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 Runic wrote:
Since I simply do not, absolutely and utterly, care if someone isn't fine with inflammatory individuals getting trolled, it leaves one wondering what a person commenting about it is thinking he will achieve. Save your breath I'd say.

Thanks for at least making your (lack of?) motivations clear.
That at least warrants a civil response.
Funny how the more discussion worthy elements you completely glossed over: personal sparring appears to be the interest rather than discussion on topics.
Which makes further discussions rather pointless.
Adieu.

The cold, hard facts point to GW losing market share and overall sales. There's no disputing that. Regardless of your local meta, there's a still a large decline there.

My concern is for TT miniature wargames in general. How are we as a hobby doing in terms of overall sales? Where are the dollars that are shifting from GW going? Are they going to other hobby games? Board games? Real life expenses?

From what I've heard (and I'm just parroting here), the Wargaming industry as a whole is on the up.

 Valhallan42nd wrote:
The cold, hard facts point to GW losing market share and overall sales. There's no disputing that. Regardless of your local meta, there's a still a large decline there.

My concern is for TT miniature wargames in general. How are we as a hobby doing in terms of overall sales? Where are the dollars that are shifting from GW going? Are they going to other hobby games? Board games? Real life expenses?

Seems like X wing and Armada are getting a ton of new players. A lot of the xwing players in my area are new to the TT hobby and have not played any other games.

Indeed - I'm not a fan of XWING or Armada (Tired of Star Wars due to saturation in the media and so on) but the game mechanics imported from Wings of Glory/War and Star Trek Attack Wing are simple, fun and engaging. Each of the club's I've been to are packed with people playing them. The club I'm currently local to has removed some of the GW terrain boards and replaced them with starscapes for these games or WW2 terrain for Bolt Action.

From my experience, the club's tables are now 50% Starscape, 30% WW2 and Historical and 20% 40K ruins

Eww, historical games.

Don't get it on me.

But jokes aside, I don't 'really see 40k dying so much as it's changing in to something its veterans find unrecognizable.

GW is contracting, which I don't think is the same as "dying." All businesses see their share of ups and downs and for all the indications of "down" GW is seeing it's a pretty controlled decent. That means they're still in control even if they don't realize it; even if they're making the wrong choices. They're still profitable even if sales volumes are declining this means that if GW stopped doing stupid and left pricing alone they would simply find themselves at a new normal. GW could survive as a smaller company so it's only a question of if they decide to pull the arrow out or push it through.

 Melissia wrote:
Eww, historical games.

Don't get it on me.

Once you try it, you'll want to buy it

Power-Armored Space Wolves will no longer satisfy once you experience a Viking charge made by men armored with nothing but beards and harsh language

GW is not even close to dying. They're making a profit and have zero debt. 40k is clearly dying as a competitive game. 11th Company is gone, 3++ is gone, Torrent of Fire is gone, Stomping Grounds is gone. Tournament attendance is down. The casual garage scene is doing just fine. I see people at the FLGS playing Apocalypse scale games frequently, but it's always with their buddies.

When you think about playing a game, generally what you want is an experience that involves fair rules that have depth and encourage you to form strategies and apply tactics towards achieving victory. 40k offers the added appeal of playing a game with fun miniatures in a universe with an engaging background. However, GW doesn't understand what a game is anymore, and a lot of players have simply reached the conclusion that playing it for any purpose other than screwing around with pretty models for a few hours is pointless. It is not a game to be played to win. So many, like myself ask why we should play it at all when there are games out there that make achieving victory an engaging and challenging experience.

I don't think it's dying. Because there will always be chumps like me willing to pay 100 euro for a book even if it's a 100 page short story. And as for the minis, the same.

Should it die? that's another question. I think at some time there should be a 40k finishing point, but probably not until interest dies out.

slaede wrote:
GW is not even close to dying. They're making a profit and have zero debt. 40k is clearly dying as a competitive game. 11th Company is gone, 3++ is gone, Torrent of Fire is gone, Stomping Grounds is gone. Tournament attendance is down. The casual garage scene is doing just fine. I see people at the FLGS playing Apocalypse scale games frequently, but it's always with their buddies.

When you think about playing a game, generally what you want is an experience that involves fair rules that have depth and encourage you to form strategies and apply tactics towards achieving victory. 40k offers the added appeal of playing a game with fun miniatures in a universe with an engaging background. However, GW doesn't understand what a game is anymore, and a lot of players have simply reached the conclusion that playing it for any purpose other than screwing around with pretty models for a few hours is pointless. It is not a game to be played to win. So many, like myself ask why we should play it at all when there are games out there that make achieving victory an engaging and challenging experience.

They might be making a profit, but if that profit decreases year after year there's going to come a point when they aren't making a profit anymore. It's probably many years out, but unless they wise up and change course, you can't have a decline in profit every year and still remain profitable.

Personally I have no interest in tournaments, Id rather play friendly matches doing stupid things, like 2000pts a side on a 2'x4' table. Or using scratch-built models and experimental rules with them.

Trying to get into my LFGS though to find more people to play with though. Most of my friends that started 40k lost interest rapidly, and sold their armies to me for the most part. But Im finding that I have other expenses and concerns, with work and college, and so I have less and less time to play games...

 Wulfmar wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Eww, historical games.

Don't get it on me.

Once you try it, you'll want to buy it

Power-Armored Space Wolves will no longer satisfy once you experience a Viking charge made by men armored with nothing but beards and harsh language

No. The only thing fun about historical games is defying history, rather than reliving it, and most of the utter garbage that qualify as "historical games" out there don't let you. Fantasy and sci-fi are where it's at. At least they encourage creativity instead of stagnation

Boo hiss.

I find them fun enough - I don't do the whole re-playing real battles thing though. I find the skirmish games like raiding a Saxon village more enjoyable

WayneTheGame wrote:

slaede wrote:
GW is not even close to dying. They're making a profit and have zero debt. 40k is clearly dying as a competitive game. 11th Company is gone, 3++ is gone, Torrent of Fire is gone, Stomping Grounds is gone. Tournament attendance is down. The casual garage scene is doing just fine. I see people at the FLGS playing Apocalypse scale games frequently, but it's always with their buddies.

When you think about playing a game, generally what you want is an experience that involves fair rules that have depth and encourage you to form strategies and apply tactics towards achieving victory. 40k offers the added appeal of playing a game with fun miniatures in a universe with an engaging background. However, GW doesn't understand what a game is anymore, and a lot of players have simply reached the conclusion that playing it for any purpose other than screwing around with pretty models for a few hours is pointless. It is not a game to be played to win. So many, like myself ask why we should play it at all when there are games out there that make achieving victory an engaging and challenging experience.

They might be making a profit, but if that profit decreases year after year there's going to come a point when they aren't making a profit anymore. It's probably many years out, but unless they wise up and change course, you can't have a decline in profit every year and still remain profitable.

I'm no economancer but the point about GW having no debt doesn't seem like it's really that helpful to them. They have MASSIVE costs keeping their stores open, if they hit the point where they are unprofitable things could go downhill very very quickly and having no current debt would be meaningless. When TSR went down they went down quickly, and GW is making a lot of the same mistakes.

 jonolikespie wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

slaede wrote:
GW is not even close to dying. They're making a profit and have zero debt. 40k is clearly dying as a competitive game. 11th Company is gone, 3++ is gone, Torrent of Fire is gone, Stomping Grounds is gone. Tournament attendance is down. The casual garage scene is doing just fine. I see people at the FLGS playing Apocalypse scale games frequently, but it's always with their buddies.

When you think about playing a game, generally what you want is an experience that involves fair rules that have depth and encourage you to form strategies and apply tactics towards achieving victory. 40k offers the added appeal of playing a game with fun miniatures in a universe with an engaging background. However, GW doesn't understand what a game is anymore, and a lot of players have simply reached the conclusion that playing it for any purpose other than screwing around with pretty models for a few hours is pointless. It is not a game to be played to win. So many, like myself ask why we should play it at all when there are games out there that make achieving victory an engaging and challenging experience.

They might be making a profit, but if that profit decreases year after year there's going to come a point when they aren't making a profit anymore. It's probably many years out, but unless they wise up and change course, you can't have a decline in profit every year and still remain profitable.

I'm no economancer but the point about GW having no debt doesn't seem like it's really that helpful to them. They have MASSIVE costs keeping their stores open, if they hit the point where they are unprofitable things could go downhill very very quickly and having no current debt would be meaningless. When TSR went down they went down quickly, and GW is making a lot of the same mistakes.

They also have a year's profit in cash on their balance sheet. Sales would have to fall off a cliff for them to run out of operating capital quickly. As long as they are making money, they won't be going anywhere, and if sales start to flag, the management will do something to make changes before it gets that bad.

The question you need to consider is whether or not GW is correct that they don't need to make a good game in order to be a profitable company. They are under the impression that the most money is to be made in attracting young teenage boys to the hobby, and churning them. Gamers as a market are not their target audience. They don't care that they're losing the hardcore gamers. They want the kids who will buy a new army and get their friends to buy a new army.

They've got 12m in cash on hand, as at the end of the last FYE. Their operating costs average at ~7m a month, and there's a hefty percentage of that will be fixed costs thanks to the retail chain.

The cliff wouldn't need to be a cliff so much as a steep hill, provided it were long enough. Nobody, at least nobody credible I've seen, predicts their imminent demise, but we're about to see the 5th report in a row showing (apparently) a fall in revenue and profit, don't you think the management would have made changes by now?

Well the reality is they've have, massive changes, it just doesn't seem to be working that well, because they've no idea why people are spending less on their product in the first place.

 Wulfmar wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Eww, historical games.

Don't get it on me.

Once you try it, you'll want to buy it

Power-Armored Space Wolves will no longer satisfy once you experience a Viking charge made by men armored with nothing but beards and harsh language

Yes... because Viking never wore armor, nor did they wield some of the best armor and weapons of their age that they got from trading with everyone from the England to India...

 Nilok wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Eww, historical games.

Don't get it on me.

Once you try it, you'll want to buy it

Power-Armored Space Wolves will no longer satisfy once you experience a Viking charge made by men armored with nothing but beards and harsh language

Yes... because Viking never wore armor, nor did they wield some of the best armor and weapons of their age that they got from trading with everyone from the England to India...

Spoiler:

Looks like a Varangian Guard. Viking body guards to the emperor or Byzantium.

I live in South East England, and I'm within a commutable distance of both Wayland Games LGS style stores in existence. I also have several GW stores near me and another club with 10-15 regulars.

Even the indomitable, ever-persistent GW near me with the best community had its veterans quit as far as I can tell. That began for three reasons - one man store policy cutting opening hours, the end of invasion events (there was a whole interstore dynamic and people would base their entire hobby around preparing for them) and the departure of the much loved local manager who understood what people wanted from in store events

I got tired of going down my local club to spend the evening doing something else or at best playing someone with very little experience and an unpainted army, often I come home having wasted my time spending 3/4 of an hour earlier in the day alone prepping a list and putting everything into storage.

Same goes for Wayland. 40k scene is dead there save for probably the odd pair or group of people who arrange a game between themselves. For some utterly ridiculous reason I've yet to find out, they haven't hosted a 40k event in something stupid like 1-2 years, and their last attempts I can recall were all really poorly organised, being unadvertised, with little time for people to get aware, and with low attendance and unclear rules. They still do events for WHFB, a game that is definitively dead in the support sense.

So basically, I live in a place where the game should be thriving by all means, and its basically so dead that I can no longer justify buying things for gaming. Betrayal at Calth will almost certainly be my last purchase from GW at this rate, which I got because it was an extremely good bargain and because I was interested in the board game inside.

I'd say the game really started dying in general near the end of 6th edition where any idiot with a Tau or Eldar army that used either Riptides or Wave Serpents was basically guaranteed easy victories against anyone who hadn't prepared well in advance for that bs. Apologist idiots then defended this with the usual load of drivel like "oh, you just take their objectives". The final nail in the coffin could be said to be the rapid releases but really it was the fact that they made gaming inconvenient from the moment 7th launched. The pricks now had ammunition to say superheavies and whatnot were for regular games, take it or leave it and that was a massive mistake. You didn't know if you'd end up with or even play with a person who took an unbound list every time you went out.

For me, the final, final nail in the coffin that was my interest was the joke of an SM Codex and the fact Necrons and Eldar were released in a disgusting and overpowered state again that even the worst of apologists here have struggled to defend.

 Mr.Omega wrote:
I live in South East England, and I'm within a commutable distance of both Wayland Games LGS style stores in existence. I also have several GW stores near me and another club with 10-15 regulars.
Even the indomitable, ever-persistent GW near me with the best community had its veterans quit as far as I can tell. That began for three reasons - one man store policy cutting opening hours, the end of invasion events (there was a whole interstore dynamic and people would base their entire hobby around preparing for them) and the departure of the much loved local manager who understood what people wanted from in store events
I got tired of going down my local club to spend the evening doing something else or at best playing someone with very little experience and an unpainted army, often I come home having wasted my time spending 3/4 of an hour earlier in the day alone prepping a list and putting everything into storage.
Same goes for Wayland. 40k scene is dead there save for probably the odd pair or group of people who arrange a game between themselves. For some utterly ridiculous reason I've yet to find out, they haven't hosted a 40k event in something stupid like 1-2 years, and their last attempts I can recall were all really poorly organised, being unadvertised, with little time for people to get aware, and with low attendance and unclear rules. They still do events for WHFB, a game that is definitively dead in the support sense.
So basically, I live in a place where the game should be thriving by all means, and its basically so dead that I can no longer justify buying things for gaming. Betrayal at Calth will almost certainly be my last purchase from GW at this rate, which I got because it was an extremely good bargain and because I was interested in the board game inside.
I'd say the game really started dying in general near the end of 6th edition where any idiot with a Tau or Eldar army that used either Riptides or Wave Serpents was basically guaranteed easy victories against anyone who hadn't prepared well in advance for that bs. Apologist idiots then defended this with the usual load of drivel like "oh, you just take their objectives". The final nail in the coffin could be said to be the rapid releases but really it was the fact that they made gaming inconvenient from the moment 7th launched. The pricks now had ammunition to say superheavies and whatnot were for regular games, take it or leave it and that was a massive mistake. You didn't know if you'd end up with or even play with a person who took an unbound list every time you went out.
For me, the final, final nail in the coffin that was my interest was the joke of an SM Codex and the fact Necrons and Eldar were released in a disgusting and overpowered state again that even the worst of apologists here have struggled to defend.

Odd, I actually liked this rant and agree with it.
I hope you find something to be less angry about.
Let me know if you do...

Omega - exalted the post.
40k is generally unplayable. It is playable in a closed group where everybody is aware of the flaws and caveats. We used to play apo at a monthly basis. But since a few months only about 4 to 6 guys showed up and the interest vanished. Our monthly or bimonthly local tournies which I have organized are dead. The last one was in February 2014. Nobody here wants to play another one.

 Valhallan42nd wrote:
The cold, hard facts point to GW losing market share and overall sales. There's no disputing that. Regardless of your local meta, there's a still a large decline there.

My concern is for TT miniature wargames in general. How are we as a hobby doing in terms of overall sales? Where are the dollars that are shifting from GW going? Are they going to other hobby games? Board games? Real life expenses?

Basically every other game on the market is growing exponentially, and has been for the last couple years, while GW is shrinking... also exponentially. The hobby, itself, is doing *quite* well. GW, specifically, is not.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

slaede wrote:


They also have a year's profit in cash on their balance sheet. Sales would have to fall off a cliff for them to run out of operating capital quickly. As long as they are making money, they won't be going anywhere, and if sales start to flag, the management will do something to make changes before it gets that bad.

The question you need to consider is whether or not GW is correct that they don't need to make a good game in order to be a profitable company. They are under the impression that the most money is to be made in attracting young teenage boys to the hobby, and churning them. Gamers as a market are not their target audience. They don't care that they're losing the hardcore gamers. They want the kids who will buy a new army and get their friends to buy a new army.

You mean like they did with Warhammer Fantasy?

Oh, wait...

 Nilok wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Eww, historical games.

Don't get it on me.

Once you try it, you'll want to buy it

Power-Armored Space Wolves will no longer satisfy once you experience a Viking charge made by men armored with nothing but beards and harsh language

Yes... because Viking never wore armor, nor did they wield some of the best armor and weapons of their age that they got from trading with everyone from the England to India...

Spoiler:

It's called a joke. Seriously, this site sometimes.... any excuse to jump on someone

 Melissia wrote:
No. The only thing fun about historical games is defying history, rather than reliving it, and most of the utter garbage that qualify as "historical games" out there don't let you. Fantasy and sci-fi are where it's at. At least they encourage creativity instead of stagnation

What about an alternate-history game?. Something with Soviet Superscience, Ghostapo and, of course, Jetpack-Hitler.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SovietSuperscience
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ghostapo
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StupidJetpackHitler

Honestly, prior to the release of the 2015 codexes, I almost had my brother-in-law started on Dark Eldar and my other brother playing Tyranids again. Then Necrons hit and my BIL was really apprehensive about dropping a ton of money on an army that could get steam-rolled by an army that wasn't even optimized. Since Craftworlds hit, he has pretty much given up on wanting to start altogether. It doesn't help that he doesn't really have much attachment to the modeling side of the game (he would probably have built everything but then had someone else paint them for him). Dark Eldar were the only army he had any desire to play since he really liked their fluff.

My brother got started up on Tyranids again, but has dropped off significantly since the release of the super-codexes of 2015. He thought Necrons was likely a fluke, but Craftworlds and the new Marines codexes(which are barely in the same league as Necrons, Eldar, or Tau) put a nail in that coffin. It is a shame since I would have really liked to have played against him. He hasn't even touched his existing miniatures in months.

I have a friend that plays Orks and another that plays Guard. Neither of them have touched their miniatures since Necrons.

I have stopped buying Blood Angels since Necrons. I have pretty much focused exclusively on my Crimson Fists, and they are hardly competitive. I have no desire to play a Gladius Strike Force (I would love for Imperial Fists to get their own detachment like Raven Guard and White Scars did).

I used to make an effort to get people to play the game, now I don't. And no matter what GW says, without the game, the models are worthless.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
And no matter what GW says, without the game, the models are worthless.

I only wish GW would get that.

 vipoid wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
And no matter what GW says, without the game, the models are worthless.

I only wish GW would get that.

With the amount of money I spent on my Blood Angels, I could have bought somewhere around 5-8 Master Grade Gundam kits from Bandai. And at least then I would be getting quality model kits without thinking I was getting a game.

 vipoid wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
And no matter what GW says, without the game, the models are worthless.

I only wish GW would get that.

I dont even bother buying GW kits these days unless I have too. There are other kits out there which are far superior and are far cheaper. Take Bolt Action's LeIg18 for instanceand then compare it too the quad mortar model,

 Wulfmar wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Eww, historical games.

Don't get it on me.

Once you try it, you'll want to buy it

Power-Armored Space Wolves will no longer satisfy once you experience a Viking charge made by men armored with nothing but beards and harsh language

And bits of wood and metal. There's nothing like flailing bits of wood and metal to bash some brains in

In my area, 40k has no wargaming club support, and the GW stores discourage gaming... This means that you have to go between friends' houses for a game, and, being in England, most people do not have the space for 40k games. This means that there are few, if any, people who still play 40k. There used to be quite a lot of people, but I've now gone from having around a dozen available opponents to only one who is off at University most of the time, in a different part of the country. From what I can gather, 40k is slowly phasing out.