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Regardless of your beliefs there's enough negative energy in the community ( reddit and facebook included ) that new players are really going to be put off. Continued floundering will only damage GW's future business and that's exactly what happened in 7th when the company faltered.

Let's look back at revenue --



GW has encountered unprecedented growth with the advent of 8th ( and specialist games ). People didn't run back, because of busted units and GW has a lot to lose in destroying that momentum.

Framed that way, those numbers look like a bubble that will pop naturally, regardless of how the company behaves.

Nothing really stands out for me from any of those years, they're just riding an abberant wave and will drop back down to around ~130 sooner or later.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Regardless of your beliefs there's enough negative energy in the community ( reddit and facebook included ) that new players are really going to be put off. Continued floundering will only damage GW's future business and that's exactly what happened in 7th when the company faltered.

I would rather new player be warned about how the game works before they invest 1000$ in to it and find out that it is something different, then what the advertisments say. And if this means they have to be told about the negatives too, then so be it.

Framed that way, those numbers look like a bubble that will pop naturally, regardless of how the company behaves.

Nothing really stands out for me from any of those years, they're just riding an abberant wave and will drop back down to around ~130 sooner or later.

If GW , and this ment as a joke or rather something I couldn't find in my english dictionary, based their sells policy on how the games looks now. Then it seems they finaly noticed that their core gamer, is no longer a 13-14 year old, but rather a 35+ dude with a much bigger income. And that customer is both willing and able to chase the meta much further then any teen new player could. Same with branching out in to other games or factions. Assuming the avarge player is not picking up GW games as a form of self flagglation, but to have fun. It could be resonable to exepect from GW to make those 35y olds buy more stuff, more often. And because GW games are old, they have a steady flow of fresh 30+ years olds, with good income, returning to the game to see how it is. Only while a 13y olds looking at the game can mean a squad or a patrol box, the better income older player starts with a lot more. Just because he can afford it, specially for new stuff that didn't exist 10 or 15 years ago.

Voss wrote:
Framed that way, those numbers look like a bubble that will pop naturally, regardless of how the company behaves.

Nothing really stands out for me from any of those years, they're just riding an abberant wave and will drop back down to around ~130 sooner or later.

You can absolutely see where 8th was released. If nothing stands out I would like to have some of what you're having.

Those 9 years prior? They were stagnant. If you account for inflation they were losing money. 110M in 2008 dollars is 134M in 2016 dollars, but they made 118M. Dropping down to 130M would absolutely destroy the company....considering their costs are now 218M.

The only aberrant wave is the COVID profits you see in the 2021 numbers.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karol wrote:

If GW , and this ment as a joke or rather something I couldn't find in my english dictionary, based their sells policy on how the games looks now. Then it seems they finaly noticed that their core gamer, is no longer a 13-14 year old, but rather a 35+ dude with a much bigger income. And that customer is both willing and able to chase the meta much further then any teen new player could. Same with branching out in to other games or factions. Assuming the avarge player is not picking up GW games as a form of self flagglation, but to have fun. It could be resonable to exepect from GW to make those 35y olds buy more stuff, more often. And because GW games are old, they have a steady flow of fresh 30+ years olds, with good income, returning to the game to see how it is. Only while a 13y olds looking at the game can mean a squad or a patrol box, the better income older player starts with a lot more. Just because he can afford it, specially for new stuff that didn't exist 10 or 15 years ago.

You mean the time in someone's life when they are most likely to have a family is the time when they have excess cash and time to chase meta? Good grief.

How old do you think Siegler is?

8th was more of the same edition churn (remind me, because I seriously don't remember- was it 17, 18, or 19? There are pretty hefty jumps in each of those years, and if its 'definitely' 8th edition, there shouldn't be). That's what I mean by nothing stands out- there's nothing in any of those years where GW was really doing something different or unusual.

You may think its the prime cause of a big jump, to me it was just business as usual, and there were likely other factors at play.

Hecaton wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
People saying it's just incompetence, that GW isn't purposefully power creeping their codices are wrong. There's randomness and incompetence, sure, but the power level of a codex is directly linked to how recently it was released.

Drukhari, Thousand Sons, Craftworld Eldar.

Just because there's some randomness in a dataset doesn't mean you can't pull out a trend.

So marines and necrons were unstoppable and Harlequins were trash at the beginning on 9th.

Black Templars...
Dark Angels...
Space Wolves...

Sisters, GK and GSC never broke the bank.

So I guess if your noise is like....half then maybe it's not noise.

Remember when people complained for five seconds about slow ass terminators with transhuman? Those were the days.

Since codexes started dropping for 9th, the most powerful codexes were typically the most recent. Obviously there are exceptions, the trend is not perfectly true, but it's there.

I seem to recall early 9th being dominated by harlequins and daemons for a fair while. Necrons were never "the most powerful" again, most of the books this edition fall into an OK range or power. It's only really drukhari, admech and the last three. That's 5 of 12 I think if you remove the supplements for marines.

Voss wrote:
That's what I mean by nothing stands out- there's nothing in any of those years where GW was really doing something different or unusual.

except for killing of Warhammer, starting with a Game that crashed and than make a 180° turn in community interaction by adapting the community made rules for AoS and releasing 8th 40k with a big hype
saying they did like usual just ignores how different GW was acting prior 8th and after

Dudeface wrote:
I seem to recall early 9th being dominated by harlequins and daemons for a fair while. Necrons were never "the most powerful" again, most of the books this edition fall into an OK range or power. It's only really drukhari, admech and the last three. That's 5 of 12 I think if you remove the supplements for marines.

Orks and GK had a lot of hype behind them as well, but with how many nerfs there have been it's kind of hard to say exactly what power level each codex has had. Thousand Sons, Sisters, GSC and the first 3 are the only ones that have had healthy releases and even Necrons got nerfed.

Let me present it differently.

+16 - Fifth
+1
-4
+8
+4 - Sixth
-12
-4 - Seventh
-1
+40
+62 - Eighth
+46
+14
+83 - Ninth

Note that their fiscal years end in May, so 9th launching in July 2020 puts the sales into Fiscal 2021. Same goes for the other editions.

WHC launched Nov 2016 and the products and initiatives there ( Magnus and company ) including the teasing of 8th show in the year prior to launch.

You can also see how poorly 6th did by comparison and how 7th just cemented the decline, which likely caused Kirby's retirement.

People very simply just want to be engaged with the lore and miniatures that they love. GW was pretty mum before WHC, so it will be interesting to see if the good will built from communicating will keep them from nose diving.

At this point it's pretty clear they're not going to do anything until the slate, which I suppose is the right thing to do as the more chaos you introduce to the system the worse it becomes. I just hope they can do something meaningful and that CSM and Knights don't start us all over again.

 vict0988 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
I seem to recall early 9th being dominated by harlequins and daemons for a fair while. Necrons were never "the most powerful" again, most of the books this edition fall into an OK range or power. It's only really drukhari, admech and the last three. That's 5 of 12 I think if you remove the supplements for marines.

Orks and GK had a lot of hype behind them as well, but with how many nerfs there have been it's kind of hard to say exactly what power level each codex has had. Thousand Sons, Sisters, GSC and the first 3 are the only ones that have had healthy releases and even Necrons got nerfed.

About GK and 1ksons one has to remember that they were kicked out of the release schedul. They were to come out in jan last year. Way before the whole DE, Ad Mecha, Orks etc wave. And back then 1ksons would have been considered strong and GK borderline OP, when comparing to stuff like necron, basic marines and DG.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:



You mean the time in someone's life when they are most likely to have a family is the time when they have excess cash and time to chase meta? Good grief.

How old do you think Siegler is?

Where I live the 30+year olds that play mobile games, table tops etc are almost all unmarried with loads cash to burn. They do stuff like blowing 2-3 avarge salaries , polish ones, on Lost Ark or buy a whole recast army in one go. As I said, I like to frame what I said with a specific english word, because I couldn't find one. And I do understand that stuff is skewed when 1000$ is not the same in all places around the world. To give a perspective of things. Recasting is really popular here, like so popular that some people that started it a long time ago have legit companies making models now. But even recast armies are too expensive for teens here. Specially when the choices are last years gaming tablet now, or a w40k army in 9-12+ months time.

Salt donkey wrote:
Raiders: sold less than venoms throughout their lifespan so GW needed to to unload inventory

Based on what data? GW sells 820,000 worth of Raiders in a month right now. How many exactly do you think they needed to sell?

intercessor started out with fine rules when they where new, got OP rules when GW needed to unload inventory

None of the busted Iron Hands lists were using marines. Intercessors were never OP. People just bitched about them endlessly compared to other things.

scout squads similar good than bad

Scouts were never good. They were simply the cheapest option to fill requirements.

vanguard vets same boat

VV never got nerfed and are still used regularly.

Reiver’s likely sold enough due to their design

Again - just absolutely making things up. I would love to have seen people play them, but damn near no one has. Ever with an Army of Reknown made for them.

nightbringer needed to be cleared out

https://spikeybits.com/2020/01/3-40k-lists-from-the-2020-lvo-championship-that-shaped-the-meta.html

40 Intercessors LVO2020 #1 list.

5+++ was busted.

 vict0988 wrote:
https://spikeybits.com/2020/01/3-40k-lists-from-the-2020-lvo-championship-that-shaped-the-meta.html

40 Intercessors LVO2020 #1 list.

Yea Richard Siegler went nuts by abusing D2 in a time when D2 was pretty good.

Venoms where the go to transport option for DE players from 5th-8th. You’d pretty much always see more venoms than raiders in any competitive list, and many used venom exclusively. So GW made raiders better than venoms to get these DE players to buy more/some raiders.

I’m sorry, but what does scouts being OP or not have to do with anything? Tons of people bought and played with them in 8th. That’s all GW cares about regardless of reason.

Vanguard vets weren’t good in 8th, they are good now.

Nightbringer is an old, hard to build model that hasn’t been good for a while (outshined by the deceiver prior to 9th). Plenty of reason for GW to want it use rules to sell him.

Reavers I’m least sure on, but they came in bundle and plenty of SM players have wanted buffs for them so it seems likely they at least sold a good amount. That said I’d bet money next SM iteration will see them get buffed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Regardless of your beliefs there's enough negative energy in the community ( reddit and facebook included ) that new players are really going to be put off. Continued floundering will only damage GW's future business and that's exactly what happened in 7th when the company faltered.

Let's look back at revenue --

Spoiler:

'08 -- 110M
'09 -- 126M
'10 -- 127M
'11 -- 123M
'12 -- 131M
'13 -- 135M
'14 -- 123M
'15 -- 119M
'16 -- 118M
'17 -- 158M
'18 -- 220M
'19 -- 256M
'20 -- 270M
'21 -- 353M

GW has encountered unprecedented growth with the advent of 8th ( and specialist games ). People didn't run back, because of busted units and GW has a lot to lose in destroying that momentum.

My argument is that these higher sales and game balance degradation are both coming from GW doubling down on using rules to sell models (which started with SM 2.0 IMO). We may want to believe that a better balanced game sell s more than a broken mess, but at least in the beginning this isn’t true. Until the heavily invested whales start quitting from frustration, GW won’t change anything. That said when this starts happening and GW’s sales start stagnating, we’ll see game balance become a priority. This is what happened from 7th to 8th and will likely happen from 9th to 10th, And the cycle will once again repeat itself.

Salt donkey wrote:
Venoms where the go to transport option for DE players from 5th-8th. You’d pretty much always see more venoms than raiders in any competitive list, and many used venom exclusively. So GW made raiders better than venoms to get these DE players to buy more/some raiders.

I’m sorry, but what does scouts being OP or not have to do with anything? Tons of people bought and played with them in 8th. That’s all GW cares about regardless of reason.

Vanguard vets weren’t good in 8th, they are good now.

Nightbringer is an old, hard to build model that hasn’t been good for a while (outshined by the deceiver prior to 9th). Plenty of reason for GW to want it use rules to sell him.

Reavers I’m least sure on, but they came in bundle and plenty of SM players have wanted buffs for them so it seems likely they at least sold a good amount. That said I’d bet money next SM iteration will see them get buffed.

If people were using Venoms in 8th it wasn't because they were good. It's because that's what they had, but given the souping situation there was barely any reason to consider DE transports at all.

You just said that Reanimators didn't need to be made good, because they were in a box set. What was in all those box sets with them? Why would they need to make Intercessors good if they were in a boxed set? Why are you then saying Reivers are the same as the Reanimator and not Intercessors? Reivers have been hit multiple times to try and make them good. They have their own AoR. Why wouldn't THAT have been a prime opportunity for GW to sell Reivers when marines are doing poorly?

VV didn't change. The mission set did. People transitioned from strong static shooting to shooting and mobility.

Scouts picked up Outflank and their sniper rifles got an extra AP. Why would GW give them those buffs in exchange for going to Elite? To throw us off their trail?

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Again - just absolutely making things up. I would love to have seen people play them, but damn near no one has. Ever with an Army of Reknown made for them.

The problem here is that AoR is trash.

 vict0988 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
I seem to recall early 9th being dominated by harlequins and daemons for a fair while. Necrons were never "the most powerful" again, most of the books this edition fall into an OK range or power. It's only really drukhari, admech and the last three. That's 5 of 12 I think if you remove the supplements for marines.

Orks and GK had a lot of hype behind them as well, but with how many nerfs there have been it's kind of hard to say exactly what power level each codex has had. Thousand Sons, Sisters, GSC and the first 3 are the only ones that have had healthy releases and even Necrons got nerfed.

If you lump the armies into categories, Marines, Necrons. Sisters, Ad Mech, Drukhari and Orkz, and then the recent shenanigans it starts to group a little easier. Basically Marines enjoyed a bit of OP time in the sun when going against Necrons, I'll gladly admit they weren't nearly as busted as they were in late 8th.

The second wave, Ad Mech and Drukhari just stood head and shoulders better than SoB and Orkz, but for some reason SoB and Orkz took more nerfs to the face than either Drukhari or Ad Mech...weird. And then the recent release....christ almighty. To put it bluntly, every single army needs to be buffed somewhat heavily in order to even stay on the table against Custards, Tau, Harlies, Eldar and the Nidz.

What a difference a month makes...I guess the answer to "What now?" was "Nine Voidreavers."

https://www.goonhammer.com/competitive-innovations-in-9th-down-with-the-clown/

Harlies are rocking close to an 80% win rate with mirror matches removed. So we can expect an emergency data-slate patch, or perhaps this is a feature and not a bug? Maybe Tyranids will crush them and establish their own >70% win rate? Its a great time to be alive!

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
What a difference a month makes...I guess the answer to "What now?" was "Nine Voidreavers."

https://www.goonhammer.com/competitive-innovations-in-9th-down-with-the-clown/

Harlies are rocking close to an 80% win rate with mirror matches removed. So we can expect an emergency data-slate patch, or perhaps this is a feature and not a bug? Maybe Tyranids will crush them and establish their own >70% win rate? Its a great time to be alive!

Without fusion spam or haywire Harlequins should be weak against monster.

 vict0988 wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
What a difference a month makes...I guess the answer to "What now?" was "Nine Voidreavers."

https://www.goonhammer.com/competitive-innovations-in-9th-down-with-the-clown/

Harlies are rocking close to an 80% win rate with mirror matches removed. So we can expect an emergency data-slate patch, or perhaps this is a feature and not a bug? Maybe Tyranids will crush them and establish their own >70% win rate? Its a great time to be alive!

Without fusion spam or haywire Harlequins should be weak against monster.

Except those 9 voidweavers come with a 3 shot str 12 D4 gun because reasons.

Harlequins will have no problem killing monsters.

There's not much point making the same complaint each day - but yes, I think GW have managed to kill "competitive 40k" for the foreseeable future. Just don't play harlequins at your store. (And possibly anyone seriously playing Custodes, Tau, Eldar, Tyranids...)

In practice I expect there will be an emergency FAQ on voidweavers in the next couple of weeks (possibly as soon as next Tuesday) because GW tends to step in when all the professionals are crying together. But they'll probably just push them up 10 points or something. Which will represent a slight nerf, but nowhere near taking them to a sensible point versus most stuff in the game. And Tau/Custodes will still eat anything further down the pecking order etc.

 vict0988 wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
What a difference a month makes...I guess the answer to "What now?" was "Nine Voidreavers."

https://www.goonhammer.com/competitive-innovations-in-9th-down-with-the-clown/

Harlies are rocking close to an 80% win rate with mirror matches removed. So we can expect an emergency data-slate patch, or perhaps this is a feature and not a bug? Maybe Tyranids will crush them and establish their own >70% win rate? Its a great time to be alive!

Without fusion spam or haywire Harlequins should be weak against monster.

You haven't seen the Prismatic Cannon profile, have you?

Slipspace wrote:
You haven't seen the Prismatic Cannon profile, have you?

No, I had assumed it was the haywire version that was good since haywire bikes were really good in 8th. It's good to know that if I see more than one prismatic cannon I shouldn't play. I don't really play right now anyway, I teach new players the game and that's pretty much all I'm good for at the moment. Playing against a git using the new Tau crushed my spirit a little bit.

To provide a little bit of devil's advocacy here... Harlequins have one long range weapons platform, the Voidweaver. It's been pants ever since it came out, and the Prismatic Cannon was always way weaker at basically everything when looking at comparable Eldar/Dark Eldar weaponry. I think it's reasonable that it has some teeth now... it's just entirely too cheap, and the ability to squadron should go away. 3 Voidweavers is a plenty. Up the points by... idk, 25? to start with, remove squadroning, and see where we are after that.

I don't think you need to up the points if you're removing squadroning, honestly.

 Rihgu wrote:
I don't think you need to up the points if you're removing squadroning, honestly.

They would still be the best thing in the game for 90 points. I'm not sure "but I can only bring 3" is good logic - even if the impact is obviously reduced over people bringing 6-9.
Its sort of up there "well I can only bring one Trajann".

So for example of proposed changes here:
https://www.goonhammer.com/boons-road-to-adepticon-want-to-know-how-i-got-these-scars/
Increase the cost of the base Troupe member by +2 points per model and grant them CORE
Increase the cost of the base Star/Voidweaver by +5 points per model
Increase the cost of the Prismatic Cannon by +10
Reduce the squad size cap on Voidweavers from 3 to 2
Alter the Luck of the Laughing God mechanic by limiting the application of Luck dice to one success per unit per phase (credit in part to John Lennon)
Change the Mirage Launcher (Sbtar/Voidweaver) ability to only effect shooting phase attacks
Alter the wording to of the Mirror Architect ability so that it only applies to abilities and shooting beyond 12” (credit to Richard Siegler, James ‘Wings’ Grover, and Liam ‘Corrode’ Royle)

Given how GW seem to end up doing a lot of what Goonhammer propose, I imagine they'll end up with something like this.

And to be fair all these chip away. But I'd guess they probably take Harlequins from "the best army in the game bar none" to "Tau, CWE, Custodes" sort of tier." I.E. maybe a 60-65% win rate on average, but in reality still utterly stomping everyone who isn't in the top echelon of factions.

I think the real problem I have with Goonhammer proposals is they always have this sort of weasel words: "First, it’s important to note that any changes to the faction shouldn’t kill them competitively – in an ideal world everyone sits in the A or B tier of factions and can build into other factions to maintain competitive games."

This is why DE dominated the game for the best part of a year. "Sure they shouldn't have a 65% win rate - but nerfing them past 60 is contrary to some divine right of broken codexes to stay broken". Its the logic that a few lucky codexes get the A Tier treatment and should be there forever more (until GW completely resets the scale as they have in the last few months.)

How about instead we have a "they should keep nerfing Harlequins (and Tau and Custodes and...) until they have a 50% win rate into DG and Sisters" metric?

because a voidweaver for 105 would be fine, but 90 is omgwtfbbq broken.

You can make voidweavers 120 points and they will still be the best thing since sliced bread.
I wouldn't even be surprised if the point cost should be closer to 150 before people would stop taking 9 of them.

Since 110-120 points is the cost of a twin las razorback (can't remember it exactly) and the best ork buggies cost 100-115 points I'd definitely up voidweavers to 120 points at least.

Oh and remove squadron too, or giving them the ork buggies solution, aka 0-1 limitation but with the chance of getting a squadron of 3 as single unit.

They'd still be great and lots of players would still max them out, but not game breaking.

 Blackie wrote:
Since 110-120 points is the cost of a twin las razorback (can't remember it exactly) and the best ork buggies cost 100-115 points I'd definitely up voidweavers to 120 points at least.

Oh and remove squadron too, or giving them the ork buggies solution, aka 0-1 limitation but with the chance of getting a squadron of 3 as single unit.

They'd still be great and lots of players would still max them out, but not game breaking.

leave squadrons, fix pts costs.

the codex options are already anemic, don't force people into the same build all the time.

(ork buggies shouldve been fixed with pts too, not that gakky patch rule)

Tyel wrote:
I think the real problem I have with Goonhammer proposals is they always have this sort of weasel words: "First, it’s important to note that any changes to the faction shouldn’t kill them competitively – in an ideal world everyone sits in the A or B tier of factions and can build into other factions to maintain competitive games."

This is why DE dominated the game for the best part of a year. "Sure they shouldn't have a 65% win rate - but nerfing them past 60 is contrary to some divine right of broken codexes to stay broken". Its the logic that a few lucky codexes get the A Tier treatment and should be there forever more (until GW completely resets the scale as they have in the last few months.)

Couldn't agree more. Too many delusional elf players writing for them that still can't admit how strong the Craftworlds half of the book is. They also really don't seem to get the concept of 40k players who only own one or two factions. It would have been miserable to own Imperial Guard and Death Guard for example, a brief moment of somewhat playable DG with a chance at tournaments after their codex came out until two months later DE come out. Then a steady decline for DG and a solid bottom of the barrel time for IG for the next 13 months.