Miniature Wargaming Review Part 2 - Warhammer40K

I'm going to do a multi-part review of a handful of miniature war games. This is part 2 - Warhammer 40K.

Part 3 is coming soon on Warmachine and Hordes.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• Warhammer
• 40K
• overview

[GenAhab]

According to some of my UK "informants," sales in the UK are up and, from what what I am told, profits are up across the board. However, GW has always had a firmer grip on the UK, which makes sense, so sales could be down in the US.

On a side not, I expect sales to go up substantially after the release of the new video game.

In any case, I don't believe 40k is on the way out.

[doremicom]

@GenAhab If GW does a 180 with 40K like they did with Fantasy releasing an across the board Codex update with the release or 6th edition.... I hope you're right & 40k sticks around. This year, from what I've seen, GW finally has competition in this space. While other tabletop games and game manufacturers have been around..... this seems to be the first year that I see large quantities of people playing other games.

Great debate, thanks for keeping it clean and informative.

[Original50]

Very good presentation doremicom. You do point out the known disadvantages of 40k - pressure to buy larger, multiple model-sets and terrain, 'professional fouling' caused by highly complex rules etc, but the system and concept are essentially entertaining and easy to grasp. Maybe you could offer some advice or recommendations on how to address the down-side aspects and give hope to the potential and actual players who are under financial and rules-related pressure?

[doremicom]

@Original50 I actually was in the process of building a new set of army codexes that focused on the fluff of the black library and balanced every army. With GW's high sensitivity to litigation, those rules will never surface.  The best thing GW can do is to take its own lead with how they handled Warhammer Fantasy, and release an FAQ for EVERY army at the same time in an attempt to provide some greater balance to the game.

[GenAhab]

What evidence do you have to back up your beliefs that 40k is going to die? Sales are way up and 40k is breaking into new markets. I am sorry, but I just don't see it, at least no economic red-flags.

[doremicom]

@GenAhab My original statement was really focused on how GW is treating the player community, and I was stating that if 40K potentially dies it is a direct result of that.

Back to your comment, I'd be curious if sales are really up or if profit is up (due to increasing base cost of models and decreasing manufacturing costs). I spoke with 10 gaming stores over the last 5 months just curious what games were selling, most of them indicated that the volume of 40K sales were down year over year.

[crimsonfist1149]

nice review. gotta admit thats the one thing that really annoys me about this game is how expensive it is

[gaughknee]

YouTube has video tutorials about how to play 40K?? Really? Are you sure?... Just kidding. I caught your inside joke! (Because I saw your tutorial video and it helped inspire me to go ahead and start playing and collecting 40k)

[CelebrityMindDeath]

more expensive than my crack addiction.

[nithia]

So if you think 40k is the game for you my advise is to watch some videos on you tube, find some forums about different armies, do your research on every army you think you might want to play if not every army, and lay out a plan to buy what you need so you can say start at kill teams and work your way up to big games. Take your time too you don't need to buy everything at one time; that causes unpainted armies. Most important it should be fun. (sorry i took up so many comments back to back)

[nithia]

And finally if you compare it to other hobbies like golf, bowling, movies, video games, it really costs the same or even less. It just seems like a lot because so many people look at the total number for an army at one time rather than the possible over time aspect. Example Bowling: $100 for a ball, $60 for shoes, $50 for a bag, $5 per game at 5 games a week for 50 weeks a year. That is $1460 by the end of the year twice the average price for a 40k army. And that is if you bowl alone.

[nithia]

As far as cost goes yes it seems to be a very expensive hobby game, and a standard static army of 2000 points that can never change (or at least not more than some wargear) will run between $200 and $800 depending on how you want to set your army up. But if you first consider the hobby part, the average person can not sit down and paint a whole box in one sitting so it will take time to get an army painted and that gives you more time to buy everything.

[nithia]

I probably should just make a video instead, but i think im almost done. But again they are out to make money first so if that means changing the rules of the game or changing other armies to make other armies not as good that were very popular before will cause the players of those armies to choose to either stop playing or (in many cases) pick up a second army that is more competitive, but unless you have every army there is going to be a time when your army seems nerfed compared to the rest.

[nithia]

Am i angry at GW for all of this well yes and no. I mean first and foremost every army's codex should be balanced so that it has everything you need to build an army to fight what ever you may need to fight (most can), but this also means that proper temporary changes need to be made to bring older codices back to a balance when a new edition comes out. No more ED.5 codex that are useless after a month because a new edition is about to come out.

[nithia]

I have noticed the codex escalation and although some armies like Dark Eldar and Eldar have not changed much in their ability to win other armies like Necrons, Nids and Tau are struggling. where as space marines, chaos, and IG have greatly benefited from the change to 5th where as before the other armies were better. But since they are out to make money, it is a business after all, they have to do something to make people buy more product. and that can be just new models or trashing a codex.

[nithia]

I started playing 40k 5 years ago and stopped just as Apocalypses was coming out. then i came back and sold all my stuff and started nids which was a mistake because the way the rules are now nids struggle to fight all the armor all the other players bring and i have only won a hand full of games so now i am going space wolves so yes they have gotten alot of money from me over the years but to be honest it should only take 1-3 months to buy a 2k army.

[Baitgsad]

Theres just no way a person on a sub-par to average budget can afford a 2000 point squad on one purchase. My friend just got 10 Space Wolves for 35.00 USD. Not a bad deal according to box's. My army was a work load found on ebay. I refuse to buy boxed Games Workshop products.

[ZaWyvern]

Hey Doremi... just wanted to say, good review. was a nice overview of the system without too much bias. Personally 40k is on the outs with me but glad to see you looked at it reasonably and gave it an honest review. Hopefully you can spare a guy or 2 from getting sucked in off of hype. Kudos.