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 Canadian 5th wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:

Karol wrote:

Other games, including ones from other companies, are much better at player retention then what is going on with w40k.

This is difficult to prove.

Certainly right now, there's a lot of annecdotal evidence that legacy players are leaving this particular edition.

But GW continue to be the dominant force in the industry, so they are replacing legacy players with equal or close to equal numbers of new players.

You look at a game like Battletech, and certainly it's as old as 40k or close to it, and it's seeing a surge in popularity now, but it's changed ownership 4 or 5 times in its lifespan.

I think if 40k faced the same issues as Battletech has it wouldbe in even worse shape.

I think you've reversed the games in that sentence....

Karol wrote:


Other games, including ones from other companies, are much better at player retention then what is going on with w40k. I wonder if the company even cares about it though, maybe their business plan is that in the next 10-15years their core audiance will be 45-60y oldes and practicaly no new players. GW is to a large degree a monopolist that runs on inertia. If they were a new company, and tried the stuff they are doing now, their games and the company would be dead in 3-4 years.

Player retention is more of concern if goal is to sell those 45-60yo's more models.

Less so when strategy is to sell to NEW players.

Compare profit of gw and companies with better player retention to see who has better strategy.

ccs wrote:
I think you've reversed the games in that sentence....

No. I'm saying that if 40k had been tangled up in an IP issue since the 1990s that prevented them from using Dreadnoughts, Terminators, Land Raiders, and Bolters the game likely wouldn't have survived whereas Battletech has.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

ccs wrote:
I think you've reversed the games in that sentence....

No. I'm saying that if 40k had been tangled up in an IP issue since the 1990s that prevented them from using Dreadnoughts, Terminators, Land Raiders, and Bolters the game likely wouldn't have survived whereas Battletech has.

Sure it would've. BTech was never prevented from using mechs, or Warhammers, Phoenix Hawks, etc. Or even the stats for those mechs in question. Just particular art.
GW would've changed just the art/minis. Indeed they've done exactly that for dreads/termies/Land Raiders/& bolters multiple times anyways.

Ironically, it was all because of a mech named Warhammer, so we can trace the whole problem back to GW after all.

ccs wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

ccs wrote:
I think you've reversed the games in that sentence....

No. I'm saying that if 40k had been tangled up in an IP issue since the 1990s that prevented them from using Dreadnoughts, Terminators, Land Raiders, and Bolters the game likely wouldn't have survived whereas Battletech has.

Sure it would've. BTech was never prevented from using mechs, or Warhammers, Phoenix Hawks, etc. Or even the stats for those mechs in question. Just particular art.
GW would've changed just the art/minis. Indeed they've done exactly that for dreads/termies/Land Raiders/& bolters multiple times anyways.

Except that wasn't the entirety of it.

"However, FASA was sufficiently shaken by the experience to unilaterally stop using not only the Super Dimension Fortress Macross mechsnote but the Dougramnote and Crusher Joe note derived mechs as well, and any other design not created by FASA themselves. This ended in the odd situation of having to ban the designs created for FASA by Studio Nue (who had created Super Dimension Fortress Macross) so that BattleTech could be exported to Japan while not stepping on any toes. These 'Mech designs became known as the Unseen. The stats were (and still are) valid and legal for game purposes, but the ban did not allow any artwork or new miniatures to be made (and because no new artwork could be made, technical readout sourcebooks couldn't include updated variants as the timeline advanced and new technology was added to the game world, meaning the Unseen lagged behind with their most recent variants topping out around 3050).

This was especially devastating because the list of 'Mechs was more or less a who's-who of the most popular 'Mechs in the entire game - the Marauder, Warhammer, Archer and BattleMaster in particular were some of the most beloved 'Mechs of all time among the fans, the Griffin, Shadow Hawk, and Wolverine are "the 55-ton triangle,"note the Locust, Wasp, Stinger, and Phoenix Hawk are in-universe the most commonly-available 'Mechs during the Succession Wars period, and the Warhammer, Marauder, and BattleMaster even had something of a special place in BattleTech fiction: a tricked-out Warhammer being Natasha Kerensky's personal ride, her rival The Bounty Hunter cruising in a Marauder, and Hanse Davion and the Red Corsair piloting BattleMasters."

So those designs couldn't just have new art made, for fear of that sparking another lawsuit.

I can't imagine 40k still being around if Marines and Orks were forcibly squatted in the mid-90s.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

ccs wrote:
I think you've reversed the games in that sentence....

No. I'm saying that if 40k had been tangled up in an IP issue since the 1990s that prevented them from using Dreadnoughts, Terminators, Land Raiders, and Bolters the game likely wouldn't have survived whereas Battletech has.

Sure it would've. BTech was never prevented from using mechs, or Warhammers, Phoenix Hawks, etc. Or even the stats for those mechs in question. Just particular art.
GW would've changed just the art/minis. Indeed they've done exactly that for dreads/termies/Land Raiders/& bolters multiple times anyways.

Except that wasn't the entirety of it.

"However, FASA was sufficiently shaken by the experience to unilaterally stop using not only the Super Dimension Fortress Macross mechsnote but the Dougramnote and Crusher Joe note derived mechs as well, and any other design not created by FASA themselves. This ended in the odd situation of having to ban the designs created for FASA by Studio Nue (who had created Super Dimension Fortress Macross) so that BattleTech could be exported to Japan while not stepping on any toes. These 'Mech designs became known as the Unseen. The stats were (and still are) valid and legal for game purposes, but the ban did not allow any artwork or new miniatures to be made (and because no new artwork could be made, technical readout sourcebooks couldn't include updated variants as the timeline advanced and new technology was added to the game world, meaning the Unseen lagged behind with their most recent variants topping out around 3050).

This was especially devastating because the list of 'Mechs was more or less a who's-who of the most popular 'Mechs in the entire game - the Marauder, Warhammer, Archer and BattleMaster in particular were some of the most beloved 'Mechs of all time among the fans, the Griffin, Shadow Hawk, and Wolverine are "the 55-ton triangle,"note the Locust, Wasp, Stinger, and Phoenix Hawk are in-universe the most commonly-available 'Mechs during the Succession Wars period, and the Warhammer, Marauder, and BattleMaster even had something of a special place in BattleTech fiction: a tricked-out Warhammer being Natasha Kerensky's personal ride, her rival The Bounty Hunter cruising in a Marauder, and Hanse Davion and the Red Corsair piloting BattleMasters."

So those designs couldn't just have new art made, for fear of that sparking another lawsuit.

I can't imagine 40k still being around if Marines and Orks were forcibly squatted in the mid-90s.

Oh, now we're moving the goal posts to actually squatting whole factions rather than just changing the designs....

BT? Yeah, I know the full history. If you feel the need to rehash it let's move it to the BT section rather than clog a 40k thread.

Other than that we'll just have to disagree wether we think 40k could've survived if GW had had to change the art/designs on some stuff early on.
You think no, I think yes, neither of us is likely to change our opinion, & we'll never know because it didn't happen.

ccs wrote:
Oh, now we're moving the goal posts to actually squatting whole factions rather than just changing the designs....

That's pretty much how important to BTech the Unseen mechs were at that stage/

BT? Yeah, I know the full history. If you feel the need to rehash it let's move it to the BT section rather than clog a 40k thread.

Other than that we'll just have to disagree wether we think 40k could've survived if GW had had to change the art/designs on some stuff early on.

If you know the whole history why are you claiming they could have just changed the art? That wasn't the case given the 2017 lawsuit for using entirely new designs for a computer game. Now we can argue about whether they should have won the case or not but back in 1996 it wasn't something they could afford to risk having to fight again especially as we don't know what the settlement was.

Battletech it should be noted is quite differant from warhammer in one key area. "presentation".

Battletech is not a Miniatures DRIVEN game, like Warhammer is. people can sue whatever tokens they want and most players don't care, (it's record sheet based, which meant that even though the art etc dissappered the classic mechs where still in USE (I'd used the marauder etc many times during the height of the unseen debacle) warhammer 40k is. so yeah if 40k was hit with a lawsuit making all their images unseen it'd be a disaster, whereas with FASA the real damage was honestly how costly the legal fight was. so GW would be able to likely fight it out, but if they did lose it would gut them.

The Unseen weren't that important to BTech. It did just fine without them, and has emerged far stronger on the other side.

I think there is some truth to the argument that 10th Edition WH40k is losing longer term players. It certainly doesn't interest me, and I have been playing since RT. The relentless edition / codex cycle is part of that, but basically I don't like the current iteration of the game. I might dive back in when they get around to giving the Orks a codex, but Heresy 2.0 is the system I prefer to play. In fact, I came back to Dakka principally in the hope of finding Heresy players who wanted to talk about the models and army lists. There are few who post somewhat regularly, but the 30k sub-forum is generally pretty moribund. Overall, there seems to be a lot less activity on modelling topics than there used to be.

 Snord wrote:
I think there is some truth to the argument that 10th Edition WH40k is losing longer term players. It certainly doesn't interest me, and I have been playing since RT. The relentless edition / codex cycle is part of that, but basically I don't like the current iteration of the game. I might dive back in when they get around to giving the Orks a codex, but Heresy 2.0 is the system I prefer to play. In fact, I came back to Dakka principally in the hope of finding Heresy players who wanted to talk about the models and army lists. There are few who post somewhat regularly, but the 30k sub-forum is generally pretty moribund. Overall, there seems to be a lot less activity on modelling topics than there used to be.

I think long term players are definitely not that interested generally speaking (if anyone reading this is long term and loves 10th, no shade, just going off anecdotal stuff and enjoy your game!). Question is does that actually bother GW, they seem to be attracting more new players than ever. They showed with fantasy battle that they are happy to throw old boys and girls under the bus to try attract a younger, hipper audience

I don't know how it looks at the stores in other countries, but 8th was huge for new players. When I started there was like 24+ of us begining. Older players didn't knew what to do with us. 9th, while a better system, was not so fun for some armies, and a lot of new players learned that GW does not fix things and if they try it takes years sometimes for them to do anything. By the time 9th was ending the four stores I have played on a regular basis were all old players and returning old players. 10th brought no new players to w40k. The cost+rules+how deep the changes are to the list killed interest for the game among old and new players. OPR is played a lot, AoS exists, and people actualy started playing skirmish systems other then GW ones. A new player right now, post covid, mid of a war, with super high inflation etc after hearing that an army costs around 700-900$ and that it can be invalidated next FAQ or edition, just do a 180.

And that is with recast being EXTREMLY popular here. We have stores that have their own recast/3d printing serices, there is Kromlech stuff, there are people that get their files from the german printers which are almost perfect copies of GW originals. All that and new people still don't want to play.
The cost to fun ratio in my country just got breached. I assume it is different else where, and I am both happy for those people and very envious of them, at the same time.

Karol wrote:
I don't know how it looks at the stores in other countries, but 8th was huge for new players. When I started there was like 24+ of us begining. Older players didn't knew what to do with us. 9th, while a better system, was not so fun for some armies, and a lot of new players learned that GW does not fix things and if they try it takes years sometimes for them to do anything. By the time 9th was ending the four stores I have played on a regular basis were all old players and returning old players. 10th brought no new players to w40k. The cost+rules+how deep the changes are to the list killed interest for the game among old and new players.

I really got started with 8th edition and I can say that out of the three I have been through it was my favorite. 9th got way to over complicated with rules bloat and as you said GW either did not fix things or often made things worst and now with 10th it feels to me like n over correction in the other direction. To be fair we only have like 4 codexes and it's been less then half a year or so but I have little real interest right now.

Question I am asking myself is: while I imagine a fair few older players would stick to painting, modeling, etc, how many new players would strive into wargaming after quickly quitting 40k?

Older players around are, I find, often not only there for the GW rules: either they like other aspects of the hobby, or they know and play other games they came to know after, for a fair few, being introduced to the world of wargaming via Warhammer.

But is the same true of newer player? Do they tend to stick around for the rest of the wargaming hobby or other games, or do they simply give up?

I mean, I'd be interested to see if GW are actually attracting more new players than ever before OR if long-term players are increasingly leaving the game. Nobody has any actual data to back this up, probably because it's inherently difficult to track.

At least anecdotally 10th has essentially flatlined the 40k player numbers; a bunch of 20-30 year olds left and are playing other games, but a bunch of 40+ dads came back. I have to yet to meet anyone who started in 10th; most people started in 8th or 9th. Tournament attendance is WAAAAAY down with fewer tickets being sold and more drop-outs the day of. The LGS sold 80 copies of Leviathan compared to 125 of Indomitus.

But that's the thing; all of that is anecdotal and there could be a myriad of intertwined reasons why it's happening. 80 boxes vs 125 boxes might just be because of allocation. Tournament attendance dropping could be because there's generally more events than there used to be in mid-8th and general economic conditions mean that a lot of out-of-towners might not want to spend on money, travel, accomm, food etc. I know for a fact why a bunch of those 20's-30's year old players stopped playing because I asked them (they felt 9th was in a good spot and didn't need a complete overhaul and that 10th is still a gigantic hot mess only made worse by how boring Indexhammer is) but again, that could just be a unique factor of my local area.

Certainly when it comes to reactions online, I think 10th is the most polarizing edition I've personally experienced. I'm in a few comp-leaning/focused Discord communities and the enthusiasm for the game is basically at rock-bottom. Even the promise of "fixed" winrates isn't promising to bring a lot of people back as they fundamentally just don't find things fun even when playing a balanced army vs a balanced army.

As I said in the 2023 thread my two closest FLGPs (places not stores) are booming with 10th ed as the main cause of the boom.

I have seen some tournaments struggle to get players, but there are more tournaments to choose from in my area of the UK so I think players are going to the better ran events or better value events.

Overall it feels like there are more tournaments across the UK than ever before. UKTC is running 14 massive events this year, I think they were running just 1 event five years ago? What is also funny is you can run your own local event on the same day as these UKTC events and not worry about them canablising your player base.

Online it seems to me there is more written, audio and video content for 40k and 10th ed than ever before too, covering the full hobby spectrum including news, casual play, tournament play, painting and modelling, etc.

The only unknown answer is what the mix between new/existing players is, but I don't think it matters as either the answer is existing players are sticking around or there is a really big pipeline of new players replacing and exceeding the existing ones leaving every year. I think this is just a classic dakka-detail-derail though.

The conclusion I have to the thread question "Where is everybody?" is therefore:
"Everybody" is enjoying 10th ed 40k and spending their time with fellow 10th ed 40k enjoyers.
Dakka is not where "everybody" goes for high quality social interaction.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Question I am asking myself is: while I imagine a fair few older players would stick to painting, modeling, etc, how many new players would strive into wargaming after quickly quitting 40k?

Older players around are, I find, often not only there for the GW rules: either they like other aspects of the hobby, or they know and play other games they came to know after, for a fair few, being introduced to the world of wargaming via Warhammer.

But is the same true of newer player? Do they tend to stick around for the rest of the wargaming hobby or other games, or do they simply give up?

So I don't have any proof of this, but honestly I feel most new players are Kill Teamers or Combat Patrollers.

I'm sure there probably are people who go out and get enough stuff for a 2k army to start, but I think they'd be a real minority of the new player base.

It was better in 8th and 9th when you could take detachments of allies. Buying two allied combat patrols that can be fielded individually or combined makes WAY more sense to me than buying a single larger force.

PenitentJake wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Question I am asking myself is: while I imagine a fair few older players would stick to painting, modeling, etc, how many new players would strive into wargaming after quickly quitting 40k?

Older players around are, I find, often not only there for the GW rules: either they like other aspects of the hobby, or they know and play other games they came to know after, for a fair few, being introduced to the world of wargaming via Warhammer.

But is the same true of newer player? Do they tend to stick around for the rest of the wargaming hobby or other games, or do they simply give up?

So I don't have any proof of this, but honestly I feel most new players are Kill Teamers or Combat Patrollers.

Maybe somewhere. But definitely not in my area.
At least not at the local shops.
Whats going on with people who don't play/start at the shops =?.

●10e brought us a fair # of new players. And a few returning players from editions prior to 9th.
The fact that the rules start off free really helped.

●Combat Patrol? On its own? Dead in the water. No one, new/returning/or existing players, see much value in playing this format when they could just play "real 40k".
The one shop ran an 8wk Combat Patrol league back in oct/Nov. It attracted 2 new players, 2 existing players started new forces, and a few others just pulled from stuff they already owned.
Overall it was deemed "meh" & somewhat unbalanced depending on the patrol chosen. See above comments concerning just playing "real 40k".
Most also didn't like that there's zero choice of what to use in this format.
Now small 500 or 750 pt games? Those get played. And as new peoples forces grow so do the sizes of games. You don't need CP to play small games.....

●Kill Team.
This game just doesn't have a large base in my area. At least not at the shops. If you post in the shops "Looking for Game" Discord channel you'll probably get a game. But it's rare to just walk in & see KT being played.
Most who pick it up do so as existing players looking to play something different 40k wise (that's not CP or a small game).

Anectotical as well but locally plenty of new players since 10th.

Tournaments tend to sell out but place count not that big and often same faces.

Then again we are bit far from bigger places and players from there either have to pay lot to come alone or do group travel...at which point it often feels like same guys, different city and easier to just play at own city

Gw's demand isn't showrng decrease though. So on the #1 measurement it's succeeding.

 morganfreeman wrote:

 aphyon wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

You shouldn't have to buy a separate kit or hunt through a bits box to complete a unit you just bought. If you do then you should at least be able to buy what you need (and only what you need) online. I remember when that wasn't an issue because GW hadn't yet stomped out the secondary market bits sellers... So yeah, GW can sell the stuff needed on the box or feth off at this point.

Those bitz sellers are still commonplace in the UK (where Gert's profile flag says they are from). I'm not entirely sure on what basis GW was able to suppress bitz sellers in North America.

When GW shut down their own bits service there was a very popular store in north America called "the war store" who would buy GW kits break them up and sell the bits both in the store and online. he ended up getting a cease and desist notice from GW threatening legal action if he continued his bits service.

In addition to this, GW has shut down numerous bit selling operations on EBay, such as BulletBits from a few years back. They also aggressively gak down Etsy and eBay stores selling pieces which look remotely like GW stuff, and I’m not talking about re-casts or straight copies either.

Also: While I understand the origins of HH from scrounging bits boxes to make accurate conversions, making the product mainline should get rid of those requirements. If every legion is encouraged to run melee elements, and fully half of the legions are encouraged to run predominantly melee elements, there should be a better method to make those generic melee squads than “buy the tactical box, then drop an additional $180 on 4 assault squad boxes to salvage bolt pistols and chainswords.”

Especially when GW discontinues that box almost half a year before they release the HH melee dudes!

I am aware GW has shut down North American bitz sellers. My question is under what legal basis? They have been unable to do so here in the UK and we still enjoy the option of purchasing bitz. I believe Europe is the same.

Surely selling secondhand parts is legal in North America? I find it very odd that GW can get away with preventing it.

Btizsellers are few in France, but still there.

Surely selling secondhand parts is legal in North America? I find it very odd that GW can get away with preventing it

threat of legal action-
even if a bitz seller were to prevail legally it might cost them 100s of thousands of dollars or more to fight the court case.
GW legal has much deeper pockets than a FLGS/retailer like the war store was. it is a fight not worth having.

It is why harmony gold got away with the macross IP blockade in the USA for decades even after they lost in court in Japan. the mere threat of legal action over every single perceived IP infraction to which they had no actual legal standing was enough for even bandai to wash it's hands over the issue until they recently buried the hatchet a few years back.

 aphyon wrote:

Surely selling secondhand parts is legal in North America? I find it very odd that GW can get away with preventing it

threat of legal action-
even if a bitz seller were to prevail legally it might cost them 100s of thousands of dollars or more to fight the court case.
GW legal has much deeper pockets than a FLGS/retailer like the war store was. it is a fight not worth having.

It is why harmony gold got away with the macross IP blockade in the USA for decades even after they lost in court in Japan. the mere threat of legal action over every single perceived IP infraction to which they had no actual legal standing was enough for even bandai to wash it's hands over the issue until they recently buried the hatchet a few years back.

^ this. The legal system in the US is highly pay to play, with even victories being ruinously expensive. Admittedly this is kind of an international issue, but IIRC European nations have far more robust / protective laws for smaller operations, and will happily smash big companies with gigantic fines / resolution costs for doing stuff like that.

That’s what set the Chapter House legal action apart. The guy had actual legal representation (IIRC probono too) which allowed him to participate in the system and therefor win, because GW was trying to crush a small fry despite not having much of a case.

Won so hard he stopped fulfilling orders and went out of business.

So even when you can get representation, let alone effective representation? You can still lose.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On the Bitz?

Partial informed, partial speculation - there are rules about breaking down New Products as a retailer.

Essentially, if I wholesale you a crate containing 10 boxes of 10 Tactical Marines, and those boxes are individually sealed? That’s how you have to sell them.

Now, as a private individual, once I’ve bought a box I can, more or less, do with it as I want. If I want to part it out, there’s little to stop me. But if I bought at wholesale from GW? I’m prevented from doing that.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So even when you can get representation, let alone effective representation? You can still lose.

Chapterhouse didn't lose that case.

We did.

 morganfreeman wrote:

 aphyon wrote:

Surely selling secondhand parts is legal in North America? I find it very odd that GW can get away with preventing it

threat of legal action-
even if a bitz seller were to prevail legally it might cost them 100s of thousands of dollars or more to fight the court case.
GW legal has much deeper pockets than a FLGS/retailer like the war store was. it is a fight not worth having.

It is why harmony gold got away with the macross IP blockade in the USA for decades even after they lost in court in Japan. the mere threat of legal action over every single perceived IP infraction to which they had no actual legal standing was enough for even bandai to wash it's hands over the issue until they recently buried the hatchet a few years back.

^ this. The legal system in the US is highly pay to play, with even victories being ruinously expensive. Admittedly this is kind of an international issue, but IIRC European nations have far more robust / protective laws for smaller operations, and will happily smash big companies with gigantic fines / resolution costs for doing stuff like that.

That’s what set the Chapter House legal action apart. The guy had actual legal representation (IIRC probono too) which allowed him to participate in the system and therefor win, because GW was trying to crush a small fry despite not having much of a case.

Huh, interesting. I'm surprised that tactic hasn't worked in the UK. We must have some reasonable protections for small operations. Bitzbox certainly isn't a massive company, for example. I wonder if small vendors can settle such a dispute in Small Claims court, given the values involved. I don't think the US has an equivalent to the Small Claims court, it is designed for settling small disputes cheaply.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On the Bitz?

Partial informed, partial speculation - there are rules about breaking down New Products as a retailer.

Essentially, if I wholesale you a crate containing 10 boxes of 10 Tactical Marines, and those boxes are individually sealed? That’s how you have to sell them.

Now, as a private individual, once I’ve bought a box I can, more or less, do with it as I want. If I want to part it out, there’s little to stop me. But if I bought at wholesale from GW? I’m prevented from doing that.

This. It wasn't legal threats, it was simple retailer account contracts that stopped it.

There were some bits sellers that were just buying at retail from wherever it was cheaper (that's how I used to do it) but when GW bought in the regional locks on sales, that killed that option off.

I suspect that the current rules trend to limit units to what's on the sprue has also resulted in there simply being less demand for bits in general. All of that, combined with current sprue design making it a massive pain in the nethers to clip stuff off sprues just makes it a much less viable business plan than it used to be.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So even when you can get representation, let alone effective representation? You can still lose.

Chapterhouse didn't lose that case.

We did.

Ding, ding, ding! Winner, Winner, chicken dinner!

Well just to throw my 2 cents in as someone who hasn't posted here regularly since 2019, and is here because I'm trying to call someone for work on a sunday and while thinking of things to do while hopign they pick up remembered dakkadakka exists, I'd say it's two things for me.

1) Covid happened, I stopped playing 40k and have never got back into it. I still wargame, but I joined a club mostly focused on historicals about a year ago and found that compared to 8th (at least after indexhammer, which I enjoyed) I have more fun playing some 60 year old guy's personal variation of some naval wargame I've never heard of, or a refight of the battle of the Marne using 3x4" blocks with 10 6mm figures on them to represent whole companies, etc, etc, and my desire to get back into 40K is basically zero. I might finish painting my armies and go back to an older edition at some point. It doesn't help that I like 'firstborne' and they're going the way of the dodo.
2) Forums are a fething ancient way of communicating. I think they're probably the best way of talking about a hobby like this but the format is so old and the userbase is so small.

I'm really looking forward to TOW though, shame I'll be starting a new job in January and won't have any time for it.