Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I very recently took a bit of a hiatus from tabletop, first due to health problems then just a general lack of interest and nervousness about having to remember the rules again. It's been, idk, maybe something like 6 months now? So here I am, all of a sudden wanted to get back into things after running into some guys from my store at a bar and having a chat about. I decided to get back into things, I'm starting fresh by getting guard to ally in with my DA (who will inevitably abandon them when some fallen are on the next table over), and eventually run a full guard army if I manage to paint a few million guardsmen.

So here's my question to you all: have you ever left the hobby before? What was your reason if you don't mind sharing? Did you come back yet?

It's at the point now that I am getting excited about it again, I just spent more than I should have on guard but am super pumped about it. I'm going to go watch a local tourney this weekend, can't play because I'm leaving before it's over but I might sneak a game in with the store owner that isn't playing. Is it weird that I'm worried about messing up the rules now that I'm coming back? I think they're mostly cool guys, they shouldn't mind, I'm just oddly hesitant.

Haha, and here I am on a rambling rant, trying to make it sound like this post is anything other than me just throwing my thoughts out for others to see with no real reason

I almost feel like I'm on a break from it now, but it's more of a slump than a proper break. I'm getting fatigued by the current power levels and lack of power in my preferred Tyranids and my meta is now JUST competitive level lists of the top tier armies. My own Eldar and Necrons are half finished and lacking all of the power choices, so I'm having trouble staying on the table.

Infinity and now Magic have been taking up more of my time until the meta slows back down, but an ITC tournament is coming to the area so things have really ramped up because of it. If I spend more on my new Corsair army, I wouldn't have an issue, but since MTG and Infinity have distracted me pretty damn well, my gaming budget is tapped. I'm having trouble getting excited about these big beasties that I never was interested in in the first place...

I'm currently taking a break right now though not by choice. I recently moved to a location with no players.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
I almost feel like I'm on a break from it now, but it's more of a slump than a proper break. I'm getting fatigued by the current power levels and lack of power in my preferred Tyranids and my meta is now JUST competitive level lists of the top tier armies. My own Eldar and Necrons are half finished and lacking all of the power choices, so I'm having trouble staying on the table.

Infinity and now Magic have been taking up more of my time until the meta slows back down, but an ITC tournament is coming to the area so things have really ramped up because of it. If I spend more on my new Corsair army, I wouldn't have an issue, but since MTG and Infinity have distracted me pretty damn well, my gaming budget is tapped. I'm having trouble getting excited about these big beasties that I never was interested in in the first place...

I definitely know what you're talking about, I see a lot of people switching between hobbies because they get into something else. Usually not gone from 40k, just away from it for a bit. I do know what you mean about the power scale too, I think that was a partial factor in taking so long to get back into it for me. The main reason I am going back is because apparently a lot of people there missed me and came up with new lists to take on my silly lists. I'm the guy that always won sportsmanship awards at our tournaments


Automatically Appended Next Post:

yellowfever wrote:
I'm currently taking a break right now though not by choice. I recently moved to a location with no players.

That has to hurt, sorry to hear that. I'm very fortunate that there are two stores within half an hour of me, and there's almost guaranteed to be someone at one or the other up for a game.

I stopped caring about Warhammer in 2005, I think.
Just lost all interest. Boxed up all miniatures, stopped playing, stopped painting, stopped reading White Dwarf. I was more interested in playing video games (mostly World of Warcraft).

Can't remember why, but I googled some Space Marine stuff in late 2013, loved all the new kits I saw. Decided to pick up the hobby again in early 2014. Even if my time for the hobby is limited due to work, wife and child, it helps me relax after work.
I also enjoy the diversity of wargames today, there are so many cool miniatures aside from GW, that really keeps things interesting.

Not at all. We have a strong local gaming group with activities each Saturday and every second Thursday. There is an apoc game each month and some multiplayer games once in a while.

Lots of times with all sorts of reasons

WFB
-Dramatic rule changes that invalidated my whole playing style. First in bretonnia switched to wood elves and they did it again I did not play any GW game for years after that. When I started again I went for 40k.

40k
-The Ork codex. I did not play 40k for half a year +.
-Really bad game experiences
-Dramatic Power creep in 40k-> This pushed me back into WFB since you actually needed a strategy in those games. There where rumours of "a new edition" So I decided to wait with buying a new army until it came out. BAM AoS happened. Stopped playing for a while then.
-No players to play with
-GWs Prices & the time spend on it all -> -Realisation that it is a waste of money and time. I could be actually training a useful skill instead of converting and painting orks. I could be going on a vacation with my girlfriend instead of buying a portion of an army. For a box of centurions you can have a great weekend, or a week of really luxurious food somehow this doesn't feel right.


The whole shopping experience.
Salesmen who act like they are your friend wtf is that. No normal store tries to pull of this cheap trick. Or you are long time costumer and actually know them or you are just buying stuff. No one is friends with you when you walk into their store. Getting questions such as "what kind hobbyist are you", "what would be your next project" and "did you buy that in the other store" etc. really creep me out. I just want to buy stuff and play with them not be in a fake cult like relationship with the store owner. No I don't want to hear for a salesmen that Gorkonauts are the solution to my sucky ork codex in every figging GW store I walk into. I don't even want to talk about my sucky ork codex with them. I want my ork codex to be good, and the store clerc to sell me stuff no questions asked.


Somehow it always creeps back. I guess it just replaced playing with legos.
You might be best of selling it all once you stop in order to reduce the risk of getting back on plastic crack.

I've been playing 40K since rogue trader come out and I've had plenty of breaks from the hobby.

Sometimes other hobbies take over, sometimes work/etc. gets in the way.

4th is the only edition I skipped - the shift back to static gunlines after the massive mobility of 3rd really turned me off.

Yeppers. I only do stuff when I want. Sometimes that means I paint hours a day for days. Other times I can't be arsed to look at my stuff for weeks or months. It evens out to this weird pace where I get stuff done fairly reliably.

Been on a break for nearly a year now.

WHFB - got really annoyed that I spent quite a bit on an army that became invalidated pretty quick ( I only started at the beginning of 8th, so I didn't even get my twenty years of service.) And I didn't sign up for AoS, I wanted a rank and file fantasy game.

40K, as a long time Chaos player, I eventually got fed up with each codex getting worse since 3.5 and finding it harder and harder to play my legion. The final straw was when IA13 hit and I came to the realisation that a chaos army practically needs forgeworld to be decent.

I might come back in when I can afford to splurge on forgeworld, because it seems my answer is either IA13 or HH.

Currently on a 1 year + break from 40k.

Got a little tired of the power creep and I've never really got along with the orks.

Sure I could make them work and win games.... but meh.

Toying with getting back in now. Flogging my Orks and starting again with something nice and simple to paint.

Khorne / CSM seem to resonate well with me for that reason.

I stopped play competitively when everyone in my meta got Tau/Necrons/SM/Eldar. Granted I picked up Tau but I already had a few models for the old FBSC and I've stopped buying for Tau.

My days are usually spent assembling and painting Orks, as well as looking at other games. A lot of time and money I have is devoted to my undergraduate degree, I can't afford to donate my time and money to keeping up with the meta.

 Scott-S6 wrote:
I've been playing 40K since rogue trader come out and I've had plenty of breaks from the hobby.

Sometimes other hobbies take over, sometimes work/etc. gets in the way.

4th is the only edition I skipped - the shift back to static gunlines after the massive mobility of 3rd really turned me off.

Same here, but I skipped most of 2nd edition.
Not so much a voluntary break from the hobby as a "no spare time" issue.

I was in my mid-20s, and I was living in a share house with another couple of gamers and the girlfriend of one of them. When one of the guys wasn't gaming, he played bass for a death metal band, so weekends were often gigs, partys and clubbing. Really didn't leave much time for gaming.

Other than that, I took a break from 40k when 6th ed hit - it stopped being a game I wanted to play. I went back to playing WHFB though (hadn't played since 3rd ed). That stopped when AoS dropped though. Now I'm deciding whether I want to play 9th age or KoW (or maybe both) with that army.

Yeah how is 9th age suppose I re paint my old bretonnians again would I be having a good time ? Considering that I loved them when they still had triangle shaped lance formations.

Meh, I don't really take a break from this. I have a strong gaming group, we play every week. and I get model's to paint that will last me for another week

I had a break from September to about November of last year. It wasn't long, but it was enough that it made me really wanna hit the table hard with my Crons.

I want to... pretty badly actually. But, it has become an addiction for me. If I go too long without assembling a model or painting a model, I start to get rather edgy.

SG

yeah, I've taken 2 big breaks.

1) I got tired of the Tau hate 'oh you're just gonna spam riptides!" even though I played foot slogging tau in transports, took a break for around 4 months, and sold off my tau for my 1st actual marine army (I like trading, netted me an entire battle company, 1st company, and most of a scout company through multiple trades)

2) I had to sell all of said marines to pay for car repairs. I ended up taking a 6 month break, and got back in after I played a few 30k games.


beyond this, I have a theory( if someone could correct me, that would be awesome!): Do competitive players dislike the game more? whenever I find a hate thread (or dislike comments in a thread like this) it always seems to be from players who mainly play competitively. Is this not a correlation, or did I stumble upon something that everyone else already knew?

 Brennonjw wrote:
beyond this, I have a theory( if someone could correct me, that would be awesome!): Do competitive players dislike the game more? whenever I find a hate thread (or dislike comments in a thread like this) it always seems to be from players who mainly play competitively. Is this not a correlation, or did I stumble upon something that everyone else already knew?

Considering the game was never meant to be played competitively, I'd say you're on the right track with your theory.

SG

I got really tired of 40k, but then I saw 30k and how awesome and balanced it was, and I got super excited about that. So I am now mostly into 30k rather than 40k.

Na players don't like change it they feel it affects them negatively. Those who get screwed over or feel neglected by a GW update dislike it more then those who aren't affected by them.
Eldar players don't nearly complain as much as Orks or CSM. Tournament players are just more affect by smaller updates since they tend to play to the max at the edge of the rules.

I stopped as a teenager as partying drained my funds and university drained my time.

I started the hobby back in the Rogue Trader and Epic (great game) days, although at the beginning me and my friend just bought the models and painted them. I moved onto Warhammer and 40k and bought each subsequent boxed version of the game, also played Bloodbowl and Man O War.
My break from the game started about the same time I decided I'd rather spend my money on beer and holidays with the lads. The same thing also happened with my local circle of opponents (some of whom accompanied me on said holidays and trips to the pub)
I have only recently (a year or so ago) got back into the game.
I'd estimate that made my break last about 14 years, although in fairness I carried on reading White Dwarf sporadically and then the black Library books.
I wish I'd kept hold of more of my stuff from back then, the prices now are eye watering.

I take breaks every once in a while and start fresh. I tend to hop around multiplayer games quite a bit, lose interest and start something else for a while.


Odds are if I'm looking to make a Second Army/Deck/Character in a Multiplayer game, Be it 40k, X-wing, MTG, Pokemon, Yugioh, or even MMOs like ESO, SWTOR or WoW, I've prolly got about 2 months left before I pack it up.

I think GW causes their own Chicken before the Egg situation. They release new codices, supplements, and models for armies that are selling well. But, to get an army to sell, they need to release new codices for them on a timely basis, give them support, and new models.

One of the guys that works at my local GW complains all the time because he is a CSM player and CSM hasn't gotten even a 7th edition codex yet. If GW wanted CSM to get popular, they'd just need to release a 7th edition codex, more support in the way of supplements, and new models.

Look at Tau for a great example. It blew up after the new codex, supplements, and models were released while it wasn't *that* big before that. GW created that popularity/hype for that army. If they would do the same for other armies, you'd probably see a lot more people a lot happier.

That said, while I know GW wants the money from the book sales, paying a company like WizKids or Fantasy Flight to write their rules/codices (even if GW still sold them under their imprint) would probably make for a much happier GW community as a whole.

SG

Considering how much painting I'm getting done these days I probably count as being on a break right now...

Crispy78 wrote:
Considering how much painting I'm getting done these days I probably count as being on a break right now...

Well, considering sculpting and painting is a large part of the hobby, I'd say you're still in it pretty deeply. You may have taken a break from the game, but not from the hobby

SG

I've taken close to a year off, due to my degree needing to be completed, plus work. Life gets busy.

 ServiceGames wrote:

Crispy78 wrote:
Considering how much painting I'm getting done these days I probably count as being on a break right now...

Well, considering sculpting and painting is a large part of the hobby, I'd say you're still in it pretty deeply. You may have taken a break from the game, but not from the hobby

SG

No no, other way round... I've spent maybe 3 or 4 evenings painting in the last year or so...

I'm on and off periodically over the years.

When I started TF2 I all but forgot about Warhammer for a year or two.