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How is everyone else local communities holding up while we wait for models revealed in March to arrive?

In my area, things are not so good. When the big box launched in June we had a lot of excitement. My small store sold 9 boxes, a couple of people bought more than one box. Lots of active discussion was had on our discord server and people seemed genuinely excited. Now in August, not one person has been able to get a game in yet, as they're still either waiting for restocks of FW product they want for their armies, or they're waiting for special/heavy weapons and vehicles to release. In addition, besides stuff I wanted, not a single other person ordered from the recent preorders of the new stuff launching later this week. Heck, I only ordered a Sicarian myself because I didn't want to go too nuts with things being so up in the air. With no news on Breacher Squads and Assault upgrades, it's caused even more depression and today I saw that three of the players are selling their contents to try and recoup some of the money they spent on it. I asked why they were selling and all three specifically said they're tired of waiting to play a game that doesn't have all of it's pieces available. I'm a bit worried for my local area because we have so few people, being that we're in a much smaller town. Running a community with five players isn't that easy to do, and if we lose anymore I'm afraid it will cause a domino effect. One other player is already hinting that he wants out after seeing these other three bow out today.

Is this a common thing that folks are experiencing in your communities? Is the wait for models, restocks and updates causing problems for your local stores?

Honestly, I think you're just experiencing the same thing that happens with most non-core GW systems. A new system is released and people buy the new hotness but then get bored for one reason or another and give it up quickly. In my hobby life, it has happened with AoS, Shadow War, Necromunda, Kill Team, LotR, and HH when Calth was released. That was with a group of 10 regular players and about 5 or 6 irregular drop-ins.
It sucks but that's kind of just how things are. Is the slow release schedule annoying? Sure but no system ever got everything all at once and expecting HH to be the exception is a bit silly.

Best advice is to play where you can be seen. Groups can grow organically, but only if people know about them.

If the store has a calendar, publish dates and times when people can come to play. If the store hosts events, organize one.

Can't help you with the release date for the models, if that's a turn off you are dealing with some very picky people. Good wargaming groups tend to be resilient - people will scratchbuild, allow proxies, etc. If that's not happening, you have a more serious problem.

Nobody here has played yet, but there's a few of us building armies as a steady side project.

My area unfortunately is so rural that the only gaming group is a 40k one. And they’re super hesitant to try anything new.

I'm the only person I know of that's building a 30k army. For me it's a passion project. My friends know I'm doing it so if they want to get into it, they know I'm already in and I'm the most consistent player we know(meaning I haven't sat out editions).

You could just play with what you have available. Start an escalation league. Do build/paint days at your local store so people can see that there is a community starting. As for waiting for stuff, I've been trolling ebay for deals. With FW stuff there's usually not a huge discount but I've found several. Then again that might be because I'm building Alpha Legion, which doesn't seem to be the strongest. The release schedule seems to be pretty jammed up at the moment, so you could just build/paint what you have then when more stuff drops you've already got the bulk of your force ready.

Impulse buyers...
Most of the things are available through Forge World anyway. They never wanted to really get involved, to invest in this Hobby. Like, not even having a game despite having one or even two Age of Darkness boxes because you don't have some.plasma rifles? C'mon...
Building an army is the most lasting part of the Hobby, not the few hours spent gaming. There are some good advices from Iok1 here

Arcanis161 wrote:
My area unfortunately is so rural that the only gaming group is a 40k one. And they’re super hesitant to try anything new.

I don't think that's unique to rural areas. There's whole cities where playing anything but 40k is considered blasphemy.

At our local games store heresy is only second to MGT at the moment. On games nights the majority of tables are being used for heresy. 40k is still there but it seems to have taken a backseat at the moment. People are still excited for releases but newer players are still learning the game and building/painting the plastics that have come out and the veterans already had full armies so that's all good. There's also still a lot of hype for the new plastics yet to come out, and a reasonable bit of 3d printing for what isn't available or costs too much from FW

Also +1 for getting seen and building your community. If you or your friends have more than one army then get people who are just getting in or are interested in the game to play with your armies so they can get a good taste for the game and build hype. Staring at a bit pile of plastic can be a bit of a turn off for some people but when you get the blood going with games it makes people excited to build and paint things

I'm surprised that there seems to be such a defence of GW being run in this thread.

I'd hardly find it surprising that if someone is wanting to wait on heads/shoulders for their Legion, or weapons for their support squads that GW still hasn't given a release date for, that would be extremely off-putting.

Sure, they could use their unpainted, half-built models while they wait, but that's hardly a satisfying experience when they could be playing a game where they can actually just buy the models they want.

Of course, with non-core GW games, jumping in at launch is always going to be a risk. You're better off waiting to see how/what GW mess up about it before investing.

It seems like there is a mentality that you only play once your army is complete. My plan is to start playing Zone Mortalis at around 750-1000 points and work from there.

 godardc wrote:

Most of the things are available through Forge World anyway. They never wanted to really get involved, to invest in this Hobby.

Hmm, as a US Iron Warriors player, literally nothing I need is in stock at FW. It hasn't been for months. No IW dread, tyrant siege termies, older head upgrades, or domitar. I have a 2.5k and 3k list made but they all involve domitar, siege terms, and more than 1 dread. I don't want to buy more regular plastic contemptors knowing I have to replace them with IW dreads anyway. I also have no way of buying lascannon or autocannons for my heavy support squads. I forked over $50 on fleabay for a set of lascannon but they aren't 30k accurate and 10 of them were more expensive than buying a GW box with 20 weapons. I don't have any way to buy breachers or proper 30k assault squads either. Literally all I can run is the starter box with Kratos and Sicaran. Tanks suck this edition so spending half my points on 3 exploding metal boxes doesn't sound like a great investment of time/money/points to me. I have been in this hobby since 1999 and played 30k with a full FW ad mech army ordered direct. Not sure how I don't want to support the hobby just because I have extremely valid complaints about the glacial release pace and constant OOS status on crucial kits for my army. At this point if I want to "invest in the hobby" I have to buy recasts, but I doubt you're accepting of that either.

Toofast wrote:

 godardc wrote:

Most of the things are available through Forge World anyway. They never wanted to really get involved, to invest in this Hobby.

Hmm, as a US Iron Warriors player, literally nothing I need is in stock at FW. It hasn't been for months. No IW dread, tyrant siege termies, older head upgrades, or domitar. I have a 2.5k and 3k list made but they all involve domitar, siege terms, and more than 1 dread. I don't want to buy more regular plastic contemptors knowing I have to replace them with IW dreads anyway. I also have no way of buying lascannon or autocannons for my heavy support squads. I forked over $50 on fleabay for a set of lascannon but they aren't 30k accurate and 10 of them were more expensive than buying a GW box with 20 weapons. I don't have any way to buy breachers or proper 30k assault squads either. Literally all I can run is the starter box with Kratos and Sicaran. Tanks suck this edition so spending half my points on 3 exploding metal boxes doesn't sound like a great investment of time/money/points to me. I have been in this hobby since 1999 and played 30k with a full FW ad mech army ordered direct. Not sure how I don't want to support the hobby just because I have extremely valid complaints about the glacial release pace and constant OOS status on crucial kits for my army. At this point if I want to "invest in the hobby" I have to buy recasts, but I doubt you're accepting of that either.

Ryza-pattern lascannons are back in stock in FW.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
I'm surprised that there seems to be such a defence of GW being run in this thread.

I'd hardly find it surprising that if someone is wanting to wait on heads/shoulders for their Legion, or weapons for their support squads that GW still hasn't given a release date for, that would be extremely off-putting.

Sure, they could use their unpainted, half-built models while they wait, but that's hardly a satisfying experience when they could be playing a game where they can actually just buy the models they want.

Of course, with non-core GW games, jumping in at launch is always going to be a risk. You're better off waiting to see how/what GW mess up about it before investing.

Sure it´s annoying but I can work in the meantime to reduce my pile of shame. I guess the IH heads & shoulder pads will be available around Christmas.

My store hosts a small but active (and growing) Heresy community, 1-2 games a night every Tuesday and Friday.

Hard to call it a slow drip, I think theres been a new HH release every other week since the game launched.

There is a thriving local community but i need more legion specific stuff to come into stock.

Pyroclasts haven't been in stock since 2.0 dropped.

I'm not gonna just buy Firedrakes sine FW shipping is weird

yeah, the biggest problem for North America is definatly forge world supply issues I placed an order on the weekend but it looks like it hasn't shipped yet.

Maybe its just me, but I feel like people have gotten really impatient these days.

Anyway, it's maybe a good idea to keep a few different games around in circulation, so that if something causes stagnation to happen with one game system, you can play another in the meantime. My solution with 30K has been to mainly collect a force which can also double up as my 40K army, so that even if I can't get a single HH game happening, I can always reuse the models in other games (40K/Heresy Killteam mod)

'Just buy MORE PRODUCT' doesn't really strike me as the best solution to the problem...

Don't see you coming up with any solutions there chief.
Playing a different game is a good solution to avoid getting burned out on one system. It's like when people complain to Bungie that Destiny 2 seasons don't have brand new content for every single week, to which Bungie replies "Do you not play other games?".

The only problem I see is that they should release all kits to build our MK VI marines E.g. Shoulder pads and heavy weapons, maybe a ccw despoiler/breacher sprue.

Other kits are coming way faster than most people paint.

I am in it for the long haul and everyone I will play paints and plays other games too, while building our forces. No issue.

We are nuts for it at my old club, but everyone already had big heresy armies, so a few new people have joined and the heresy players look happy.

I didn't pick up any of the new HH stuff (as I barely have time for the two game systems I play ATM), but a bunch of folks in my club pre-ordered the core box, and I don't think anyone of them have even built any of the models yet. Lots of hype, but it will take folks a while to get stuff on the table.

If I get into it, I might just wait until all the new upgrade kits and choose the legion I think looks the coolest.

 Gert wrote:
Don't see you coming up with any solutions there chief.

GW could release all of the weapon packs and Legion upgrade sets more quickly (or at least announce when they're going to release them).

There. It's rocket science.

 tauist wrote:
Maybe its just me, but I feel like people have gotten really impatient these days.

I'm impatient because I expect to be able to buy unique units for 30k some time within 3 months of the game being released? GW seem taken by surprise at the launch of their own product that they spent 3 years working on.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 westiebestie wrote:


Other kits are coming way faster than most people paint.

Only if you like tanks. If you want anything but tanks, dreads or tac marines, sorry about your luck.

Toofast wrote:

 tauist wrote:
Maybe its just me, but I feel like people have gotten really impatient these days.

I'm impatient because I expect to be able to buy unique units for 30k some time within 3 months of the game being released? GW seem taken by surprise at the launch of their own product that they spent 3 years working on.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 westiebestie wrote:


Other kits are coming way faster than most people paint.

Only if you like tanks. If you want anything but tanks, dreads or tac marines, sorry about your luck.

aren't those the core of most marine armies?

Sure, and for infantry we're just missing almost all of the heavy weapons, chainsword troops, jump pack troops, and breachers. For dreads, the IW and many other legion dreads have been OOS for months. Tanks are just exploding metal boxes. You would be better off taking lascannon and autocannon heavy support squads...which you can't because GW haven't released those yet.

Toofast wrote:
Sure, and for infantry we're just missing almost all of the heavy weapons, chainsword troops, jump pack troops, and breachers. For dreads, the IW and many other legion dreads have been OOS for months. Tanks are just exploding metal boxes. You would be better off taking lascannon and autocannon heavy support squads...which you can't because GW haven't released those yet.

I def agree getting out the heavy weapons is a requirement, and I'd really like to see breachers and assault/despoiler marines. hopefully we'll see the heavy weapons upgrade kits soon.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
'Just buy MORE PRODUCT' doesn't really strike me as the best solution to the problem...

Bro, what are you talking about? Buying more stuff has always been the best solution to everything.

BUY MORE. BUY MORE NOW.

I'll have to wait until October to play (guess why...). I purchased the HH box to start a space marine legion as well but I'm interested in world eaters and I cannot hide my delusions regarding the weapon upgrade kit: why didn't GW release a close combat kit? For how long will my marines be armless?