Posted by It’s taken me a long time to reach this point, but I can’t deny it any longer. My desire to play the modern run of Games Workshop games has cratered. And I think it’s time to move on.
Back in 1988, I bought my first GW miniatures. They were some of the original metal Eldar Support weapons, found in a bin of sale minis at a local comic book store in the mall. I had no idea what they were but they looked hella cool. They’re long gone, but it launched me into a hobby that has lasted the test of time. I have played some form of Warhammer 40K, starting with 2nd edition, for 36 years, or 68% of my lifetime.
Over that time, I have played all aspects of the game, from tournaments to casual, 40K in 40 Minutes to Megabattles on a twenty-foot-long table. I have competed competitively at the highest levels both in play in paint. Did I win at these levels? Nope! But I did well enough to consider myself “good”. And that was good enough for me. The memories, stories, and friends I’ve made along the way will always be with me, in my mind and in the images I’ve collected.
All good things must come to an end, and here’s where the screed kicks in:
Modern Games Workshop is absolute bullshit.
Setting aside the raw horror of endless prices increases to fuel stockholder’s wet fantasies, GW’s complete embrace of the tournament mentality along with a never-ending hype churn has completely destroyed any desire to play the game. Even if I were able to find ‘like-minded people’ and build an entire local community, why would I want to? Any attempt by GW to gently nod toward casual play is utterly destroyed by reality.
You can’t play 40K casually.
Sure, sure, you can claim otherwise and if you work very hard, you can try and set up enough house rules to make it possible. And if you give me wings I can jump off of a building and fly.
Briefly.
The ugly reality is you have to set up VERY SPECIFIC TERRAIN SETUPS, setups specified by Games Workshop’s 40K Design Team, in order to provide a ‘fair’ or ‘balanced’ table. This is driven by the tournament scene, which is what GW uses to drive sales. More on this in a moment. I’ve watched a bunch of games, played, a few, and seen games on YouTube. It’s become amply clear that games almost always end after Battle Round Two. Sure, they might keep playing, but it’s clear the nature of the game, the smaller table, and the absolutely horrific damage output the first player can bring down ends things pretty quickly. Armies (hello, Imperial Guard!) who can’t field the combination of firepower, survivability, and mobility required might just be put on the shelf.
Because of this, it is very easy for a casual player to knock another out of a game by accident. The game is just that swingy. If your rock is the current hotness, it’s just crushing. And if your table isn’t set up just right, that first turn alpha strike can easily wipe out a third of the other player’s army or more. And on their turn, they cannot return that amount of damage. That’s what I like to call math. Or maths, if you’re one of my British readers. Hello there!
Reduced Table Size is Bad, mkay?
Making the table smaller, because they wanted to sell more of their pre-printed battle boards designed for skirmish games, was a really bad idea. Armies were already hard-pressed to find maneuvering room, and giving less space for the game? Pretty brutal. This was not married with an increase in ranged firepower, but was paired up with a general reduction of movement speeds in an attempt to make transports viable and melee armies a little slower to give the ranged armies some time to shoot.
Except it didn’t work. Turn 1 charges are pretty much guaranteed due to speeds, special rules, and the smaller board! Weapon ranges didn’t shrink, so you can shoot someone’s army off of the table.
Once again, it’s that alpha strike problem…
I Go You Go has reached its inevitable conclusion.
This has been a problem in every edition of GW’s main line games. If you can land the alpha strike, or alpha charge, you almost always win barring abysmal dice luck. But 40K 10th edition has brought this to a pinnacle. You can find ample evidence of First Turn Advantage returning 55%-60% victory ratios in 10th ed. Again, math(s). If I wipe out a third of your army first turn, you can’t strike back as hard as I did. And that kind of result is common. And this is why games are over turn two. You just don’t have the forces required to secure objectives, while your opponent has plenty of units to spread across the board. And if they did it right, they used their First turn Advantage to knock out the other player’s mobility.
This means, to play casual, you have to consciously exercise restraint. You cannot rely on the game to provide the buffer which previously existed to compensate for this. So instead of having fun, you’re constantly worrying if your army can just crush your opponent. This is where the by accident part comes in. You might not even be aware of how bad the mismatch is in power levels, roll your army out, and oops! Game over.
The Hype Cycle.
Hey, I get it. There’s always been Codex Creep. But not on this scale. Index armies are nearly powerless against Codex armies, but since GW is locked into a hype cycle, they will never release all the Codexes for all the armies. And if you’re one of the armies GW hates (hello Guard players!) you’re just fucked.
So the only option is to buy into the meta, or wait and hope. Except GW has moved to a three year churn cycle! Yup! Every three years, a new edition of the game (40K *and* Age of Sigmar) will be launched. Which will wreck existing army books! And they can’t even internally balance what they’re releasing! If your brand shiny new Codex sucks? Welp, sorry-not-sorry! Buy a new army, plebe.
This also means they have no problems removing rules for vast swathes of miniatures. My Ultramarines 4th Company? Unplayable unless I proxy stuff into the nuMarine range. And I don’t want to. I spent DECADES working on this, it was a bucket list project. And just as I was finishing up, down swung the scythe.
The 50% line, aka The Meta.
Games Workshop only cares that people are buying product. And when it comes to game balance, as long as half the armies are above the 50% line, the armies below the 50% line can suck it. If you’re lucky, your bottom-tier army will get a new Codex and maybe MAYBE be given the love to bring them above the line. Don’t believe me? Go look at the Custodes Codex, newest one as of this writing (April 23rd, 2024) and the overwhelming response from the meta players. Spoiler: It’s bad.
And remember, for every army that gets brought up into the light, one gets pushed down into the dark…
I thought you weren’t going to talk about price.
No, I just set it aside.
You can buy two player starter sets for every major tabletop wargame for half of the price of a GW starter set. And while GW’s sculpts are generally top notch, they’ve become abysmal to assemble, a result of the Chapterhouse lawsuit and GW’s need to do everything in their power to make it as hard as possible to use third party parts. Give up, Nottingham, the age of cheap miniatures with amazing sculpts is already here.
Games Workshop is pricing themselves out of the market. I’m a white dude, who does well enough for himself to buy whatever plastic crack he wants, reasonably speaking. That Warlord Titan is still well out of range. But when I see that I can get more figures for less money? I’m done.
Games Workshop has weaponized their shit logistics.
Warning: boring logistics naff ahead.
They cannot provide the supply, therefore they drive up demand to justify prices. Their Nottingham factory is maxed-out, and all they’ve outsourced to China is generally printed materials. This is smart, because China would immediately start churning out knockoffs and there’s nothing Games Workshop could do.
Protip: Don’t manufacture in China if you want to protect your intellectual property rights, kids.
However, they regularly overproduce certain items (see also, Leviathan) and use their hype cycle to make you believe there’s short supply. And you accept this because everything else is a limited release! And when your local store get shafted on their pre-orders and you have to scramble to find your units on eBay or internet sellers who somehow got tons of stock in spite of GW’s own webstore being out?
Take a moment to think about how that keeps happening. I’ll be here when you get back.
They can’t even handle the basics of a limited supply! Instead, they institute a queue you have to wait in, instead of many other, saner, less-of-your-time-eating options.
Games Workshop artificially limits supply to justify high prices. That’s it. That’s the reason.
Oh, and Brexit.
Allright, what are you going to do about it?
Stop playing Games Workshop games*.
I’m going to explore the dozens and dozens of other games. Games like One Page Rules’ Grimdark series, where I can use my existing collection. Solo skirmish games. Star Wars Legion. Bolt Action. All of the Mantic options out there. I’m going to see what my favorite game designers have been working on, like Gav Thorpe, Andy Chambers, Rick Priestly, and more!
Oh, and there’s StrikePoint and Throw Weight, my own tabletop wargames… check out https://eclecticmirth.com to keep up with the news!
In a way, I should be thankful. Games Workshop put the final nail in the coffin for me, and now I’m free.
I’ll still post my 40K stuff, I’m proud of my collection and insights on the history. I’ll post my background fluff, army profiles, and whatnot. But I’m also going to start bringing other options to people, starting here and my lovely new local game store. (The Squabblin’ Goblin, Belmont, MA!)
Let’s see what comes next!
But (other GW game) is so much better!
I genuinely don’t care. I have no more good will to give them.
I disagree with (all, part of, some of) everything you just said.
Good for you! But this about me, not you. If you’re still getting joy joy feelings from GW, great! I hope you never get crushed under their boot heel in the name of profit and see the things you’re worked so hard on get utterly fucked.
But please don’t ride into the comments sections white knighting for GW and railing against me, and how wrong I am, and, and, and.
I will block you and move on.
It’s time to move on.
*Except Battlefleet Gothic. I will always play Battlefleet Gothic.