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 Salted Diamond wrote:
RANT MODE ON
I used to be a regular 40K player, starting right when 5th came out. Usually every other Friday (I'm married with 3 kids) I'd get to go play at my FLGS. There was a diverse crowd with everything from uber commpetative to super fluffy players. I would get a couple of friendly games in, enough to scratch my itch, and be good until next time. About a year ago I left the military after 15 years due to injury and came home. I have not played a game since. There is only 1 local store that has a 40K group, but I do not find it a friendly enviroment. Triple Ripetide/WS spam/power flavor of the month are the only type of lists played. I enjoy and miss the more laid back games. I play SoB, so I have no counter to many of these power lists. The Tau players at my old store discussed in depth how SoB could counter Ripetides, and they decided that there was no way for them to deal with triple tides. I do not want to have to ally in just to have a chance at a draw. I have talked to the players about smaller friendly games but the idea was regected. Had one player actual comment "I can't fit all 3 riptides in a smaller game, so no". They next closest store to play at is alomst 2 hours away. I miss playing. I do not care if I win or lose as long as long as I had a fun time playing. But when there is little chance for even a semi fun game, why bother.....

QUESTION
How do other people cope when they're LGS is not a fun place to play? If you know there is little to no chance for anything other then a stomping, how do you not give up on the game?

Easy. Don't go there. I'd rather not play, than play a rubbish game against a bunch of folks only interested in exploiting the game.

So now you're not playing because you've walked away from people who are playing a game style you are fundamentally opposed to. Where to go from here?

Simples. And there really is no mystery to this. If the mountain won't come to you, then it's up to you to come to the mountain. Find like minded folks that want to play the same kind of game that you do. And organise yourselves it's easier than you realise. We live in the golden age of gaming. We have text messages, forums, Facebook groups etc. It has never been easier to reach out and get connected with people. It's never been easier to raise a flag - 'hi guys, I'm from x and looking for players like me who are after a casual, laid back style of game. I'm sick of chasing the meta'. And there are far more people like you, simply not interested in 'chasing the meta' and a lot of these people are either inactive, dormant or former players that gave up previously, but could get involved again. A lot of people play at home too. Flgs is not necessarily the 'hub' of a community. Given an opportunity to play a more relaxed game, you'd be surprised how many people will come out of the woodwork. The trick is to harness this energy, direct it into something positive and organise it. Find them, find a venue (or organise games at your/their place) and build connections. Talk to them. play games. Play the type of games that you want to play.

It is very possible. I've seen it done, and I have been a part of such groups. Good luck.

My FLGS has two kinds of players - Those who bring Imperial Knights to 1000 point games & those who play only with Gentlemen's Agreement to not field certain units & make Newbie+Veteran vs. Newbie+Veteran games. I'd say i'm kinda blessed with this store, the GW store near me is a whole different story.
Some time ago i met two old friends which i haven't seen for a long time and introduced them into my 40k and with them the Meta of our FLGS changed from 'I bring my Imperial Knight(s) for a fun game' to 'lets play with the army of your opponent just to learn the game'. And, as a newbie (i only started maybe half a year ago with 40k) this was actually a pretty good experience.

I live 20 minutes away from 2 game stores, a GW store, and the Fantasy Flight HQ (yay minnesota). None of the stores but GW have 40k events (even the GW store events are very sporadic sometimes). I mean they have people there to play with sometimes but its always x-wing, armada or a card game for events. They even once had a bloodbowl tournament. Bloodbowl.....but ZERO 40k or AoS/Fantasy.

whats the freakin' point of selling warhammer products and storing warhammer terrain if you aren't going to do anything with it?

Granted I have friends and family who play but still, I'd like at least one event please.

Edit: the 40k players I've met at stores are usually very friendly. You can be TOO friendly though. Last game I played with my friends this guy hovered the entire match, and while friendly was disruptive. I don't need someone I don't know backseat gaming a match I planned with my friends weeks in advance. I came across like a dismissive jerk when in reality I was just trying to pay attention to my game. My brain can only multi-task so much.

 Griddlelol wrote:
I don't have enough time to stand around GW like an idiot waiting for a game, so I just stick to painting and modelling. When I visit my family, or go to see collaborators back in the UK I sometimes take my models with me and hit up my old FLGs though.

Achtung! You need to learn to speak some German! Time for some International Gaming!

Seriously though, when I lived half a year in Italy, learning to play Italian collective card games helped me read Italian. Never really got to speak it, but I was at an English-speaking boarding school there. From what I understand, German isn't too far off from English, grammatically and phonetically speaking. Look at Achtung; it means Attention! Not that dissimilar! If you learn some German, you'll get to play 40k in a whole new way, and will pick up that oh-so-valuable second language, which is great both for whatever career you end up in, and is great for brain-health.

I "pretend" to give my guardsmen a speech to make them keep fighting until them or the enemy is no more.

In other words, just try your best to take out as much of your opponents models until you are no more. It makes the game go by faster.

And if my friends cant play for a week or so, I just improve on my models. (maintaining and redoing there paint job)
And if that's not a option, I just (and very rarely now) play by myself.

 Yarium wrote:

 Griddlelol wrote:
I don't have enough time to stand around GW like an idiot waiting for a game, so I just stick to painting and modelling. When I visit my family, or go to see collaborators back in the UK I sometimes take my models with me and hit up my old FLGs though.

Achtung! You need to learn to speak some German! Time for some International Gaming!

I'm learning! It takes time and I've only been here a few months.

Unfortunately, I'm at the stage where when I speak German I sound like a toddler. I only know a few words and can't string a sentence together. Also I don't know how long I'm going to live here. If it's longer than 2 years then I'll get some serious intensive lessons!

Its just better to walk away some times.

I always tone down or bring fluffy lists when playing with friends. Or bring some of the sillier formations to bring a janky list.

You could attempt to coerce some people into playing highlander?

 Griddlelol wrote:

 Yarium wrote:

 Griddlelol wrote:
I don't have enough time to stand around GW like an idiot waiting for a game, so I just stick to painting and modelling. When I visit my family, or go to see collaborators back in the UK I sometimes take my models with me and hit up my old FLGs though.

Achtung! You need to learn to speak some German! Time for some International Gaming!

I'm learning! It takes time and I've only been here a few months.

Unfortunately, I'm at the stage where when I speak German I sound like a toddler. I only know a few words and can't string a sentence together. Also I don't know how long I'm going to live here. If it's longer than 2 years then I'll get some serious intensive lessons!

https://www.amazon.com/German-All-One-Dummies-CD/dp/1118491408

This is the book that you are looking for. [/jedi mind trick.]

I'm unable to game at a local store due to social anxiety problems. I ended up spending a few years playing 40k with my mom at home, since I also had few real-life friends (and currently have none). Around the time 6th edition dropped, my interest in 40k also dropped and I went from playing a game pretty much every week, to 1-2 games a year. Right now my 40k stuff has all been boxed up for a year while we've been trying to sell our house.

I mostly turned to video games to sate my need for entertainment. I've amassed over 600 days of time spent in-game in World of Warcraft since 2007, I have over 2000 hours spent in Star Trek Online, and although I don't have a record of how many hours I've spent on it due to not using Steam to install it and not really caring about my stats, I have a level 40+ character of each faction in Planetside 2.

Dawn of War 1 scratched my 40k itch for quite a while, Eternal Crusade was my big hope for a 40k shooter, but given the current state of the game on Early Access servers and its planned release date in September, I am much, MUCH less optimistic about it than I used to be. Dawn of War 2 didn't have big enough armies, THQ's Space Marine game only lets you play as Marines so I gave it a pass entirely, but Dawn of War 3 looks pretty nice from the little I've seen of it, so I'm looking forward to that.

One advantage of video games is that the multiplayer allows for online play a lot of the time, so I can play them with my online friends even though we'll likely never meet face-to-face.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Commissar Terrence wrote:
I "pretend" to give my guardsmen a speech to make them keep fighting until them or the enemy is no more.

In other words, just try your best to take out as much of your opponents models until you are no more. It makes the game go by faster.

And if my friends cant play for a week or so, I just improve on my models. (maintaining and redoing there paint job)
And if that's not a option, I just (and very rarely now) play by myself.

Ahh, yes, if victory is impossible, then simply kill as many enemies as possible.

Situations like those are my absolute favorite in video game PvP. Not even joking or being sarcastic. The times in games when I've had the most fun are when I'm defending a base, the enemy onslaught is unbreakable, there's no way to get past their lines, and I just hurl myself at the attackers again and again with nothing in mind other than killing as many as I can. Luckily respawning is usually an option.

Deadnight wrote:
Easy. Don't go there. I'd rather not play, than play a rubbish game against a bunch of folks only interested in exploiting the game.

This. I stopped going to tournaments when I realized that I just don't enjoy them anymore. Games were ones I felt like better spent time just walking away from the game. It used to be that at least the bottom half of the armies were more relaxed so after being beaten in first game(hopefully) I often had at least 3 games(out of 5) usually enjoyable experience.

But the level has gone up and armies needed to compete simply don't interest me thematically. I'm not interested in spending hundreds of euros and tons of time to have army that might be able to fight _but that I don't enjoy playing with_.

So I sorted this out by limiting myself to playing with like minded people. First modifying 7th ed bit more to our taste and then realizing what amount of work there needs to be done while 2nd ed rules are already much closer switching to 2nd ed and start tinkering it...

 dakkajet wrote:
In my local gaming club people seem to take and hour to move etc. and rarely get past the 1st turn. Both my friends don't play 40k at the moment. The nearest store is 2 hours away and I seldom get a chance to go there, I really just play in tournaments as of know. It's a bummer alright.

you mean you'll lose in tournaments.

 dakkajet wrote:
In my local gaming club people seem to take and hour to move etc. and rarely get past the 1st turn. Both my friends don't play 40k at the moment. The nearest store is 2 hours away and I seldom get a chance to go there, I really just play in tournaments as of know. It's a bummer alright.

Its a bummer because you chose 40k

 Yarium wrote:

 Griddlelol wrote:
I don't have enough time to stand around GW like an idiot waiting for a game, so I just stick to painting and modelling. When I visit my family, or go to see collaborators back in the UK I sometimes take my models with me and hit up my old FLGs though.

From what I understand, German isn't too far off from English, grammatically and phonetically speaking.

English is basically speaking German with a French accent. Oversimplification, I know, but go read Chaucer sometime and tell me it doesn't look more German than English.

It amazes me how there is a general concensus among some groups out there that basically say " People can use what they want so stop whining " .

Yes we all have the right to use whatever we want, which is true, but could you not swing the pendulum in the opposite direction and say to the power gamers, 'just because you want to play hardcore, doesn't mean everyone does, so stop whining ' ?

That said, I can sympathise with the OP's situation. At my local GW I will admit there are a few players who play for the love of the game (like myself) bringing a balance of power (to satisfy the fact that it is after all a competitive game by nature ) and fun (to satisfy the whole point of playing, enjoyment ) . However, these players are a bit scarce now days since some changes to the local store.

The easiest games to get are with those competitive guys who sit around waiting for a chance to crush someone.

Based on this, I accept the fact that things are what they are, and so I have played 1 game in about 10 or 11 months. I recall that at one point it was literally packing all my stuff up, driving the 40 minutes to the store, paying for parking or parking km's out of the city centre and walking, being tabled by turn 3 by cheese, packing up and heading home ( AKA ; absolutely pointless exercise) .

How to deal with it ?

A few good tactics have been mentioned here, such as utilizing Facebook to create/find groups , potentially posting on your local GW facebook page seeking games , and (one of the best ones) Introducing a friend to the hobby.

Unfortunately until you can manage to find some more like minded players, bar leaving the hobby all you can really do is turn your focus inwards and just work on your armies...so that when the day comes you do throw your models on the board, they look AMAZING !

The only other way I deal with it, is to read the Black Library fiction. By allowing my mind to become absorbed into the world of Warhammer, it somewhat scratches that itch to see the armies of the 41st millennium at war, since while I used to play I'd envision it happening as if it were watching a movie from overhead anyway

I have had the same problem as the OP in that at one point the community was "buy to win play to crush" and it was starting to tear things up.
Everything was 1850 Hard Core "GT Prep" though no one ever went to a gt (which amused me). It drove away a lot of the causal play for fun folks, so I went to the extreme. And bought my first of 3 titans.
Seen here


This thing soon started making the trip with me to the store every week, and was my answer to Uber power spam. When the request for a friendly game was met with hate for suggesting such a thing or an "alright cool but here's my cheese anyway". A librarian two tactical Squads and "tiny" became my 1850, and people usually changed their tune. Some argued that it wasn't fair and was OP whom I just laughed at (not literally that would make me the fether), or they would change their list, or pack up.

Eventually the meta changed and fun was back in the forefront and soon after I started full fledged into HH.

Obviously an extreme example and not something everyone can do of course but that's how i handled it.

 Chapter Master Angelos wrote:
I have had the same problem as the OP in that at one point the community was "buy to win play to crush" and it was starting to tear things up.
Everything was 1850 Hard Core "GT Prep" though no one ever went to a gt (which amused me). It drove away a lot of the causal play for fun folks, so I went to the extreme. And bought my first of 3 titans.
Seen here

Spoiler:

This thing soon started making the trip with me to the store every week, and was my answer to Uber power spam. When the request for a friendly game was met with hate for suggesting such a thing or an "alright cool but here's my cheese anyway". A librarian two tactical Squads and "tiny" became my 1850, and people usually changed their tune. Some argued that it wasn't fair and was OP whom I just laughed at (not literally that would make me the fether), or they would change their list, or pack up.

Eventually the meta changed and fun was back in the forefront and soon after I started full fledged into HH.

Obviously an extreme example and not something everyone can do of course but that's how i handled it.

I hate to say this, but you turned into TFG. Not a bad TFG, but TFG non the less. This is the EXACT reason I believe that GW has so much imbalance in their games. It's an arms race and you fell right for it. Go out an buy the more powerful mini or army. Unless you were going to buy one anyways. So you became TFG in namely knowing nobody else can match. You did it to show them up. But I don't blame you at all. You only became TFG to those nerds and geeks who are not very nice people to play with and wouldn't do that to others so really you are not TFG but to the gaming group there, you did. I would have done the same thing if I had the money to do so. I actually like what you did. Oh and by the way BEAUTIFUL model. Great job there.

Still it's sad that people have to resort to this thing because nerds and geeks think they are jocks with plastic toy soldiers.

The game, as it stands, is monstrously broken in ways older editions could never hope to match, and, at least for my playgroup, has largely killed it. The best solution was trying to get some games in with older editions, but then the fight becomes *which* older edition.

40k in my area is nearly where Fantasy was pre-end times, so very nearly dead. The game is just too unmanageable, trying to be too many things, and doing nothing well while seemingly going out of its way to accomplish that. The guys that enjoy abusing the hell out of the rulesets are the only ones I really still see playing weekly anymore, and even that is only really at the largest game store in the state.

Come up with your own solo play rules.

Davor wrote:

 Chapter Master Angelos wrote:
I have had the same problem as the OP in that at one point the community was "buy to win play to crush" and it was starting to tear things up.
Everything was 1850 Hard Core "GT Prep" though no one ever went to a gt (which amused me). It drove away a lot of the causal play for fun folks, so I went to the extreme. And bought my first of 3 titans.
Seen here

Spoiler:

This thing soon started making the trip with me to the store every week, and was my answer to Uber power spam. When the request for a friendly game was met with hate for suggesting such a thing or an "alright cool but here's my cheese anyway". A librarian two tactical Squads and "tiny" became my 1850, and people usually changed their tune. Some argued that it wasn't fair and was OP whom I just laughed at (not literally that would make me the fether), or they would change their list, or pack up.

Eventually the meta changed and fun was back in the forefront and soon after I started full fledged into HH.

Obviously an extreme example and not something everyone can do of course but that's how i handled it.

I hate to say this, but you turned into TFG. Not a bad TFG, but TFG non the less. This is the EXACT reason I believe that GW has so much imbalance in their games. It's an arms race and you fell right for it. Go out an buy the more powerful mini or army. Unless you were going to buy one anyways. So you became TFG in namely knowing nobody else can match. You did it to show them up. But I don't blame you at all. You only became TFG to those nerds and geeks who are not very nice people to play with and wouldn't do that to others so really you are not TFG but to the gaming group there, you did. I would have done the same thing if I had the money to do so. I actually like what you did. Oh and by the way BEAUTIFUL model. Great job there.

Still it's sad that people have to resort to this thing because nerds and geeks think they are jocks with plastic toy soldiers.

I was not the TFG they needed I was the TFG they deserved!

That said the titan rarely ever actually saw a game, and now has its roost on my display table. What it did though was break the mindset that was severely poisoning the group. After a couple weeks of doing that, the meta turned back to more fun focused (we still do local tournaments but tournament play stays where it's belongs) and a bunch of old players came back and rounded up a few new ones.

So yes whilst I did play the arms race and won, it did what I wanted and calmed the situation in a great way.

You are refusing to play in an edition of 40k that promotes allies with allies, with a faction that needs allies. (I also play sisters)

The point being, there are plenty of fluffy armies that traditionally fit into the sisters mold that you could be using to perform better, but are choosing not to.

This does not sound like a FLGS issue, the Tau have riptides, get over it.

For example, so I'm not a negative nancy you could use:
Imperial Knights (Knights are not new, they were in EPIC as far back as sisters and they can be tailored to fit the whole religious theme easily.)

Inquisitors: Again, these could be tailored to be high priests or any number of roles that match what the sisters represent. The units as well are complete custom for your purposes.

Space Marines: With Forge World you have the Red Scorpions which are a more fanatical chapter that frequently assist the sisters.

Assassins: Same as the inquisition, lots of good fluffy options that are also really good in game at dealing with riptides.

 sfshilo wrote:

This does not sound like a FLGS issue, the Tau have riptides, get over it.

the issue didnt appear to be "Tau have Riptides", it was "people take absurd numbers of Riptides that X army can't be reasonably expected to deal with, and refuse to play if they don't get to spam Riptides".

Very different issues.

Tailessine wrote:
Come up with your own solo play rules.

I am trying that, but so far no takers. Nobody wants to make "house" rules to add more fun to the game. I wonder why people don't want to have more fun.

Try/attempt to start a group of like minded players. It has worked for me. I could always go to the stores or sign up for local tournaments to play the WAAC-jobs and the net lists of the week. But, that's not how I roll.

Hope your gaming situation improves.

Drop some grav cents on those riptides. Heck exorcists would be nice as well.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 sfshilo wrote:

This does not sound like a FLGS issue, the Tau have riptides, get over it.

the issue didnt appear to be "Tau have Riptides", it was "people take absurd numbers of Riptides that X army can't be reasonably expected to deal with, and refuse to play if they don't get to spam Riptides".

Very different issues.

This is the issue. I can accept a super heavy (ripetide, knight, etc...) SoB do have a few tricks to deal with them (mainly outflanking Dominions) But the Tau players at my LGS refuse to field less then 3 And the other armies always have 2+ super heavys.


@sfshilo, I do ally some, I have arbites that I use a SM scouts, but to ally in enough to be able to counter, I have less of my army then the ally.

 Byte wrote:


Drop some grav cents on those riptides. Heck exorcists would be nice as well.

The problem is range. Exorcists (I have 3) only have 48" range. I can;t get close enough to to shot before it gets kileld. Outflanking Melta Dominions with a MM Immolator works fine, but I'll only be able to get 1 down before they get wiped out

I find other hobbies. Comics, TV series, videogames, RPGs, a sport, going out with friends, movies...

40k is costly, very niche, quite complex and lengthy. Most people wouldn't be interested in it, so when a group dissolves, it's hard to find another. I'd say to fill your free time with other activities, but not forgetting to look out for other 40k groups.

 Salted Diamond wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 sfshilo wrote:

This does not sound like a FLGS issue, the Tau have riptides, get over it.

the issue didnt appear to be "Tau have Riptides", it was "people take absurd numbers of Riptides that X army can't be reasonably expected to deal with, and refuse to play if they don't get to spam Riptides".

Very different issues.

This is the issue. I can accept a super heavy (ripetide, knight, etc...) SoB do have a few tricks to deal with them (mainly outflanking Dominions) But the Tau players at my LGS refuse to field less then 3 And the other armies always have 2+ super heavys.


@sfshilo, I do ally some, I have arbites that I use a SM scouts, but to ally in enough to be able to counter, I have less of my army then the ally.

 Byte wrote:


Drop some grav cents on those riptides. Heck exorcists would be nice as well.

The problem is range. Exorcists (I have 3) only have 48" range. I can;t get close enough to to shot before it gets kileld. Outflanking Melta Dominions with a MM Immolator works fine, but I'll only be able to get 1 down before they get wiped out

How big are the tables you're playing on? A standard 6 foot by 4 foot table is still small enough that an Exorcist can fire from one long table edge to the opposite Going the other way still gives it the range to cover 2/3 of the table length if it's parked up against your own table edge.

. . . The Tau guys are insisting on playing with the short ends as deployment zones, aren't they. Against an army whose firepower is almost exclusively short-to-medium range.