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Due to the in my opinion tiresome discussion about the Kriegs and the ASL I wondered if the "hobby" aspect of the game is dying out? I started nearly 20 years ago with LoTR and having not much money I build a lot of the terrain myself with scraps my dad would normally throw away. I used the cheapest paints i could find just to get paint onto my miniatures. I even begged my parents to drive me into the next town so I could buy cheap green cloth we would use as a playmat. And we had fun with this poorhammer approach to the game. At the moment I am far more into Turnip28 and Trench Crusade where kitbashing and building your own terrain and fleshing out ideas is essential to the game, which drew me to these two games in particular.

I increasingly get the impression that and increasing number of people in the 40k community no longer care about the hobby itself – kitbashing, terrain building, house rules. They simply want to buy ready-made stuff, jump on the latest meta, and win as many games as possible.

Would love to have some opions on that from the community.

I think the Internet is always as it has been, an echo chamber.

When you get out into the world the Warhammer community is nowhere near as bad and you have to remember m, the vast majority (and I cannot understate vast here) are not online and don't participate in discussions on Dakka/Reddit/FB/Twitter.

To me GW is currently presenting the worst of both worlds. This should be a golden age for kit bashing with more human kits around than ever before. If they were as compatible as 2000s kits like the Catachans, Cadians and Empire this would be fantastic.

But they're not. Each Necromunda set seems to have different arm or head attachments, rifles inevitably are attached to the right arm and have a left hand attached to them, and there is a mind numbing number of small parts that only fit in one place. I think my Arbites needed 11 parts for each rifleman.

And many kits like Primarus Marines are locked into one pose, you have to build them and then hack them apart to make a conversion.

GW is purposfully making kits hard to mix and match.

So yes.

They are asking for a lot of labor in building but choking off opportunities for creativity.

It is true that these days, you need to assemble the model at least into subassemblies before you can really "kitbash" with them. However, I just see it as continuation from the metal years, when all you had was a hacksaw, green stuff and cyanoacrylate glue. At least poly cement is easier to work with, and creates strong bonds once cured..

But you are right, GW doesnt really encourage the DIY part as nearly as much as they did in the past. I especially loathe the obsession with "No Model, No Rules" of late. And whoever head of someone using "Open Play" or anything of the sort these days?

Thankfully, its still all about your playing group and what they're down with. If you find the right group, anything goes, like always

The 4th edition rulebook was the last one with a proper hobby section showing the sort of stuff that made simple scenery and kitbashing seem like part of the hobby. From 5th ed onward it was all GW plastic terrain and boards. So it's been 6 editions of GW moving away from DIY hobby in their publications and into a "buy our realm of battle board".

No. The third Warhammer hobby is bitching about GW.

Honestly, I've always found the kitbash argument a little overrated. Personally the main loss I notice with newer kits is the lack of waist articulation. There's still a lot of opportunity to swap arms and heads around and position them to make models different, even if the instructions encourage specific builds, you can very easily not do that and make something else.

I think the main issue is the poses themselves are a lot more dynamic, which draws the eye to repetition more readily. My main issue with a lot of the older kits is the legs are really basic and boring most of the time, but that does put more emphasis on the parts you can adjust. Overall though I prefer the bigger, more dynamic models to what came before, though there are definitely elements I miss.

If you want more hobby in your army there's tons of opportunity to do so though. Add some 3D print parts, swap arms around. Put some Bolt Rifles on Assault Intercessors and vice versa. It might take some greenstuff to fill some gaps or adjust an angle but that was always the case. The idea you "can't" feels like it mostly comes from people who got some EZ builds from an edition starter and decided that was all there was to it.

Pretty much the main difference is you don’t need to kitbash anymore. But there’s nothing and no-one stopping you from doing it.

As with many things in life, the golden rule is simply Don’t Take The Piss.

Examples of people not following the golden rule, albeit from Yesteryear? Proxying Bloodcrushers (Jugger cavalry) with Bloodletters plonked atop Rohan Horses, using the Rohan Horse Base. Not only fundamentally changes the dimensions, and thus visibility of the unit, but the smaller bases meant you could get more into direct combat.

Player claimed it wasn’t cheating, because he had the right size bases in his box.

Another? Ork Trukks with massive advertising style billboards, specifically to block LoS to advancing Ork Mobs.

So, convert and kit bash away, especially if you’re doing it purely for your own enjoyment and to have a truly unique model on display. But Do Not Model For Advantage, For That Is The Behaviour Of A Richard.

Ideally, and this is really subjective? Do try to make any piece intended for gaming with of roughly the same dimensions, and visually obvious as to what it actually it.

 frwd. wrote:

I increasingly get the impression that and increasing number of people in the 40k community no longer care about the hobby itself – kitbashing, terrain building, house rules. They simply want to buy ready-made stuff, jump on the latest meta, and win as many games as possible.

Would love to have some opions on that from the community.

Well, personally, my hobby is playing miniatures games, not building them.
I've always viewed building the models and terrain as just a necessary 1st step. But many current GW kits annoy the hell out of me because in many cases I'm forced to spend time & effort assembling parts that could/should have been already sculpted together. Ex: The boots on 8 bound. I had to glue the soles of the boots onto the 8 Bounds already booted feet. FFS why??

Converting, kitbashing, etc? Is just what I do if what I want isn't made/readily available.
And while I'm really good at it, I'm also happy enough if I don't need to do it. Always have been.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Another? Ork Trukks with massive advertising style billboards, specifically to block LoS to advancing Ork Mobs.

The rules don't support models blocking LOS in a way that functions. Anyone claiming their models successfully block LOS is kind of a red flag to me.

I think the terrain making side of things is a bigger deal than kitbashing, but perhaps it's always been kind of a separate, related hobby that lots of people don't like.

It's always been core to the whole experience to me - making the world the miniatures live in is a huge part of the appeal.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
To me GW is currently presenting the worst of both worlds. This should be a golden age for kit bashing with more human kits around than ever before. If they were as compatible as 2000s kits like the Catachans, Cadians and Empire this would be fantastic.

But they're not. Each Necromunda set seems to have different arm or head attachments, rifles inevitably are attached to the right arm and have a left hand attached to them, and there is a mind numbing number of small parts that only fit in one place. I think my Arbites needed 11 parts for each rifleman.

And many kits like Primarus Marines are locked into one pose, you have to build them and then hack them apart to make a conversion.

GW is purposfully making kits hard to mix and match.

So yes.

They are asking for a lot of labor in building but choking off opportunities for creativity.

Flip side, they've at least stopped selling incomplete kits to people who don't want to have to kitbash just to put the correct gun on their Razorback.

Our group does more building and painting than playing at the shop.

 Da Boss wrote:
I think the terrain making side of things is a bigger deal than kitbashing, but perhaps it's always been kind of a separate, related hobby that lots of people don't like.

It's always been core to the whole experience to me - making the world the miniatures live in is a huge part of the appeal.

I keep seeing people demand things like cool objectives and it drives me crazy because the objectives are just generic templates. No amount of table rules are going to make interesting tables until players are will to take the time and build interesting terrain and objectives for their tables.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Another? Ork Trukks with massive advertising style billboards, specifically to block LoS to advancing Ork Mobs.

The rules don't support models blocking LOS in a way that functions. Anyone claiming their models successfully block LOS is kind of a red flag to me.

Are you one of the people who truly believe that they can fire through a Rhino because there's that teeny little gap between its road wheels?

ccs wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Another? Ork Trukks with massive advertising style billboards, specifically to block LoS to advancing Ork Mobs.

The rules don't support models blocking LOS in a way that functions. Anyone claiming their models successfully block LOS is kind of a red flag to me.

Are you one of the people who truly believe that they can fire through a Rhino because there's that teeny little gap between its road wheels?

No, not at all, but giant brick vehicles are absolutely not the norm and most models in the game cannot block LOS with any reliablity.

It is an example from yesteryear.

In terms a of media, it personally feels to me that conversions and kitbashes aren't advertised the way they used to be. Older WD magazine have a lot more articles about creating your own miniatures. It's not entirely gone and WD still seems very supportive of alternative paint schemes. GW and WD feel more focused on selling the latest and greatest in their plastic products. Which makes sense as a miniature company. I don't know, it just feels like personal creativity has taken a back seat for the last decade or so.

I think personal creativity is still alive and doing well. But it's no longer in the "spotlight" when it comes to GW's depiction of the Hobby like it used to be (although to be fair, GW couldnt sell you all of it ready made when they started, which probably also played heavily into it..)

GW itself isn't advertising it as heavily.

HOWEVER

It's 2026 now and the amount of custom content for 40K on every other media outlet for geeks is VAST.

There are whole channels with high rankings devoted to conversions; terrain; painting and so forth.
GW doesn't have to have a "how to make a deodorant tank" article because there's a dozen channels already doing that.

If anything I'd say you're in more a golden age than the supposed golden age of when GW started. 3D printing has even exploded the potential for quality proxies not to mention the amount of details and parts that can be kitbashed with.


And yes I'll also echo what others say about getting out in the real world - real world has clubs and friend groups with custom terrain; custom models; conversions; modelling; hobby stuff and all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 tauist wrote:
I think personal creativity is still alive and doing well. But it's no longer in the "spotlight" when it comes to GW's depiction of the Hobby like it used to be (although to be fair, GW couldnt sell you all of it ready made when they started, which probably also played heavily into it..)

Heck I'd argue that GW still do more hobby articles than most of the competition. Most competing brands I can think of show how to model their own models now and then; but by and large aren't doing any hobby stuff either. Again its communities that do it.

 Da Boss wrote:
I think the terrain making side of things is a bigger deal than kitbashing, but perhaps it's always been kind of a separate, related hobby that lots of people don't like.

It's always been core to the whole experience to me - making the world the miniatures live in is a huge part of the appeal.

This is my biggest annoyance. GW produce a bunch of Fortifications for each army in 40k (or almost every army) and they are usually unusable as proper terrain. Instead of that, I'd prefer to see diverse sets of terrain rather than a bunch of increasingly esoteric Imperial stuff. The old ruin sets they did were great for Imperial terrain, but they got rid of them in favour of weird gantries and big blocks of plastic like plasma generators. I think Tau, Eldar, Necrons and Orks could all have modular building/ruin terrain that would provide some visual interest on the battlefield.

The current game rules don't help. The game is so lethal that anything that doesn't block LoS is not very useful as a terrain piece.

Overread wrote: It's 2026 now and the amount of custom content for 40K on every other media outlet for geeks is VAST.

This deserves highlighting.

Back when I was a Young Sad Old Git? After you’d tied your onion to your belt, which was the fashion at the time, pretty much all your hobby education came from White Dwarf.

Whilst I just missed the days of printed nets for building from plasticard, I was there for the odd “official” kitbash/conversion article. More so when the Citadel Journal returned.

And the articles were pretty good. How to make your own board, how to turn odds and ends into interesting and thematic terrain (Cocktail Cacti!).

Then came the internet, and around the same time more or less give or take? GW’s big plastic terrain kits, starting with Cityfight.

So, just as the internet became our primary outlet for finding hobby tutorials and kitbashing and that? So GW became understandably invested in selling its plastic terrain kits.

Into the modern day? So much of it is in our hands. Yes, I own lots and lots of official GW terrain, because it’s of solid quality. And sure it’s not terribly cheap, but it’s robust and will last you years and years. But we’re spoiled for choice when it comes to scratch building, kit bashing and converting articles, guides and inspiration.

Those of us with 3D Printers (I really need to make more use of mine) are even more spoiled for choice. No, I don’t think I would print an entire building. But I can and will print Precious Geegaws and Decorations for buildings cobbled together from more ordinary materials. The Greeblies one once plundered from all sorts of kits can now be printed on demand.

Y’know, I feel a Hobby Challenge coming on. Where Dakkanauts agree to make a piece of terrain, then share the process and results.

Could do a loose series. Like month one is making a foxhole. Month two is making a strong point and so on. Even better if those Well Clever can create and provide nets for buildings and that.

Don’t think I’d put a limit on materials. The whole idea is a showcase of different approaches and cunning use of Whatever You Personally Have To Hand.

Could call it Hobby Wombles. Making good use of the things that we find, things that the every day folk leave behind.

Slipspace wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
I think the terrain making side of things is a bigger deal than kitbashing, but perhaps it's always been kind of a separate, related hobby that lots of people don't like.

It's always been core to the whole experience to me - making the world the miniatures live in is a huge part of the appeal.

This is my biggest annoyance. GW produce a bunch of Fortifications for each army in 40k (or almost every army) and they are usually unusable as proper terrain. Instead of that, I'd prefer to see diverse sets of terrain rather than a bunch of increasingly esoteric Imperial stuff. The old ruin sets they did were great for Imperial terrain, but they got rid of them in favour of weird gantries and big blocks of plastic like plasma generators. I think Tau, Eldar, Necrons and Orks could all have modular building/ruin terrain that would provide some visual interest on the battlefield.

The current game rules don't help. The game is so lethal that anything that doesn't block LoS is not very useful as a terrain piece.

Pretty much since forever, GW's greatest problem with the terrain they produce is that it doesn't actually function with their own terrain rules.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Overread wrote: It's 2026 now and the amount of custom content for 40K on every other media outlet for geeks is VAST.

This deserves highlighting.

Back when I was a Young Sad Old Git? After you’d tied your onion to your belt, which was the fashion at the time, pretty much all your hobby education came from White Dwarf.

Whilst I just missed the days of printed nets for building from plasticard, I was there for the odd “official” kitbash/conversion article. More so when the Citadel Journal returned.

And the articles were pretty good. How to make your own board, how to turn odds and ends into interesting and thematic terrain (Cocktail Cacti!).

Then came the internet, and around the same time more or less give or take? GW’s big plastic terrain kits, starting with Cityfight.

So, just as the internet became our primary outlet for finding hobby tutorials and kitbashing and that? So GW became understandably invested in selling its plastic terrain kits.

Into the modern day? So much of it is in our hands. Yes, I own lots and lots of official GW terrain, because it’s of solid quality. And sure it’s not terribly cheap, but it’s robust and will last you years and years. But we’re spoiled for choice when it comes to scratch building, kit bashing and converting articles, guides and inspiration.

Those of us with 3D Printers (I really need to make more use of mine) are even more spoiled for choice. No, I don’t think I would print an entire building. But I can and will print Precious Geegaws and Decorations for buildings cobbled together from more ordinary materials. The Greeblies one once plundered from all sorts of kits can now be printed on demand.

Y’know, I feel a Hobby Challenge coming on. Where Dakkanauts agree to make a piece of terrain, then share the process and results.

Could do a loose series. Like month one is making a foxhole. Month two is making a strong point and so on. Even better if those Well Clever can create and provide nets for buildings and that.

Don’t think I’d put a limit on materials. The whole idea is a showcase of different approaches and cunning use of Whatever You Personally Have To Hand.

Could call it Hobby Wombles. Making good use of the things that we find, things that the every day folk leave behind.

It’s been a while sone the League of Extraordinary Riveters was active, but we have had terrain competitions here before. I try to include a few terrain friendly topics in the painting comp, but they don’t always get picked in the vote. The summer side quest is a good spot for it as well.

As much as some people enjoy that aspect of the hobby, it is a niche within a niche, so getting enough people to participate is hard.

If you have WH+ and you like conversions, the Scrap Daemon series is worth watching for inspiration.

I think the situation is less friendly to hobbying than it could be, and I think that *my* situation specifically might be slightly worse than most, but I also think it's easy to overblow how bad things actually are.

I mainly play at a GW store which means our models are supposed to be mostly GW plastic. Basically, decorative add-ons are fine, but swapping out major parts of a model is a no-no.

As a result, I haven't been fielding my exodite conversion army because the bigger dinos are all Pathfinder minis (with space elves manning guns on top.) I also haven't been bringing out my third party minis, and I'm careful about conversions that use third-party bits.

I've also basically been playing in the same imperial city for years at this point. Someone recently brought in some 3D printed rocks/cliffs for terrain, and it was a massive relief to play on a table with a little variety for once.

While I do feel that the monopose kits have made it harder to mix & match bits (not looking forward to my 5e drukhari eventually getting updated), I think the bigger deterrant to kitbashing is just the lack of customization on characters. In 8th or 9th, I converted up a succubus covered in all sorts of chains, flails, necron wraith whip coils, etc. Basically, I made her look like she had a ton of articulated chain type weapons that could entangle a number of enemies at once. I ran her as a Cursed Blade succubus with a shardnet/impaler. Not an optimal build for a succubus, but it meant that she could potentially keep an enemy from falling back and then do mortal wounds to them when they failed to hurt her (which felt like a good fit for the idea of sharpened chains etc. hurting her victims as they struggled.) I like her a lot. She was fun to use.

In 10th, those options no longer exist for drukhari. I can run her as a generic wych or succubus if I want, but the whole vibe of tangling up her enemies and making them hurt themselves is kind of gone. I wouldn't have a mechanical reason to make that cool kitbash in 10th edition. Just like I no longer have a reason to model a farseer with wings to represent the Faolchu's wing relic.

So it's not all doom and gloom when it comes to hobbying. I see plenty of cool kitbashes and decorations on armies out in the wild. It's just that such conversions are less encouraged/supported than before; especially if you're playing where GW can see you.

Even back in the "golden age" GW stores still required models to be mostly GW product. Sure it perhaps didn't have a percentage, but it was a general rule.

Also most games that get to a decent "this is actually my full job earning good money" size; tend to atop the same rule for their formal events. GW just stands out more because they've got shops, which no one else has (except perhaps one local shop to their main office; unless they've a powerful shopping system and can own a few stores).

Also, think of it like wanting to eat your McDonalds in a Burger King, or vice versa.

Whilst you and your friends buying your lunch from different outlets is of course far from weird or forbidden? The facilities in a given restaurant are for that restaurant’s patrons. Not just for convenience, but because it’s a proven thing that a busy place attracts more customers. And of course, you want prospective customers to see others enjoying your fare.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


So, convert and kit bash away, especially if you’re doing it purely for your own enjoyment and to have a truly unique model on display. But Do Not Model For Advantage, For That Is The Behaviour Of A Richard.

We had a pretty infamous player in our city years back who kitbashed a Wraithknight into a lying down sniping pose. The model looked really cool, but with the way he played it, it was clear that his entire intention behind the conversion was to hide it behind buildings.

As for the OP, it really depends on your community. I have a bunch of friends that we come up with custom campaigns, unique rules for our kitbashed models, play narrative missions with imbalanced points costs because one side is at a disadvantage for some reason, ect.

Yeah, if you're going out to an official tournament, you know what you're getting into with the same missions and the L shaped ruins ect, but when you're just playing with a bunch of friends, the sky is still the limit.

As for the actual kits GW has been putting out, they are pretty hit or miss with kitbashability. The Kroot Farstalker kit is one of the best kits I've ever worked with, so many options and they're nearly all easily swappable, not just within their own kits, but the Carnivore and Rampager kits as well. That being said, some kits like the Ork Boyz and Sisters of Battle kits are notoriously monopose and really hard to convert. It really depends on who they had make the sculpt if your army got lucky with a smart design or not.

I think it absolutely has, from the 'official perspective'. There's been a concrete push to tie things to specific kits, and online resources are far more storefront-focused than they were Back In My Day. Obviously it's a business and they want to sell their stuff, but they changed the size of the game board to match their box size, I mean, it's hard to argue with that.

On the other hand, there's a *zillion* more things the individual hobbiest can do! We've still got our old resources like foamboard and aquarium decorations, and there's 3D printers and a ton of third-party options floating around out there.

It's just important to note that you'll have to step out of the intended walled garden to mess with them.