General Discussion about Generalities

[Panxer]

I just read the BOLS article about the Legion of the Damned Dex, apparently just released, and I've been thinking kind of as a time line from the end of 5th ed. to now; does it seem like 40k is more broken and confusing than normal (or ever)? I'm glad that GW's "diversifying", but it just seems a bit more out and out and wtf to me. I would like your thoughts on this. I can provide examples, but wanted to keep the post short for attention span's sake.

[Defenestratus]

I just read the BOLS article about the Legion of the Damned Dex, apparently just released, and I've been thinking kind of as a time line from the end of 5th ed. to now; does it seem like 40k is more broken and confusing than normal (or ever)? I'm glad that GW's "diversifying", but it just seems a bit more out and out and wtf to me. I would like your thoughts on this. I can provide examples, but wanted to keep the post short for attention span's sake.

I think its awesome.

No longer do we have to wait years to get more content for the factions we love and adore.

As an ulthwe player, I'm hoping and praying that we get some love in the next 12 months.

[Tyrendian]

I think its awesome.

No longer do we have to wait years to get more content for the factions we love and adore.

As an ulthwe player, I'm hoping and praying that we get some love in the next 12 months.

yup, and with the not-so-new-anymore release shedule that's not a pipe dream but a very real possibility, especially since Supplements largely seem to slip under the Rumor Radar (I for one had heard neither of the Crimson Slaughter nor of LotD until shortly before they hit), which also is kinda awesome - leaves room for surprises!
but it can get rather confusing admittedly...

[Mr Mystery]

Keeps everyone on their toes too, and interest piqued.

After all, Eldar have now had their Codex. In the previous days, that's it. Thank you Vienna, see you in about 5 years, may be more if we really can't be arsed.

Today? Who knows. Surprise Codex could be brought out at any point, and cover anything.

It's nice, and should have shaken up 'flavour of the month' gaming across the world.

[magickbk]

It's really the way the digital stuff is handled. I don't think anyone is complaining about the release rate of the physical codex and supplement books. What makes it absolute chaos is digital editions releasing months ahead of a physical copy, or digital-only supplements, coupled with the fact that the digital-only books don't appear on the standard GW site within the army sections. They lagged way behind on offering digital options to the customers that were asking for them for years, and then in the span of a few months they contracted ebook-madness and left the customers that want to buy physical copies behind.

At the very least, there should be a single page that lists all the Primary and Supplemental Codex books, along with the dataslates and digital-only releases and what everything can be used with. That would clear up the confusion.

[Eldar_Atog]

As an ulthwe player, I'm hoping and praying that we get some love in the next 12 months.

Yeah, I'm also hoping to see another craftworld get a supplement in the near future. Ulthwe seems to be the logical choice. I just hope it doesn't become a 100 page book about Eldrad. I love the character but he does get over used a little bit.

I also wouldn't mind seeing an Altansar(Maugan Ra's craftworld) supplement. The back story for them has got to be interesting plus they could have some very unique rules compared to the other craftworlds.

Overall, I like the pace of the book releases. There seems to be a new data slate or supplement each month. The only one that I didn't care for was the Crimson Slaughter book. I truthfully thought it was going to be a Tyranid supplement based around the Red Terror when I first heard the name. Just seems to me that there are some older factions that could use the love instead of the Crimson Slaughter.

[KrewL RaiN]

I do like the pace that new goodies are being released at. Only downside is its getting a bit crazy rules wise with all the ally shenanigans etc. It just feels too all over the place and less streamlined. You can have like 5 armies in one list or something nutty like that =/

[Gleipnir]

The release rate including Digital products is just fine.

What is lacking is a good FAQ errata release rate to accompany it. It could be as simple as including an ask the editor section in White Dwarf where we get 5-10 questions answered a week, then having someone compile them to the website once in awhile.

[Captain Bubonicus]

It kinda reminds me of the "good ol' days" in the 1990's when there would be alternate army lists published in White Dwarf. Sometimes they were good, sometimes they were bad, and sometimes they were BOTH (I'm looking at YOU, Feral Orks!)

[DarkLink]

I think its awesome.

No longer do we have to wait years to get more content for the factions we love and adore.

As an ulthwe player, I'm hoping and praying that we get some love in the next 12 months.

It would be really, really nice if they had any quality control, though. How did they miss that the Legion auto-loses T1? I mean, I get that they don't intend it to be a standalone, but that's straight amateur hour right there.

[Dimitrios]

I'm on the fence with this one. At first i liked it, then i despised it... and now I am not sure. It is good that they are exploring the depths of the fluff and introducing some fun new kits and codex however some of these have been obvious money making excercises designed to do nothing else that prop up declining sales of range X, Y or Z.

Mechanicus, Dark Mechanicus, Genestealer Cult, Chaos legions (s), Space Marine chapters, exodites, demiurg, ork warbands (goffs, etc)... There are so many good ways to go and yet they have hardly published any. Instead all we have is Lost and the Damned, Crimson Slaughter, Tyranid Data Slates, Knight Titans, Escalation... All designed to sell a specific model range.

I know its a business but why dont GW give us what we want instead of tell us what we can have? Dont they do market research?

[bfmusashi]

New players are likely the priority over older fans. The CEO of EA recently did a talk that made it online where he revealed a lot of assumptions aout player retention turned out to be false. For example, less than half of Madden players played the previous year's edition. They altered their approach accordingly, becoming less traditional and more open to new ideas and sales have increased. Older fans may want to believe the company is catering to them, but it very well may not be in the company's interest to do so.

[Eldar_Atog]

New players are likely the priority over older fans.
....
Older fans may want to believe the company is catering to them, but it very well may not be in the company's interest to do so.

I've wondered about that sometimes. It makes sense for them to focus on newer players but GW never seems to go out of their way to find new players. No presence at conventions, merchandising rules that encourage stores to not carry GW product, and their only out reach seems to be the Dawn of War games.

It's always seemed to me that GW wants the older players to do all the foot work on finding/encouraging new players. I would be really interested in hearing people's thoughts on this :)

[Harley]

I think its awesome.

No longer do we have to wait years to get more content for the factions we love and adore.

As an ulthwe player, I'm hoping and praying that we get some love in the next 12 months.

My Sisters of Battle models from 1997 do not share your optimism.


I've wondered about that sometimes. It makes sense for them to focus on newer players but GW never seems to go out of their way to find new players. No presence at conventions, merchandising rules that encourage stores to not carry GW product, and their only out reach seems to be the Dawn of War games.

It's always seemed to me that GW wants the older players to do all the foot work on finding/encouraging new players. I would be really interested in hearing people's thoughts on this :)

Remember that GW are British. They believe, like all Brits, that if something is old and established enough, it will sell it's self. Like Guinness or Cricket, they expect the rest of the world to just pick it up with little advertising because they like it and have had it for ages.

What they don't realize is, places like the USA quickly tire of old, established things, like say... the British, and soon give them the boot for something new and shiny. This doesn't just mean one army for another, but an entire game for another. Just look at the demise of D&D after 40 years, due to mismanagement.

GW needs to get into the modern age where advertisement and market presence matter. Magic The Gathering cards sell in gas stations and drug stores while GW make it difficult for even indy game stores to stock their products.

[DarkLink]

They also take a business strategy specifically designed for the UK, and just assume that it will work perfectly everywhere else. As a result, they make a lot of WTF moves.

[Eldar_Atog]

My Sisters of Battle models from 1997 do not share your optimism.



Remember that GW are British. They believe, like all Brits, that if something is old and established enough, it will sell it's self. Like Guinness or Cricket, they expect the rest of the world to just pick it up with little advertising because they like it and have had it for ages.

What they don't realize is, places like the USA quickly tire of old, established things, like say... the British, and soon give them the boot for something new and shiny. This doesn't just mean one army for another, but an entire game for another. Just look at the demise of D&D after 40 years, due to mismanagement.



There is a lot of truth to that... but I would say that we just tend to be more fickle in the US. It always the next big thing... what's over the next hill.

The whole British thing might explain the dystopian nature of the storyline. A human empire crumbling at the edges while all the other powers seem to just grow stronger. So does that make the US the Tau Empire or the forces of Chaos? :)

[bfmusashi]

The Ur council if anything. If we go by the Imperium=Rome model people enjoy, the Tau are Turks, but I like to think of them as an indictment of the Federation from Star Trek. Swipe the humans for aliens and the UFP is a pretty horrifying organization. Especially by the time Voyager happens and the friggin' Q are talking about how much better humans are than themselves.

[ToHitMod]

Its awesome, new stuff every few weeks means more options, more missions and more fun, its a narrative game, the missions in the new books are great and tell awesome stories and guess what, the ussually give one side an advantage! Balance be damned, this is much more fun than the bland and boring game the tournament crowd seem to want

[ToHitMod]

My Sisters of Battle models from 1997 do not share your optimism.



Remember that GW are British. They believe, like all Brits, that if something is old and established enough, it will sell it's self. Like Guinness or Cricket, they expect the rest of the world to just pick it up with little advertising because they like it and have had it for ages.

What they don't realize is, places like the USA quickly tire of old, established things, like say... the British, and soon give them the boot for something new and shiny. This doesn't just mean one army for another, but an entire game for another. Just look at the demise of D&D after 40 years, due to mismanagement.

GW needs to get into the modern age where advertisement and market presence matter. Magic The Gathering cards sell in gas stations and drug stores while GW make it difficult for even indy game stores to stock their products.

Or they can carry on as they are any keep the brits happy because they're an easier market for them?

D&D makes more money now than ever and the playtesting for Next showed a really fun and interesting game.

Also cheese danish with your xenophobic and idiotic generalisations, cricket is popular all over the world, its the biggest sport in some massive counties, its to your detriment that you don't play it, in test match cricket you can find the microcosm for all life.

[bfmusashi]

I had some interesting words about cricket while in Manchester. People just left it on in pubs and no one seemed to understand how scoring worked or when matches ended. It was magnificent.

[Eldar_Atog]

The Ur council if anything. If we go by the Imperium=Rome model people enjoy, the Tau are Turks, but I like to think of them as an indictment of the Federation from Star Trek. Swipe the humans for aliens and the UFP is a pretty horrifying organization. .

A very good point. It's always bothered me that the UFP is so human. Does every other race in the UFP want to just stay at home while the humans seem to keep expanding the borders?

[Harley]

A very good point. It's always bothered me that the UFP is so human. Does every other race in the UFP want to just stay at home while the humans seem to keep expanding the borders?

The UFP isn't necessarily that human, but Starfleet is, because it was originally the United Earth Starfleet. The shows follow Starfleet, but there are plenty of other UFP races like Klingon or Vulcan ships out there flying around and getting into trouble as well. Since the capital of the UFP is Earth, Starfleet is the primary official military and intelligence force, but other planets maintain their own independent fleets. The president of Earth has at times even been a non-human (though that makes little sense to me).

[bfmusashi]

They never really explain what happened to the Vulcan, Andorian, and Telerite programs once the UFP and Starfleet happen. I can't think of any of them having ships after the UFP is founded. Klingons also never joined the Federation.

[Eldar_Atog]

They never really explain what happened to the Vulcan, Andorian, and Telerite programs once the UFP and Starfleet happen. I can't think of any of them having ships after the UFP is founded. Klingons also never joined the Federation.

Vulcan ships were mentioned a little bit in the Star Trek-TNG 2 parter, Unification. Been watching TNG a lot on Netflix lately :)

[Mr Mystery]

Star Trek is also, for all it's very forward looking elements, really quite racist.

Consider the mixed species crew. Whenever something wonky happens, and they're dual natures collide, it's always the human side that wins out and proves to be most useful....

[DarkLink]

Technically, that's speciesist.

[bfmusashi]

Vulcan ships were mentioned a little bit in the Star Trek-TNG 2 parter, Unification. Been watching TNG a lot on Netflix lately :)

Me too! It was the wife's "I'm pregnant and binge watching" show for a while, but I totally missed that aside!

[bfmusashi]

Technically, that's speciesist.

Nah, they can produce viable offspring in a lot of cases thanks to the magic of precursor race!

[Mr Mystery]

Technically, that's speciesist.

Alright clever trousers :p

[completeHook]

Strange, I always assumed 40k would draw more fans from the Wars rather than the Trek side of the great "Franchises with Star in the Name" nerd schism. :D

AT-AT's, Deathstar's and and wretched hive(s) of scum and villainy, that 40k,

Space ambassadors teaching alien hotties how to love while sporting colour coded unisex onesies, not sure what that is... ;)

[Harley]

They never really explain what happened to the Vulcan, Andorian, and Telerite programs once the UFP and Starfleet happen. I can't think of any of them having ships after the UFP is founded. Klingons also never joined the Federation.

You're right, but as close allies for some of the time line, they almost were. Either way, they would never give up their ships, that's for sure.

[DarkLink]

You mean pants;)?