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40k has gone pretty dormant games wise. People are still painting their armies and buying stuff, but we have gone from 5-6 games a week at the club to 0-1, with other games taking over. Just wondered how others were finding things?

I found a shop yesterday where it's all 10th edition, all the time. There's no room for anything else.

I'd say there were 30 people there ready to play.

In my area? Non-stop.

There's 4 local shops - 1 large (well stocked, plenty of table space, enough terrain & mats for 20(?) Tables & great hours) & 3 smaller shops (quality/stock/space/hours etc varies).

Between these 4 shops there were 3 escalation leagues & 1 Crusade running simultaneously Jan+
The smaller shops? They each had about 10 participants (1/2+ new players).
The larger shop? There were 30sone players in their Escalation League!
The large shop adds about 4 - 5 new players each month.

The large shop also hosts monthly RTTs.

You want casual games? No problem, just post in the discords.
You want Escalations & Crusades? Sign up.
Need your tourney fix? The larger shop has you covered....

Of course with all this play + constant new players comes sales.
Krieg & EC have sold very well.

The larger shop also gets ever bussier as the players from the other shops discover it & realize "this place is so much better than ____)

And all this 40k? Has NOT drowned out other minis games. GW or otherwise. Quite the opposite.
The larger shop has very active player bases for MCP. Bolt Action, Conquest, Battletech, & other GW stuff (30k, Sigmar, Bloodbowl, Kill Team, Legion Imperialis)
So people come for the 40k, SEE Battletech/Bolt Action/Marvel/etc being enthusiasticly played & say "What's this??"

*the only type of minis game that doesn't seem to get traction is "boat games" - Black Seas. Cruel Seas, Dystopia Wars, Blood &Pluned etc.

Its always interesting when a game falls out of favour in an area. I am not sure what we could do differently, we have crates of 40k terrain, have bought more, have the tables and a horde of 40k armies. It just seems to have faded away.

40k is healthier than ever. Lot's of new people joining, many veterans returning because of crusade, or because their homes are finished, children have grown up and they have both time and money at their hands again. I also know of two similar sized clubs nearby, as well as 2 GW stores and 1 FLGS where one could play.

The reason for a hobby falling out of favor are usually two things:
1) Life. People move, marry, have children to take care of. If everyone playing the game is roughly the same age, this phase of life is likely to wipe out a hobby quickly.
2)You overlooked the importance of welcoming new people into the hobby. Warhammer 40k communities often tend to be overly competitive, rigidly focused on casual at all costs mentalities, or elitist when it comes to painting standards, lore knowledge, and defining the "correct" way to enjoy 40k. In short, a lot of people focus on keeping people out rather then letting them in.

Out of the nine friends who played 40k when I started in 5th, only one is still in the hobby, one is thinking about coming back, and I myself had quit the game once as well. Bleeding players is natural, you need to actively do something about it.

Plenty of 40k in my area along with some AoS, Old War, and a smattering of other games. (I think there's an ongoing Blood Bowl league at the moment.)

Easily the strongest its ever been. Absolutely dominating game nights and spilling over into other venues and special event days.

I go to a few different stops spanning almost half the state, so I've got a skewed view.

In Phoenix 10th is going pretty hard at the biggest stores, however there are several successful (and large) ones where 10th is equal to, or even edged out, by the weight of other games (aos, old world, heresy, battletech, and some other things).

In Flagstaff, north of me, 10th is the only real game in town (small area, very small store), but there's a vested interest in heresy and I've managed to start a little scene which quite a few people participate in, and a majority of them profess to preferring Heresy and being dissatisfied with 10th.

In my town there's a modest store and 10th is also the only game in town, with about 12 people who partake. However 3-4 of them are heresy curious, and I know that 5-6 of them generally don't like 10th and are losing their luster with 40k in general (they started in 8th), so I'm trying to spark a little Heresy scene there.

So I'd say that 10th is a mixed bag. On the one hand it's probably more 'popular' than table top has ever been, judging by more people are playing 40k than I've ever seen. However I also hear a lot of griping, even among fairly new players, about disliking churn and the pay-to-win / meta nature of the game. So while I'd say that 40k is more popular than it's ever been, I'd ALSO say that it's chewing through its player base faster than ever before, where as it used to be people were generally in the hobby for quite awhile.

Simple answer-non existent, i hardly ever seen anybody playing it.

If you have seen any of my pics in the post your games topic you know that Battle tech is king of the current FLGS, not that 40K doesn't get played, our group has a dozen or so players who still play 5th edition religiously getting in several games every weekend (4 last weekend) otherwise the big games aside from that are MCP, MTG and RPGs, we have had a bit of a resurgence with a few small warmachine events. kill teams, HALO , cyber punk and heavy gear have made appearances. i also try to break out DUST 1947 every now and then, and we have some casual warmachine MKIII planned for this weekend.

So I'd say that 10th is a mixed bag. On the one hand it's probably more 'popular' than table top has ever been, judging by more people are playing 40k than I've ever seen. However I also hear a lot of griping, even among fairly new players, about disliking churn and the pay-to-win / meta nature of the game. So while I'd say that 40k is more popular than it's ever been, I'd ALSO say that it's chewing through its player base faster than ever before, where as it used to be people were generally in the hobby for quite awhile.

Most of us old gamers just make fun of how bad it is(even for GW standards), the newer younger guys in our group that have tried 10th after playing 5th with us hate it.

40K is actually mixed here, people still buying the miniatures. But games are rare, sometimes it picks up and we see a few games over a week and then it dies again.

Other games are doing quite well, and we see the miniatures pop up when a game fits them.
Old kill team seen a revival. Inquisitor was a surprise success. Infinity has really hit the sci-fi game crowd here. MCP and shatter point popular as well for pickup games. And Battletech went from me showing of mechs to hundreds of mechs being painted by lots of people.

I think a big part of it is players not really wanting to carry around a bunch of 40K for a game that most people say they kinda just put up with. So it’s possible that more games happening at home where players can be more laid back.

People do ask for events happening but sign ups are low so it’s kinda been a even if 40K has organised thing going on, it’s mostly just the same as a few players doing there own thing anyway and me sitting there reading the last few times.

10th killed 40k in my area.

10th still strong in my group but we don’t follow the dumb terrain setups that just make the game dull (IMHO)

We moved to OPR, but it's still 40K miniatures mostly. It's not 10th' fault per se, rather a combination of the 3year-cycle and the no models no rules policy.

Simply no match for Tiddlywinks. Every table is taken up with hyper competitive disc-flickers.

It's the dominant game where I'm at, but it's far from the only game in town.

Whenever I go to my FLGS, there's at least 6 active games of 40k going on most nights. The other two popular ones are Horus Heresy and AOS with 2-3 going on pretty much every night as well. Occasionally I'll see someone playing Battletech or the Super Hero one, but it's only every so often.

I have literally never seen Horus Heresy being played in person, but I still see a ton of people playing LotR. It's interesting how vastly areas differ in what games are being played.

Not very good. People outside the event, especialy team event, players aren't really playing much. They don't like the mechanics, how all armies look the same (13 units, up and down units, obligatory "mission" monkeys, infiltrators, msu etc), how you have to play a specific pre build GW designed lists or you may as well not play at all. The "run" in to corners to do "objectives", non interactive armies of both the I play soliter (my GK) or the "you can't do a thing about what I am suppose to do, because my mechanics are just better".
The fact that the game is also tested and designed for GW rules packs and UK terrain is a problem in places, where you don't play on UK tables. GW gets data to nerf lists that do well in UK or leave lists that do okey in UK, when the state doesn't happen to be a thing all around the world. Also the fact that some armis are classed as okey , because they do well in teams (or get nerfed because of teams like BT did), doesn't make people happy about the state of w40k.

The rest is normal late in to edition stuff. People with bad lists and released codex don't have much to wait for, especialy if GW already tried to fix it or/and the fix would require writing a new codex (vide Mechanicus). Unsupported game styles won't get fix at all, or maybe GW will try to throw a bone for them at the end of the edition, but unless someone already has the army, I don't think many will run out to spend 500-600$ to buy a terminator or bike army.

AoS isn't doing a bit better, but not much better. Fantasy on the other hand is booming, but we were always a place where fantasy was super popular. It stayed popular even when GW decided that Fantasy should no longer be a thing anymore.

All in all 10th feels the same way 8th felt. A pre edition, clearing of the board after 9th and preparing the field for the REAL thing, that is suppose to happen in 11th.

40K 10th Edition is doing great in my community. We have five tourneys a year and they sell out. We have an active league and there always games at the FLGS on Saturday (sometimes more, sometimes less). Some folks walked away (to Old World oddly enough), but others have joined. Compared to 9th, there is a little more "update fatigue", but with the corollary of less angst about over-powered armies. The way that Secondaries are scored now is better than 9th with more chances to interact and no faction Secondaries. So while the launch of 9th had more flash, I would say that 10th Ed has had more sustained interest. We also haven't really seen the impact of Space Marine 2 yet - models are selling (the Space Marines stock has sold out twice since Christmas less the drop pods) but it takes time to get to 2000 points. I imagine those folks will be on the tables by the summer.

I also play wargames at a club once a week with a different crowd and there are no 40K games there at this time (mostly Old World and then random Warlord Games, Flames of War etc). So, if you were to ask someone in that club how 10th Ed was going they would say "Its dead." But at the FLGS up the street? 40K 10th is doing great.

I've not observed any downturn in the number of pick up games.

We still have monthly tournaments with 20-30 players. I did notice our last GT had less participants. It went from 50-60 down to 39. Fewer players from teams showed up this time.

Very little 40k at Salute this year in the UK. Less I think than previous years in terms of display and sales.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
Its always interesting when a game falls out of favour in an area. I am not sure what we could do differently, we have crates of 40k terrain, have bought more, have the tables and a horde of 40k armies. It just seems to have faded away.

What type of terrain though?

I've found with 10th that even the casual narrative people are increasingly playing on GW official or UKTC board set-ups because otherwise the game just isn't functional. It's all well and good to have lovely looking boards but if they're completely unusable because nobody can hide then even the casual players start to notice.

Or you have tables from previous editions and you are forced to create some house rules.

We have a river that cuts through the map. It used to be great fun for Amphibious Chimeras and Flyers to scoot across... now... it's just a blue line on the board.

I think one of the big weaknesses of 10th's terrain rules is that anything that isn't ruins or LoS blocking has close to no impact on the outcome of the game.

It is possible to set up cool looking narrative games even in 10th, but it requires a deep collection of terrain pieces and some insight knowledge of how the game works. On a crusade day, there is me and one other player who re-arrange all the boards before any game starts, because otherwise we would have too many non-games. Most of the other players just can't do it.

 Jidmah wrote:
I think one of the big weaknesses of 10th's terrain rules is that anything that isn't ruins or LoS blocking has close to no impact on the outcome of the game.

It is possible to set up cool looking narrative games even in 10th, but it requires a deep collection of terrain pieces and some insight knowledge of how the game works. On a crusade day, there is me and one other player who re-arrange all the boards before any game starts, because otherwise we would have too many non-games. Most of the other players just can't do it.

Mostly an issue with TLOS. If we had model heights that allowed terrain to block LOS no matter how tall your banner, a lot of other terrain would be as useful as ruins.

 Bosskelot wrote:

The_Real_Chris wrote:
Its always interesting when a game falls out of favour in an area. I am not sure what we could do differently, we have crates of 40k terrain, have bought more, have the tables and a horde of 40k armies. It just seems to have faded away.

What type of terrain though?

I've found with 10th that even the casual narrative people are increasingly playing on GW official or UKTC board set-ups because otherwise the game just isn't functional. It's all well and good to have lovely looking boards but if they're completely unusable because nobody can hide then even the casual players start to notice.

Both. Good terrain And terrain specifically for tourney games that we bought two crates of (though why anyone would willingly use it is beyond me...).

 LunarSol wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
I think one of the big weaknesses of 10th's terrain rules is that anything that isn't ruins or LoS blocking has close to no impact on the outcome of the game.

It is possible to set up cool looking narrative games even in 10th, but it requires a deep collection of terrain pieces and some insight knowledge of how the game works. On a crusade day, there is me and one other player who re-arrange all the boards before any game starts, because otherwise we would have too many non-games. Most of the other players just can't do it.

Mostly an issue with TLOS. If we had model heights that allowed terrain to block LOS no matter how tall your banner, a lot of other terrain would be as useful as ruins.

Yes, TLOS is the issue. Model height would be one solution, but doesn't fix everything IMO. Terrain like craters, trenches or the previously mentioned river should give an infantry squad a serious chance of survival. The current "benefit of cover" usually boils down to 2 extra wounds for your average battleline dudes. That might as well be nothing.

If the shooting rules don't change more terrain needs to have rules which literally prevents shot from being fired. For example:
Craters/trenches: infantry units wholly within in a crater or trench cannot be drawn LOS to (obscured) unless you are within 12" of them unless the shooting model is TOWERING, AIRCRAFT or using indirect fire.
Forests obscure just like ruins and units inside are obscured unless you are within 12" of the target unit.
Industrial terrain could be obscuring for any unit inside, but not for units behind or on top of it.
Barricades/pipes prevent you from drawing LoS through them to infantry and mounted units within 2" of them.

None of that is well thought through right now, I literally came up with all this on the fly. But you get the idea. The current ruleset has all the tools it needs to toss out some terrain beta rules we could then iterate on.

I've actually cooled on the appeal of unique terrain rules. A lot of the games I play that have the most engaging tables do so with very minimal rules for them. Blocking LOS, impeding movement, and providing a cover bonus seems to be all that's really needed.

My experience with 10th is that for the most part the ruins do most of this (they're hit or miss on movement restrictions). A well laid out table generally has interesting firing lanes that make movement matter. They're a little loose, but with big unit footprints that makes sense.

I think more to the point, it helps if people stop limiting ruins to.... ruins. Like forests work as ruins. Industrial sections are valid ruins. Make cool looking tables with little dioramas that serve as ruins. The current rules can honestly make more interesting looking tables than one with more varied terrain that had more specific rules could offer.

Now, I'd love to see more terrain interaction in general. Like it would be cool to have units that have Lone Op in a ruin or that gain fights first or a charge bonus for ambushing or something. Sabotage units and the like. Always a fan of destructible terrain concepts and the like that I find work better when terrain itself is simpler.

10th is being played by around 15 people almost exclusively in a "league" format where you are not allowed to switch your army list for the whole season. From what I can tell the group mostly consists of people who have been playing the game since 2nd or 3rd edition onwards with very few newcomers.

Around the same amount of people play Custom40k with a mix of pick up games, tournaments and narrative campaigns. The group consists of a veterans and newcomers alike.

I miss Imperial statuaries giving your forces a +1 to Leadsership.

Pretty good. Now, if only I could get a game in with my work schedule and its inconsistent off days, that’d be perfect.