I've seen battle reports of 40k games and the game seems appealing to me, but the extreme cost, time, and skill needed to paint them well and purchase them is just too much. If it coated like, half the amount it currently does I could see myself getting into it.

It's injection molded plastic. They only have to make the molds once.

Without turn it this I to a 40k hate thread, it isn't even the cos lt that puts me off, it's the constant pee-peeing around with the rules. When I bought sixth edition (prob about £150 in source material; rulebook, codexes ect) I managed to get ten games in before they released the next edition, complete with all new rule books and codexes. That's about the point I found x-wings rules were available FOR FREE online. I can't believe that one company could expect me to pay so much per year for rules when another is happy to give them to me for free!! Since that day, I haven't even picked up a 40k model, and I'm guessing I am not the only one who's had enough of GE policies, hence the (long overdue) dethroning of the GW empire

Trying to turn this back into a GW hate thread... Kidding, they are doing a well enough job themselves, my biggest gripe, along with Rau is that the time released between army codexes/lists was sometimes years. You could have the next best thing in 40K...I have to make do with the army I had collected/painted and wait vainfully for a new codex. Plus it turned from a game of tactics to a game of throwing dice and having as many models on the table as possible... I hate GW if you weren't sure...

Ah, the sweet, sweet smell of Games Workshop burning to the ground.

My 20 000 points of lovingly painted fantasy models cry out for vengeance every time I pass my miniature cabinet.

I love the 40K universe I'll always have a history of loving 40k. Especially 80's-mid 90s metals.

However: I don't really have time to paint/model everything, as much as I would like to.

The rules.... 40k 6th i could tolerate, barely. 40k7th not so much. No sense of balance, some races clearly get more love than others.

There are in 40k some combinations that make Soontir/PTL/AT/title/stealth seem bland. Vaderx1EUATCPredatororVI seem weak and brobots seem underpowered. 40K needs such a massive overhaul that the main game is unplayable, that and it's so **** slow.

An x-wing game goes like this: each take turns doing their **** after taking 15-20 minutes building a list, occasionally, a 2 minute break occurs when a card interaction seems either too good or strange (my friends who play less than I do were introduced to a TLT stressbot(and TLT's) for the first time a few weeks ago).

Game continues, fast paced, fun is had.

A 40K game(typical) 20-30 minutes on the army list, 5 minutes deciding game size.

deploy.

Turn 1. initiative, someone complains that i took drop pods and their turn is wasted.

Turn 2 i drop pod and take half an hour throwing dice killing units.

turn 3 they take half an hour throwing dice, something happens, an argument on the rules occurrs taking a further 20 minutes.

Assault phase.

another half hour, more arguing over rules.

Psychic phase.

I break out the x-wing list builder.

20 minutes later. I'm showing off my shiny blue TIE Advanced and frigate, more dice throwing.

next turn.

I am pointing at my imperial assault collection. roll more dice, During enemies turn my PC or xbox is booted up. I am playing space engineers or drooling at no mans sky.

Focus on larger armies post 3rd ed (which as i reminded a group yesterday, was 18 years ago) I prefer killteam/platoon level.

Expense. Look. I'll drop $200 on an x-wing wave sure. but it's all painted and ready to play, if i choose to customize my own stuff, that's on me and optional.

$200 for Deathwatch overkill seems nice, I love the deathwatch but those minis are gonna sit unpainted for at the very least 6 months. Same goes for Betrayal at Calth. Which is why I have neither.

40K killteam is still fun.

Oldhammer is still fun.

40K as a series of video games is still fun, and I think that video games is the franchise future.

I'm a little shocked to see Armada so high. I personally love the game, but I don't see it getting played nearly as much as the others (even Attack Wing).

Trying to turn this back into a GW hate thread... Kidding

I, for one, totally support turning this thread into a GW hate-fest
The falling popularity of 40k and WHFB is totally predictable and unsuprising. When you run a company badly, and produce bad products, eventually someone is going to eat your lunch.

40K killteam is still fun.

Mandatory plug for Heralds of Ruin Killteams, a very complete re-work of 40k for 250pt skirmish.

HoR killteams is quite nice. Respectable plug.

Let's confirm the data first folks, especially with Attack Wing in fifth not making any sense.

40K killteam is still fun

I never played Dawn of War, but Space Marnie was excellent. Makes me sad we'll likely never see a sequel to it, as Relic/THQ nailed it.

Mandatory plug for Heralds of Ruin Killteams, a very complete re-work of 40k for 250pt skirmish.

If I had time for another game... X-Wing, Armada, Imperial Assault the occasional game of Deadmans Hand, the very rare game of Flames of War, and the even more rare Warmachine match... I'd so get something for kill team.

I quit 40K when 4th edition came out, and Fantasy shortly after 7th edition came out.

I gladly await the day when GW goes bust, and all the wonderful fluff they have for their universes goes to a company that isn't hell bent on destroying itself in an attempt to copyright everything/squeeze every last penny out of its players at all costs.

I never played Dawn of War, but Space Marnie was excellent.

Dawn of War was great, the whole series was some of the best RTS games I've played, although I liked the first 3 best, the last one was changed to a Company of Heroes type game which while still RTS wasn't as much fun IMO.

They even had a mod I got once that added some more units and made things more in line with the codexes.

If you like RTS games and can find Dawn of War I'd get it. The campaign was a great deal of fun in all of them.

Space Marine was also a great game and as you said they nailed it. The MP was pretty good too.

I've seen battle reports of 40k games and the game seems appealing to me, but the extreme cost, time, and skill needed to paint them well and purchase them is just too much. If it coated like, half the amount it currently does I could see myself getting into it.

It's injection molded plastic. They only have to make the molds once.

Supposedly, the molds break quite frequently, actually. Or at least get damaged to the point they don't meat GW's standards (What that means exactly, I dunno).

Ah yes, that explains why you used to be able to get 20 Cadians for $20 and now can get 10 of the exact same models for $29.

I know nothing about 40k except the for the pure hate displayed in these parts, but depending on the time gap between the two instances it is perfectly justified to see that kind of increase due to inflation. When I started driving in the early 90s gas was less than $1 a gallon (without any discounts) I worked at a fast food restaurant for about $5 an hour. Now that same restaurant has a starting wage of close to $10 an hour and, up until a year or so ago, gas was $4.50 a gallon. Inflation marches on. Costs go up. Things are more expensive than they were in 1985. That was 30 years ago.

That being said, if this increase happened over the last 5 years, that is crazy.

DOW2 in my opinion is almost perfect.

No basebuilding

Good IP

Enough races.

Chaos.

Enough difference in races.

Chaos.

When Armada comes out. and we've practiced skirmish. I want to do a chaos vs expert AI Black crusade across the maps.

GW's models ARE expensive compared to FFGs in a plastic to plastic basis. It doesn't help that GW package their models with every possible purmutation in the kit... It has pros and cons.

I could get into some GW hate myself, but.. No. you know what. You guys all know what i'm like by now.

It's GW Frustration.

Not listening to their customer base, seeing themselves as a model company. I mean really, as if no-one buys the models to play the games. Come on!

The rules being so unwieldy, unbalanced. GAH! Frustrating.

If they did some restructuring they could probably even lower costs. Really, the only really good thing GW has done in the last couple of years is get rid of finecast. Which was an abortive pile of trash.

Ok. I admit it. getting real close to GW hate now. Still marketing it as GW Frustration, because I truly want them to succeed and be a great company, with a great IP and great fanbase. BECAUSE THEY WERE!

This does not surprise me at all with X-Wing being top dog. It is a far superior game with a great IP.

40K use to be great. The universe is second to none with the depth of its history, races, background.... and their models are top of the the line, albeit a bit overcosted. Sure, they are not prepainted... but part of my love for the GW hobby was the painting and modding aspects of it. The main problem is that GW doesn't understand that these to aspect at which they are great are do NOT sell a game. The GAME sells the GAME! And GW has completely dropped the ball here. Forgoing their own fluff in favor of model sales, and the utterly broken and unplayable product they produce now... it is no wonder why they are dropping off. LEt alone their support for competitive play, which is now non-existent.

I want 40K to be good again. I really do. But until that system has one heck of a major overhaul... X-Wing will rule the landscape for quite sometime!

That being said, if this increase happened over the last 5 years, that is crazy.

That.

When I played 40K 10 years ago, a codex was £10 ($17ish?). Last I checked they were £30.

40K End times.

Sisters

Overhauled system based on SMALLER armies. (1000 point range)

Skirmish and campaign system.

Getting rid of the igo you go routine and instead having an i-unit, you-unit approach based on initiative/init rolls with bonuses- maybe. - This would also get rid of all the hate against my drop pods....

I love GW hate threads! It still amazes me that a company that makes little plastic toys for a game of fantasy battles can be as despised as Comcast, Goldman Sachs, Halliburton, and Time Warner, but it just goes to show what lengths GW has gone to over the past decade to ****, pillage, and destroy their own fanbase. It's not JUST that their games have little semblance of balance, or the insane price points. It's the constant, unconscionable price hikes (like I mentioned above, a plastic Cadian used to run you about a dollar - now it's almost $3). It's the transformation of White Dwarf and the GW website from a useful resource for modeling tips and game tactics into pure product-hawking. It's the ruthlessness with which any part of the GW machine that doesn't produce profits is swiftly amputated (RIP Battlefleet Gothic, Mordheim, Necromunda, Blood Bowl...hey, those are like, all of GW's best games!).

The worst. The absolute worst.

Space Marine was also a great game and as you said they nailed it. The MP was pretty good too.

I played the hell out of the multiplayer on Xbox 360, used to have half a dozen of us that played regularly before the multiplayer bubble burst. Got all the DLC as well; played Dreadnought Assault for about all of five matches, but Chaos Unleashed was the bomb. Got to the final wave about half a dozen times, but never finished it. **** Ork Killa Kans.

The game fell into the DLC trap though; paid DLC split the fanbase between the haves and have nots, and so the DLC player base died off almost as quickly as THQ did.

Should have gone the Mass Effect 3 / GTAV route and made the DLC free for all. It's not as though the DLC sales were going to save the company at that point anyway.

That being said, if this increase happened over the last 5 years, that is crazy.

That.

When I played 40K 10 years ago, a codex was £10 ($17ish?). Last I checked they were £30.

But they are all in hardback now. So you know, worth it. Totally.

As a 40k player and Warhammer dabbler, I agree with much of what has been said here. GW has some great fiction built around their games, incredible art work in their books, and amazing looking products. I started 40k with 3rd edition, and was really happy with the rules. They felt deep, but you could see how they had been streamlined to make the game faster. As the years have rolled on the rules became more baroque, more like Fantasy, it was to the game's detriment.

To see what these two games have become actually makes me sad. I painted a huge army, I bought all the army books, and now I just look at them on the shelves at double the price, some times more, with rules that are simply not fun, and just wonder what happened.

I am so glad to see how X Wing has set itself outside of all these things. FFG has made magic out of a beloved IP and set the price in a simply astounding level of affordability. I can drop 15$ and change my squad dramatically, and it's table ready instantly. Can't say that about many other games.

Lastly, the other awesome part of X Wing is all of you guys. I think it's true that Doug K set the tone as an incredibly gracious and classy first world champ, but he doesn't completely account for how good this community is. Thanks for making the off table time with game as fun as the on table time. Cheers to you all.

GW has no trouble selling tanks where the hull is so warped it requires copious modification to get everything to fit.

Metal is the most expensive medium, but it has the lowest production costs and supposedly has the highest level of detail apart from high quality resin, which wrecks its mould after a few dozen castings. Labour input cost is very high for these things.

As for actual production costs, with initial mould tool making amortised over its lifetime, at most maybe 1-2$ per 10cmx15cm sprue.

Got the link or a screenshot sir?

No I heard this from elsewhere which is why I added the "if right" at the start.

We need a retailer or librarian to request a free copy.

http://icv2.com/articles/news/view/9922/subscribe-icv2s-internal-correspondence

What GW has been doing in the past decade was monetizing their near-monopoly position, fan-base and various other competitive advantages.

Other than plastic miniatures/CAD design, they have badly failed to innovate and have shrunk a great hobby on so many levels. This all resulted in a shrinking player base, has already killed fantasy and will soon destroy 40k.

This company DESERVES to go bankrupt or get bought out for its IP. Its management is clearly clueless.

GW has some great fiction built around their games...

Yep. Drachenfels, Gotrek & Felix, Orfeo, Genevieve, the Von Carsteins, Emperor Karl Franz...

...Marienburg, Kislev, Praag, Altdorf...

...Slaves to Darkness, The Lost & The Damned...

...oh wait. All gone, isn't it?

More sales on Armada than Warmachine ???? Hard to believe

Warmachine and Hordes have separate sales streams, even though the playerbase and the company treat them as one game. It would be like if X-Wing tracked Imperial and Rebel sales separately (and the game didn't have any demands to buy both).

That said, Warmachine is also facing a pretty significant slowdown in their release schedule. PP's move to soft plastics wasn't received well and they've been shifting to the hard plastic similar to Wyrd and GW. It's caused significant release delays that I'm sure impact sales.

Also, Armada is a pretty sweet game.

That being said, if this increase happened over the last 5 years, that is crazy.

That.

When I played 40K 10 years ago, a codex was £10 ($17ish?). Last I checked they were £30.

In Australia the last Fantasy Codex was $80 a few years ago, and they wonder why people try to get them in PDF from he net. This Book will change every 2-5 years too, depending on whats the flavour of the release is.