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ccs wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Actually, that definition nails it.

Casual is not caring enough to invest a lot into 40k as a game.

BS.
Casual games are ones where there's nothing on the line. Doesn't matter how much time/$/years/book shelves full of crap you've got.
Fun will be had. And within the context f that single game? Sure we'll certainly try to win with whatever we've brought. But tomorrow it won't matter one way or another if I won the game the night before. We'll come back in a few days or so and play some more.

Non-casual games have something at stake. Bragging rights, world domination in your current escalation league, internet fame & glory, prizes....Even just validation as a player in Karol's case.
And the more valuable the prize? The further away from casual it becomes. In fact, it becomes..... work.
Fun here, while preferred, is optional. Especially if the payout is enough.

Love this.

 Gert wrote:
[spoiler]
Hell no. I'm a casual player but holy have I invested heavily into 40k to the point where I am now on my second rounds of "oh God I need to sell some of this I never use it".

To be fair, he's not wrong. Investing in the game in terms of 'having lots of stuff' is not necessarily the same as investing in your game in terms of the effort you put into trying to win (ie meta chasing, list building for advantage etc) on the table top.

There's many aspects of this game/hobby. You can be casual or serious about some, all, most or none of them. Or any variation in between.

Its like what was said earlier - casual has a whole load of different definitions, depending on who.you speak to.

Catulle wrote:
"I know I put no effort into the marriage, but it totally blindsided me when she walked out one day"

I get the meaning of your analogy, and I don't disagree that players should feel empowered to put a bit of themselves into the hobby to make it more enjoyable, but...
1) Corporations aren't people.
2) Corporations aren't people.
3) GW is selling rules at a premium price. It is not even remotely unreasonable to expect that houseruling be an optional undertaking (and that houseruling be purely a matter of preference instead of a necessary effort to make a given army playable).
4) Buying a product from a corporation (reminder: not a person) is not comparable to an intimate interpersonal relationship.
5) Even if this is an issue of the players expecting too much of GW, that's still on GW's head for not properly communicating that the ruleset is incomplete and must be modified. If I'm selling take'n'bake pizza, I don't advertise as "ready to eat".

Now, if you're talking about the hobby in general, that's another thing. I still don't think it's a great analogy since what everyone wants from the hobby is different. I wouldn't call someone who doesn't want to get into modding Skyrim "not a fan" or "not a gamer", nor would I insist that they must get into modding to fix it if Bethesda released a bugged patch or a nonfunctional perk; why would I say the same about a fellow hobbyist?

 Jidmah wrote:
Most people defining casual in such a way are just looking for a way to vilify people that enjoy playing in a different way than oneself and are often referred to as CAAC.

This three-thousand. Clearly, I've misread.

The main issue I see in this discussion is the crusade of the self-proclaimed 'casual' players 'offended' by people who have different idea as to what 'casual' means.

Evidently, the word means different things to people. On one end of the spectrum, 'casual' means "a friendly game, without regards to whether you win or not, because it's the fact that you played a game of 40k together with friends/real people, and that's what makes 40k, 40k ('40k is a social, not a competition')." On the other end of the spectrum, calling 40k 'casual' in itself is an oxymoron - by virtue of the hobby itself requiring considerable time & money expenditure, the game by nature cannot possibly be anything remotely resembling 'casual'. To them it's like saying 'rectangular circle' - it simply doesn't exist.

1+2) Yes, corporations aren't people. What's your point here?
3) GW is not selling rules at a premium price. For just a quick comparison, the 40k Core Book is £40 and barring certain products *cough*30k*cough*, the rules are FAQ'd regularly and most glaring problems are resolved. The Bolt Action 2nd Rulebook is £30 and is now nearly a decade old. A GW Codex on average is £25, however, all of the new ones have been £30 (SM supplements excluded) and at least with 6th/7th/8th all the army books were updated to fit the new ruleset. A Bolt Action Army Book is £20, however, these books are not constantly updated i.e. the USA Army Book is from 1st Edition, and important rules have changed since then. Of course, the most important thing to remember is the difference in scale between GW and Warlord Games. GW produces all of its own content in-house with only its own IP (Middle Earth excluded) whereas Warlord works with multiple companies such as Perry Miniatures and Osprey Publishing to produce its products.
As for houseruling, it's entirely subjective and to many people isn't necessary to play the game.
4) Yes, buying things is not the same as an intimate relationship. The guy is doing a metaphor, not a simile.
5) The ruleset is complete (excluding Codex releases) but it's not GW's job to come in and tell you how to balance a player group.

 Gert wrote:

Spoiler:

 waefre_1 wrote:

I get the meaning of your analogy, and I don't disagree that players should feel empowered to put a bit of themselves into the hobby to make it more enjoyable, but...
1) Corporations aren't people.
2) Corporations aren't people.
3) GW is selling rules at a premium price. It is not even remotely unreasonable to expect that houseruling be an optional undertaking (and that houseruling be purely a matter of preference instead of a necessary effort to make a given army playable).
4) Buying a product from a corporation (reminder: not a person) is not comparable to an intimate interpersonal relationship.
5) Even if this is an issue of the players expecting too much of GW, that's still on GW's head for not properly communicating that the ruleset is incomplete and must be modified. If I'm selling take'n'bake pizza, I don't advertise as "ready to eat".

Now, if you're talking about the hobby in general, that's another thing. I still don't think it's a great analogy since what everyone wants from the hobby is different. I wouldn't call someone who doesn't want to get into modding Skyrim "not a fan" or "not a gamer", nor would I insist that they must get into modding to fix it if Bethesda released a bugged patch or a nonfunctional perk; why would I say the same about a fellow hobbyist?

1+2) Yes, corporations aren't people. What's your point here?
3) GW is not selling rules at a premium price. For just a quick comparison, the 40k Core Book is £40 and barring certain products *cough*30k*cough*, the rules are FAQ'd regularly and most glaring problems are resolved. The Bolt Action 2nd Rulebook is £30 and is now nearly a decade old. A GW Codex on average is £25, however, all of the new ones have been £30 (SM supplements excluded) and at least with 6th/7th/8th all the army books were updated to fit the new ruleset. A Bolt Action Army Book is £20, however, these books are not constantly updated i.e. the USA Army Book is from 1st Edition, and important rules have changed since then. Of course, the most important thing to remember is the difference in scale between GW and Warlord Games. GW produces all of its own content in-house with only its own IP (Middle Earth excluded) whereas Warlord works with multiple companies such as Perry Miniatures and Osprey Publishing to produce its products.
As for houseruling, it's entirely subjective and to many people isn't necessary to play the game.
4) Yes, buying things is not the same as an intimate relationship. The guy is doing a metaphor, not a simile.
5) The ruleset is complete (excluding Codex releases) but it's not GW's job to come in and tell you how to balance a player group.

If I realistically wanted to play Dark Angles right now that would be $65 dollars for the main rules, $50 for the space marine codex, and $30 for the Dark Angels supplement.

That's $145 dollars for rulebooks that are ALL arguably required to play the game. If that's not a premium I don't know what is.

 Sledgehammer wrote:

 Gert wrote:

Spoiler:

 waefre_1 wrote:

I get the meaning of your analogy, and I don't disagree that players should feel empowered to put a bit of themselves into the hobby to make it more enjoyable, but...
1) Corporations aren't people.
2) Corporations aren't people.
3) GW is selling rules at a premium price. It is not even remotely unreasonable to expect that houseruling be an optional undertaking (and that houseruling be purely a matter of preference instead of a necessary effort to make a given army playable).
4) Buying a product from a corporation (reminder: not a person) is not comparable to an intimate interpersonal relationship.
5) Even if this is an issue of the players expecting too much of GW, that's still on GW's head for not properly communicating that the ruleset is incomplete and must be modified. If I'm selling take'n'bake pizza, I don't advertise as "ready to eat".

Now, if you're talking about the hobby in general, that's another thing. I still don't think it's a great analogy since what everyone wants from the hobby is different. I wouldn't call someone who doesn't want to get into modding Skyrim "not a fan" or "not a gamer", nor would I insist that they must get into modding to fix it if Bethesda released a bugged patch or a nonfunctional perk; why would I say the same about a fellow hobbyist?

1+2) Yes, corporations aren't people. What's your point here?
3) GW is not selling rules at a premium price. For just a quick comparison, the 40k Core Book is £40 and barring certain products *cough*30k*cough*, the rules are FAQ'd regularly and most glaring problems are resolved. The Bolt Action 2nd Rulebook is £30 and is now nearly a decade old. A GW Codex on average is £25, however, all of the new ones have been £30 (SM supplements excluded) and at least with 6th/7th/8th all the army books were updated to fit the new ruleset. A Bolt Action Army Book is £20, however, these books are not constantly updated i.e. the USA Army Book is from 1st Edition, and important rules have changed since then. Of course, the most important thing to remember is the difference in scale between GW and Warlord Games. GW produces all of its own content in-house with only its own IP (Middle Earth excluded) whereas Warlord works with multiple companies such as Perry Miniatures and Osprey Publishing to produce its products.
As for houseruling, it's entirely subjective and to many people isn't necessary to play the game.
4) Yes, buying things is not the same as an intimate relationship. The guy is doing a metaphor, not a simile.
5) The ruleset is complete (excluding Codex releases) but it's not GW's job to come in and tell you how to balance a player group.

If I realistically wanted to play Dark Angles right now that would be $65 dollars for the main rules, $50 for the space marine codex, and $30 for the Dark Angels supplement.

That's $145 dollars for rulebooks that are ALL arguably required to play the game. If that's not a premium I don't know what is.

And how much does an XBOX cost? a playstation? a PC? What about all the games? controllers? accessories? Are we paying a 'premium' in order to then buy games and play with them?

Did you know that a single elite controller for xbox cost $199?? Talk about premium.

What about boardgames? Most of CMON's games are +$90.

I don't understand all these complaints about a game costing money. Everything in life should come free, am I right?

Rulebooks = console
Models = games
Other people's rulebook that I don't own = some other console that you do not own
Other people's models from an army whose rulebook I don't own = games exclusive to the console that you do not own

So if we go for starting a Dark Angels army you could go for the Command Edition box set which gives you two Patrol size armies, the Core Book, a game board (up to you if that's worth it), and terrain for £105. You now need the SM Codex which is £30 to use exclusively the models in the box. You can opt to buy the supplement for a further £17.50 but it is not required.
So for a maximum of £147.50, you now have a playable army with core rules, a codex, and extra rules for your Dark Angels plus a Necron force. That's not including the fact all of this can be bought from a third party for a potentially lower price. Add on £85 for the Combat Patrol and you now have a "regular" size army for under £250.
Is it expensive? Yes. Are there easy ways to make the hobby cheaper? Also yes.

yes, but you don't have to paint your consol for multiple hours. And if a game is not making you happy, you can spend 60$ or less, depending if you want legal or not, and get a game that is fun. That is the main difference between w40k and some other games. You can easily play infinity with 200$ investment. With w40k you get the books you need for that. And the worse thing is that people keep telling you about those mythical 500pts games, and play with just a SC or patrolbox, when in reality you maybe get 2-3 games like that, and later everyone expects you to get a normal sized army to play normal games.

That is a huge difference. Plus if you got a PC, you can use it for other stuff too. Unless you really like to paint, there isn't much else to do with a bunch of models.

Also why the hell would you buy a 199$ controler when you can buy one from China for a lot less?

If you don't want to paint your models then don't. You lose 10pts in a game, whoop de do. But at the same time, you've chosen a hobby that includes painting as a fairly major part of the experience. People keep trotting up Infinity and AFAIK it's a different beast entirely, more akin to Kill Team or Warcry than 40k or AoS. The miniatures are all metal and monopose which for me is a major turn away. There are much fewer factions to choose from and they are all Human-based. The Xenos factions might need a bit of love model wise but at least I have a choice of not playing a Human faction. So if we're going into price on a fairer scale, an Infinity starter set costs roughly £80 and you get about 10 monopose metal miniatures plus a rulebook that costs about £60. For Kill Team you need the Core Book for £25 and for most factions one box of Troops which we'll say average at £30. So to buy into Infinity, I need to spend £140 but Kill Team is only roughly £55.

Another major part of the 40k hobby is the social aspect, which you have said you struggle with Karol. There is literally nothing GW can do to make people behave differently so blaming the lack of a non-competitive local environment on them isn't fair.

And why would you paint your console? Painting is part of the game, like how terraforming is completely unrelated to the gameplay of ACNH, and yet its a vital part of "winning" the game (lily of the valley spawns).

And yes, just like how you say you can buy knockoffs, you can easily scour the internet for all of your rulebooks and buy recasts.

Money is only an issue if you make it to be. It's not in any way related to the 'casuality' of the game?

 skchsan wrote:

 Sledgehammer wrote:

 Gert wrote:

Spoiler:

 waefre_1 wrote:

I get the meaning of your analogy, and I don't disagree that players should feel empowered to put a bit of themselves into the hobby to make it more enjoyable, but...
1) Corporations aren't people.
2) Corporations aren't people.
3) GW is selling rules at a premium price. It is not even remotely unreasonable to expect that houseruling be an optional undertaking (and that houseruling be purely a matter of preference instead of a necessary effort to make a given army playable).
4) Buying a product from a corporation (reminder: not a person) is not comparable to an intimate interpersonal relationship.
5) Even if this is an issue of the players expecting too much of GW, that's still on GW's head for not properly communicating that the ruleset is incomplete and must be modified. If I'm selling take'n'bake pizza, I don't advertise as "ready to eat".

Now, if you're talking about the hobby in general, that's another thing. I still don't think it's a great analogy since what everyone wants from the hobby is different. I wouldn't call someone who doesn't want to get into modding Skyrim "not a fan" or "not a gamer", nor would I insist that they must get into modding to fix it if Bethesda released a bugged patch or a nonfunctional perk; why would I say the same about a fellow hobbyist?

1+2) Yes, corporations aren't people. What's your point here?
3) GW is not selling rules at a premium price. For just a quick comparison, the 40k Core Book is £40 and barring certain products *cough*30k*cough*, the rules are FAQ'd regularly and most glaring problems are resolved. The Bolt Action 2nd Rulebook is £30 and is now nearly a decade old. A GW Codex on average is £25, however, all of the new ones have been £30 (SM supplements excluded) and at least with 6th/7th/8th all the army books were updated to fit the new ruleset. A Bolt Action Army Book is £20, however, these books are not constantly updated i.e. the USA Army Book is from 1st Edition, and important rules have changed since then. Of course, the most important thing to remember is the difference in scale between GW and Warlord Games. GW produces all of its own content in-house with only its own IP (Middle Earth excluded) whereas Warlord works with multiple companies such as Perry Miniatures and Osprey Publishing to produce its products.
As for houseruling, it's entirely subjective and to many people isn't necessary to play the game.
4) Yes, buying things is not the same as an intimate relationship. The guy is doing a metaphor, not a simile.
5) The ruleset is complete (excluding Codex releases) but it's not GW's job to come in and tell you how to balance a player group.

If I realistically wanted to play Dark Angles right now that would be $65 dollars for the main rules, $50 for the space marine codex, and $30 for the Dark Angels supplement.

That's $145 dollars for rulebooks that are ALL arguably required to play the game. If that's not a premium I don't know what is.

And how much does an XBOX cost? a playstation? a PC? What about all the games? controllers? accessories? Are we paying a 'premium' in order to then buy games and play with them?

Did you know that a single elite controller for xbox cost $199?? Talk about premium.

What about boardgames? Most of CMON's games are +$90.

I don't understand all these complaints about a game costing money. Everything in life should come free, am I right?

Rulebooks = console
Models = games
Other people's rulebook that I don't own = some other console that you do not own
Other people's models from an army whose rulebook I don't own = games exclusive to the console that you do not own

if you have to compare a SINGLE miniatures game to a console that allows for a wide range of different games and play experiences and does not have the same 2-3 year rule set obselence ( consoles are more like 6-7 years now), then you're acknowledging that the game is indeed a premium.

If you're ok with the price that's fine, but it is a premium.

You can get an Xbox or Playstation, pay for online, and then just pay for their version of the game pass and get thousands of dollars worth of games to play without much extra investment. If you need an extra controller that's a cost, but for single-player gaming, you don't need that unless you break the one your console came with. You also don't need an elite controller, the regular ones are just fine.

 Sledgehammer wrote:
if you have to compare a SINGLE miniatures game to a console that allows for a wide range of different games and play experiences and does not have the same 2-3 year rule set obselence ( consoles are more like 6-7 years now), then you're acknowledging that the game is indeed a premium.

If you're ok with the price that's fine, but it is a premium.

No, it just means its a life choice difference.

I could really care less for consols that update every other year. I don't want to pay $500+ EVERY OTHER YEAR, or wait until the previous model goes on sale for christmas/black friday when the hype for that system is dwindling, or I'm buying it for a timeless classic (like how many people bought switch just to play SSBU).

I started this hobby with measly weekly allowance of $20 per week to cover lunch for the week (with each lunch costing $4-$9/day). I was able to afford my first full 2k tau army over the course of the year by not eating lunch and saving up. I could have bought more games for my N64/PS, but I spent it on 40k. This was a life choice, not something I did on a whim because I was filthy rich.

Not everyone holds the same value as you, and I dont mind spending $100 of my disposable income once in a while on figurines. To each to their own, and everyone's cup of tea.

FYI, console releases has been every 4-6 years. PS4 was delayed (outlier).

Sledge, if you can provide me with a miniatures game the ticks the exact same boxes as 40k (various multipart plastic kits, large selection of faction choice, good value starter sets, game sizes that range from skirmish to mass battles) with a lower buy-in price, I will concede the point.

 Canadian 5th wrote:
You can get an Xbox or Playstation, pay for online, and then just pay for their version of the game pass and get thousands of dollars worth of games to play without much extra investment. If you need an extra controller that's a cost, but for single-player gaming, you don't need that unless you break the one your console came with. You also don't need an elite controller, the regular ones are just fine.

Yeah and doing that is pretty much gimping yourself with a value army strictly composed of second-hands (remastered games from previous console versions) and start collecting/battleforce boxes (premium games with expiration for access).

 skchsan wrote:

 Sledgehammer wrote:

 Gert wrote:

Spoiler:

 waefre_1 wrote:

I get the meaning of your analogy, and I don't disagree that players should feel empowered to put a bit of themselves into the hobby to make it more enjoyable, but...
1) Corporations aren't people.
2) Corporations aren't people.
3) GW is selling rules at a premium price. It is not even remotely unreasonable to expect that houseruling be an optional undertaking (and that houseruling be purely a matter of preference instead of a necessary effort to make a given army playable).
4) Buying a product from a corporation (reminder: not a person) is not comparable to an intimate interpersonal relationship.
5) Even if this is an issue of the players expecting too much of GW, that's still on GW's head for not properly communicating that the ruleset is incomplete and must be modified. If I'm selling take'n'bake pizza, I don't advertise as "ready to eat".

Now, if you're talking about the hobby in general, that's another thing. I still don't think it's a great analogy since what everyone wants from the hobby is different. I wouldn't call someone who doesn't want to get into modding Skyrim "not a fan" or "not a gamer", nor would I insist that they must get into modding to fix it if Bethesda released a bugged patch or a nonfunctional perk; why would I say the same about a fellow hobbyist?

1+2) Yes, corporations aren't people. What's your point here?
3) GW is not selling rules at a premium price. For just a quick comparison, the 40k Core Book is £40 and barring certain products *cough*30k*cough*, the rules are FAQ'd regularly and most glaring problems are resolved. The Bolt Action 2nd Rulebook is £30 and is now nearly a decade old. A GW Codex on average is £25, however, all of the new ones have been £30 (SM supplements excluded) and at least with 6th/7th/8th all the army books were updated to fit the new ruleset. A Bolt Action Army Book is £20, however, these books are not constantly updated i.e. the USA Army Book is from 1st Edition, and important rules have changed since then. Of course, the most important thing to remember is the difference in scale between GW and Warlord Games. GW produces all of its own content in-house with only its own IP (Middle Earth excluded) whereas Warlord works with multiple companies such as Perry Miniatures and Osprey Publishing to produce its products.
As for houseruling, it's entirely subjective and to many people isn't necessary to play the game.
4) Yes, buying things is not the same as an intimate relationship. The guy is doing a metaphor, not a simile.
5) The ruleset is complete (excluding Codex releases) but it's not GW's job to come in and tell you how to balance a player group.

If I realistically wanted to play Dark Angles right now that would be $65 dollars for the main rules, $50 for the space marine codex, and $30 for the Dark Angels supplement.

That's $145 dollars for rulebooks that are ALL arguably required to play the game. If that's not a premium I don't know what is.

And how much does an XBOX cost? a playstation? a PC? What about all the games? controllers? accessories? Are we paying a 'premium' in order to then buy games and play with them?

And how much does it cost when the games get their balance and glitch fixes instead of you programming the game yourself to fix?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
And how much does it cost when the games get their balance and glitch fixes instead of you programming the game yourself to fix?

Would you contend that FAQ's are not free?

And of you actually had the knowledge to rewrite/edit a game at its code level, would you contend that they weren't doing it just because they CAN and not because they needed to because they didn't have the money to pay for the update amd they NEEDED to play the game?

 Gert wrote:
Sledge, if you can provide me with a miniatures game the ticks the exact same boxes as 40k (various multipart plastic kits, large selection of faction choice, good value starter sets, game sizes that range from skirmish to mass battles) with a lower buy-in price, I will concede the point.

The sheer amount of choice that historicals offer for a much lower price point is ludicrous. Just about any setting or historical period of your choice has a multitude of rules, kits, factions and the ability to scale the scope of your engagements across different systems. Many of the rule-sets are free too! One could argue that this isn't a good counter point to 40k because these are all being offered by different companies, but I'd argue it's precisely that point that makes it a good comparison.

No one company has a monopoly over a historical setting or period. Historical companies do not have the same kind of control over their own IP, nor can they utilize the exclusivity of their IP to their advantage. The free market has by way of the lack of IP protection in historicals, driven prices down. Victrix and Perry miniatures are both companies that offer high quality multi part plastic miniatures. If you want anything more detailed than they are, you're starting to talk about premium quality, and thus premium costs.

If someone just wants to play a wargame they can play a historical for FAR less than GW. Now if you like the 40k setting, or the sense of a unified offical ruleset for your miniatures, you're going to pay a premium for it with 40k.


I could go out buy one box of victrix anglo danes and get



Then i could go download Ravenfeast from little wars for free.



You're absolutely paying premium prices, and that's OK. Value is subjective and 40k offers things that historicals do not.

I disagree. Premium is what you pay for a cup of beer at stadiums for $21.

What you are paying for when you buy GW product is brand equity.

We're going to have to disagree over Historicals.
I like them, they let me beat the Nazis or stop Alexander the Great from making his empire.
But the fact that no company has exclusive rights to any of their product designs makes it an unfair comparison IMO.
GW pays people to come up with original content (mileage may vary when it comes to artistic influences) and has to protect anything it produces. Warlord doesn't have to worry about IP defense expenses for the vast majority of its products or have to invest in artists/writers as heavily as GW to produce content. All they have to do is go to Wikipedia or pick up a history book and copy-paste it.
It's hardly a fair comparison when one side can basically monetise someone else's work for little to no cost

 skchsan wrote:
I disagree. Premium is what you pay for a cup of beer at stadiums for $21.

What you are paying for when you buy GW product is brand equity.

In a way, yes, it's not just a game, it's an ecosystem designed to fit together, just like apple products. With that being said, I do think GW's codex prices (or more accuratly how they design the game intentionally around you buying three of them) are inherently prohibitive to more casual play.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gert wrote:
We're going to have to disagree over Historicals.
I like them, they let me beat the Nazis or stop Alexander the Great from making his empire.
But the fact that no company has exclusive rights to any of their product designs makes it an unfair comparison IMO.
GW pays people to come up with original content (mileage may vary when it comes to artistic influences) and has to protect anything it produces. Warlord doesn't have to worry about IP defense expenses for the vast majority of its products or have to invest in artists/writers as heavily as GW to produce content. All they have to do is go to Wikipedia or pick up a history book and copy-paste it.
It's hardly a fair comparison when one side can basically monetise someone else's work for little to no cost

Well that's exactly my point, you pay a premium for that. If you're just going to pick up a historical those prices aren't a factor, thus the lower price. At that point the customer makes a decision whether they're willing to pay for that premium or not, but it IS a premium.

If nobody is producing something in the same market vein as 40k i.e. a SciFi wargame that has a large game size range, with its own model line that is entirely the producer's own IP, then how are the 40k rules a premium?
The "Hail Caeser" rules could be considered a premium because there are other free versions of Historical wargames available that do the same as it, as you have given an example of.

NGL this is actually a very interesting discussion.

 Gert wrote:
If nobody is producing something in the same market vein as 40k i.e. a SciFi wargame that has a large game size range, with its own model line that is entirely the producer's own IP, then how are the 40k rules a premium?
The "Hail Caeser" rules could be considered a premium because there are other free versions of Historical wargames available that do the same as it, as you have given an example of.

Yes, you'd be paying premium prices for a perceivably (i mean, you're buying it right?) better system than the presumably free game system you were playing.


As for you're first point, you're looking for a niche within a niche, within a niche, and as you increase you're specifications you're going to inevitably find fewer and fewer competitors, which will naturally increase prices. 40K fills your said prerequisites in the market SO WELL, that it has essentially beaten any and all competitors from competing in that super specific marketplace, and yes again, that increases prices.


If i want a a gun that, fulfills a specific purpose, and there haven't been any real competitors due to how good / innovate the product is, it's going to get expensive and I'm going to pay a premium for it. Look at the FN 5.7 that thing fulfills a specific purpose, is a quality product, uses it's own ammunition and is expensive as hell. If you want an alternative to that specific gun, you're pretty much stuck with the ruger. There just isn't enough interest in this very specific portion of the fire arms industry to allow for a multitude of firearms that fit this specific mission profile. Of course the company that offers the best solution is going to charge a premium for that, but that doesn't mean that the industry as a whole doesn't have other offering that fulfill different and much broader mission profiles for much, much cheaper (the ar-15 being a patent-less example and the stand in for historicals here).

I guess it does fully come down to what you want from 40k. As just a wargame, I think it fails on the price aspect. As a long-term hobby, I would say it passes since it offers a wargame, the hobby aspect, RPGs, novels, and video games that can all be connected and discussed as a single general topic.

 Gert wrote:
I guess it does fully come down to what you want from 40k. As just a wargame, I think it fails on the price aspect. As a long-term hobby, I would say it passes since it offers a wargame, the hobby aspect, RPGs, novels, and video games that can all be connected and discussed as a single general topic.

precisely it does fail in the price aspect for just a wargame, but that's not REALLY what they're offering. If you listen GW they will call it "the hobby", this is because 40k is more of an eco system that they're trying to sell you on rather than just a game. It's a way to justify the premiuim prices. Now IMO the game isn't of premium quality, but the lore and the models are. You as the consumer dictate what is worth your money and what isn't.

The game is just simply not good enough to justify the emotional or financial effort to try and form my own personal social contract around.

There are 2 types of general philosophies in approach to 40k;

Type Z: Those that can only envision something when they've been told what to do. Anything other than official is to be actively avoided and vocally shunned.
Type X: Those that can take something and work their own storytelling into it irrespective of official-ness. Actively seeking out changes to better their experience and will cooperate to achieve it.

They are fundamentally differing in the outcomes which are expected by the respective types of players.

Racerguy180 wrote:
There are 2 types of general philosophies in approach to 40k;

Type Z: Those that can only envision something when they've been told what to do. Anything other than official is to be actively avoided and vocally shunned.
Type X: Those that can take something and work their own storytelling into it irrespective of official-ness. Actively seeking out changes to better their experience and will cooperate to achieve it.

They are fundamentally differing in the outcomes which are expected by the respective types of players.

That seems both reductive and insulting.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:
There are 2 types of general philosophies in approach to 40k;

Type Z: Those that can only envision something when they've been told what to do. Anything other than official is to be actively avoided and vocally shunned.
Type X: Those that can take something and work their own storytelling into it irrespective of official-ness. Actively seeking out changes to better their experience and will cooperate to achieve it.

They are fundamentally differing in the outcomes which are expected by the respective types of players.

That seems both reductive and insulting.

That's just how 'casual' rolls, I guess.
It all comes down to everyone else doing BadWrongFun in the end.

At least in internet arguments. Most people who just play don't worry about it.

 Gert wrote:
People keep trotting up Infinity and AFAIK it's a different beast entirely, more akin to Kill Team or Warcry than 40k or AoS. The miniatures are all metal and monopose which for me is a major turn away. There are much fewer factions to choose from and they are all Human-based. The Xenos factions might need a bit of love model wise but at least I have a choice of not playing a Human faction. So if we're going into price on a fairer scale, an Infinity starter set costs roughly £80 and you get about 10 monopose metal miniatures plus a rulebook that costs about £60. For Kill Team you need the Core Book for £25 and for most factions one box of Troops which we'll say average at £30. So to buy into Infinity, I need to spend £140 but Kill Team is only roughly £55.

To be fair, Infinity rules are free on the website, along with a free army builder.

Besides that, GW is working overtime to give us plastic monopose anyway.