes" on the rules. We've never had to "limit" our games. Now we are. We don't like it. But we're 20 years into the game, so we keep playing. It just feels gakky to have to actively fix the game instead of being able to just show up, and know how we're going to roll.

So yeah, still playing, but I haven't bought a thing since the Guard Codex came out. I was starting a BA army, but they're pretty crap now, and not expecting to see love in the next 18 months or so. They're still better than Guard, but we've never had a problem with Proxies so I'm just cruising ebay and Kijiji for cheap models, with no interest in paying anything more than a third of the cost. I used to buy full price from GW. Now it's 2nd / 3rd hand models. I had been a champion for buying the books legitimately. Now? The Jolly Roger and I spend time together. I mean, I can buy a binder and print the rules for a [BA] codex for about $5. But even that isn't enough. I need to find supplements, white dwarf pages, campaign books... like I'm going to pay over $150 for rules that should have all been in one book. Every 2 years, no less.

I like the game, so long as it's played between like-minded people. But I can't pour good money after bad. I don't hope for a return to the olden days. I just hope the future is better than today.

sweetbacon wrote:

 the_kraken wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:
I've only been playing for about a year and a half so far, but I love my new Necron codex, and I overall like how the new codexes have been (bar Eldar, mainly because of the amount of cheese available).

> Admits to playing and loving the 2nd most OP codex in W40K.

> Wants to bar Eldar because their new codex is too OP.

This was hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.

Glad I'm not the only one who got a chuckle out of this. "How dare their cheese out-cheese my cheese! Harumph! Harumph, I say!"

I was actually a bit dumbfounded at first because, judging from their comment, it seems like they don't think Crons are OP. That was just what I needed today though, haha.

40k is increasingly becoming a game meant to be shared among friends, rather than a game you can pick up with any last person who's out there.

I'm okay with that. If it was just me and one good friend who were into it, that's totally fine. Playing the same armies time and time again headed by the same friend, doesn't get old to me. We tweak things up to forge our own narrative. Actually doing that makes it a blast.

At the same time, I realize that means the market will slowly erode because of course it would. When you stop appealing to the masses, you lose marketshare. It's not a big surprise.

I'm having great fun working on my orks and getting a game in every now and then. I'll most likely keep playing. In 2 months or so I'll be moving back to my hometown and a few of my friends are interested in the game - so that'll make for even more and better games!

The only tournaments I play in anymore are invite only. Some people just can't help but serve up the latest net list with a feth you attitude about gaming. So we don't invite them. Everbody that shows up knows they don't have to worry about competitive at all costs 40k and can erase the idea from their army lists.

We don't have any problems with how anyone else plays, we just restrict our tournaments (if we play tourneys, we have long ago migrated to campaigns and escalation leagues) to folks who play 40k the way we enjoy it. Too each their own of course, but there is no reason attempt to change others or foolishly attempt to believe we like something we don't.

I will be playing 40k until Epic is GW's cash cow. Same figs as 40k. Just cheaper models....

I stopped playing 40k tournament style a long time ago. Nothing wrong with the game, just ran out of time to play it. Now I play 40k in friendly games only. Part of that is because I enjoy using the units I like more than I do playing the newer or better units. I'm pretty sure If I brought one of my armies to a tournament these days I would be laughed at and lose horribly . The other reason I only play friendly games is because its dead here. The group I used to play with has moved on to Flames of War and the fantasy group has vanished all together. I could play at the actual Games Workshop but that place pist me off.