Is it dying?

Mk3 could've been good. Then they decided to release the theme lists, which are even more pants-on-head retarded than in mk2.

Theme could've been ok if it was simultaneous releases and the model release schedules for them were tighter. Unfortunately they weren't.

you can say that for any starter. Killteam/shadowar is a gateway to buying the models, but it definitely isn't the medium point between starting and 1500pt army.

Every game has a standard tourney level play. Every magic player knows to build toward 60 card deck, every warmahordes player knows the need to build toward 75pts.

A bunch of bad decisions. Including, but not limited to:

Attracting hyper competitive players
Trying to make the most of peoples hatred towards GW
Half assed releases
Awful plastic and sub par miniatures, they should have stuck with metal
No real terrain support
No real model customization
You army isn't any army, it's a group of units for a combo nearly 95% of the time

I'm glad I jumped ship mid mkII. I saw the signs.

Let's not overreact.

It's not like it's Exalted.

The problem being more than half of the models in the game are trash competitively. So for a new player you have like 100 options, and each wrong choice you make is a huge blow to the wallet and wasted painting time. It sours people on a game when you say 'no really, it's balanced!' and then they get totally trashed because they picked random shit that looked cool. And then the learning curve in general because of the assassination mechanic combined with the heavy weight towards experienced players still dominating the game?

PP wants the casual market but it's the least casual friendly game conceivable.

>post few good decisions PP has done
wew lad?

mkii was ultimately a success because of the competitive nature, stoking the hatred for GW (which deserved it), lower prices with resin/plastic.

Terrain complaint is stupid as shit. Game should be playable, not be a chore. Same with customization, the game should be playable.

It sounds like you were just bad

It seems like the player base isn't used to meta shift. Thats one thing 40k players are used to and even come to expect.

This is likely to happen. GW has learned from AoS on how not to release a new product, and has been doing it right since the announcement of 8e. Instead of being super secretive until release, they release major potentially upsetting changes to us piecemeal, with play tester testimonies (primarily from major independent tournament organizers with an NDA) to reassure players that it all works together. Another major point is while 40k has always had player focus on competitive, it has also always had a focus of casual narrative play. And GW has never stopped promoting that (well except for the time when they just didn't promote or communicate anything, that's another thing they've been doing right). So players, especially new ones, see a heavy focus on options of play, whereas on W/H you can't blame new players for all they ever see is hyper competitive play. Not that hyper competitive is wrong, it can chase away a lot of new players if that's all there is.

here's what actually happens for casual players.
>Hey store employee/guy that I see every week playing this/friend who got me into this, I want to play X, wat do?
>Well, you want to get A,B,C,and D. You might want to switch to E, but that's personal preference. Avoid F.

Casual players aren't going into this shit blind. If someone is making early purchases without questions, it's because he has already done the research for it or simply does not care at all and have nothing to lose.

Sounds like they are trying to emulate 2011 GW.

>It seems like the player base isn't used to meta shift.
No, people are used to it fine, Mkii was a storm of metashifts for its duration. the issue is that some things didn't change, merely traded the cancer or there was nothing to change to.

For example, multiwound high armor spam was the major problem in the tail end of mkii. This took the form of light warbeast spam or heavy infantry spam. In mkiii, those spams went away, to be replaced by warjack spam. The meta didn't shift, you had the same shit, just different people. Now you have two groups that are pissed off, the ones originally playing the spam that feels like the investment was wasted and those facing the spam who feel the problem was never solved.

Second issue was that the shift didn't mean alternates were available. Cryx went insane because their jacks were still paperthin assassination only garbage while the infantry they used to everything took a nose dive.
Trolls went insane because the animus buffing they needed to make their mediocre stats good went away with nothing to replace that.

And this post is the exact reason why I looked into wmh, gave it a couple serious demo games, and got disgusted after some reading.

The zero customisation is the ultimate turnoff as I am very much a your-dudes kind of player.

I have a friend who quit wmh in favor of 40k and never looked back. This was during the 6e/7e era too. You guys are just caustic.

well, don't be wrong on the internet.

It's ok to not like things, but don't say successful decisions were bad decisions.

Still not as bad as the AoS community tho.

Nothing you described would be strange to long time 40k players. One edition vehicles are awesome. Another edition they are paper thin. One edition infantry rocks. Another edition don't bother unless you have them combod and buffed to hell. One edition the biggest thing on the table is a tank transport. Another edition and bam! you got armies consisting entirely of mini-titans. This combined with the general army rankings shifting all the time with codeces, supplements, and new editions. Cry all you want about 40k's game balance, but at least it changed all the fucking time. Believe it or not, but there was a time when Tau was just shit.

yeah, but you forget that 40k had no expectation of a standard.

The difference here is that GW actively supports non-standard game modes with stuff like Shadow War, the recent AOS Skirmish, Warhammer Quest, Kill Team, tons of board games, and encouraging people to play something except "2000 point" games.

GW gives you lots of ways to play with their models, PP gives you one - if you don't like it then you're shit outta luck

The AoS community can be quite defensive at times, but this is due mainly to constant trolling for about a year and guilted for liking something. However, like with 40k, the game has a focus equally on competitive and non-competitive play. People do use the points now more than open play, but casual gaming is still one of the main focuses. You'll have just as easy time finding a just-for-fun game as you will a practice-my-tournanent-list game. That's more than can be said for wmh.

that's not a non-standard game mode, that's basically their battlebox equivalent.

You are complaining that warmahordes doesn't have a 50pt level game to fill the void, but fail to recognize that GW also doesn't have a game for 1000pt scale.

The games you are describing is basically alternate battlebox tier stuff. If you want to complain to anyone it's GW that you should be complaining since they don't have anything like a journeman/escalation league. Your scaling is way off.

Whats wrong with AOS community?

Ive only ever had good experiences playing AOS

All the new players are borderline normies that just want to paint models and have fun rolling dice.
All the WHFB autist powergamers either quit forever or slowly came around and are pretty chill now.

because they are insane.

AOS people think it's a game and game not having rules is a good thing. AOS is a fine activity, but it should never said to be a good "game"

>but fail to recognize that GW also doesn't have a game for 1000pt scale.
Yes it does? AOS at 1000 points is very playable and encouraged. 40k is about to make a similar move with 8th ed

>If you want to complain to anyone it's GW that you should be complaining since they don't have anything like a journeman/escalation league.
What? I'm not complaining at all. I like what GW is doing because it gives me lots of ways to use the miniatures I spent time building and painting.

When I was playing WMH the only way to use my models was with the 75pt format and that got dull quickly.

How is it not a game...?

Oh, I figured it out. You're autistic. Nevermind, shitpost away friendo

> the game has a focus equally on competitive and non-competitive play

No it fucking doesn't. There is nothing competitive about the AoS or 40K community. Structured play is not automatically competitive.

The entire community brazenly supports local house rules, comp scores, soft and hard bannings of the TOs least favorite units, etc. Without a tight ruleset and a competitive standard it's not a competitive game.

That doesn't mean that AoS or 40K can't be fun, but let's not pretend that either is a competitive game. The community at large is so violently anti-competitive ("I don't take Unit X because it's just too powerful, you only beat me because you take cheese, so I'm not going to play against you anymore") that it's impossible for any player interested in a competitive game to enjoy.

GW products are strictly beer-and-pretzels and likely always will be. They have no interest in providing a balanced game - they just want to sell cool minis.

>its not competitive because i said so

What I never got about AoS and now 40K is that once they started allowing really nonsensical alliances they kinda lost claim to being a narrative-driven game.

I understand that structured play made it more of an actual game than the joke of an initial release (rerolls for having a longer beard than your opponent, wtf) but it's still an incredibly casual game.

And you wonder why the AoS community is defensive. I don't play it, but I at least recognize it is a game, a quickly growing one with tournament support. That wouldn't be the case with a non-game.

I guess that's true.

>GW games are not comeptitive
>except when they are

It's not competitive because the hallmarks of a competitive game are based solely around playing the game itself. Competitive games don't deduct you points for playing models your opponent doesn't like, or have painting scores. Competitive games have developers that are taking metrics and making tweaks to ensure balance (whether they succeed or fail). Competitive games provide specific, detailed organized play formats that TOs are expected not to deviate from so you can play the game the same way at any event.

GW hhas no interest in doing things like this. They are a model company that happens to make rules, and the community is expected to patch things up to make things remotely balanced.

Again - doesn't mean it's not fun. But there is no semblance of competitive play in GW products.

Call me when GW produces rules that the community is willing to accept without applying comp scores to limit otherwise legal army choices and we can indulge the fantasy that it's somehow a competitive game.

They throw rules over the wall and let the players sort it out. That's antithetical to a competitive game.

>Competitive games don't deduct you points for playing models your opponent doesn't like, or have painting scores
Painting and sportsmanship effecting final results is bullshit, but it's not written into the rules of the game itself. Those aren't problems with the game, they are problems with the tournament organization.

>Competitive games have developers that are taking metrics and making tweaks to ensure balance (whether they succeed or fail).
GW is doing this with AOS and 8th ed 40k. The Generals Handbook for AOS contains point values for EVERY unit and is updated annually. They also announced some changes ahead of time, like massive nerfs to Tomb Kings (they were crazy overpowered).

> Competitive games provide specific, detailed organized play formats that TOs are expected not to deviate from so you can play the game the same way at any event.
Like the ITC? And AOS with the GHB?
Despite those, I disagree that this is a requirement. I think you can have non-standardized gameplay and still have a competitive game. Is football suddenly no longer competitive if there's an eastward wind blowing? Is WMH no longer competitive if a tournament introduces new scenarios? Is Starcraft no longer competitive if there's a new map?

The fact that there are competing tournament standards, and that those are not under control of the company producing the game, indicates that the priority of the game is not competitive play. If third parties need to twist the game into some semblance of a competitive game, then it simply isn't.

It seems increasingly clear that you have a definition of what a competitive play is, and confuse that to thinking it is THE definition. I am arguing you simply on the fact that you are confusing how you feel competitive games should be, and refuse to acknowledge a game when it doesn't fit that criteria.

And I am pretty fucking glad AoS or 40k don't fit those criteria, because it sounds like you are only accepting the warmahordes hyper competitive format which I think is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, drawbacks of the game.

So you can argue until you are blue in the face as to what a competitive game is or isn't, but it's entirely moot because it is merely your opinion.

So If you want to argue a point within the confines of your definition of competitive, then yes, I am willing to admit 40k and AoS are not competitive when constrained by your criteria. But outside of your definitions, AoS and 40k can indeed be played competitively, otherwise there would be nobody playing it competitively in national tournaments.

>If third parties need to twist the game into some semblance of a competitive game, then it simply isn't.

So smash bros melee isnt a competitive game?
Gotcha

I mean, ask the majority of the fighting game community and they'll tell you it isn't.

Most FGC treats it as such. The community only accepts it because that's how they get the views and funding.

"Competitive" has an objective definition and you are trying to define it subjectively to fit your own standards, probably to justify the time and money you've spent doing whatever you consider competitive.

Saying a game is not competitive is patently false. All games are competitive by nature of the definition of competitive; game and competition are synonymous.

A game can be MORE competitive than another, and WMH is certainly more competitive than 40k and AOS, but to say a game is not competitive is idiocy

you can't have a competition without set standards which GW stuff is notorious for winging it. It's a game you compete with each other, but it isn't a competitive game.

So wait, your argument is that the only possible use for a word is the widest, most meaningless version and that getting any more specific is wrong?

I mean, alright man, but if you work with that then the word will lose all concept or meaning within this argument.

Work under the idea that competitive can be decided by consensus, which is the correct approach.

>It's a game you compete with each other, but it isn't a competitive game.
Competitive has an objective meaning

>Work under the idea that competitive can be decided by consensus, which is the correct approach.
Objective definitions of words are not defined by consensus. Fuck your post modernism.

Exactly.

And standards within a competitive event make it a competitive game. This means that standards can differ from event to event, but as long as there are standards present, then it is competitive.

>Work under the idea that competitive can be decided by consensus, which is the correct approach.
By that then it is pretty clear that 40k is competitive because it is generally accepted that it is. This is evidenced by the attendance to these game. People wouldn't play it competitively, especially on national leaderboards (a la ITC), if they didn't accept that the game is competitive. Again, you can have a game more competitive than another, but to say it is not competitive because it doesn't fit your criteria of competitive is idiotic.

ITC make it into a competitive game, but 40k itself is not a competitive game.It doesn't have a native system for regulations to make it a competitive game.

Guild Ball and Malifaux got better.

Your definition of competitive is wrong

So chess isn't a competitive game.

The core rules of chess is 2 players go at it until one player loses or it's a draw. However different chess events have different standards to this. Not every tournament uses a chess clock. Not every tourney had the same round times. Not every tourney uses the same pairings system. The US Nationals have a different rulebook and rulings than the European Nationals. School level tournaments are different than masters.

There core rules of chess define none of this, the events have to do it. This is no different than what the ITC does. If what the ITC does isn't fitting with your definition of what a competitive game is, then chess isn't a competitive game.

What is recognized as the most competitive boardgame in the world.

They rest of the FGC may disagree Smash is a Fighting game, but they certainly wouldn't disagree that its competitive