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frozenwastes wrote:

Talys wrote:I think the perfect system would be two games, that share the same models so that players can grow from ne to the other.

Can it really be so impossible to have a game that works at a lower model count and then has some simple changes that come into play at a certain points level to make larger games playable in the same time frame? Especially if the bar for success is as low as the current 40k?

In my opinion, the short answer is that I can't imagine a game that would be a great game on both ends of the scale.

There are a few different issues. The most important, in my opinion, is that an well-written game for 30 models on a small table, for 100 models of infantry on a large tables, or for 100 models that range from infantry to building-sized just won't be the same game. The mechanics are just different: in games with more models, you typically want mechanics like keeping squads and units together, whereas in games with few models, individuality is core. What a sergeant does in a small game matters; a sergeant is just more cannon fodder in a big game. In games the size of WMH, it's appropriate to have an in-game avatar (the Warcaster), but this makes less sense if the warcaster will never see 80% of the game board.

Secondly, in 40k, you can just choose to play 500-750 point games on 4x4 tables, or Kill Team (250 points) with severe model restrictions. A practical problem is that if you bring your backpack of models and want such a thing, unless you've prearranged it, in all likelihood you're wasting your time. In other words, I think that if they dropped Kill Team rules into the core 40k book, it would be largely ignored as the de facto game will be assumed to be the 1850 or 2000 point game. There is a certain psychology amongst many players to aspire to the "big boy" game, even though the smaller game has many advantages like being quicker and costing less money.

And finally, in any restrictive game, you have to exclude like, half or more of GW's 40k collection, with a lot of it being the newer stuff.

I think a second, minihammer 40k that focuses on a small infantry models, with very few small vehicles, little stompies and minor heroes but with significantly different rules to 40k is the key to making a small game fun and also keep costs reasonable.

Ironically, 40k suffers from the exact same problem.

You've got mechanics that are a holdover from being a much smaller game, like complex hit allocation, individual model upgrades within units and characters being individually powerful models. These are crossed with rules for larger scale games with lots of armour - squadrons of vehicles and specific vehicle damage tables. Crossed again with what you'd expect in a huge model count, tiny model scale game with Titans, which can delete whole units with a single roll and supersonic aircraft, which are hilariously shoehorned into a game usually played on a 6'x4' table.

If it wants to be a smaller scale game using detailed squad vs squad mechanics and individual trooper upgrades, it should be dropping Titans and Aircraft altogether. If it wants to be a larger game with lots of vehicles, it should be dropping a lot of the infantry customisability and streamlining the vehicle rules . If it wants to be massive scale, infantry units should be based on large bases and model individuality removed to speed up the game.

40k is a massive hodgepodge of different games. it has no clue what it wants to be. Some people say that's what 40k is, which is fine, but it doesn't make it a good game.

What you want with a shift in scale like this is what Wyrd appear to be doing with The Other Side. Instead of just taking Malifaux, a character driven Mordheim style skirmish game and just making rules for larger and larger games, The Other Side will shift to a different model range, possibly a different model scale, and rules that don't work with Malifaux, a standalone game. Each game will do what it does best.

 Talys wrote:

frozenwastes wrote:

Talys wrote:I think the perfect system would be two games, that share the same models so that players can grow from ne to the other.

Can it really be so impossible to have a game that works at a lower model count and then has some simple changes that come into play at a certain points level to make larger games playable in the same time frame? Especially if the bar for success is as low as the current 40k?

In my opinion, the short answer is that I can't imagine a game that would be a great game on both ends of the scale.

Spoiler:

There are a few different issues. The most important, in my opinion, is that an well-written game for 30 models on a small table, for 100 models of infantry on a large tables, or for 100 models that range from infantry to building-sized just won't be the same game. The mechanics are just different: in games with more models, you typically want mechanics like keeping squads and units together, whereas in games with few models, individuality is core. What a sergeant does in a small game matters; a sergeant is just more cannon fodder in a big game. In games the size of WMH, it's appropriate to have an in-game avatar (the Warcaster), but this makes less sense if the warcaster will never see 80% of the game board.

Secondly, in 40k, you can just choose to play 500-750 point games on 4x4 tables, or Kill Team (250 points) with severe model restrictions. A practical problem is that if you bring your backpack of models and want such a thing, unless you've prearranged it, in all likelihood you're wasting your time. In other words, I think that if they dropped Kill Team rules into the core 40k book, it would be largely ignored as the de facto game will be assumed to be the 1850 or 2000 point game. There is a certain psychology amongst many players to aspire to the "big boy" game, even though the smaller game has many advantages like being quicker and costing less money.

And finally, in any restrictive game, you have to exclude like, half or more of GW's 40k collection, with a lot of it being the newer stuff.

I think a second, minihammer 40k that focuses on a small infantry models, with very few small vehicles, little stompies and minor heroes but with significantly different rules to 40k is the key to making a small game fun and also keep costs reasonable.

This all works in Bolt action

@Jehan-reznor

I've only observed bolt action -- never paid much attention to it, because it's historical, and I don't have any interest in historical -- but bolt action doesn't have all the things that make modern 40k what it is, that the people who don't like it dislike so strongly -- deathstars that can't really be killed (or even hit), mages that can reappear anywhere on the board, super elites that can erase several squads every round, building-sized creatures that can crush infantryman under their heels, floating buildings with gigantic guns that can be repositioned, troops that get back up after you kill them, and so on.

You could remove all those things for a smaller, simplified second game -- but that game would not be modern-day Warhammer 40k, and would be missing a huge part of the current catalog, and/or have dramatically different rules for some of the catalog. Some of the models you couldn't write into a toned down game, because the premise of 40k is that there are deific heroes; it would be really sucky if a grot had any chance of killing the thousand-year-old Commander Dante, right?

The second game would surely have appeal to people who wanted to play -- for lack of a better description -- futuristic bolt action. Maybe a cadre of more "serious gamers", and surely, it would be a better suited for competitive play. But that game would have much less appeal to the people who like current day 40k with its psykers, titans, drop pods, and all that. Obviously, the latter group does exist; otherwise GW would be out of business.

It's not a reason not to have a second game, but it is a reason, I think, not to try to make them a single game. Basically, these two groups of people want different things out of a wargame (I think) so why force it?

There will be Konflikt 47, but weren't you addressing mechanics? Those darn goal posts again

I thought futuristic Bolt Action was called Gates of Antares?

To recap, GW's sales have been declining for about five years.

This half-year's report showed a theoretical sales increase of under 1%, an improvement, but it was changed by currency conversion into a practical sales decrease. Also, this ignores inflation. It's no good to have a small theoretical increase that is a practical reduction. You have to increase sales at least as fast as inflation or you are going backwards. GW has been profitable for some years, but profits come from sales. If sales continue to go backwards, the profits will eventually wither too.

Let's remember that 40K is a setting not a game. In 5th edition you could play 40K at several levels. The smallest was Kill Team, then there was standard 40K playable at 500 to 2,000 points, roughly speaking. Then for people who wanted really big games, with really big models (Baneblade, etc) there was Apocalypse.

All these used essentially the same rules, arguably not very successfully, but the key point is they all used the same models. To bang on about it, GW's big mistake was to force the unwanted Apoc rules into core 40K and double the price of the game. This meant whatever version of 40K you wanted to play, you had to double your spend on a set of rules that tried to force you to play Apoc and buy big models. It's hardly a surprise that a lot of people gave it up.

There's no reason why GW could not write a detailed true skirmish game, a mass skirmish game like 40K in 4th/5th edition, and a streamlined mass battle game like Apocalypse. I would also add a very streamlined skirmish/mass skirmish game available free to tempt beginners.

All would be played with the same models. Players at all levels would be happy, unless the rulebooks were outrageously expensive. Once GW get people playing again, they have the chance to sell them more model kits.

+1 for Kilkrazy

I would add, though, that Kill Team is still very much a thing. The rules are current, and I've met and played with quite a few people & groups into it. Why it's not in BRB -- or a free download --is beyond me.

I guess GW don't want to encourage people to play small games. 40K over the last 20 years has been all about trying to sell more stuff.

GW has been about selling more stuff since it's inception, it's almost redundent to even say it!

That said having more models on the board can hardly be put down to evil corporate scheming. Players can and do want more rules they facilitate this (and bigger models too).

I often find the criticism of GW for game size perplexing when I've always found 40k to be most enjoyable at 1000 to 1500 points on a normal table. More than that it becomes increasingly about physical space and time constraints outside of the game and players willing to constrain the units they want or size they think everyone plays.

GW's efforts to increase by designing rules that encourage the use of more and bigger models have resulted in lower sales year on year for four or five years.

In my view this is because people who wanted to play smaller games have found the GW rules increasingly too expensive and inadequate for their needs.

That is why I think GW can do better by presenting games at several levels of involvement.

 Talys wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
At what cost? at the cost of their already existing player base? at the cost of their core game? at the cost of their company's reputation? and for what gains? the unknown but definitely minor part of the 40k player-base that cares for mass mega models games? the ones who have staid at GW for the fluff and the aesthetic, despite the horrible balance and rules, the overtly expensive kits some of them been the same models for 15 years? the ones who probably do not care for a balanced game with great rules writing?

Why would they endanger their company for this crowd? sorry that core is not big and is too much attached to GW for a company to even care about them.

I disagree. Whether for better or worse, GW continually goes out of their way to please the type of hobbyist that views the game and hobby as their aspirational armies positively do. When you open up a White Dwarf or Visions, you see cinematic battles of seas of models, with huge models towering over little ones posed for a climactic clash of the titans. When you go to their YouTube channel, you see 100 modelling videos and 1 about gaming. When you read a batrep, its about one almost deity battling one actual deity. There are stories about the 10th company or about Garro. You'll learn that there the Sanguinary Guard number 30.

What you haven't seen in years is an actual game of 40k that resembles a game or 40k, or tips on how to build an effective army.

Maybe GW doesn't need to do anything to keep this captive audience, but they certainly do -- the group of people who model and collect a lot and play relatively little, and who are heavily invested in the lore and aesthetic of 40k... and who can afford the current ecosystem .... aren't feeling left out. Its the people who want a more competitive, pickup or tournament game that feels left out. Or the people that want a smaller game that doesn't take as much time or money to get started.

Who cares, I was talking about PP and why they should not go after the tiny group of big spenders GW caters, do I need to write PP in a post replying you why PP should not go after GW mass battles audience to understand I am talking about PP? GW has set themselves in the corner they are and for PP to put the extra effort to do what GW did and corner themselves in that corner and fight for GW for just that corner? no it makes no sense for PP to do so.

Going mass battles changes everything the casters and jacks will not be the focus the units will be, the rules will have to be simplified, the cost per model will have to drop significantly and the game will have to compete with the normal WH/H which is the main income of the company and if not enouph players adapt to it it will vastly hurt the company, with all these factored in why not go 15mm which is [b]the scale for mass battle games, if one wants to have mass battle games?

 Talys wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Now 40k was released at the end of the 80's (88 IIRC) and at late 80's 30 marines were quite the norm but 50? you might mean the end of 90's which again was not that norm, maybe in "mega games" of 2500pts yes but not on the usual 1500pts game if nothign else the WD codex marine at the end of 2nd that allowed half squads helped some squads than never saw the battlefield to be fielded, as soon as 3rd got in 50 marines was the norm along with vehicles.

Since RTB-01 came with 30 space marines and the old Guard and Ork boxes came with similar numbers, most people had at least 3 squads of 10. My very first complete 40k army had 3 tactical squads, 1 assault squad, and a number of personalities, including medic, captain, etc. And that was no vehicles.

Those haven't really changed (the number of small models). It's the extra special models added on that has. So, dreadnoughts, centurions, razorback, land raiders, drop pods, imperial knights, forge world knights, stormtalons, and forgeword flyers gradually added to the game, in addition to elite 28mm models. The philosophical question becomes, at some point, do you just stop? If you do, the veterans have nothing to add to their army other than replacing old models with nicer new ones, and may get bored and move on. Another army, you say? Over 30 years, they would have already bought into all the factions that appealed to them.

I think the perfect system would be two games, that share the same models so that players can grow from ne to the other.

Yes I had 3 of the big boxes and a few of the 10 marine ones, this does not stop the fact that after you rolled the D100s for equipment and factored in the characters 30 marines and a few characters and a vehicle or two was what one fielded, I remind you that when BTB01 was introduced it was done with much horn-blowing on how plastic would lower the prices, giving so many marines in the box was a statement.

 notprop wrote:

I often find the criticism of GW for game size perplexing when I've always found 40k to be most enjoyable at 1000 to 1500 points on a normal table. More than that it becomes increasingly about physical space and time constraints outside of the game and players willing to constrain the units they want or size they think everyone plays.

Definitely, even on a 6x4 once you go above about 1500 points you really run out of room to do stuff. Most of the time everythings in range of everything and tanks don't really have anywhere to go.

The best games I've had have been 1500pt games on 8x12 tables.

I agree about 1000 points on a 4x6 table. That was my favorite game size as well. While I now use my 40k collection with other rules, I tend to still put that number of figures down.

I think it's a great size for getting new people into the game and for selling existing players on the idea of a new army (or their fourth or fifth new army).

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

Maybe GW should look at how Kings of War and Darklands are doing that seems to work.

Is it working for Mantic, though?

 Vermis wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

Maybe GW should look at how Kings of War and Darklands are doing that seems to work.

Is it working for Mantic, though?

Mantic does seem to be on the up and up, though as a private company we can not confirm. What we do know is GW is shrinking rapidly so Mantic would have to be shrinking even faster for them to be doing worse.

But there are things you can find out.

Mantic turnover less (substantially I would say) than £6.5M per year judging by their tax rating (Small & Exempt).

Looking at their asset/liabilities figures I would guess their turnover is in the £2-3M bracket.

That's only about 30k AoS starters (less than half the original Space Hulk redux). Have GW sold that many? Who knows?

Kilkrazy wrote:
There's no reason why GW could not write a detailed true skirmish game, a mass skirmish game like 40K in 4th/5th edition, and a streamlined mass battle game like Apocalypse.

I know it's always said whenever the problem with Apocalypse crops up, but here goes, one more time: it's arguable how streamlined Apoc really is. And GW already had that streamlined mass battle game that was, historically, quite popular. You know the one.

All would be played with the same models.

I think that would be something of a mistake, going from mid-sized to large games. Sure, it'd be an advantage to use models you already own, but just for starters, you wouldn't be able to do that with your mid-sized collection. You'd need to buy much more. And at GW prices, you might be able to buy a whole, viable 6-10mm force for as much or less than what you'd need to boost your existing 28mm army.
Then there's what Notprop, Herzlos and Frozenwastes have just said (and what I've seen and heard) and what that implies: 28mm is not an optimum size for mass battles, not on a standard or even a slightly larger table, and despite what years of WFB/40K bloat and institutionalisation might claim. I could repost Peter 'Baccus' Berry's odes to 6mm, if anyone skimmed past them. As it is: normally no room for movement, no room for manoeuvre, all but no room to play. As I've heard even afficionados of Apoc say, it's all about cramming your collection on the table and making pew-pew noises as things get blown away and whittled down.

And it still takes far more time to play than Epic:A.

Lastly, bit of a vague thought, but over on the fantasy side of things I've seen people horrified at the thought of unit basing and unit removal in KoW (or any other mass block battle game) because it somehow negates all the painstaking detail and painting on their 28mm characters. (As if it never applied in WFB) Doesn't seem to ruffle Apoc players too much, from what little I've seen; but I wonder how much it ruffled 40K players and made them avoid Apoc in the first place? Especially as a now-'compulsory' part of 40K?

 Vermis wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

Maybe GW should look at how Kings of War and Darklands are doing that seems to work.

Is it working for Mantic, though?

Locally, yes.

But, they also had somebody in the local area that was interested in the rules, and so was in position to boost it when Warhammer 8 was... pretty damned bad. (It was the first iteration of the game where I saw people buy their army book, read it, and quit the game.)

When players tried Kings of War, the game sold itself - pretty much by being the opposite of Warhammer - simple rules, few exceptions, the main army lists in the main book, and an attempt at balance. And games that could be finished in an evening, with no rules arguments.

Mantic was in position to intercept when GW fumbled.

Which, I will admit, is not quite the same thing as growing the market - they took a big share when the then market leader failed - which does not count the folks that stuck with Warhammer 7th edition or previous.

AoS was just a continuation of the fumble that began in 7th - as GW carefully buttered the ball, to make sure that it would squirt from their fingers like a watermelon seed.

It is not so much that Kings of War is succeeding as that GW is failing.

The Auld Grump - and I love Kings of War... and have multiple armies.

jonolikespie wrote:
Mantic does seem to be on the up and up, though as a private company we can not confirm.

They give away free rules for GW minis and keep sticking up kickstarters, anyway. Rumours flit around that they're stuck in that way of doing things and just one or two bad KSs could nobble them. I don't think it's a matter of doing 'worse' than GW, by direct comparison of sales or revenue or whatever (Neither it nor any other wargaming company can come close, anyway) but of perhaps doing things in their own, special, unsustainable way.

But, like GW, it's uncertain if that alleged unsustainability will bite them in the behind anytime soon. They seem to have their own version of a captive audience.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

The Auld Grump - and I love Kings of War...

I know you do. And I don't include folk who try KoW and prefer it to WFB/AoS, in 'a captive audience'. I just debate that the immediate gamer advantage of free rules, lacklustre miniature design*, and throwing money at concept art and unwritten rules, is helping Mantic grow as quickly as it might, or helping it in the long term. To bring it somewhat back on topic, whatever GW is doing wrong, I don't know if it'd help to switch to whatever Mantic is doing.

*There's 'subjective', and then there's 'just not trying'.

On the subject of one rule set to cover skirmish game up to battle game.

If the game mechanics and resolution methods are written specifically for a 40k game.(And not a WHFB mutation!)

You can cover a detailed skirmish game with rules focusing on detailed MODEL interaction.
And using the SAME BASIC RULE SET cover a battle game with rules focusing on detailed UNIT interaction.

Eg just shift the level of interaction up by one.

IMO the real issue with 40k game play is they removed the tactical depth from the game play.So each unit has a limited in game function.
This makes the 'super special snowflake units; with 'super special snowflake rules' more appealing in light of the point and click type game play.

If the game play had more tactical depth, each unit could shine in different ways, and allow combined arms type approach to make the army building more varied and interesting.

This would mean ALL units are equally viable , (depending on play style preference.)And players dont feel like they have to pay a 'troops tax' to get 'the special snowflake units' on the table.

I am not saying ban the big kits.But make them an optional extra in a separate Apoc type rule set, as many have mentioned already.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

Who cares, I was talking about PP and why they should not go after the tiny group of big spenders GW caters, do I need to write PP in a post replying you why PP should not go after GW mass battles audience to understand I am talking about PP? GW has set themselves in the corner they are and for PP to put the extra effort to do what GW did and corner themselves in that corner and fight for GW for just that corner? no it makes no sense for PP to do so.

Going mass battles changes everything the casters and jacks will not be the focus the units will be, the rules will have to be simplified, the cost per model will have to drop significantly and the game will have to compete with the normal WH/H which is the main income of the company and if not enouph players adapt to it it will vastly hurt the company, with all these factored in why not go 15mm which is [b]the scale for mass battle games, if one wants to have mass battle games?

Your assertion was that GW doesn't do anything for, well, really, anyone, so I simply expressed the groups that GW caters to. Now, you may think that the group that GW caters to is tiny, but you have no proof of this. People spending disproportionate time painting, modelling, and collecting, while only occasionally playing wargames (or not playing at all) may seem like a tiny group, but how do you measure how big that group is? They're might not be the ones gaming in local clubs, or they might even order online. If their primary interest doesn't require other humans, or at least with strangers, the chances of socializing with them is going to be less. Of the 6 people in our gaming group, I'm the only one who's social at FLGS at all; the rest just either internet order or walk in, buy their stuff, and leave, so even if they were customers at the same store you shopped at, you'd never know about these guys that each spend thousands of dollars on gaming every year.

At the end of the day, of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on GW yearly, I suspect a good chunk of that is spent by people who have priorities more in alignment with GW's vision than not. There are lots of real people with armies like this:



The reason I brought up Warmachine mass battle is because in my opinion, Privateer Press has already taken the low hanging fruit of 40k and WHFB gamers. If we can agree that the size of the playerbase isn't rapidly expanding, the easiest way to grow your company is to steal more 40k players, because that's where the largest player pool remains. I mean, you either target 40k players or X-Wing players, or try to make new ones. The rest of the market is so small that it's not worth chasing, right? So, that means, going after a mass battle game.

Of course, PP doesn't have to do this. It's just something they could do, and I think at the right price, Warmachine models would appeal to hobbyists into 40k. Presently, for the people who do remain with GW that either like mass battle games or are really into the collectible/modelling aspects, there is really no difference in cost between PP and 40k models; I hypothesize that if there were a large difference in cost, at least some of the pool would be tempted to switch, though the net difference might not mean more profit for Privateer Press, at least in the short term.

In any case, this scenario probably won't happen. Cheaper models from PP for a mass battle game is probably as much a pipe dream as a $200 tournament-friendly skirmisher from GW.

 Talys wrote:

At the end of the day, of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on GW yearly, I suspect a good chunk of that is spent by people who have priorities more in alignment with GW's vision than not.

I'll go one further and say that if they can figure out where to open their stores and how to find and train the right people and figure out how to optimally price and sell their products, GW can actually return to growth using their current vision.

As it currently stands I'm not sure the product they are currently asking their store managers to sell works in all the places they are trying to sell it. And it's sad to see them blaming all their problems on these store level managers who have no say about anything. It's not their fault, it's GW's upper management that put them on this path of declining revenue & profits.

@frozenwastes - I agree. The odd store not working out can be the fault of an individual store manager, but if it's systemic and continued revenue decline, that's up to management to fix. Even if all store managers are deficient, somehow (I don't believe this for a minute), that's STILL management's problem to fix.

I don't think GW has falling sales because Warmachine or X-Wing is attracting people away. I think people are being driven away by high prices and unpalatable rules in 40K.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Well Privateer Press and to some extend are doing what GW are doing slowly pricing themselves out of the equation.

PP's game is also getting larger. with more miniatures. So my interest in it is waning.

Yes to this! PP badly needs a new edition to reign in the bloat in WM/H system.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talys wrote:
I would add, though, that Kill Team is still very much a thing. The rules are current, and I've met and played with quite a few people & groups into it. Why it's not in BRB -- or a free download --is beyond me.

The biggest problem with Kill Team is that it requires a codex to play. This automatically makes it a $100 investment (one squad box + codex at minimum, and quite expensive, if you want to mix model types) to play what is an extremely barebones "game".

 Talys wrote:

While 40k was more skirmishy and had smaller armies in the past, even in my oldest memories of the game (late 80s), 50+ marines or 80+ imperial guard on a table was pretty normal, and the table sizes were pretty big. While the model count has certainly gone up some, what's really changed seems to be the physical size of the models, and the total cost of the armies. It used to troops were the core of the army, and now, they're often a tax.

A Guardsman was 10 points a model and a Marine was 30 in 2nd ed; the standard game size was also 1500 points, at least it was in Scotland.

Compare that to 6 point Guardsmen, 15 point Marines and 2K (if not more) standard points values. Modern 40k has a lot more figures than it did when it was a skirmish game. IIRC my 2nd ed 1500 IG infantry army had around 70-80 models, I was (briefly) working on its spiritual successor under the last edition of 40k and I had about 170 infantrymen.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't think GW has falling sales because Warmachine or X-Wing is attracting people away. I think people are being driven away by high prices and unpalatable rules in 40K.

Yes to this. Even guys who are coming back to GW don't bother because they can build a decent list in a competing system with competent rules. The cost to re-enter the GW hobby for someone who has left is, without buying any models is: $85 for current rulebook and $50-58 for the codex. (Total: $140ish.)

$140 is in the range of the all-in-one army deals that PP has.
X-Wing is $40 for the starter, additional small ships are $15 and big ones are $30. You could have the starter, one big ship and 4 more little ones, easily playing at normal competition size.
$140 also goes pretty far in Infinity. You can get some pretty competent 300 point lists for around that dollar amount. I priced a Nomads list (Starter Box, Zoe and Pi-Well, Zonds Remotes, Intruder HMG, Interventors) and it comes out to $150.

The news that GW is loosing money because of their retail stores don't surprise me. If you have a friendly local game store that carries their products; why would you go to their store instead? The only time I have visited my local shop is when it first opened just to get the special release items they had there. Plus I live just a few hours away from the Memphis battle bunker and never stepped foot in the place. But the complete opposite of that is x-wing I've seen it in retail stores, comic shops, even on Amazon. If you limit where you sell your products, you limit your market.

You can have a decent tactical game of X-Wing with two starter sets. It includes all the rules and components, and there is no assembly and painting needed. It sets up and plays quickly and needs no terrain. The add-on sets are what I call "pocket money price", which means even a schoolboy can add one or two more fighters to his fleet every month.

When you look at the price levels, a lapsed 40K player like me can think of buying the rules and two codexes for my armies, which will cost £110 and I still won't have the expensive models necessary to compete, or I can spend that money on a decent set up for X Wing. Which is exactly what I have done.

OTOH if you are a newb at wargames, you can look at the prices and think you won't even bother with buying the starter for 40K because you can get two starters and a couple of expansions for X-Wing for the same money.