8th Edition 40k

I second count regarding the models. The better the rules, the bigger the probability that I buy it. But if the model sucks I will end converting one. The better the model, the bigger the probability that I buy it. But if the rules suck, I will not buy it at all. Not even a replacement to convert one myself.

To be fair about age of Sigmar, the models are great even if I labeled it as "Age of fantasy Space Marines versus Khorne". They seem to slowly move away from that and the introduction of rules and points is fixing one of the main problems.

Problem is, that many of my friends already bought into Dystopian Wars and X wing. Even I bought Dystopian Wars.

What I want to say is that they have to keep the people interested. They aren't the only one anymore. They even aren't the biggest one anymore as far as I know.

I too want to know the numbers of age of Sigmar. Out of curiosity.

Regarding the shake up of 40k:
Yes please! It's 5 seconds to midnight since forever! I'd love something to happen. The return of the Wolves was nice, unfortunately I don't play Space Marines.

Do something for the chaos legions or include Dark Eldar into a campaign and I'm sold.

And please let them take something from the Space Marines. I'm glad my friends that play Space Marines don't play them super competitively but it wouldn't be fun if they did. It is ridiculous.

It would also be nice if we got some new models and units. You see how many different types of ship CW Eldar have and then look at ours it makes no sense we're frigin' pirates we should have loads of different ships!

Barking Agatha wrote:

That being said, the opposite idea is equally silly, that gamers buy models primarily for the rules. If that were true, then why are we here?

It's not silly. It's true as far as all the data we have available to us indicates. Not saying there aren't outliers, but the population of TDC has dropped dramatically since the latest codex came out. Based on my own memory, it seems as if you yourself took about a year off from TDC before your recent return, which roughly corresponds with the decline in visits resulting from said codex.

Even super-talented painters often see themselves moving on to other things when the thing they primarily work on is no longer drawing the crowd that it used to. Eye of Error is a good example. He used to be on here daily, and is primarily in the hobby for painting and the models so far as I can gather, but basically stopped coming by when the population dwindled to near nothing, and started his painting business, focusing much more on other models aside from DE.

As for why I'm here, I'm right there with the Count and others. I started while our 5th edition codex was out, with an impressive line of models that went with good, useable rules that gave us plenty of tactical options. If the rules sucked, I never would have bought DE. I might, however, buy a crappy model that has good rules, but like the Count, would likely convert something.

I'm still here first off because I'm stubborn, but furthermore because, while we had good rules, I invested a lot of my time and money into DE, and came to greatly enjoy their fluff. I was extremely disappointed in the DE codex, but hold on to hope for the next one. If our next codex is as disappointing as this one was, I doubt I'll have the fortitude to wait through another cycle.

Amen to that

Another Amen from my side.

Just think about Dark Eldar. Nobody would have bought that many Taloi if it weren't for the Corsthief and DA. I'm sure Grots are selling rather well too considering how frequently we see them in lists (yes, many are proxied but I am sure most of them aren't).

Count Adhemar wrote:

Where did you get that information from? I didn't think GW released breakdowns of their sales figures.

It's just what I heard, and Lady Atia confirms it (https://war-of-sigmar.herokuapp.com/bloggings/784). That doesn't necessarily mean that it's true, but it seems an odd thing to just make up. I find it more likely than not.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Based on my own memory, it seems as if you yourself took about a year off from TDC.

Not so! I just haven't been very active. I even wrote yet another story for 'Stories & Art', but it isn't really a surprise that no one's noticed... again *sob*!

Don't get me wrong, though, I gave up on playing and I haven't in ages. I'm tempted to try Death from the Skies, but just looking at the new meringue airplanes I can already see it:

I win closing the distance!
I win choosing the angle!
I've got you in my sights! I shoot first!
*a million skyfire missiles shoot off in all directions regardless of facing*
Oh, darn, I'm dead. What was the point of all that?

My point is not that rules don't affect what you play, only that it's not the only factor or even the main factor. We've put up with very bad rules and still kept going. If people are dropping out, it's because it's reached a point where there's just no point!

The Strange Dark One wrote:

I'm sure Grots are selling rather well too considering how frequently we see them in lists (yes, many are proxied but I am sure most of them aren't).

I dunno, have you *ever* seen an army with a bunch of non-converted grotesques? (The studio armies in the codex don't count!)

Barking Agatha wrote:

My point is not that rules don't affect what you play, only that it's not the only factor or even the main factor.

I don't agree with this. Most people won't start an army based on a faction that has terrible rules. I'd say it's a main factor if the rules are really bad or really good. If the rules were part of a balanced, cohesive ruleset, you'd probably be right.

bad rules could attract what the fighting game community would call low tier martyrs, people who pick their fighter from the lowest tiers on purpose, so they can glorify themselves with how they stay true to their character even though it's bad, with the added benefit of having something to blame losses on.

I of course am no such lowly being, i picked Dark Eldar and then Tyranids because they look cool of course

Anyway bad rules don't have to always be a turnoff.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Barking Agatha wrote:

Age of Sigmar now accounts for 30% of all sales, compared to 12% during 8th edition.

Where did you get that information from? I didn't think GW released breakdowns of their sales figures.

The 30% comes from Sad Panda on DakkaDakka, arguably the most reliable rumour mungor there is. He indicated that whilst it did have a slow start Sigmar has picked up in recent months. From what I've seen from posters on line and my own experience is that it's very much regional in how well it's doing. There's more than a few people that have reported that Sigmar is effectively dead in their area but here in Birmingham it's outsellign 40K 2-1 and the game has people playing it regularly in store.

Imateria wrote:

There's more than a few people that have reported that Sigmar is effectively dead in their area but here in Birmingham it's outsellign 40K 2-1 and the game has people playing it regularly in store.

I could buy that. As a general rule, it seems to me that there in the UK people buy into the beer and pretzels "who needs points?" narrative that GW has been pushing for years more than people stateside.

The GW weekend events they throw there, where your performance in the actual tournament doesn't matter at all, and they only give prizes for best sportsmanship would probably flop with really poor attendence here. I know I wouldn't bother going. Doesn't sound like fun. It's like playing poker without wagering anything. What's the point?

Some good points well made in this thread, but I feel there's one or two more things going on also.

Another dimension on the rules front, beyond good/bad, is how supportive they are (for want of a better word). Our 5ed codex was very supportive, in that it had a lot of room to customise your army to fit what you, specifically, imagined a Dark Eldar army to be. It achieved this with different methods, including varied wargear options, plug & play special characters, force org swaps, and many different ways of generating synergies. Our 7ed codex is... well, let's just say that it's not a supportive codex.

I'm much more inclined to play with a faction that has supportive rules, whether they objectively are good or bad, than a faction with more restrictive rules. I stopped playing Tyranids when I could no longer make an army that I felt good about from the codex I had. If they get a new book that lets me take an army that fits my model of what it should be like, then I'll reconsider, whether they are top tier or bottom tier.

As for Dark Eldar, I have a much deeper affection for them, so I can ride out a bad book. But even saying that, I took a break from them in 7e and collected Necrons...

Cool models and lore will make me want to collect an army. A supportive ruleset is what makes me want to actually play an army. Not being able to reconcile all three in some way causes problems.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Imateria wrote:

There's more than a few people that have reported that Sigmar is effectively dead in their area but here in Birmingham it's outsellign 40K 2-1 and the game has people playing it regularly in store.

I could buy that. As a general rule, it seems to me that there in the UK people buy into the beer and pretzels "who needs points?" narrative that GW has been pushing for years more than people stateside.

The GW weekend events they throw there, where your performance in the actual tournament doesn't matter at all, and they only give prizes for best sportsmanship would probably flop with really poor attendence here. I know I wouldn't bother going. Doesn't sound like fun. It's like playing poker without wagering anything. What's the point?

I'm not sure it's just a US/UK thing, though it definitely seems to be struggling in the US more than the UK, as Steve from MiniWarGaming.com has said that Sigmar is like 40K in that you have to book games with them months in advance and most of their guests come form the US/Canada. There's also plenty of people in the UK that doen't like Sigmar, but we do have a tournement scene and it's one very successful comp system from a tournement here that's being used in the Generals Handbook (is it a good thing that GW have acknowledged they're not very good at assigning points values?).

I'm not insinuating that you don't have competitive players in the UK. Just that the UK is generally more accepting of the GW idea of playing and not caring about points or rules than Americans are. "Forge the narrative" is a running joke here, sure to get an eyeroll from something like 80-90% of players.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

I'm not insinuating that you don't have competitive players in the UK. Just that the UK is generally more accepting of the GW idea of playing and not caring about points or rules than Americans are. "Forge the narrative" is a running joke here, sure to get an eyeroll from something like 80-90% of players.

How sad! But you may be on to something. In the UK, everything is close by. It's not difficult to get off work at 5:00, get a quick bite, and go to your local game store to meet with a group of friends you see all the time because they also do this regularly every week. If you have to do without points, or come up with house rules, or whatever, it's no problem because everyone has known each other for a while, is used to each other, and are all more or less on the same page. You can try out different things and, if they don't work out, there's always tomorrow!

In the US, everything is far away. Going to the game store means driving through deserts, swamps, and forests and maybe hours of traffic, and when you get there you may find that none of your friends have braved the journey today, only a few people you kind of know by sight, or even a complete stranger! You don't want to work things out with someone you don't know. You don't really want to make friends with them -- there's probably something wrong with them, look at their face! It's the deformed face of a murderer! You just want to play a game, and you need strict, rigid, and well-defined rules that both of you can abide by without having to agree on anything.

As for 'forging a narrative' being a joke... I dunno. It seems that having an imagination is regarded with more suspicion in the US. Pushing little men around a model can be serious, adult business as long as it's just a form of competition to prove that you're better than someone else, but if you start making up fantasies about it there's no hiding from the fact that you're having childish fun, and that doesn't bode well for your future as a billionaire businessman. In the UK, people already know that they have no future in business, or indeed at all!

Barking Agatha wrote:

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

I'm not insinuating that you don't have competitive players in the UK. Just that the UK is generally more accepting of the GW idea of playing and not caring about points or rules than Americans are. "Forge the narrative" is a running joke here, sure to get an eyeroll from something like 80-90% of players.

How sad! But you may be on to something. In the UK, everything is close by. It's not difficult to get off work at 5:00, get a quick bite, and go to your local game store to meet with a group of friends you see all the time because they also do this regularly every week. If you have to do without points, or come up with house rules, or whatever, it's no problem because everyone has known each other for a while, is used to each other, and are all more or less on the same page. You can try out different things and, if they don't work out, there's always tomorrow!

In the US, everything is far away. Going to the game store means driving through deserts, swamps, and forests and maybe hours of traffic, and when you get there you may find that none of your friends have braved the journey today, only a few people you kind of know by sight, or even a complete stranger! You don't want to work things out with someone you don't know. You don't really want to make friends with them -- there's probably something wrong with them, look at their face! It's the deformed face of a murderer! You just want to play a game, and you need strict, rigid, and well-defined rules that both of you can abide by without having to agree on anything.

As for 'forging a narrative' being a joke... I dunno. It seems that having an imagination is regarded with more suspicion in the US. Pushing little men around a model can be serious, adult business as long as it's just a form of competition to prove that you're better than someone else, but if you start making up fantasies about it there's no hiding from the fact that you're having childish fun, and that doesn't bode well for your future as a billionaire businessman. In the UK, people already know that they have no future in business, or indeed at all!

I didn't know you were from the UK agatha, but that makes sense.

It's impossible to determine tone through text, so I'm not going to try to decipher what bits from that were sarcasm and what parts were obvious jabs at American culture. Just know that neither are really appreciated, and were I to make fun of you for being gay, it'd be an outrage, but much like making fun of white people, I guess American culture is the only culture it's OK to talk poorly about.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

I didn't know you were from the UK agatha, but that makes sense.

It's impossible to determine tone through text, so I'm not going to try to decipher what bits from that were sarcasm and what parts were obvious jabs at American culture. Just know that neither are really appreciated, and were I to make fun of you for being gay, it'd be an outrage, but much like making fun of white people, I guess American culture is the only culture it's OK to talk poorly about.

I'm neither gay, nor white, nor from the UK, nor did I mean to offend your splendid nation. If I may say so, two posts above you wrote:

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

I could buy that. As a general rule, it seems to me that there in the UK people buy into the beer and pretzels "who needs points?" narrative that GW has been pushing for years more than people stateside.

Which could easily be taken as disparaging, if one were especially thin-skinned, and yet you're awfully quick to take offense. It's just joshing, and hyperbole. It's true about the US being a very large country and distances being huge, and that has an effect on things. I don't see how that's a 'jab' at it, it's an obvious fact.

You'll notice that no brits are complaining that I said that they have no future, even though that is certainly a jab at the UK and, also, not really true. So ease up! I'm almost certainly going to get into even more trouble with you for this, but... do you know the difference between a large marital aid and a joke?

That's because we brits aren't precious little pansies, we just deal with it......if we got upset everytime the yanks had a dig we'd be a bunch of suicidal emos crying about how mean the Americans are being.

Regarding Jokes: I'm German, so tell me about it...

See? Everyone is involved. Nobody is anything special.

Barking Agatha wrote:

You'll notice that no brits are complaining that I said that they have no future, even though that is certainly a jab at the UK

I was so outraged I spat out my tea (Earl Grey, naturally) all over my copy of The Times! Then I blamed the dastardly French and moved on.

Yeah okay. Everyone is special.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Barking Agatha wrote:

You'll notice that no brits are complaining that I said that they have no future, even though that is certainly a jab at the UK

I was so outraged I spat out my tea (Earl Grey, naturally) all over my copy of The Times! Then I blamed the dastardly French and moved on.

A week later we'll then make the exact same joke about ourselves and pretend we cleverly came up with it, don't forget that part.

I'm American. No one makes more fun of my country than me. And don't even get me started on the current political environment.
And I'm white. And heterosexual. But if you made fun of me for being "gay" in any way I'm not too likely to do anything about it other than laugh.
We need guns to make us tough. <-- see: making fun.

And I'm just as special as everyone else, to boot.

Yeah. Can we now please return to topic?

What was the topic at hand? I'm too busy drinking tea and showing off my stiff upper lip