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You know it's funny, I was all in on starting 40k again. I even bought a box of Berzerkers and was scouring eBay looking for deals and bitz to customize my force. But then it hit me: I'd still be spending like $200+ on it, even to start out with an Escalation League. I'd be playing an assault army in a game that has gakked on assault for like 4 editions. I know for a fact the minute I run into someone who just wipes out my entire army in one shooting phase, I'm going to say feth it and likely want to quit again because that's no fun at all. The second I run up against someone spamming Riptides or IKs or Wraithknights or worse, I'm going to walk away with a "What the feth?" kind of feeling and feel cheated and like I just wasted hours of my time. The second someone wants to bring some OP model from Forgeworld that they spent as much as I pay for my car on, I'm going to be "What is this crap?" and feel dejected again because it's some weird thing I haven't seen, that is likely way too strong and stinks of "pay to win". I know it's going to happen, because it happened before in 2nd edition (Armorcast Warhound Titan) and 3rd (Wraithlords, Eldar Starcannon spam, Dark Eldar dark lance spam, IG Armored Company). And I get the feeling that it will happen one day.

So while I love the background and even like the miniatures.. why would I subject myself to that? Why is it worth it? I always hate how wishy-washy I am, but in this case I think it's justified before I drop a couple of hundred bucks that I don't really have anyways (using Christmas bonus, basically) on a game that is a shadow of what it once was and basically trying to pretend that it's the same GW and same 40k that I enjoyed in my late teens and early 20s, when it's clearly not.

40k is essentially like my marriage: I want to remember that it was good and worth trying to salvage, but in reality it was a miserable experience that I hated dealing with. I still look at my soon to be ex-wife and think she's beautiful, and sometimes want to try and make things work, but I can't subject myself to that misery again. Same with 40k. And now once again I'm having doubts about seriously playing it again, because I can't find any compelling reason why I should.

You know in fact, after giving it thought, that's a very apt analogy for me. My marriage was very fast and while I miss my wife sometimes, every time I see her I get reminded that I was miserable virtually every single day, and the marriage had no redeeming qualities that would be worth saving. That's the same with 40k how it currently is; I can look at it and read about it and reminisce about how fun it was years ago, but in reality I felt nearly every game that it wasn't worth playing because it wasn't really all that fun.

One of these threads again huh. Any more armchair economics and the internet might just crash.

Nope, not dying.

To the above, KDK is actually a decent army when played in capable hands.

Someone will ofcourse object to this but doesn't really change anything, they've won a couple of major events and I constantly see them fielded to good effect.

I'm sorry that the "armchair economics" being performed by people who actually work in economics doesn't paint a rosy picture for you, but it is what it is. GW's financial reports, readily available to absolutely anyone, can be compiled and tracked, year over year, to illustrate declining sales and a flat growth-curve. These are even written for the layman, since it's released to their shareholders, who aren't all economists, and it doesn't take an MBA to compare two (or more) reports side-by-side.

 Runic wrote:
One of these threads again huh. Any more armchair economics and the internet might just crash.

So, what's this other than "armchair economics?"

Nope, not dying.

I mean, it seems to be achingly fashionable to make sweeping statements with no back up in "one of these threads" but I can only assume you're some sort of professional economist to make such a succinct summary?

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Runic wrote:
One of these threads again huh. Any more armchair economics and the internet might just crash.

So, what's this other than "armchair economics?"

Nope, not dying.

I mean, it seems to be achingly fashionable to make sweeping statements with no back up in "one of these threads" but I can only assume you're some sort of professional economist to make such a succinct summary?

Oh man, you're still on and still agonizing the 40k forums without even playing the game... what a disappointment.

It's not armchair economics anyway, to answer your question. Back to the ignore list with you, this will basically lead nowhere except you getting something to do to get your mind off things.

So, no?

People shouldn't preform armchair economics, but in my humble armchair economics point of view I say...

 Runic wrote:
One of these threads again huh. Any more armchair economics and the internet might just crash.

Some of us happen to have actual degrees in economics & work in such fields professionally

 Runic wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Runic wrote:
One of these threads again huh. Any more armchair economics and the internet might just crash.

So, what's this other than "armchair economics?"

Nope, not dying.

I mean, it seems to be achingly fashionable to make sweeping statements with no back up in "one of these threads" but I can only assume you're some sort of professional economist to make such a succinct summary?

Oh man, you're still on and still agonizing the 40k forums without even playing the game... what a disappointment.

It's not armchair economics anyway, to answer your question. Back to the ignore list with you, this will basically lead nowhere except you getting something to do to get your mind off things.

Seems a touch rude to ignore someone simply for disagreeing with you. However, it sounds like you are suggesting that you have some experience with economics. If that is the case, could you go over GW's reports and show how the are not declining?

 Runic wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Runic wrote:
One of these threads again huh. Any more armchair economics and the internet might just crash.

So, what's this other than "armchair economics?"

Nope, not dying.

I mean, it seems to be achingly fashionable to make sweeping statements with no back up in "one of these threads" but I can only assume you're some sort of professional economist to make such a succinct summary?

Oh man, you're still on and still agonizing the 40k forums without even playing the game... what a disappointment.

It's not armchair economics anyway, to answer your question. Back to the ignore list with you, this will basically lead nowhere except you getting something to do to get your mind off things.

So, in short, you're guilty of doing the very thing you're criticizing him (and all critics I assume) of doing.
The word you're looking for is "hypocrisy."
If you have any kind of evidence that GW isn't declining, then by all means, bring it forward. But the financial reports are pretty clear.

 Runic wrote:
One of these threads again huh. Any more armchair economics and the internet might just crash.

Nope, not dying.

To the above, KDK is actually a decent army when played in capable hands.

Someone will ofcourse object to this but doesn't really change anything, they've won a couple of major events and I constantly see them fielded to good effect.

It's not about KDK not being decent, it's about the game rules being trash. I wouldn't be playing the game to play competitively at all, but there's no guarantee that I would be able to find like-minded people. The minute that happens, I know for a fact I'm going to be all "feth this gak" because I'm not going to enjoy my fluffy and well thought out KDK army being steamrolled because the game rules are gak.

In my local meta, WH40k has been almost entirely dead since early 2012, and completely dead since June 2015.

This is because my local meta consists of me and my mom and no one else since I don't have friends and don't trust strangers at gaming stores not to break or steal my stuff. And we mostly stopped playing after the end of 2011. And in June this year I packed away almost all of my WH40k stuff in preparation for selling the house to move across the river to Ottawa. The house still hasn't sold, so that stuff is still in boxes.

It's also getting a bit annoying to have been playing Sisters of Battle as my main army since 2008 or so, and not only not seen a hint of plastic Sisters of Battle, but also to have actually seen the selection of available minis shrink to the bare necessities, with no variants at all. And then there was the realization that GW likely wouldn't be content to mimic the style of the current Sororitas models but with the ability to pose them with multi-part plastic kits, but would make an entirely new aesthetic like they did with Dark Eldar and Necrons, and it would probably make me hate the new models.

All we can do is get out there and sell, sell, sell our fellows on other fun games.

We can still use our miniatures to play other games.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Runic wrote:
One of these threads again huh. Any more armchair economics and the internet might just crash.

Some of us happen to have actual degrees in economics & work in such fields professionally

I took a course in economics once, does that count? I was the only one to ever get a perfect score on the professor's exams too D:

That being said, yea it's silly how people discount the things table top gamers state at times, especially since it's the hobby that most appeals to those with advanced degrees that require analysis. I'm not saying all of them are always right, or that simply because you have a good degree it means you're right, since there are plenty of folks who are awesome at one subject but completely irrational at everything else, but rather that it's weird to discount what people say here. I mean after all, I might not be an economist, but I have two different engineering degrees, and a physics degree, so I probably have some concept of how data analysis works.

As much as I would love to say that 40k is doing great in my area, it's not. Our group has basically boiled down to me (with my 3 40k armies), my DA/BA playing friend, my friend who plays Iron Hands, and the occasional other players who stops by. It's gotten to the point where I know what my opponents will bring before they do. The rest of the people who play 40k only ever show up during tournaments. 40k is dying here, but Warmahordes and X-wing are doing just fabulous, which is why I'm looking into maybe getting back into Warmachine at some point.

Phew, that was a long read, from 10PM till 4AM

Anyho, to the topic at hand..

Bartali wrote:

Even in the UK I think GW is declining.
There was a time when the GW retail empire had crushed all the independents. Now, there's a growing amount of independent shops initially supported by Magic organised play, and more recently FFG's Star Wars games organised play.

It's plain less people are playing 40K. Sales are down year on year. Tournament attendance is down. Less people are talking about the game - posts on the major 40k forums are all down.
Most of the stuff announced this year - AoS, Plastic HH, Specialist Games etc isn't going to change things. They're trying to appeal to the customers left behind, and slow the death spiral as much as possible.

I wonder if GW is actually interested in attracting new miniature buying customers any more ?
Marvel for example doesn't really sell that many comics. It's IPs in TV, film and merchandising are far more profitable for them.
GW have been trying to protect their IP as much as possible, but don't seem to have done much with it outside of the odd mobile game. Perhaps no one is really interested in their IP either ?

I don't think its declining in the UK, as up the North East here it seems to be still going strong..

But it is more of a yes and no answer imo..

I have noticed that the circle has become more minimal, still going strong but I'm talking from the more competitive area as that's all that is seen around here from my perspective. Outside of the competitive bubble I don't see anyone else, the group that attended tourneys when I first started gaming into 40k and tourney play has vanished (the last two tourneys in my area were cancelled due to only two people entering) and I never see new blood anywhere coming to 40k.

But I do agree with other posters that I have seen a sharp uprising over the last few years for MTG at least half of my area is MTG and FFG is defiantly on the rise, as I see lots more FFG organised events, which does not bother me since I can't wait to attend my first event of SW: IA in the new year

Also the Batman Miniatures Game by Knights Models while slower than the FFG/Star Wars events are steadily on the rise as well which is a happy thought as that game is by far my favorite .

I think its more of a case of that 40k is still strong where you can find it and I doubt it will die unless GW puts the iron curtain on it, but perhaps now its became less and less popular with the amount of other games out there.

I also believe that there is a change in demographic in the genre people wish to play games I have have noticed lots and lots of people are now flocking to skirmish and smaller scaled based games, and I think that's because people just want to have quick based games due to low model count, because with quick games surely means you can have more right? I have no stats to back this up, just a observation I've seen around the North East.

 Tinkrr wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Runic wrote:
One of these threads again huh. Any more armchair economics and the internet might just crash.

Some of us happen to have actual degrees in economics & work in such fields professionally

I took a course in economics once, does that count? I was the only one to ever get a perfect score on the professor's exams too D:

That being said, yea it's silly how people discount the things table top gamers state at times, especially since it's the hobby that most appeals to those with advanced degrees that require analysis. I'm not saying all of them are always right, or that simply because you have a good degree it means you're right, since there are plenty of folks who are awesome at one subject but completely irrational at everything else, but rather that it's weird to discount what people say here. I mean after all, I might not be an economist, but I have two different engineering degrees, and a physics degree, so I probably have some concept of how data analysis works.

Not even the finest, most educated, most experienced economic minds always get it right, but what frequently makes people discounting other's opinions on these matters so utterly risible is they firstly seldom have any idea of how informed the opinion they're dismissing is, and secondly they often have absolutely no basis, education or experience to do so. As happened here, being pressed to actually justify their position results in either a series of goalpost moves and sidesteps, or just flat out attacks.

For the record, Runic (under his previous guise as RunicFIN) last year assumed a position that he was somehow "in the know" about GW's finances and insisted that they'd be much improved. Needless to say, history disproved this, and when posters with better memories than mine called him to account, it wasn't pretty.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Runic wrote:
One of these threads again huh. Any more armchair economics and the internet might just crash.

Some of us happen to have actual degrees in economics & work in such fields professionally

I took a course in economics once, does that count? I was the only one to ever get a perfect score on the professor's exams too D:

That being said, yea it's silly how people discount the things table top gamers state at times, especially since it's the hobby that most appeals to those with advanced degrees that require analysis. I'm not saying all of them are always right, or that simply because you have a good degree it means you're right, since there are plenty of folks who are awesome at one subject but completely irrational at everything else, but rather that it's weird to discount what people say here. I mean after all, I might not be an economist, but I have two different engineering degrees, and a physics degree, so I probably have some concept of how data analysis works.

Not even the finest, most educated, most experienced economic minds always get it right, but what frequently makes people discounting other's opinions on these matters so utterly risible is they firstly seldom have any idea of how informed the opinion they're dismissing is, and secondly they often have absolutely no basis, education or experience to do so. As happened here, being pressed to actually justify their position results in either a series of goalpost moves and sidesteps, or just flat out attacks.

For the record, Runic (under his previous guise as RunicFIN) last year assumed a position that he was somehow "in the know" about GW's finances and insisted that they'd be much improved. Needless to say, history disproved this, and when posters with better memories than mine called him to account, it wasn't pretty.

Not to mention that, and I know this will annoy a lot of people, economics isn't exactly the best math or science out there, since it depends significantly on almost random factors in mass.

Economics is more a form of predictive historical analysis than actual science, simply due to what it tries to quantify, so there's that much greater room for error in than other fields of science. Meaning that even simple data points, such as declining profit, can signal a very important trend.

Economics is a very different beast from analysing company performance even if they do share certain principles.

Being trained in one only provides tangential benefits when attempting the other.

Honest question, simply because I don't know anything about these things; do you guys have an idea how big part of the sale decline is caused by healthy competition vs. dissatisfaction of GW product?

These can probably overlap as people perhaps are getting dissatisfied with the product because of more appealing alternatives, but either way there is quite a bit competition in the miniature market these days.

marke wrote:
Honest question, simply because I don't know anything about these things; do you guys have an idea how big part of the sale decline is caused by healthy competition vs. dissatisfaction of GW product?

These can probably overlap as people perhaps are getting dissatisfied with the product because of more appealing alternatives, but either way there is quite a bit competition in the miniature market these days.

I can't speak to that, but the traditional games market (including board games and card games) has exploded in the lasr few years. IIRC icv2 reported that in the US the market has doubled in size since 08. That means that more money is being spent on the hobby now than it was a fw years ago. Even if GW had not lost any customers there would still have been new customers buying other games.

 Nilok wrote:

Seems a touch rude to ignore someone simply for disagreeing with you.

The user in question has been, for years, mostly been looking for trouble in the forums and interaction with him in general leads to nothing more than bickering. Therefore it's pretty useless to engage in any way.

Him, Peregrine and MWHistorian are the same, bringing nothing but negativity on the forums which is why they're all on ignore. The bring nothing to the table, and provide nothing of interest to read. I trolled them a year ago and they're pretty much still butthurt ( as they took the bait, acting all high and mighty only to find out they were just being trolled and laughed at on another forum ) just like they are with 40K and keep on posting in the forums, being all bitter 24/7. I like how Azreal is trying to mask it as something else though judging from the quote, haha. I have my doubts regarding such people, even on a mental health level. The kind that keep agonizing a games forum years after having stopping playing and being so bitter, that is. Actually had a discussion about it once with some friends and none of us really couldn't come into a perfectly logical solution for that behaviour.

Regarding people who have actual education and work experience in economics, so do I, and it wasn't directed at such people. There are some pretty uneducated guesses in this thread. GW has had negative results.

However, 40K isn't dying, but thriving instead as proven by the vast amount of events around the world that continue year after year. In 40K General it's pretty apocalyptic always, luckily it doesn't translate to other big sites as they lack the few special snowflake users making it seem so.

Still the most played wargame on a global level I believe.

 Runic wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

Seems a touch rude to ignore someone simply for disagreeing with you.

The user in question has been, for years, mostly been looking for trouble in the forums and interaction with him in general leads to nothing more than bickering. Therefore it's pretty useless to engage in any way.

Wait... I'm having a vision...

I see...

...I see a kettle... and...

yes... and a pot...

...both are ebony in colour....

wait... the pot is saying something..

...he seems to be telling the kettle what colour he is...

...now the vision is fading.


What a strange image. I wonder what it could mean?

 vipoid wrote:

 Runic wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

Seems a touch rude to ignore someone simply for disagreeing with you.

The user in question has been, for years, mostly been looking for trouble in the forums and interaction with him in general leads to nothing more than bickering. Therefore it's pretty useless to engage in any way.

Wait... I'm having a vision...

I see...

...I see a kettle... and...

yes... and a pot...

...both are ebony in colour....

wait... the pot is saying something..

...he seems to be telling the kettle what colour he is...

...now the vision is fading.


What a strange image. I wonder what it could mean?

A strange image indeed, seeing as how most of my posts for the last 7 months have been about painting and advising new users. But yeah, that's what you get for engaging the special snowflakes. Hence, better not do it at all.

In any case, enough offtopic from me, I'll keep strolling the fields of useful threads ever so happily, content knowing that at the edge, in the dark forest line, the band of unhappy-on-the-inside snowflakes are snarling in desperation for attention and conflict. I recommend heavily to just put all the regular naysayers on ignore, improves the Dakka experience vastly. They will try to get attention, they will try to undermine everyone who ignores them or plain "beats" them, but that's just them clawing for attention and something to fill their days with.

WayneTheGame wrote:

It's not about KDK not being decent, it's about the game rules being trash. I wouldn't be playing the game to play competitively at all, but there's no guarantee that I would be able to find like-minded people. The minute that happens, I know for a fact I'm going to be all "feth this gak" because I'm not going to enjoy my fluffy and well thought out KDK army being steamrolled because the game rules are gak.

I guess I understand the notion. It goes without saying that 40K requires some likeminded people if you want flawless interaction. Personally I settle with some compromises here and there, and it's fine. Just wanted to let you know that KDK can handle everything but the most abysmally broken lists, but requires a non-fluffy effective list in itself, ofcourse.

 Runic wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

Seems a touch rude to ignore someone simply for disagreeing with you.

The user in question has been, for years, mostly been looking for trouble in the forums and interaction with him in general leads to nothing more than bickering. Therefore it's pretty useless to engage in any way.

Him, Peregrine and MWHistorian are the same, bringing nothing but negativity on the forums which is why they're all on ignore. The bring nothing to the table, and provide nothing of interest to read. I trolled them a year ago and they're pretty much still butthurt ( as they took the bait, acting all high and mighty only to find out they were just being trolled and laughed at on another forum ) just like they are with 40K and keep on posting in the forums, being all bitter 24/7. I like how Azreal is trying to mask it as something else though judging from the quote, haha. I have my doubts regarding such people, even on a mental health level. The kind that keep agonizing a games forum years after having stopping playing and being so bitter, that is. Actually had a discussion about it once with some friends and none of us really couldn't come into a perfectly logical solution for that behaviour.

Regarding people who have actual education and work experience in economics, so do I, and it wasn't directed at such people. There are some pretty uneducated guesses in this thread. GW has had negative results.

However, 40K isn't dying, but thriving instead as proven by the vast amount of events around the world that continue year after year. In 40K General it's pretty apocalyptic always, luckily it doesn't translate to other big sites as they lack the few special snowflake users making it seem so.

Still the most played wargame on a global level I believe.

It's a bit of a stretch to call 40K thriving. If we're talking tournaments in particular, I remember reading that most are reporting 40K attendance is down (or taking much longer to sell out), whilst attendance for other games is up.
Much like the year on year sales figures for GW, it's a slow decline. It's a bit of a stretch to say it's dieing, (as you say it's probably still the most played wargame), but it's also far from thriving.

 Runic wrote:
The user in question has been, for years, mostly been looking for trouble in the forums and interaction with him in general leads to nothing more than bickering. Therefore it's pretty useless to engage in any way.
Him, Peregrine and MWHistorian are the same, bringing nothing but negativity on the forums which is why they're all on ignore. The bring nothing to the table, and provide nothing of interest to read.

I do not always agree with them but typically get further elaboration from them if asked.
If you just devolve into personal attacks, they give as well as they get.
I suspect you may have not been able to put up a good argument so using ignore in self defense appears to be the answer.

I trolled them a year ago and they're pretty much still butthurt ( as they took the bait, acting all high and mighty only to find out they were just being trolled and laughed at on another forum ) just like they are with 40K and keep on posting in the forums, being all bitter 24/7.

They obviously care so if trolling makes you feel like the big man... let us just say you should try something more positive as you had mentioned.

I like how Azreal is trying to mask it as something else though judging from the quote, haha. I have my doubts regarding such people, even on a mental health level. The kind that keep agonizing a games forum years after having stopping playing and being so bitter, that is. Actually had a discussion about it once with some friends and none of us really couldn't come into a perfectly logical solution for that behaviour.

One thing to keep in mind is some of us have collections from as far back as Rogue Trader so people WILL play the latest and greatest rules and then decide this version is not for them and keep in touch with the game for the next change.
I have not stopped making and painting my miniatures but I think I only got some 10 games in of an unmodified 7th edition.

Regarding people who have actual education and work experience in economics, so do I, and it wasn't directed at such people. There are some pretty uneducated guesses in this thread. GW has had negative results.

Some pretty valid guesses can be made from those who happen to invest or even better think long and hard on consumer spending or even their own spending habits.
Looking at my hobby budget it has increased during the years but GW spending went from ~80% 2 years ago, to ~50% last year down to 5% this year.
This is both through competing products (Armada and X-wing) as well as old games getting a few updates (Battletech with Alphastrike) and a couple kickstarter diversions (Robotech).
Never-mind various computer games.
They have more to compete with than just other gaming model companies.

However, 40K isn't dying, but thriving instead as proven by the vast amount of events around the world that continue year after year. In 40K General it's pretty apocalyptic always, luckily it doesn't translate to other big sites as they lack the few special snowflake users making it seem so.

So the shrinking gross income of GW is not a concern as shown in the annual reports?
The "vast amount of events" do not include what used to be hosted GW that no longer occur.
I would also like to know what events you would include as 40k based ones.
I would need to do a few searches of past events and see if they keep an entry list and see if those had shrunk at all as a start.

Still the most played wargame on a global level I believe.

Dunno, you could look at "BoardGameGeek" for their rankings:
http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/24318/tabletop-miniatures-games-rank
X-wing is number one at the moment and I would agree in my area at least that is the case.
I find funny that Necromunda is #4, I have been using that for warband combat for much of my 40k forces.
I had trouble finding any other site willing to try to rank games (like TGN).
"Choosing a game system" is a good guide which does not seem to bode well for GW: http://www.wargamingtradecraft.com/2011/12/choosing-game-system.html

My impression from your statements is that the thought and expertise going into war gaming may not be as in-depth as you would like.
I would suggest that we all like games in general and can pretty much make anything work it is just a question of how long a game can keep it's shine to give incentive.
The "fluff" and weight of past product could keep 40k as a game going indefinitely, I guess you would have to define if they fall below 5% of the active games played out there it would be a "death"?

So contribute, save your trolling for torturing small animals or something...

 Runic wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

Seems a touch rude to ignore someone simply for disagreeing with you.

The user in question has been, for years, mostly been looking for trouble in the forums and interaction with him in general leads to nothing more than bickering. Therefore it's pretty useless to engage in any way.

Him, Peregrine and MWHistorian are the same, bringing nothing but negativity on the forums which is why they're all on ignore. The bring nothing to the table, and provide nothing of interest to read. I trolled them a year ago and they're pretty much still butthurt ( as they took the bait, acting all high and mighty only to find out they were just being trolled and laughed at on another forum ) just like they are with 40K and keep on posting in the forums, being all bitter 24/7. I like how Azreal is trying to mask it as something else though judging from the quote, haha. I have my doubts regarding such people, even on a mental health level. The kind that keep agonizing a games forum years after having stopping playing and being so bitter, that is. Actually had a discussion about it once with some friends and none of us really couldn't come into a perfectly logical solution for that behaviour.

Regarding people who have actual education and work experience in economics, so do I, and it wasn't directed at such people. There are some pretty uneducated guesses in this thread. GW has had negative results.

However, 40K isn't dying, but thriving instead as proven by the vast amount of events around the world that continue year after year. In 40K General it's pretty apocalyptic always, luckily it doesn't translate to other big sites as they lack the few special snowflake users making it seem so.

Still the most played wargame on a global level I believe.

From one aspect, I think 40K is dying. I think that the 80% that only provides 20% of GW's sales are falling away. However, all GW needs is the 20% faithful. I think 40K is destined to be a plurality game, not a majority. The biggest among minorities.

In my neck of the woods (Cleveland, Ohio) 40k has fragmented and seen a lot of fall out. 10 years ago we could hold monthly tournaments and have 30+ people show. Now the number is down to 10ish. There are a lot of contributing factors but the 2 big ones are nobody can agree how to play the game, and the long term players have been annoyed by GW so much they are swearing off new purchases and picking up other games.

So years back 40k players would attend 1 store for a tournament monthly while the other stores would be popular on their local game nights. There was a lot of people playing the game. Now most stores gaming nights are down to a few people playing, and the majority playing in each others basements and not doing pick up games. This has lead to groups of people playing different versions of the game. Some want a strict by the book 7th. Others don't want to fight forgeworld/LOW/etc. Others prefer not to play maelstrom. Its really daunting, so the group has fragmented into many sub groups that are no longer close.

The second factor, a lot of the "Old Guard" who were active in recruiting new players and setting aside time to teach, have been burnt by GW in their opinion. Most have moved on to other game systems and are getting new players to do Warmachine or Dropzone.

I would be really surprised to see 40k grow in my area in the next year. The largest store in the area isn't moving product like he would in years past. AoS isn't selling and the 40k items are just new releases. He doesn't have people picking up new armies, its just a kit here or there to augment what they already have.

You know kids, it's Christmas. Even I have better things to do than troll people.