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To make it brief, at the start of 8th my group of friends (both new and returning players) all bought into the game. Fast forward twoish years and almost all of them either have quit the game entirely or are down to play maybe four to five times a year. At this point ive met people to get games with, but none are what id consider a close friend like the others. Has anyone else experienced this? I find it frustrating that I bought into such an expensive game only for my friends to drop it. If I wasnt outgoing and actively seeked opponents in the city, I would be stranded.

That's pretty normal for any hobby though.

What helped me and my friends was fixed once-a-month event where everyone who wants to play can show up. Some are there every time, some come only once every few months.

Maybe switch it up Warhammer-wise to get people's interest back into the Grimdark? Could try Kill team, board games, or RPGs.

Yet this is the exact reason why when people keep saying why does 40k always win, because when people do drop it after starting it with 40k you have a chance of finding other people to play with, if your dropping back to trying to find randoms to play some of the less common games you'd probably have jacked it in already instead of having not friends to play with instead.

Pretty normal. I've been around for a while and have been through probably a half dozen groups over the span of twenty years.

The average life span of a typical 40k/aos/whfb gw player is a little under three years. In my experience anyway.

We have tried other games within Warhammer (Killteam, AoS, etc.) And im the only one who likes AoS, and only three of our eight person get togethers enjoyed killteam. Either way, I was just curious if this was common, and it apparently is!

Pretty normal. 8th has stalled in our group - not that people aren't playing occasionally, but the excitement and buzz is gone (pretty standard in a wargame that cycles).

Yeah, it happens. I've seen a lot of game groups be born and die, and it takes a continuous expenditure of effort to keep people interested. Even our club which is comparatively huge at like 30+ fairly active members would have died if not for a fairly continuous influx of new faces.

Haha, I'm probably one of those guys! I inherited a bunch of models, and bought a bunch more; I love the hobby aspect.

But then I played it. Oof. Not my cup of tea. But I love the figures - I'm currently building a unit of 'rough riders' (on motorbikes), but don't ever plan to play again.

I do play Kings of War, KoW Vanguard, Saga, and a few other skirmish games. I sure wish there were better sci fi options, though (or more players who would be into trying other sci fi games, I guess)

Good luck and hope you find some good games!

 vaklor4 wrote:
To make it brief, at the start of 8th my group of friends (both new and returning players) all bought into the game. Fast forward twoish years and almost all of them either have quit the game entirely or are down to play maybe four to five times a year. At this point ive met people to get games with, but none are what id consider a close friend like the others. Has anyone else experienced this? I find it frustrating that I bought into such an expensive game only for my friends to drop it. If I wasnt outgoing and actively seeked opponents in the city, I would be stranded.

14,000 points in an army over two and a half years? That seems awfully high... then again, I have no room to talk at all.

To be fair, at least 40% of my collection has been birthday and christmas gifts, and the other 60% has mostly been either used or boxed sets. Its been very rare ive bought anything at MSRP.

 vaklor4 wrote:
To be fair, at least 40% of my collection has been birthday and christmas gifts, and the other 60% has mostly been either used or boxed sets. Its been very rare ive bought anything at MSRP.

That is the correct way to buy into 40k. Ebay wins.

This happens. Don't blame your friends for wanting to pursue other interests. Everyone needs to find the hobby they enjoy the most, and just because they're your good friends doesn't mean they want the same hobby as you. It also doesn't mean that they're no longer your good friends.

Try to find some other common ground with your good friends and, meanwhile, get to know some of the guys you're now playing 40k with. If you don't want to be friends with any of them either, then it's time to go out and recruit some new players into the hobby!

I started miniatures wargaming with Dust Warfare. I was pretty lucky that there was an active group that were pretty passionate about it. Once I got up to speed we were all pretty much the same skill level. When Dust transferred from FFG to Battlefront the group lost a couple of players. I don't know if it was due to the hand off or other reasons. However, the main group still existed. At least until the Kickstarter and partnership between Dust and Battlefront really imploded and Dust 1947 came out. The interest really wasn't there anymore. The group was trying out a few other games, and they seemed to land on Warmachine. I, on the other hand, was moving more toward Bolt Action as I didn't have any interest in the steampunk aesthetics nor the hardcore gameplay of Warmachine. So I left that group and never talked with any of them again.

It kinda saddened me and wasn't my intention to lose complete contact with them. It happened none the less. I basically switched gaming stores to one that was playing Bolt Action and played that for a while. It wasn't quite the same as that group was a lot more fractured. It seemed that group was basically 40k tournament players that had got completely fed up with 7th and looking for something to fill the void. The store was a bit of a drive and playing largely against tournament practice armies in Bolt Action lost is luster very quickly so I left that group. I strongly suspect it has completely disappeared with advent of 8th anyways.

Now, I am playing 40k simply due to me not wanting to put effort even in driving a good distance to game anymore. The groups playing 40k that I have encountered playing full 40k seem far more distant (kinda like playing an online video game) than any other group I have encountered. I have found the Kill Team players a little friendlier, but that could be mostly due to a larger percentage of them being new players over all as well as a smaller group overall. With my interest coming back to fielding a full army, I do plan on seeing what the full 40k night is like again. I won't have a full 2000 points of my Primaris/Scout army ready so I don't expect to get in a game, but if I can managed to get a 1000 point refresher game that would be great.

I see miniatures wargaming works pretty much like tabletop RPGs (or board gaming for that matter) when it comes to groups. They are, or at least can be, okay with strangers. Occasionally, friendships occur from constant gaming (but not always) the same people and those are best games. Even then, they are usually fleeting as things constantly change. Such as life.

I've been on both sides of this. Back in 5th I really started getting back into the swing of the hobby after sitting out most of 4th due to my group collapsing. The guys I played 5th with were great to game with - laid back, similar attitude to the game as me, and we were young and single and had nothing but time on our hands! Gradually people started dropping out. One because of financial reasons, another because they weren't happy with their choice in army and couldn't commit to starting over again, and the last few dwindled as our group stagnated. The closest gaming store was an hour and a half away so ducking out for a quick game at the FLGS wasn't an option. Sadly everyone bar myself stopped gaming, but I am still friends with one or two of them.

After that I found a new group in 6th (or rather conned a couple of my mates into joining the hobby) and things were pretty good for a while. We played well into mid-7th before a similar thing happened. Only 2 of us remained, but by now there were a few stores that were more local to us and more nearby tournaments and events so we hit up the tourney scene for a while. I think Saturmon described it best by saying it was like playing an online game - for the most part there wasn't a whole lot of interaction between players and people were a bit more removed from the social aspect of the game. I was always around the bottom tables, so it wasn't as pronounced for me. I find bottom-table players are generally more relaxed and just there to roll dice, have fun and field cool units. My friend was a lot more competitive and there are endless stories about his encounters with WAAC players and rules lawyers (he's not entirely innocent of this mind you).

Nowadays I'm the "four games a year" guy. I'm now married, have a child with number 2 on the way, have a new job where I work from home (which actually has me gaming less, but painting more), and a lot of family-oriented stuff going on. I'm still in touch with my 7th ed friend, he's still my main opponent, but we game a lot less often than we used to. In fact the most gaming I've done this year was when he came over while I was working and we played Star Wars Legion on-and-off all day.

I love 40k, but time constraints (and my inability to pull all-nighters these days) mean that it's just really hard to fit in 3-5 hours for a game.

@OP:

This happened to most hobbyists at a certain stage. I´ll just call it life. You have a couple of choices now:

A) Find new dudes to game with. Though be aware that these new guys are only acquaintances and not close friends.

B) Limit your hobby on painting, collecting and terrain building.

C) Quit 40K and do something new such as for example fishing, cliff diving or scuba diving.

This happened to me from time to time (bearing in mind I have been playing 40K since 1st edition ). I took a bit of a break during Uni (end of 2nd edition) but came back into the game at the outbreak of 3rd.

I really lost the buzz during 7th edition when Formation bonuses reached their broken maximum and switched almost entirely to X-wing. Then 8th edition came out and GW started advancing the fluff which had happened for over 15 years and it got my 40K juices flowing again.

What I have learned is not fight the ebb and flow. Hobbies are meant to be fun and if someone stops enjoying it, maybe it is time to let it rest for 6 months and come back to it when something new catches your attention.

I have had lots of 40K buddies over the years. Many of them are still my friends, even if we no longer play. They have moved on for one reason or another. I have decent local gaming club which means I can usually find a fun opponent to scratch my 40K itch when I want to.

Try looking for local clubs in your area. If you are used to playing against friends it can feel weird at first to play against a relative stranger but there is nothing like sharing a common interest to help spark a friendship and some of the people are met via the local club are now friends too.

Well, our gaming group is larger than ever and everybody is playing 40k, some Infinity, and just a few AoS or Boltaction.
WMH is dead and gone. Boardgames like BB are not played at all.
It appears that atm nobody is excited about the new Apo.

Ive had the opposite. Everyone has drifted entirely away from 40k. Excitement is building for apoc.

Over the years, I've had this happen maybe 10 times. People move, go to school, get a new job, find a girlfriend, new edition comes out and their army now sucks, just take on responsibilities that take away their hobby time. It's the way of the world.

To play the game, you have to constantly meet people. I put in time at the FLGS before and after games just looking at other people's armies and watching games so I get a chance to know them. On the one hand, I learn a lot, on the other hand, it leads to a lot of pick up games.

Eventually you meet others who are in the same boat, you start to talk on email, you start to organize your own games, and a 'new' group comes together. Just try to be the person other people want to play with. Have a great looking army, express interest, talk to them about other parts of their life.