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This is from the YMMV page of 40k on TVTropes.

The game is much more popular in the United States than in its native Britain, with most of the spin-off video games being developed by American and Canadian companies. United States having a population five times larger than the United Kingdom is a factor. The other major factor is that in Britain 40k had generally been considered a children's game while adults played the Fantasy equivalent or more serious historical wargames, while in the U.S. it was associated with college students and other grown adults.

How true would you say this claim is (or was anyway before 2000)? I can say at least as being half Brit who's living in America my relatives who were into the game before 2003 tended to play Fantasy more while bust of my now adult uncles and cousins played 40K as kids and prefer playing 40K now.

Can any one still living in the country give their input?

That was what Fantasy players thought; while imagining themselves wearing top hats and monocles as they pushed their blocks of wound counters directly forwards into the enemy blocks of wound counters to see who won combat due to having the best magic banner.

The error here is associating serious with adult.

40k definitely isn't a particularly serious game and most historicals are probably way more serious. But that doesn't make it a children game.

Not speaking for Britain, but maybe it took off better in the states because Marines (whether conscious or unconsciously aware) are considerably more significant to American history and military tradition than medieval knights.

Renaissance fests are a much later thing introduced to the greater American psyche that would model the English faire, only to latter become corrupted by cos-players.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
That was what Fantasy players thought; while imagining themselves wearing top hats and monocles as they pushed their blocks of wound counters directly forwards into the enemy blocks of wound counters to see who won combat due to having the best magic banner.

I was a WFB fanboy in 6th and 7th. 8th killed the game for me and I moved to 40k and it indeed felt simplistic in comparison.

What is interesting, though, I never thought people actually play WFB as you're describing it, until recently, when I saw some 6th edition reports on YouTube. It is a very different take on the game from the one I remember and I have already talked about how surprising it is for me in the Old World topic: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/5700/782431.page#11502979

From the far corner of the UK I'm going with "not really no"

What GW did with 40k was tap into a younger market by referencing pop culture of the time , I'm guessing WFB spun out of the a wedge of the historical crowd wanting a bit on Tolkien in their games

I also suspect being a young(ish) nation the colonies have less history to draw on and whilst the ACW, War for Independence and the 2 biggies was about the limit of pondside of the majority of historicals outside the most committed

I suspect cost might be a thing to as around the mid-90s GW prices began to exceed other makers by quite a margin so rank and flank games became a big ask for younger pockets whereas 40k you could get away with platoon or so and support tanks etc, suspect this is why 40k topped WFB as game of choice, (some ropey last editions also I stopped round 5th)

I’d argue 40K simply has a more universal appeal.

If you look at the stuff I grew up on, it’s predominantly SciFi or Science Fantasy. He-Man for instance. Definite fantasy elements (muscle bound meatheads with swords and magic) but a fantastical level of technology. Star Wars, Transformers, MASK, even GI Joe (which I don’t recall ever airing in the U.K.) all had SciFi elements rather than Fantasy.

Though the books were different, such as Fighting Fantasy. But until Heroquest came along, it was still almost entirely SciFi in pop culture.

That was indeed the attitude of Fantasy players in my neck of the woods in the stated time frame.

As a 40k player myself at the time I paid more attention to the fact that a 40k tournament was likely to have 10 different factions in the top 10, while Fantasy tournaments invariably had exactly and only the 3 newest Army Books in the top 10, without fail (except Orcs & Goblins who never made it in even if their book was newest)

Within the far the larger gaming community, both systems were regarded as "games for children." Certainly the historical miniatures people considered them silly and immature.

Adults played with the armies of Napoleon or Micro-Armor.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
That was what Fantasy players thought; while imagining themselves wearing top hats and monocles as they pushed their blocks of wound counters directly forwards into the enemy blocks of wound counters to see who won combat due to having the best magic banner.

Never actually played WFB, did we?

I was wondering how long it would take this thread to get a post like this, and it appears I was a wee bit over-optimistic.

I mean, yeah, the whole premise is a cheap shot at 40K players, but do bear in mind it was not made by the WFB players on this forum...

That idea probably comes from the fact it started as a parody of the flagship game at the time WHFB, it wasn't until 3rd ed they took the game serious enough to actually set the lore in stone and take the grim dark direction.

To me and my group who started circa 2001 the game was a game you played with friends to re-enact epic battles in the 40K setting. theme was and still is the most important part of the game...I.E. playing the game is the fun part (or should be), not just the winning or losing, or "balance" are unit performance etc.... models are moved, dice are rolled and epic GAK happens as it should in the universe.

At least where I grew up, yes. Local FLGS staff openly mocked the lil people perusing the 40K blisters with belittling tones.

Probably a sign of their times "Do you even D100 bro" (local geeks trying a bit to hard to be the alphas of the store). Being a geek back then was weird

SlamDunkerista wrote:
This is from the YMMV page of 40k on TVTropes.

The game is much more popular in the United States than in its native Britain, with most of the spin-off video games being developed by American and Canadian companies. United States having a population five times larger than the United Kingdom is a factor. The other major factor is that in Britain 40k had generally been considered a children's game while adults played the Fantasy equivalent or more serious historical wargames, while in the U.S. it was associated with college students and other grown adults.

How true would you say this claim is (or was anyway before 2000)? I can say at least as being half Brit who's living in America my relatives who were into the game before 2003 tended to play Fantasy more while bust of my now adult uncles and cousins played 40K as kids and prefer playing 40K now.

Can any one still living in the country give their input?

In my area of the USA at that time? The only reason one might think 40k was more of a children's game was that there were far more teens (high school are) playing it at the shops vs playing FB or historicals.
This was due to two factors: Cost & interest lv.
CO$T: 40k of the time simply cost less for the teens to get into vs FB. It didn't really matter how interested they were in FB if they couldn't afford it....
Interest: 40k trumped historicals for the kids for the same reason it does now. Sci-Fi stuff is generally more popular than actual history for a lot of people that age. Historical games are something that most need to grow into appreciating.

Us adults? we tended to play all three genres - Sci-Fi (plenty of 40k), Fantasy (lots of WHFB), & assorted Historicals. We didn't look down on the kids for playing mostly 40k. We played right along side them & slowly recruited them into playing the other stuff.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
That was what Fantasy players thought; while imagining themselves wearing top hats and monocles as they pushed their blocks of wound counters directly forwards into the enemy blocks of wound counters to see who won combat due to having the best magic banner.

Yep, something along those lines. WHFB players thought of themselves being more mature and thus spending time on a game which required brain power. 40K was considered a waste of time fitting for idiots.

ccs wrote:
In my area of the USA at that time? The only reason one might think 40k was more of a children's game was that there were far more teens (high school are) playing it at the shops vs playing FB or historicals.
This was due to two factors: Cost & interest lv.
CO$T: 40k of the time simply cost less for the teens to get into vs FB. It didn't really matter how interested they were in FB if they couldn't afford it....
Interest: 40k trumped historicals for the kids for the same reason it does now. Sci-Fi stuff is generally more popular than actual history for a lot of people that age. Historical games are something that most need to grow into appreciating.

To get into 40k during the 1990s all you had to do was buy a boxed set, and trade minis with your pal, who also bought one. That was enough to give you more than 1,000 points of troops. Go buy a character model to be a general and maybe a tank or something, and you've got a decent fighting force. For less than $100 you could field a decent army if you were willing to play marines or orks.

Fantasy had nothing comparable to that. Even though the game was much cheaper than it later became, there was still much more up front investment. For that reason, many people cannibalized Battlemasters for the figures. A very cheap way to build a fantasy army.

As for the sci-fi aspect, Star Wars was ten years out of circulation at that point, so people were looking for new concepts and 40k had the same delightful mix of creativity built on a half-dozen derivative sources (Alien in particular) that made it attractive.

In my area, there was pretty heavy crossover.

I(circa 1990-5) was easily able to afford my Salamanders & Squat biker gang with the $ I made of of mowing lawns. So it was definitely seen as more an "entry" level wargame. Compared to the "rich kids"/adults who played with huge amounts of minis in WHFB.

Personally I loved how "not-serious" 40k was(and still view it with this lens) and that's kinda what drew me in.

Racerguy180 wrote:


Personally I loved how "not-serious" 40k was(and still view it with this lens) and that's kinda what drew me in.

That's what kept me away originally, but now I'm in character every day.

I got into warhammer around 1999. Fantasy war obviously the more childish themed one, but had the -appearance- of more mature rules.

I got in around 3rd edition 40k, and boy was it simple. Any kid could play it.

BUT

I would say that the youngsters hovering around the hobby at age 10 or 12 would usually buy a few fantasy blisters and try to paint them before giving up due to cost of collecting a whole army. The youngest players were drawn towards pegasus, orcs, goblins, dragons, wizards and so on.

(Mordheim could have been a godsend to recruit these kids, but that game had the most mature/adult theme out of any GW game I suppose).

40k in 1999-2005 had a much more active online forum society imo, which discussed tactics and strategy like they were the pentagon themselves. While Fantasy was more hobby oriented with kitbash etc. I feel the fantasy was more grounded rankn flank, while 40k was more like playing a parody game.

The big big game to recruit people into 40k was supposed to Gorkamorka, but that wasnt it, and it was a tad bit to silly to really be the "Hero Quest" of 40k.

40k 3rd edition armies are fun to build at 1250 points. 4 squads, a tank and a leader or two. The cost of entry was lower, and anything with guns and tanks were much more popular in the USA, necrons and tau were released early in 3rd edition, and also were huge hits in North America.

So yeah, I'd say that at the start of 2000, younger people played 40k due to economic reasons, and older played fantasy. But there was a shift throughout the decade and ended with most "middle age" players going to 40k due to speed of play and mainstream appeal.

And ditto the youngest and oldest gamers (with lacking proper armies, and fully loaded with armies) were still interested in fantasy.

I played both and would not consider Rogue Trader as suitable for children.

CB

40k may have been cheaper than fantasy but it certainly wasn't cheap. The image given above of the starters is very rosy.

The 2nd edition one has 718 points of marines and 440 points of orks. So it's nice if you play marines but quite short of 1200, and if you like the orks you are going to pay quite a bit.

The 3rd edition starter box is unusual because is the only one to contain the full kits instead of miniatures created for the starter, and it gives you a glorious 256 points of marines and 200 points of dark eldar. 3rd edition at the beginning was bloody expensive and even the arrival of plastic kits didn't change things much, there were many many units that were metal.

I started in late 3rd edition and 100 euros got me an all plastic battleforce with 725 points, that wasn't cheap for a teen back then. Thats a tactical squad, assault squad, rhino, predator, dreadnought and 5 extra marines. And that's for the cheapest army, any non elite army would laught at the idea of reaching 1200 points with four squads and a tank.

To further prove the tricks that memory plays on us, both Necron2002 and Tau2001 appeared in the second half of 3rd edition, and they are closer in format to the 3.5 codex of chaos and guard than to the earlier codex of 3rd edition.

 Matthew Flamen wrote:
40k may have been cheaper than fantasy but it certainly wasn't cheap. The image given above of the starters is very rosy.

The 2nd edition one has 718 points of marines and 440 points of orks. So it's nice if you play marines but quite short of 1200, and if you like the orks you are going to pay quite a bit.

The 3rd edition starter box is unusual because is the only one to contain the full kits instead of miniatures created for the starter, and it gives you a glorious 256 points of marines and 200 points of dark eldar. 3rd edition at the beginning was bloody expensive and even the arrival of plastic kits didn't change things much, there were many many units that were metal.

I started in late 3rd edition and 100 euros got me an all plastic battleforce with 725 points, that wasn't cheap for a teen back then. Thats a tactical squad, assault squad, rhino, predator, dreadnought and 5 extra marines. And that's for the cheapest army, any non elite army would laught at the idea of reaching 1200 points with four squads and a tank.

To further prove the tricks that memory plays on us, both Necron2002 and Tau2001 appeared in the second half of 3rd edition, and they are closer in format to the 3.5 codex of chaos and guard than to the earlier codex of 3rd edition.

Its not rose tinted. From my 3rd ed codex Space Marines:
200 for 2 hqs with some equipment. Example 2 force commanders pp/pw
230 for a terminator squad of 5 termies w/cyclone launcher
200 for 10 marines with a hw, sw and veteran sergeant.
250 for 10 assault marines with jump packs
200 for 5 bikes with sergeant and 2 sw
145 for a predator with lascannon sponsons

Total 1225

Thats 4 squads and a vehicle. In addition bolter marines were pretty cheap and lying around everywhere from the starter set or painting sets, and hqs could easily be made from them too (as now I guess).
I could do the same type of list for necrons, tau, daemonhunters and eldar too.

Sure, you can maximize the costs of units if you want them to be as expensive as they can but that isn't what comes to mind when somebody says 4 units and a tank, and that list is expensive, the idea that you can get it easily converting is fanciful.

You can get a similar list from necrons, but using a very limited selection of units or paying through the nose for the metal.

And talking about metal the small lists of grey knights and eldar would have been really expensive.

Do show your tau list with 1000 points in 4 units.

 Matthew Flamen wrote:
Sure, you can maximize the costs of units if you want them to be as expensive as they can but that isn't what comes to mind when somebody says 4 units and a tank, and that list is expensive, the idea that you can get it easily converting is fanciful.

You can get a similar list from necrons, but using a very limited selection of units or paying through the nose for the metal.

And talking about metal the small lists of grey knights and eldar would have been really expensive.

Do show your tau list with 1000 points in 4 units.

That list is not made as expensive as possible. Its a completely normal list. I know because I played it many times in 3rd edition.

Quickly looking at my 3rd ed TAU codex:


Tau
Shas'o with plasma/Missile pod/MT 108
Etheral 50 (they came in the batallion set iirc) 50

3 crisis suits pr/mp/1 drone Shasvre and Bonded ca 200
3 crisis suits as above ca 200
12 Fire warriors emp, bonded, shasui ML no extra equipment 188
16 kroots 112
And a tank: a Hammerhead 165 without upgrades

That leaves enough leftover drones from the other kits for a FA 8 drone unit too (100 points)

SUM
1125 points. Easily made into 1250 with upgrades to squad leaders, tank, shaper for kroot, bodyguarding suits etc.



Prices were steep back then too; according to waybackmachine this list would cost 193 dollars (battleforce 90, 60 4 extra xv8s, hammerhead 35, Etheral 8).

http://web.archive.org/web/20030420201342/http://www.games-workshop.com/storefront/store.us?do=Odd&odd=NewLayout&_do=List_Models&code=3582&game=3&database=895&c=3582&imgsize=b




PS: Necron list (2 battallions 2x80$ and a Necron Lord 10$)

Necron Lord w/shroud/Warschyte 130
2x20 warriors 720
2x3 destroyers 300
2x5 scarabs 120
Sum:
1280 for 170 dollars.

You can buy 170 points more in disruptor fields & lord equipment or kitbash a lord from the destroyers/pay 25$ for a Nightbringer to get to 1500 points.

 Matthew Flamen wrote:
40k may have been cheaper than fantasy but it certainly wasn't cheap. The image given above of the starters is very rosy.

The 2nd edition one has 718 points of marines and 440 points of orks. So it's nice if you play marines but quite short of 1200, and if you like the orks you are going to pay quite a bit.

I guess it depends on what you consider "cheap." Certainly it had the lowest cost of entry of any edition of either 40k or WHFB.I consider that cheap.

Also, baseline figure and vehicle costs were vastly lower than they are today. Yes, these were either metal or single-pose plastics, but they were cheap. For $100 one could build about 1,000 points of any of the main armies, and the starter figures were very useful because of their trade value. I remember when 3rd came out and people would barter for the Marines in the starter set but the Dark Eldar were a glut on the market (kind of like 5th ed. Fantasy Lizardmen).

In 2nd, if could buy a boxed set and easily find a Marine or Ork player happy to trade you for more rank and file troopers. Ebay was coming into its own as well, so you could go there if no locals wanted them.

1st edition Grey Knights was quite a cheap army, and quite easy to transport as well, sort of pocket sized.

they also looked quite nice

total one trick pony though

key was though 40k played "acceptably" with a dozen or so models if you had decent terrain in 1st edition and I gather worked with 3-4 units in second reasonably ok

where as WHFB basically didn't, you were going to want more units, not many more 6-8 probably for a small game with one or two as characters, but those units tended to either have to be larger or only really work when larger

and critically if you tried to play WHFB with smaller forces it wasn't overly enjoyable for one side or the other which is hardly an incentive to spend more money to get to the point it works and is good

combine that with 40k being more like a sci-fi kids cartoon and away you go.

don't think the quality of the rules or background really came into it, just that 40k was easier to play with a lower investment in time and money, where as when you saw a larger WHFB army painted well by the sort of people who played it and painted well as a younger cub it was off putting

didn't stop me trying though

Its a 'child's game' in the sense that most of us who get into it got into it in our teens.

As in under 18. Not adults.

at least in the wider area here it was the opposite

Fantasy was the kids game, mostly played by people <18 were 40k were the guys >25 and those in the middle happened to play Lord of the Rings

 kodos wrote:
at least in the wider area here it was the opposite

Fantasy was the kids game, mostly played by people <18 were 40k were the guys >25 and those in the middle happened to play Lord of the Rings

Yes, though it may sound a little obvious, some towns had a majority of WHFB players and a minority of 40k, and of course vice versa.

Does anyone know which year 40k began outselling WHFB?

My experience of playing both though the 90's up until around 2000 were that both played both. I don't recall one game having any more or less adults or children than the other.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Within the far the larger gaming community, both systems were regarded as "games for children." Certainly the historical miniatures people considered them silly and immature.

Adults played with the armies of Napoleon or Micro-Armor.

I quite remember the belittling by the Napoleanic players when I was playing in a battletech campaign at a local club. Gods help you if you played actual 40K. The WHFB players got a little slack, until someone cast a spell in the game or showed up with an undead army.