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It really feels like it is 40k as a game that has died down in activity here.

Yeah, it's weird. I'm playing more frequently than I was in 9th. The games themselves go smoothly and are fine. I'm just kind of missing that spark of excitement.

The free wargear thing might be a factor? And the switch to enhancements. Like, we can't really go back and forth discussing the merits of cheap wargear options vs expensive ones. We can't really speculate/complain about how well different relics/traits work on different characters. We can't really debate whether sticking character X in unorthodox unit Y makes them good in a given role (because you can no longer put character X with unit Y).

I'm not sure if there's a ton of room for discussion of tactics or list building either. Like, you need to kill more vehicles? Try taking more vehicle-killing units. You're having trouble scoring secondaries? Have you tried running one of your approved action monkey units?

10th is fine, just... Quiet. And kind of limited atm. Not sure how much codexes will change that. I like what they've done with the 'nid and marine books, but things are kind of spelled out for us. If you want to run the sneaky things, here is the detachment for that. If you want to run the big things, here is the detachment for that. Here are 6 strats that do about what you'd expect. You can have a fair bit of discussion about the nitty-gritty for how to pilot a certain type of army build, but that's mostly going to be conversation between people playing the same army.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Yeah, it's weird. I'm playing more frequently than I was in 9th. The games themselves go smoothly and are fine. I'm just kind of missing that spark of excitement.

You make 10th sound like a bland-but-reliable lager

10th also killed the Rules Subforum. Seems GW actually managed a rules set that doesn’t leave much room for misinterpretation.

 Canadian 5th wrote:
10th Edition may not have killed 40k but it does seem to have killed Dakka. I've never seen the site this dead.

Discords have been bleeding Dakka of users for the past few years.

Also, the rampant negativity (justified or otherwise) makes this an unappealing place for new arrivals to talk about the thing they like.

 Haighus wrote:
...
There has been a lot of interest in Oldhammer threads to the point the mods have noted and mooted adding a dedicated subforum. I don't think that is coincidence. ...

What do you mean that the mods "mooted adding a dedicated subforum" for Oldhammer?

Maybe because 1st through 7th Editions are still mainline 40k and belong in this subforum, which currently isn't too crowded for it!
I guess it's also the case that HH 2.0 sort of rebooted that generation of the game and homebrew editions typically live in the Proposed Rules room.

I also agree that 10th isn't very discussion-worthy despite being decent to play, and we've pretty much said all that can be said about it here.

After taking a break through 9th edition, my Tyranid brother and Ultramarine friend are looking to get back into 40k for some basement games. Our Ork friend sadly moved away and sold his Stompa-lead army, but I've got two other old friends who might join us. They have no interest in models though, just the game, so we'll be making armies of paper minis for them.

Lastly, I just bought the 40k Apocalypse box and I'm sure after a few games I'll be looking into replacing its faction datasheets by adapting proper codices to it. The only problem I foresee is needing to replace its blast markers with tokens that account for both AP and Damage, so when the time comes I'll come here for help with a homebrew.

 alextroy wrote:
10th also killed the Rules Subforum. Seems GW actually managed a rules set that doesn’t leave much room for misinterpretation.

It’s definitely less open to the deliberate misreading tediousness and stapling together nonsense some of the regulars special in.

dewd11 wrote:
Dakka is the opposite of my FLGS reality. My store has never been more popular. I never used to have trouble finding a table but now every night is full of old and new players playing 10th or KT. With the new codices dropping soon, it's the beginning of a bright 2024 here!

This.
At the local shop we have 42! People in our just started escalation league.
Everyone from people who started in the days of RT to brand new players who bought thier 1st kits last week. Old armies are being dusted off, new forces are being built....
That's 21 games being played per week & a good # of those players play more than 1 game/week - just for fun.
And there's even more people playing 40k at the shop that aren't part of this league.
That rivals the explosion we saw in 2020 once things re-opened from being shutdown thanks to Covid.

40k is not the only miniatures game actively played either.

The #1 complaint at the shop about the game/GW (other than prices)?
Product availability.
Beyond that? Everyone seems to be having a pretty good time.

 Haighus wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Yeah, it's weird. I'm playing more frequently than I was in 9th. The games themselves go smoothly and are fine. I'm just kind of missing that spark of excitement.

You make 10th sound like a bland-but-reliable lager

That's not far off. It doesn't have some of the unique flavor I liked in their older beverages, but it also isn't putting me off like some of their old batches sometimes did. I don't get excited about the thought of sitting down to drink it, but when I do sit down to drink it, it's pretty good.

In my case, I'm only interested in 2nd ed., and so threads about that are the ones I support, along with background.

Over the year I've been back here, I've noticed an ebb and flow. I myself have been posting less because of the holidays (and preparations for them).

 kingpbjames wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
...
There has been a lot of interest in Oldhammer threads to the point the mods have noted and mooted adding a dedicated subforum. I don't think that is coincidence. ...

What do you mean that the mods "mooted adding a dedicated subforum" for Oldhammer?

Maybe because 1st through 7th Editions are still mainline 40k and belong in this subforum, which currently isn't too crowded for it!
I guess it's also the case that HH 2.0 sort of rebooted that generation of the game and homebrew editions typically live in the Proposed Rules room.

I mean exactly what I wrote:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/812162.page#11610893

The mods have considered adding a new subforum dedicated to legacy 40k/oldhammer.

I don't think this is a 40k thing or a 10th edition thing. 40k as a game seems bigger than it ever has been.

It's a forum thing. It's a very ancient form of communication about the hobby. Heck we've been using it for more than 20 years now.

I'm here for the first time in two years, why? I honestly forgot it existed. We have facebook, instagram, discord and they'¨re all a quick way of seeing miniatures or hobbyprojects in general. We now have tons of podcasts to listen to about our hobby as well.

I really like forums, but I'm an old man at 35 and I remember forums being THE best place. But it sort of feels like we're all hanging out at Blockbusters because we like talking and renting movies, whilst the kids are on their netflix, hbo and whatnot.

Maybe we just need to face the fact that we're old?

 Haighus wrote:
I mean exactly what I wrote:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/812162.page#11610893

The mods have considered adding a new subforum dedicated to legacy 40k/oldhammer.

I like that older edition 40k threads appear alongside current editions. I probably would rarely ever click on just new edition stuff, but seeing the two is nice because sometimes I see something that's "current" but interests me.

One big mistakes of Warseer was that they over-segmented the site, which really crippled efforts to revive the site. When people see dead area after dead area, they move on. I note that we still see a trickle of new people, which is a good thing, and if they came here to argue about 10th ed. and then find themselves slipping into a freshly updated Oldhammer one above it, so much the better.

@Haighus, I meant I didn't understand the use of "moot". I assumed that meant they considered and turned down the idea.

@Flogger, agreed, I'm 32 and just throw rocks at FB, IG, and Discord. And Reddit.
I should probably try harder with Discord though.

@Commissar von Toussaint, fair point, but I've definitely seen this forum busy and had to keep a tab saved so it wouldn't get lost.

Also, don't forget the Kill Team players. At the moment they post in the Specialist Games section, which tends to get overlooked.

I don't really have much to add a lot of the time because I don't actively play anymore. I still feel quite bitter about how GW gutted 40k to make the bland mess that was 8th and everything since then has been lacking almost all of the gameplay elements that I enjoyed before. GW continues to be rather bad at understanding how to make complex game design so they continue to make basic and bland rulesets. Somehow they seemed to have made an edition that even the people who liked newhammer are mixed on.

So I continue to feel that dull longing to play the game I loved but it's basically impossible to find people who play older editions. Local game store feels less active for pick up games and doesn't even have a dedicated Warhammer game day anymore.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
We're at the start of the cycle.

Pray you get your Codex sooner rather than later.

That's what made me take a peek back in. I figured the Ad Mecha and Necron books would get people talking and it's still crickets. This far into 9th there was much more activity, even if it was just outrage about something being busted or a faction being terrible.

I don't think Ad Mech or Necrons are "popular" armies in that I don't think a lot of people play them. Ad Mech is still relatively new, and Necrons have gone through a fairly chaotic roller coaster ride through their history that turned some people off.

Breton wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
We're at the start of the cycle.

Pray you get your Codex sooner rather than later.

That's what made me take a peek back in. I figured the Ad Mecha and Necron books would get people talking and it's still crickets. This far into 9th there was much more activity, even if it was just outrage about something being busted or a faction being terrible.

I don't think Ad Mech or Necrons are "popular" armies in that I don't think a lot of people play them. Ad Mech is still relatively new, and Necrons have gone through a fairly chaotic roller coaster ride through their history that turned some people off.

On the other hand there wasn't that much discussion about the SM Codex as well so I don’t think popularity of a faction is the driving factor. We had big threads about how broken Jeansdealers and Admech were when their codex released in 9th.
I'm also not sure "forums are just old" is that important, there was a lot of traffic here when 10th released, and forums were old in 8th already Btw Facebook at this point is old and mostly empty too, it's basically used for Hobby groups only (and trading I guess). It isn't helped by the fact that you get 20 ads for every post that's actually relevant.

 kingpbjames wrote:
@Haighus, I meant I didn't understand the use of "moot". I assumed that meant they considered and turned down the idea.

Ah! Poor moot, it has been assassinated as a word for reasons I do not know. I meant it in its older meaning of "discussion" or "meeting" rather than the way it sometimes gets used today as "closed to further discussion". Think the Entmoot from Lord of the Rings.

So mooted means considered or raised for discussion basically.

I think we're mostly older guys who don't play as much or miss older editions. I know I am! I'm mooching around Dakka but don't have much to say about 10e because I'm not gonna play it. I'm doing my own thing.

I'm pretty sure 10e is fine though, just not really my cup of tea for various mostly non-gameplay reasons.

I don't post in background as much because I dislike the new background and am bored of endless conversations about primarchs and the Horus Heresy.

But I'm doing more 40K hobbying and stuff than I have in years, just haven't been photographing and posting stuff online due to lack of time and a crappy camera.

University in the day, working as a bouncer at night. In between I weave in regeneration and training outside of what I have at school. I am also preparing for police school exams.
GK are right now are in a state, where they aren't just weak or bad, I got used to that, but they are an army that doesn't engage the enemy. It is unfun to play with, unfun to play against, because the turns take ages. With the little free time I have, I would rather play a game of AoS with my Lumineth. They aren't mind melting good, but are fun to play with and against.
I know that localy w40k just died. When before OPR was "a thing". Now it is a thing that people play all day , new and returning players come with armies from different games and ask for OPR demon games. Infinity is huge. AoS is small, but people aren't jumping ship (plus some play OPR with their AoS models). There is historicals of multiple model scale being played WWII, ancient, Napoleonic, XVII-XVIIIth century etc.
With w40k the old players aren't just interested in w40k games, and new players don't want to spend a 1000$ to be told a seson later that the army is now bad and unfun to play. There are w40k players that go to euro events, they give coaching lessons and I know that a lot of w40k moved online (no need to buy models or paint them).
Pre codex some people hoped that the index are just a stop gap and that the codex are going to be the real deal. What it turned out to be is that the codex seem to be a side grade. Ton of stuff for marines got legened and nothing drives away new player faster then seeing a WS player with a 2500pts army that has 2-3 legel models in it post codex.
W40k models are still nice, but at least localy, HH gets more hype and often it is HH stuff done by people, not by GW. And this situation seem to be wide spread, not just one or two stores, that I go to. I really worry what is going to happen in 11th, if new people don't come, then the gaming community , at least localy is going to consist of people that arer 30+ with the "new" players being mid 20s represented by me and two other dudes.


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Breton 812319 11618302 wrote:

I don't think Ad Mech or Necrons are "popular" armies in that I don't think a lot of people play them. Ad Mech is still relatively new, and Necrons have gone through a fairly chaotic roller coaster ride through their history that turned some people off.

Marines made hardly a splash when their codex came out. And marines are or were popular. People just don't like the idea of GW invalidating entire armies, not fixing stuff everyone knows that should be fixed, focusing nerfs on mid tier armies for some unexaplained reason, and the "fix" to stuff being almost always, "we dropped points, now go spend another 200-300$ and hope the army is better". At some point it just turns the game in to something hard to play and that is even, if someone prints out stuff/buys used/etc.

Karol wrote:

Marines made hardly a splash when their codex came out. And marines are or were popular. People just don't like the idea of GW invalidating entire armies, not fixing stuff everyone knows that should be fixed, focusing nerfs on mid tier armies for some unexaplained reason, and the "fix" to stuff being almost always, "we dropped points, now go spend another 200-300$ and hope the army is better". At some point it just turns the game in to something hard to play and that is even, if someone prints out stuff/buys used/etc.

On the contrary, the current rules and codex design seems to be preventing the constant "omg what's the new hotness, what must we go buy now!!!!" trends that drove a lot of the conversation and hype, because remarkably, a lack of codex creep is killing off outrage and fewer people are scheming into the night to come up with "the list" due to everything in the codex being different from it's prior state. Stability in the game is creating quiet and stability in the community maybe?

Dudeface wrote:

Karol wrote:

Marines made hardly a splash when their codex came out. And marines are or were popular. People just don't like the idea of GW invalidating entire armies, not fixing stuff everyone knows that should be fixed, focusing nerfs on mid tier armies for some unexaplained reason, and the "fix" to stuff being almost always, "we dropped points, now go spend another 200-300$ and hope the army is better". At some point it just turns the game in to something hard to play and that is even, if someone prints out stuff/buys used/etc.

On the contrary, the current rules and codex design seems to be preventing the constant "omg what's the new hotness, what must we go buy now!!!!" trends that drove a lot of the conversation and hype, because remarkably, a lack of codex creep is killing off outrage and fewer people are scheming into the night to come up with "the list" due to everything in the codex being different from it's prior state. Stability in the game is creating quiet and stability in the community maybe?

These are not mutually exclusive. Some people may have dropped the edition at release because their old armies were moved to legends. Others may have persisted with the edition and find it is internally stable. Both could be reasons for reduced traffic simultaneously.

Dakka has a bad reputation in the community, so very little new members join, which means as older members leave for whatever reason, theres less and less discussion.

With the advent of Discord/Facebook groups, old school forums have a hard time keeping up

The decline of forums was actually a rather like minded thread recently.

As for me, I've come back to posting on dakka while I had to kill the long hours of boredom of my last months in the army, whereas welding is an actual full time job that won't let me post a lot during the day.

It doesn't bother me much that 40k discussions would lessen to be fair, as long as other games and aspects of the hobby still get attention. I've come back to recently to actually tell if these other topics have lost some activity too.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Dakka has a bad reputation in the community, so very little new members join, which means as older members leave for whatever reason, theres less and less discussion.

With the advent of Discord/Facebook groups, old school forums have a hard time keeping up

I stopped regularly posting on dakka years ago but still head here to see what rampant misery the longbeards are complaining about now. Have actively steered people away from this site if they're new and cautioned other folk to be careful what they share.

Dakkas reputation is something to be mocked in my groups which is kinda sad, I do remember coming here to be part of a community, helping new folk out occasionally and whatnot nowadays it seems the long term professional cynics are slowly running out of material (we've certainly had less long form threads to entertain us recently)

mrspadge wrote:
... Have actively steered people away from this site if they're new and cautioned other folk to be careful what they share...

Well that doesn't help the state of things. Forums are a different beast than those heavily moderated social medias. I think only Reddit rivals it in functionality but I've read far better, in-depth discussions here than any thread I've seen there.

So, Mrs. Padge has sabotaged our glorious Imperial Forum! You are past redemption, traitor!
Hand over your minis at your local Inquisition office ask mercy of the God-Emperor.

 kingpbjames wrote:
Forums are a different beast than those heavily moderated social medias. I think only Reddit rivals it in functionality but I've read far better, in-depth discussions here than any thread I've seen there.

I think I'd prefer a heavier hand on moderation as opposed to some of the behaviour I've seen here.

The Dakka Dive Bar is the only place you'll hear what's really going on in the underhive. Sure you might not find a good amasec but they grill a mean groxburger. Just watch for ratlings being thrown through windows and you'll be alright.

this has got to be the best depiction of this place, mind if I quote in signature?

Please do! Just reference "Ciaphas Cain, probably" as the source.
We're classier than the mutant strip club he visited once, so there's that at least.

edit: had to beat you to it, sorry.