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I haven't played 40k since 3rd and I was like 12 then so I probably didn't matter much anyway. But 8th got me back into it and I think it's great. There seem to be a ton of people on this site that are really pissed off for whatever reason but that hasn't stopped me from introducing this game to a ton of friends and coworkers and having a great time together. The local game stores are also all very active with 40k and I honestly haven't had this much fun following a gaming scene (tabletop or not) in years, both through official and non-official channels.

My only real complaint is how close combat sucks due to automatic, risk-free fall backs, but everything else in the game has been really smooth and streamlined compared to how I remembered it. And the fact that we see lots of different list types in a constantly shifting meta is a ton of fun. Love the constant stream of codexes and FAQs that help keep the meta from getting stale, even it's sometimes my favorite units getting nerfed (Tzeentch daemons )

Skaorn wrote:

 Formosa wrote:


But you know that’s not true Brian, until fairly recently, GW had no interaction at all, it was all one way, they stated X and we had to put up with it or move on, many did both.

GW had a forum for their games back up until a little while after the Black Crusade summer campaign where the Devs actually would interact with their player base from time to time. It was shutdown right after GW removed a nerf to Nid warriors that was panned by 40K players a large as unnecessary for them that GW put up in an FAQ. The interaction you enjoy now can always be taken away. Yes it would be a bad business decision, just like many people thought shutting down the forums was a bad business decision. It looks like the changes they made are working so far, but we won't be really sure until we see a longer term period of growth and continued interaction from GW. I still consider GWs involvement with their players to be less than it was, though.

I also think they used to have a letters section in WD, but I could be misremembering that from another magazine like Dragon.

I remember the forums back in the early 2000’s they were good, but shutting them down was a mistake and the systematic removal of themselves from any kind of feedback and gauging of public opinion caused issues amongst fans no doubt, people felt ignored and a lot of people left because of it, it’s decisions like that and the anti consumer policies that led people to think GW was circling the drain for a long time, suddenly they get a change in leadership, start marketing and communicating with the player base and they have a massive surge in both market presence and profits, it’s a good thing, and I agree, GW back then seemed to care about the game first, just look at the dev team and the freedom they had, later taken away and controlled by the “marketing” team, I believe it was Andy hoare who spoke about it fairly recently and how they purposefully put out stuff that broke the game just for profit.

And yep white dwarf used to have letters from players in it, kind of like it does now but it’s emails I assume these days.

It’s the presentation that makes it hyperbolic.

It’s claiming the game is unplayable when it isn’t that’s hyperbolic.

It’s the snark and salt and toxic attitudes that go with it (exemplified by the above two posts) that really don’t help.

I’m not a “GW troll” (what even). “They can be dismantled”??? Just really?

Pretty sad. There are tonnes of faults with every edition of 40K, this one is no different, and lots of things could be done differently/better. But everyone bitching at each other is pointless.

Maybe GW has been alienating "core fans" in designing/marketing the game to guys like me and my group? I dunno, the game seems awesome and they seem like they're on the right track with where they're headed.

It's not surprising to me that their financials are solid given the amount of "fun" I see people having around me.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
It’s the presentation that makes it hyperbolic.

Yes.

If you want to play a complicated soup with 3 different codexes and indexes that's on you.
If the only thing you want to get out of the hobby is winning a well attended GT that's on you.

Neither of these are required to play the game.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
It’s claiming the game is unplayable when it isn’t that’s hyperbolic.

Nobody in that thread claimed that. Please don't make straw man arguments.

It’s the snark and salt and toxic attitudes that go with it (exemplified by the above two posts) that really don’t help.

Funny, but all I see is people listing the required books to play 8th edition. The most trolling was from the pro-GW people saying things like "IGNORE THE TROLLS " because someone dared to mention the full list of required books instead of lying and saying "just buy a single codex".

But everyone bitching at each other is pointless.

Irony, thy name is JohnnyHell.

Maybe GW just doesn't care about long time fans any more and only cares about attracting new customers. That's pretty much the case with most games these days.

barboggo wrote:
Maybe GW just doesn't care about long time fans any more and only cares about attracting new customers. That's pretty much the case with most games these days.

That “appears” to have been the case for quite some time now.

 Formosa wrote:

barboggo wrote:
Maybe GW just doesn't care about long time fans any more and only cares about attracting new customers. That's pretty much the case with most games these days.

That “appears” to have been the case for quite some time now.

I don't think that's strictly true. It seems to me that 8th ed., and all the other changes he have implemented have brought back a lot of former players previously alienated by gw's earlier shenanigans, and bad faith. It's good to have them (us,I should say!) back.

And it seems that's they're welcome. Well, they're welcome so long as they're spending money. If they're standing in the corner with a ten or fifteen year old army and complaining/lashing out all the time about everything, and not spending anything, is It any wonder they're not welcome?

Same with the new guy who rocks up and doesn't buy in, downloads all the codices on torrents and get some everything second hand from eBay. Or else third party proxies.

It's not about whether you are an old or new fan. It's whether you are an old or new fan that is willing to part with your cash for what gw is offering.

Tyel wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
It’s the presentation that makes it hyperbolic.

Yes.

If you want to play a complicated soup with 3 different codexes and indexes that's on you.
If the only thing you want to get out of the hobby is winning a well attended GT that's on you.

Neither of these are required to play the game.

Amen. I’ll ignore Peregrine; his posts are rarely varied in content.

I am very much a fan of 8th edition. It got me back into the game. Much simpler, while keeping the CORE ideas of the game there. Obviously it, like all games, could use some improvements. But they seem much more invested in doing so.

Also, completely discounting the huge sales boon and the opinions of thousands of buyers who you all don't think as important is arrogant and silly. While finances, popularity and quality are not completely the same, they are certainly both correlated and causative. Rather than dismiss all these successes outright for unclear reasons and personal vendettas, wouldn't the Occam's razor assumption be that

1) 8th is at least somewhat better.
2) There is a rise in popularity.
3) GW finances reflect this.

The hatred on this board is absurd.

I couldn't agree more.

I'm a casual WH40K player who's come back to the hobby with the release of 8th edition. I'm also putting together an SM army. In short I'm probably quite representative of the sort of customers who are financing GW's current success.

If you read through many of the threads on here though I'm playing a broken and imbalanced game with a bottom-tier faction.

GW sell a hobby, so when things aren't right people who are invested in that hobby are rightly critical and resent having to choose between putting up with it or giving up. The game clearly isn't perfect in terms of balance and rules, and the resulting FAQ bloat is an issue, but there are plenty of people who really enjoy WH40K 8th edition, and that's reflected in GW's current financial success.

 Brother Castor wrote:
I couldn't agree more.
I'm a casual WH40K player who's come back to the hobby with the release of 8th edition. I'm also putting together an SM army. In short I'm probably quite representative of the sort of customers who are financing GW's current success.

If you read through many of the threads on here though I'm playing a broken and imbalanced game with a bottom-tier faction.

I was speaking to a mate of mine recently. Got to know him through playing warmachine/hordes. We both turned to WMH after turning our backs on 40k, for various reasons. Though we were both big fans of WMH, he recently sold his grymkin army, and I've sold one of my three WMH armies, and will soon sell one of the remaining ones (I'm keeping my Khador, because patriotism). And we are both buying back into 40k. For me, it's death guard and primaris dark angels.

Thing is, we are both somewhat older - early thirties. Our outlook on gaming has changed over the years. Speaking about getting back into 40k, we were both very excited about it, and more so than we'd been in years. thing is, we both understand part of the responsibility of enjoying your hobby is on us. To play the games we enjoy. He'd been a tournament and thought it was ridiculous - he turned up with a 'regular' marine company, and ended up facing gulliman with 6 storm ravens or something. Needless to say, some of what you can pull out of the hat with regards to tournament play are utterly crazy and frankly, ridiculous. But rather than throw his hands up in the air and lash out, what he said was he simply won't go to tournaments. He's not interested in that scene, or that kind of play, so just won't engage with it. I'm in the same boat. Your bottom tier faction is in all probability perfectly playable in the right circumstances with the right people who share your outlook. Who cares what anyone else does.

Good luck!

Hm, but that would require for people both new and returning to be sure that at least like 15-20 people per store never want to have or don't have a tournament list. I mean I guess it is possible in the UK where the area is small and the number of stores is huge, but it would be harder to pull of in places where there is one store and one community, and you can't just decided your not going to play "those" people, as they maybe the only people that play locally.

I have a question about people who play much longer then me. What does GW do when it earns more money, games wise of course. Do they like start making some sort of mini factions, hire playtesters etc or do they tighten the belt awaiting another slump in the market?

barboggo wrote:

My only real complaint is how close combat sucks due to automatic, risk-free fall backs

To be fair, while the fall back move itself is 'risk free' it rarely puts the unit out of risk. Most falling back units can't do anything else that turn, so you have completely negated them for a turn by having gotten them in to melee. Furthermore, as a fall back is only the distance of your base movement, most units that have fallen back can be automatically re-engaged in your next turn, so they haven't actually escaped at all! Sure, they get to overwatch you again, but that in itself isn't a problem. It's pretty much the only chance of a non-melee unit beating you 1v1 in this circumstance and the odds are stacked against them due to overwatch only hitting on 6s.

The problem for melee armies isn't that the target unit can get away as such, it's that in doing so it exposes your unit to fire from the rest of their army. So if a mechanic were to be changed to more favour melee focused armies, I'd probably look there to do it instead. Perhaps shooting a unit you fell back from this turn would be at -1 to hit for instance, to represent needing to take a moment to ensure friendlies were out of your fire arcs before opening fire.

Tyel wrote:
Yes.

If you want to play a complicated soup with 3 different codexes and indexes that's on you.
If the only thing you want to get out of the hobby is winning a well attended GT that's on you.

Neither of these are required to play the game.

The OP in that thread specifically mentioned wanting to get back into competitive play. It is not hyperbole to state what is required for competitive play in 8th edition, even if people feel uncomfortable with the fact that soup is mandatory.

 Peregrine wrote:

Tyel wrote:
Yes.

If you want to play a complicated soup with 3 different codexes and indexes that's on you.
If the only thing you want to get out of the hobby is winning a well attended GT that's on you.

Neither of these are required to play the game.

The OP in that thread specifically mentioned wanting to get back into competitive play. It is not hyperbole to state what is required for competitive play in 8th edition, even if people feel uncomfortable with the fact that soup is mandatory.

Soup isnt mandatory, in fact its rare to see a proper soup list in tournies over here, not everyone plays like the yanks, even at tournies.

 Formosa wrote:
Soup isnt mandatory, in fact its rare to see a proper soup list in tournies over here, not everyone plays like the yanks, even at tournies.

What do you mean by "proper soup"? Are you saying that people in the UK don't mix codices, and only because they have found that single-codex lists are better at winning? Or is this one of those weird self-imposed rules where UK players feel obligated to take weaker lists and are unwilling to use soup?

Also, the OP in that thread is in the US.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Soup isnt mandatory, in fact its rare to see a proper soup list in tournies over here, not everyone plays like the yanks, even at tournies.

What do you mean by "proper soup"? Are you saying that people in the UK don't mix codices, and only because they have found that single-codex lists are better at winning? Or is this one of those weird self-imposed rules where UK players feel obligated to take weaker lists and are unwilling to use soup?

Also, the OP in that thread is in the US.

I am saying that the majority of tournies I have been to and seen, Soup spam is rare, what works in a meta in one place doesnt translate to other places or are actively shunned, I have played in tournies in Aus for example where the kind of lists popular in the states would get you DQ'd for not playing in a sportsmanlike way, they are very anti power gamer down there (not all)

And you call them weaker lists, but thats a meta thing, you assume there is some all destructive spam list that a lesser soup list or stand alone army cannot deal with, which is wrong.

But I know you Peregrine, you only deal in absolutes, so here is one for you, NOT EVERYONE IN THE WORLD PLAYS THE SAME WAY from what I see on Dakka and other sites, the Yanks play a VERY different Meta to the Brits, which play differently to the meta of the Aussies, germans etc.

Well yes, if a joke of a tournament is going to DQ people for bringing a well designed list that's going to produce a different meta. But the OP is in the US and doesn't have to deal with that nonsense.

 Peregrine wrote:
Well yes, if a joke of a tournament is going to DQ people for bringing a well designed list that's going to produce a different meta. But the OP is in the US and doesn't have to deal with that nonsense.

That’s kind of my point really dude, you call it well designed, another person could say it lacks imagination and is spammy, you call it nonsense and another person could easily say the same about your thoughts, you don’t get to go to someone’s else’s house and dictate how they should do things, it’s all about perspective.

So it’s only correct to say your advice only applies to your specific meta.

Except that PEregine is talking about building a list to win games.

Now, in your FLGS, it's fine to focus on other aspects. But at a tournament, where the goal is to win... It's really kinda silly to DQ someone for bringing a list designed to win.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Except that PEregine is talking about building a list to win games.

Now, in your FLGS, it's fine to focus on other aspects. But at a tournament, where the goal is to win... It's really kinda silly to DQ someone for bringing a list designed to win.

The lists were designed to win, the culture is anti power game, the culture dictated the lists, yank culture is WAAC, so that’s fine within the context of thier culture, the Aussies (of the time, not sure these days) didn’t want games with spam or WAAC lists.

The U.K. seems to be a half way between yank WAAC culture and Aussies CAAC culture.

Can you call a tournament where there are arbitrary and, more importantly, UNSPOKEN limitations on what counts as cheese and therefore worthy of a DQ a good tournament?

Now, if in Australia you have a strict list of what is and is not okay, and they just build within the lists, that's fine. It's a different meta, but it's a clear set of tournament rules to follow. But if it's just "Oh, you brought all good units and no bad units? WAAC scum, you're disqualified!" that's not a very good tournament.

 Formosa wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Well yes, if a joke of a tournament is going to DQ people for bringing a well designed list that's going to produce a different meta. But the OP is in the US and doesn't have to deal with that nonsense.

That’s kind of my point really dude, you call it well designed, another person could say it lacks imagination and is spammy, you call it nonsense and another person could easily say the same about your thoughts, you don’t get to go to someone’s else’s house and dictate how they should do things, it’s all about perspective.

So it’s only correct to say your advice only applies to your specific meta.

I don't care about subjective opinions like "spammy". All that matters in competitive play is winning. If an event DQs people for bringing lists that are too good then it isn't competitive. And it isn't relevant to the OP.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Well yes, if a joke of a tournament is going to DQ people for bringing a well designed list that's going to produce a different meta. But the OP is in the US and doesn't have to deal with that nonsense.

That’s kind of my point really dude, you call it well designed, another person could say it lacks imagination and is spammy, you call it nonsense and another person could easily say the same about your thoughts, you don’t get to go to someone’s else’s house and dictate how they should do things, it’s all about perspective.

So it’s only correct to say your advice only applies to your specific meta.

I don't care about subjective opinions like "spammy". All that matters in competitive play is winning. If an event DQs people for bringing lists that are too good then it isn't competitive. And it isn't relevant to the OP.

And that attitude exactly demonstrates what I’m talking about, you cannot fathom that there are other ways of playing, your way is not the only way.

 Formosa wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Well yes, if a joke of a tournament is going to DQ people for bringing a well designed list that's going to produce a different meta. But the OP is in the US and doesn't have to deal with that nonsense.

That’s kind of my point really dude, you call it well designed, another person could say it lacks imagination and is spammy, you call it nonsense and another person could easily say the same about your thoughts, you don’t get to go to someone’s else’s house and dictate how they should do things, it’s all about perspective.

So it’s only correct to say your advice only applies to your specific meta.

I don't care about subjective opinions like "spammy". All that matters in competitive play is winning. If an event DQs people for bringing lists that are too good then it isn't competitive. And it isn't relevant to the OP.

And that attitude exactly demonstrates what I’m talking about, you cannot fathom that there are other ways of playing, your way is not the only way.

JFC, the context of this is a U.S. competitive player asking for advice on playing competitively. It isn't "my" way of playing, it's what they asked for advice on. But apparently the BEER AND PRETZELS crowd doesn't like honest discussion of competitive play making 8th look bad, so they have to label it "hyperbole" and complain about not discussing some joke of a tournament where people get DQed for playing strong lists.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Well yes, if a joke of a tournament is going to DQ people for bringing a well designed list that's going to produce a different meta. But the OP is in the US and doesn't have to deal with that nonsense.

That’s kind of my point really dude, you call it well designed, another person could say it lacks imagination and is spammy, you call it nonsense and another person could easily say the same about your thoughts, you don’t get to go to someone’s else’s house and dictate how they should do things, it’s all about perspective.

So it’s only correct to say your advice only applies to your specific meta.

I don't care about subjective opinions like "spammy". All that matters in competitive play is winning. If an event DQs people for bringing lists that are too good then it isn't competitive. And it isn't relevant to the OP.

And that attitude exactly demonstrates what I’m talking about, you cannot fathom that there are other ways of playing, your way is not the only way.

JFC, the context of this is a U.S. competitive player asking for advice on playing competitively. It isn't "my" way of playing, it's what they asked for advice on. But apparently the BEER AND PRETZELS crowd doesn't like honest discussion of competitive play making 8th look bad, so they have to label it "hyperbole" and complain about not discussing some joke of a tournament where people get DQed for playing strong lists.

Your still not getting it, YOU are the joke to them because you seem incapable of understanding that not everywhere is the same, you have stated that soup is mandatory to win, I have pointed out that it’s not the case everywhere, in fact I’m pretty sure that some of the bigger tournies in the states had top table mono lists, as in single faction, wasn’t the winner of the LVO a mono Tyranid tyrant spam list, so no soup?

Speaking about that player, if he wants to play competitive it would be more relevant to know if he is gonna play on ITC events or no. Thats what makes the USA meta so different, no WAAC mentalities or whatever. ITC is played in USA, ETC in Europe and UK and Australia mostly play Fullhammer, thats why in europe you see FW banned everywhere, sadly.

Stux wrote:

barboggo wrote:

My only real complaint is how close combat sucks due to automatic, risk-free fall backs

The problem for melee armies isn't that the target unit can get away as such, it's that in doing so it exposes your unit to fire from the rest of their army.

Oh yeah absolutely. I should have been more specific but this is kinda more what I meant. Falling back is almost always the correct option since 99% of the time the assault unit is dead from being in rapid fire range of the the rest of the army. Tying up and chasing down units in CC still seems to work sometimes with tanky vehicles and transports but you're right, the main issue is assault infantry just gets shredded after their target falls back. I don't mind that being a thing in 40k SOMETIMES, but as it stands, if your assault infantry unit fails to wipe their target and consolidate into a bunch of the other nearby units, you have a very high chance of losing more than you gained from that assault.

But even accounting for and playing around this bit of weirdness in 40k, I still find the rest of the game pretty fun and tactically engaging. Venoms/serpents at Leman Russes is great, dropping nurglings/kraken rippers into dreadnought gunlines is annoying as hell in the fluffiest way, etc. In general I dig it. It helps that I'm also just not very good at the game yet so there is a lot to learn and improve on. It's very "real" content and value for relative newcomers like me.

That nerf bat hits way too hard sometimes though. I don't mind 6++ brims but let me keep my -1 to hit changeling at least!