Have you stepped away from 40k in 2020?

Nah. Painting in batches of 5s can be done easily. Painting small models on a one-by-one basis means you spend way too much time with getting your paints ready and cleaning your brushes instead of actually getting paint on a model.

 

I stopped buying new 40K rulebooks since 7th Edition turned out to be just 6th but with pointless extras that just added more to remember for no real gameplay gain (I have the 7th Edition Ork and Genestealer Cult codices, and they are perfectly usable in 6th), and GW have just been so unbelievably lazy with 8th I never invested a penny in it.

I still have all my 40K armies (Tyranids, Necrons and Orks) and I enjoy playing the proper 5th and 6th editions (had a fun 6th Edition game with my Orks against my dad's Dark Eldar only a couple of weeks ago), but the vast majority of purchases at the moment have been for adding to my Fantasy armies because more and more Fantasy stuff is being thrown out of the window by GW, and it's uncertain when TOW will arrive, or even whether the units will be plastic. Once I'm happy with my Fantasy armies I'll then probably start committing to AoS with Fyreslayers and my idea of Bretonnian Stormcast I mentioned in another thread. I did plan on starting a Genestealer Cult army when they were first released, and bought the original codex as mentioned above, but I've certainly put that on the back-burner for the forseeable future.

When AoS first arrived in 2015, I loathed it as much as every other existing Fantasy player. Now, though, I see it as GW's greatest hope. Do you know why? Because the AoS team are doing such a good job of broadening its horizons and expanding it ever further with new factions that really enrich the background and setting of this new game, as well as bringing in rules content that makes it more tactical (it's still not as tactical as Fantasy, but it's a far cry from that amateurs' game where there were no points values and the rules were so unbelievably basic). It is this that has allowed AoS to outsell its predecessor. There is the obvious problem with powercreep in AoS, I'll certainly give you that, but otherwise I've really become a convert, because it's the one game GW really seem to be making an effort with. I get so excited whenever a new army is teased, even if it's a 'meh' one like Ossiarch, because it's something new that helps to enrich the whole lore of it all.

40K, on the other hand, is now pretty much in the same position of stagnation as Fantasy was back in 2015. Do you know why? Because the team who have been managing 8th Edition are doing an absolutely awful job of broadening its horizons. I actually think this team is different from the one that managed 40K during the end of 7th Edition, because at least toward the end of 7th Edition you actually had a couple of new factions pop up - Harlequins, who have always been in the game but never as a faction in their own right, and Genestealer Cults, who were not seen in the game since 2nd Edition. Harlequins didn't really take off, but Genestealer Cults have become hugely popular - you see quite regular stories about them on Warhammer Community, and they were the only Xenos faction to get substantial releases when the first round of 8th Edition codices arrived. However, since then nothing's been done apart from the release of constant expansion books and the occasional additional few units, which is hugely reminiscent of Fantasy before its demise. It's not as if GW haven't had opportunities - I have counted three, all of which have been messed up incredibly badly.

The first was when they introduced that Squat Bounty Hunter, Grendel Grendelsen, to Necromunda.

The third and most recent was when they announced the Zoat expansion for Blackstone Fortress.

GW claimed to be bringing back these two iconic old races to the universe when they previewed these characters, but the way they have done it means that they're not really back at all - indeed it is more like a confirmation that they won't be returning to the main game itself and are only appearing in cameos in spin-off games, otherwise GW would have brought full-scale armies of them into mainstream 40K.

The second opportunity after Squats was those Spindle-Drones in the Blackstone Fortress boxed game - those were great, and could have been the bedrock of a really new and unique faction for 40K, but again, GW missed the opportunity big time.

Seeing three new full-scale armies based on these factions would have been a thing of true beauty, and would have revitalised my interest in 40K somewhat, because it would have shown that, like AoS, GW were making the effort to keep the game and its surrounding lore evolving and alive beyond introducing pointless separate Space Marine Chapter and Chaos Legion armies. But no, all the 8th Edition team seem to care about is the monotonously boring Imperium vs Chaos conflict.

Contrary to what 8th Edition fanboys say, Imperium vs Chaos has not always been integral to the lore - in editions up to 6th, you only needed to know about the Horus Heresy if you played either an Imperial or Chaos faction (or both), because those were the factions involved. Now the dreadful new lore progressions that were introduced at the end of 7th Edition have forced it and the conflicts since then into everyone's faces, and the constant Imperium and Chaos releases have continued to do so repeatedly. I honestly loathe this more than anything AoS has ever done.

This, combined with the horrendously lazy attitude GW have shown to releasing the Codices for 8th (with the exact same covers as the previous ones), the rules that are a mutant hybrid of AoS, proper 40K and a smidgeon of Fantasy and the obsession with making it a game of 'whoever has the biggest Lord of War wins' (admittedly this was started by the Wraithknight in 6th Edition 40K, but the fact GW have only made it worse by allowing other factions to field similarly unkillable monstrosities rather than putting a stop to it is a big flaw of 8th) have really buggered up the whole thing. What's more, unless GW actually makes much more of an effort in 9th Edition by introducing some different new factions, banishing the Imperium vs Chaos obsession and getting on with designing new Codex front covers and doing away with the whole Lords of War concept, I won't be changing my mind any time soon. I'll probably still get the odd box of models to add to my 40K armies, but otherwise 40K will get very little money from me.

A glimmer of hope has arisen with the cover art of the new Space Marines and Sisters of Battle books, which are actually a different style more reminiscent of 4th and 5th Edition artwork, which could show that GW are actually starting to make an effort again, but I'm not getting too excited yet because Space Marines are the only army to get a new piece of cover art every edition anyway, and Sisters of Battle didn't have a published Codex since 3rd Edition so they had to have new cover art. I think the real deciding factor in this will be if Adeptus Mechanicus, who will doubtlessly get a new Codex when their new stuff arrives in April, gets a new piece of cover art - if they do, I will remain quietly hopeful for 9th. If not, and they get a 'Mk II' codex with the exact same cover art again like Chaos Marines did to take account of their Shadowspear stuff, I will never get into a 'current' edition of 40K again, and will stick with the proper editions to the end of time.

 

Another Son of Grimnir joins us in the search for Ur-Gold!

Arnie is impressed mate

 

Holy wall of text, batman. And sadly... lots of it is simply wrong. Re-using cover art (even though less than ideal) does not make GW lazy in regards to 8E, and has literally no influence on the quality of rules for an edition. 40k and AoS having identical rules would be boring AF, so rules differences are a positive factor. The initial release cycle until all factions got their Codex was pretty nice, and consistently fast. Same for rules update to bring outliers in line (Ynnari at the start, Imperial soup feat. Castellan after that). With the exception of the latter (who was bonkers for like half a year), Lords of War had no real influence on 8E, and are far from unkillable (and everything that's not a Knight is still pretty much a joke). GSC are not popular, the reason for the short stories on warhammer-community is the impending release of the next PA book (Tau vs AM vs GSC). And Orks also got a big release when their Codex came out.

Imperium vs Chaos is the main conflict of 40k, and Chaos had been the laughing stock of the setting for quite some time, so I have no qualms about them getting some attention. New factions for 40k are not a thing because all factions are already in the game. Squats got eaten by Tyranids, Zoats are not longer used by them (and were only a subfaction of Nids from the start). High time to deal with it and move on (should have done so 10 years ago at the latest). Also, as a personal opinion, I don't like faction bloat one bit. They already don't have enough time to properly support they factions they got, adding more will increase that problem. AdMech will not get a Codex, they get a Psychic Awakening book (Machine Wars) like everybody else.

As a closing thought, I would have preferred for the new SM codex to have re-used artwork and useable rules, instead of new artwork and broken rules. Also, if artwork is so important for you, buy an artbook or some wallart to scratch that itch

 

I'm a little more annoyed with the fact that GW keeps releasing all of these new Chaos Renegades (Traitor Guard) for Blackstone Fortress, but won't freaking give us a new Renegades and Heretics/Traitor Guard codex. I want my Beastmen back without having to buy a boxed set I won't use!!!

 

On the contrary, the fact that the 40K team isn't interested in including such a relatively simple thing as new cover art for every codex (which is still possible in a regular release schedule given that most of the AoS Battletomes updating existing factions had new cover art) tells you quite a lot about the amount of effort they are willing to put into an edition. If GW are too lazy to miss out something simple like this except for their beloved Space Marines, especially as most of the cover artworks for previous editions were new, then that's clearly a sign that they are going to be lazy with more complex task of working on the rules themselves too.

I'm not disputing that, it's great that they did this with both 40K and AoS, just wish that they had put as much effort into the 40K iteration as the AoS release cycle.

That doesn't counter the fact that all Knight-type units (Imperial Knights, Chaos Knights, Wraithknights e.t.c) have had a history of causing game-breaking problems, and that rather than doing the decent thing and restricting them all to Apocalypse where everyone expects to fight massive models that can obliterate several units of infantry a turn (so that mainstream 40K could be used for smaller games up to 2K points which was what it was intended for), GW are making it worse by giving them to all their favourite armies, which is yet another annoyance to players of armies that don't have them.

I've seen Genestealer Cult stories that appeared long before that, and if Genestealer Cults weren't popular, why did GW give them such a haul of new stuff when their codex came out, when they could have just given them a bare-bones release of Codex and Datacards, like they did with Harlequins, for example, who were also expecting a second wave?

Do you really call the release of six basic vehicles that have pretty average rules a big release? Most people agree that the so-called 'Orktober' amounted to very little, and was certainly nothing compared to the Genestealer Cults release.

As I said before, this was only introduced in 8th Edition. In previous editions Chaos was held on the back-burner. Imperium vs Chaos conflict did exist, but it wasn't the be-all-and-end-all that it seems to be now - Xenos events like the Battle for Macragge were similarly prominent in those days. Didn't you say you only joined the hobby just before 8th? Because if so then of course you wouldn't know what it was like, but trust me, I've been playing since 5th and know what it was like.

This was actually a good thing really, because it did something different from the monotonous 'easy option'. Imperium vs Chaos is boring as hell because the sides are practically the same, it's just one has Daemons, spikes and a bad attitude while the other doesn't. At the core it's just good Space Marines vs bad Space Marines. Dull as ditchwater.

Imperium vs Xenos on the other hand has far more variety, as the Xenos forces look so different and also all have their own playstyles that are different from the Imperium. It provided spice and excitement when anticipating who would be the next Xenos faction to feature in a boxed game, or which would get a heap of new stuff. Now it's just the same two forces over and over that get all the glory. If you don't find that boring, especially as a Xenos player yourself, your views on what makes a game fun must be questionable at best.

Or rather, all the factions that GW want to do anything with. There are still loads of alien species mentioned in the lore that haven't been represented, and indeed some factions that arose later on (Necrons being a prime example) started as background factions in previous editions. GW have an entire galaxy to play with here, it's only their narrow-mindedness that's stopping them from unlocking new corners of it.

GW have retconned existing lore before, so that's no excuse - they could easily do it again. In fact, if it was 'time for them to move on', why did they even bring back individual models from those factions? I think they should have either just left them to history or gone the whole hog and create new armies for them (preferably the latter), rather than trying to appease both parties.

Space Marines getting broken new rules was always on the cards, given that they were getting powercreeped to death before as first faction to have a Codex. GW weren't going to allow that to happen to their fave faction. The new art-style however was a nice surprise.

I just don't want to have two books with exactly the same cover art, just with different rules, on my shelf. It looks cheap and tight-fisted. That's not much to ask is it, given that, as mentioned before, they did well in giving around 90% of the AoS updates to existing factions new cover art? Certainly when compared to the challenge of ensuring the game is balanced, such a problem would be quick and simple to solve.

 

Of note, GSC only appear popular because they were highly competitive for a few "seasons". The army itself is extremely costly to buy, build an army and even more frustrating to play in the current iteration of the game.
Why they received a second wave was because they were literally unfinished. There was no Abomination kit, for one, and the first book had more reused units than they had unique units. The GSC community was constantly hounding GW, I know because I was one of those.
We waited nearly 3 years for just Abominations, and good for us, they released more than just them. After stuffing them in a box with Space Marines of course. Can't just release them and watch as they do well. No, have to make sure that box sells out because of cheap redemptors and SW shit.

On the topic of Lore, Stories, and then rules, we're am easy punching bag that appears threatening but doesn't stand up to Spess Mahreens. Almost all the stories presented during the Vigilus Campaign (Book1) had GSC losing ground, being murdered endlessly, and basically losing. Even the appearance of a Patriarch ended with a bullet through his head and a second one appearing to mop up the assassin, rather than showing how terrifyingly aware or fast Genestealers are....
The Rules for Vigilus were also sub-Par, and with the current increases in CA, it's not even worth taking the units/spend the Cp to build half those detachments.

Even further on rules, they've removed almost all of our utility and shenanigans that allowed us to compete, on top increasing the cost of the majority of heavy hitters (melee is super expensive for some reason), despite them all being paper thin. What other army had a "typo" that made their basic infantry 55pts per model in Chapter Approved?
What other army can be cometwly shut down by one unit from the Space Marine codex? (Reference the new 'Scout Marines' taking an elite rule from us and giving it to troops!)
What other army used to be able to come in Turn 1, but was 'fixed' and that ability given to SM?


I vented a bit there.
GSC are not popular, and any chance they had of being so was destroyed when they tore apart their rules.
The book needs a rewrite, and this Pa isn't going to fix anything.

 

Hm this is getting a bit unwieldy to have a discussion about it. Just a few points:

1. The guys who decide which cover art to use are not the guys who write the rules. You seem hellbent on making a connection where there isnt't one.
2. Not worth bringing up past problems in regards to titanic units. Currently they are no problem full stop, and they were no problem in the larger context of 8Es lifecyle. Especially not in regards to anti-infantry firepower.
3. Good question in regards to the GSC release, looks like even GW felt the lineup to be incomplete. Once every few years even non-powerarmor armies get some love (re: coming AdMech releases).
4. Sure the Ork releases were late, and while the GSC release was better, the Ork release was (and still is) the second-largest non-powerarmor release of 8E (and that position will probably hold for the rest of 8Es lifecyle).
5. SM vs Chaos being boring I somewhat agree, but it's still a matter of taste in the audience and GW being a business.
6. They created new models of forgotten races as fan service and easy bucks from oldtimers while NOT having to bring out whole armies for them.
Not hard to figure out.
7. If veteran players are to be believed, it has been quite some time since SM were GWs favorite faction, at least rules wise.
8. And for the last one, again the art. There's really no reason to make such a fuzz about it.

 

Horus Heresy all but guarantees that I retain at least 1 space marine collection, and I may as well make the most out of the $2k spent on my Salamanders.



My current 2000pt list for them in 40k is a veteran-heavy battalion detachment list with combi-weapons, 3 rhinos, a venerable dreadnought, a relic sicaran senator, and 3 rapier quad mortars, led by a chaplain with a librarian and company ancient in tow.

 

I have 2.5 armies

Lizardmen (square bases for 8th edition)
Tyranids
Dwarfs - in a very very rough state

My nids have been sat on a shelf gathering dust since 5ed where I haven't played with them, I can't bring myself to sell them though and I don't know why.

The dwarfs I bagged off ebay however the previous owner had clipped their helmets off and glued push pins to their heads in an attempt to make chaos dwarfs. Some remedial work is drastically required!

I batch painted my temple guard in a block of 40 and oh boy I can tell you that was a mistake xD

 

But.... but.... big-hat dwarves...

Yeah, I try to paint things in a block of 10, max. Otherwise it just becomes too... stressful.

 

I was beginning to get very burnt out towards the end