GW's doctrine has pushed me away completely. I won't even 3D print a 40k model. I don't want to advertise their setting in any way. Try Battletech. We've got crunchy rules that have stayed mostly the same for 40 years, we don't have any "gotcha" bullshit, and your models will never be out of date.

Played back in the early 90's and enjoyed the game for many years but moving from one edition to the next killed the love. Got back into the game recently and my advice to anyone wanting to play is pick an edition and stay in that era for as long as possible. Ignore everything current GW is doing because that is the $$$trap.

I have stopped my purchases with the space vampire set. I currently have a moratorium on GW until they straighten out the rules and all the extra expenses that go along with new editions. As of now 5th Ed is it. I guess the business model of "Bleed em till the leave", isn't all that conducive to loyalty.

Good faith of it's paying fans? especially the OG? yeah.

One Page Rules has been a welcoming community.

I love warhammer and I am fairly new to it, I picked up my space marines right before 9th and then later just before 10th finally picked up some necrons. Since then I worry that a good chunk of my space marines are going the way of the dodo since I picked up half first born stuff. On top of that I’m not even getting the new killteam since I don’t like factions being phased out of play. Even if I don’t play tournaments I don’t like entire teams just being poofed into thin air. GW is a models company first and foremost, if I as a player can’t trust that I’ll be able to use the models I bought from them barely 6 years after I get em I then that’s when I pull out. Which sucks cuz again, I love the IP warhammer is really awesome.

I’ve switched to Battletech. The game itself is just better IMO

Paying for rules is what kept me out in the first place. My buddy finally got me to start playing AOS. I find that paying for rules just locks players out. Not just out of the game, but out of playing multiple factions. So many people choose not to play the game because they don't want to need to keep paying to play with models they already bought. GW makes a lot more money selling miniatures than they do selling rules. The rules are just a cash grab for them to get extra money. If the rules were free through the app, more people would play the game, which would sell more models. More players would play multiple factions, which sells more models. Now that 3d printing is getting cheaper, people are looking at ways to cut costs, because the cost to play is way to high. Now they are running into a barrier of entry that keeps people from starting the hobby. The people playing the hobby are tired of all of the cost, so they are finding other ways to cut costs (3d printing, downloading the rules online), so they are losing profit from those that are playing. If they made the rules free, at least they might still get new players, which could sell more models and help with profits. My fdm printer prints a fairly decent looking miniature. If GW doesn't change their ways soon, they are in for a lot of problems. With all of the added costs and nickel and diming (can we really call it that...more like $10 and $20ing) I don't feel bad about buying recasts, 3d printing, and downloading the rules. In reality, if those avenues weren't available, I probably wouldn't be playing anymore anyway.

Ive stopped purchasing from GW directly since 2021 and gone to local game stores for the 15% discount, but even that Isn't worth it anymore. the only time I buy models is during Christmas or Birthdays for my Warhammer buddies. It is a shame that I don't believe that I will pass down the hobby I enjoyed so much because who know what outrageous prices they will have in the next five to ten years.

Ah, remember the golden age of Games Workshop when they didn’t interact with the player base at all. Total radio silence. Got a broken or trash codex? Sorry, no updates for you until a new edition 4 years later. Pray tell who was happy with that? Absolutely no one. New balance patch every 3 months now is too much because it supposedly invalidates the codex? Damned if they do damned if they don’t. You’re not wrong about having to keep up with buying codexes tho. That gets annoying. But you said it yourself… you can find the rules for free, so ultimately it’s a non issue. 3d printers killing GW? Not going to happen. 3d printers are easier to use than ever, but it’s an entirely different hobby from buying a box set, building it and painting it in an afternoon. Not to mention the barrier to entry for even using the printer. Buying it, setting it up, having the room for it, then all the time it takes to actually print a whole army. Yeesh. My printer is currently churning out a second Lord of Change, but I will still be spending boatloads when the Eldar stuff comes out next year. Printing models supplements buying GW stuff, it doesn’t wholesale replace it.

Yeah, i started getting into warhammer 40k two and a half of year ago, so just before 10th edition. I picked up starter set, start learning rules with my buddy, we were amazed. I started collecting space marines and wanted to get into necrons as well. And then 10th edition happened. Half of my space marines become ussless, almost everything i learned of the rules went out the window, and i watched the hype that was happening around Leviathan box. I was interested in picking up one, but i didnt. Because they made so few of them that it sell out in seconds. Simuntanously they raised up their prices, so discount on Leviathan was really only reasonable way to get me close again to normal sized army

Brilliant take. Thumbs up!

I was a regular buyer from my local GW store in Australia until they said no painting in the store and no gaming in there either. It was only for purchasing Warhammer and then get the heck out of here. That felt like a kick in the balls to a long time fan and customer. I don’t have a 3D printer but I buy 3D proxy minis from Etsy now when I can.

I got into Warhammer through Dawn of War, and I have many cherished memories of building, painting, and playing. It hurts my soul how far things have fallen, and I just don't have fun with Games Workshop systems anymore. To quote Breaking Bad: "We had a good thing, you stupid son of a bitch! We had everything we needed and it ran like clockwork."

The way imperial guard where treated in 9th edition killed my interest in the game and I undos the lynchpin for my small gaming group who died when I lost interest. Trying to my friends to start trench crusade now

Battletech has been around just as long as 40K so how did Battletech survive without changing rules, Mech stats, and army lists every two years? They let the players play. And actually I see Battletech in every tabletop convention I only see 40K in specific 40K ish focused conventions/events.

Corvus Belli is a better company; Infinity is a better game.

I lost trust in the company back when they dropped WFB; that's also when I stopped playing. I remember when White Dwarf had hobby articles. I remember when their website had articles about how the Armies played and what was good for your play style. I miss when things weren't a cash grab. I feel old now.

You just described my last 4 years with GW. I got 2 resin printers, and even that hasnt kept my interest in the hobby alive.

Why do I feel like I always get into a hobby when it’s dying

8th Edtion Indexes were actually a brilliant idea. Sure units were more "generic" but at least every army got an update at the same time, and you could purchase something like three books and have the rules for every army out at the time.

3D printing means companies can make competing rulesets without needing to have their own miniature lines, and there's enough variety online for people to pick and choose from. What GW has had going for them is being the market leader, and having an inspiring lore (Inspiring in the sense that you have a lot of inspiration to go on when making your army). That's something that lacks in for instance One Page Rules. But, the lore of 40k feels like it's been going the corporate path of sanitization. It's no longer the Grim Dark. And the models too feel a lot more generic than in the past with many different factions sharing design features too. The Primaris powerpacks having that round part, that looks like a Tau drone thing. Or the Leagues of not-Squats having helmets with features you can find similarly on those Gravis jump Primaris guys. And the creativity aspect is being diminished by the previously almost endlessly modular Space Marine kits now having Primaris, Horus Heresy and Chaos Space Marines no longer sharing the same template or sizes.

I can remember when, if you learned the base game (40k/WHFB) you basically knew how to play the " spin off" games set within that larger universe . Deciding to pick up necromunda/mordheim/gorkamorka as a side game did not mean you had to learn a whole new jarring set of rules. You just knew like 90% of them. Plus a lot of the time you could use your existing miniatures.

Come over to Conquest, core rule and army rules are always free, updates to both are free, old models are playable, stl terrain for all factions, only thing you need to buy is the army

they killed their game when they started releasing models that can easily table whole armies that are tanamount unkillable outside of fielding titans to deal with them, that cost under 200 points. i can fielda space marine with a bolter for 15 points if i want a power sword, 15 more points, a storm bolter, 5 more points, (35 points for a space marine) or a space marine (grey knight) with power weapons, storm bolters and psychic powers for 16 points. Like lullwutt, some armies are literally unplayable now. and some are so OP there is no point in playing against them. the balance is totally gone, and that has killed the game.

Scale Creep, New Rules that aren't playtested and price increases.... I was a fan for GW 35 years and now we make our own rules. Bad business cycle in my opinion. I loved both fantasy and 40K, Still love the minis from Oldhammer.

The game is straight up too expensive to attract new players now. I feel sorry for anyone who wants to start from scratch.

25 years in the hobby, yeah, 40k 10th (and the past few editions) feels as grey as their plastic models.

ToW really showed me just how big of a difference it is. I got completely sucked in for months converting Tomb Guard Chariots, Brettonian exiles, etc. It was so much fun hobby stuff that was ENCOURAGED by the game rules and kits rather than DISCOURAGED like it is in AoS and 40k. I play all 4 systems, I like all 4 systems, but Goddamnit if I don't wish they'd move 40k back to the more interesting style that engaged with the hobby and fed back into the game.

0:40 per se means 'on it's own'.

Do you remember the good old days when if people didn't like a product, they just didn't buy it, as opposed to making a video so everyone had to listen to them complaining about it? +Goes back to happily reading my 10th edition rules and codex+

I stopped the video at the minute mark to think what the answer might be, and the only thing I could come up with was "any respect they ever had for the player-base's wallets". And thus were my powers of clairvoyance proven. But as I'm sitting here listening to your entirely valid complaints, I keep seeing this nagging set of counter-points. An edition every two years? 40k was on 2nd edition when I first picked it up on 1996, that averages to an edition every three years or so. The cycle isn't that much faster. New codex every edition? Always been a thing if you played Marines, and the alternative is bad in it's own way. Ask those poor sods who picked up Dark Eldar and were still using the 3rd Ed codex in 6th. That obnoxious pile of FAQs? I took a long break between 4th and 8th, but I've heard the horror stories about how big that printed FAQ got in between. A codex in it's own right, and very real odds your opponent didn't even know it existed. Having to pay for a published hard-copy isn't great but at least everyone knows it exists. And the alternative there isn't great either, without the FAQ if something is broken when the book prints it's going to _stay_ broken. The cost of staying in front of Codex releases? Would that be so unreasonable if you didn't own multiple armies? Why do you own multiple armies in the first place? For most of us the answer is "you need to own at least three 40k armies to be sure you have at least one that isn't unplayable garbage this edition", and that's _never_ been an invalid statement. And that leads into not getting more than a couple of games in with a book before it's outdated, that wouldn't be so much of a problem if you only owned one or two armies. (Although ... math says 52 games of 40k over a two year period divided by 2 games per book equals 25 armies. You do know you don't have to buy all the armies, right?) The one thing where I go "hold up, that's not GWs fault" is saying that you don't have that kind of time on your hands because you have a wife and kids now. Would you really trade that for more time to read 40k rules? ...on second thought, don't answer that.

If you have only been playing for sixteen years, then you have only seen GW become more player focused over time. You started just about peak corporate GW.

Trench Crusade looks wicked. You know who doesn't like Warhammer? Anyone trying to get into the hobby. They have a strangle hold and you guys let em.

They’ve gained a place in the FTSE 100 😮

As a BB TO, if i dont know the player I usually touch base with them to gauge their experience and adjust the first round accordingly... usually pit them against an opponent that i know is experienced, there to have fun, didnt take a killer list and is good with less experienced players... If a total noob i usually tell the person a league is a better way to learn the game as tournaments can be a little brutal

What people fail to realise is there's nothing stopping you from playing an older edition which is complete balanced and faq to the hill

This! A hundred times this! And this is me saying it as someone who still hopes GW can come back to being more trustworthy.

20 years here, Gaming Club Leader, still a fan of some sort. But GW took the wrong turn

Exactly.

One of the reasons I buy board games that have hobby elements but are, at the end of the day, a self contained board game is due to the reasons you mentioned. That 2 year cycle is stupid.

Pretty happy to only use 3D printed models and playing with old 40K 3rd Edition/WHFB 6th Edition rules

On one hand GW have revolutionised the hobby and its popularity. On the other there are many more better sets of rules that are out there. My first Space Marines were purchased in 1987…. And I still have those lovely little beakies in my collection. The rules have never been that brilliant but the marketing was better than everything else at the time 🕰️

I think you're being subjective and naive man. You have naturally changed your needs, while the company's market has grown and their offering has progressed. It doesn't mean that they're doing anything worth criticism from your perspective. They still have a long way to go in terms of their practices, but their approach trajectory is sound.

WARZONE AND MUTANT CHRONICLES FOREVERRRRRRRR!!!!!!

it's everyone's decision to buy multiple armies for multiple game types, you cant pin that on GW. I agree editions should last longer than the current 3 year cycle that it is. You can Email them directly, that's what's needed. Ive done it myself, but if they're seeing thousands of emails of complaints about the app and the codex thing is a prime example. Pay a monthly subscription and have all rules and updates come through to the app as and when, this is much easier. Now on the defensive side, i think having editions helps keep the game entertaining, personally if you played the same game over and over and over for year you would get bored, but id say editions should be every 5 years imo.

I started when 5th edition came out and the changes GW did in recent years completely turned me off from the hobby, it was hard enough to find time and people to play regularly especially when you got a Deathwatch campaign going on too so it ended up with me playing like 2 games a month and it's just not worth it to pay that much money just so you can play like 6-7 games with it.

As someone old enough to have spent a chunk of my early teens playing 1st Edition 40K I can say with all my heart the biggest loss has been the game's soul. It was once scrappy, irreverent, filled with humour and dark comedy poking fun at the world we lived in back in the 80s, and fun little nods and jibes at pop culture, music, football, etc. You could tell the game was made by people having fun making the game to ay for themselves as much as us. And boy, was it fun. Now, the game is different. Sure, it's smooth, streamlined, balanced (usually), but the wit has gone for fear of offending or alienating someone why might throw some money on GW's altar. It's bland fast-food gaming perfect for streams and soundbites and raking in the cash over the original days of playing to have a laugh with your buddies. And the pricing of the models... oof. No kid can afford the hobby anymore, GW is just chasing whales like the worst elements in the software industry. The days of encouraging people to make their own models is long, long dead... the game is like the Emperor himself; 99% dead and soulless, being kept going by idiots maintaining a status quo for their own benefit. But hey, I still have those memories. And a 3d printer. I can still make and paint Orks my way. And I still have all those old rulebooks. This is still my hobby, and GW will not take it from me.

Respect

I lost my faith in Games Workshop in 1999. I was 18 and spent all my money on warhammer and then they came out with a bunch of new units that were all better than the old one faster than I could even paint then. Thats when we coined the phrase power creep and all us the self respecting gamers that were smart enough to see what was going on left.