Thaluikhain said:
I wonder though, if it's common for people to think the ed they started on was the best ed. In which case there's either some bias and resistance to change, or it's been consistently going downhill.
I started with 2nd/3rd, personally. But I played more Necromunda-esque stuff ... then I was invited to play a campaign or chronicle of Rogue Trader and fell in love with it. It's just flatout better when they went towards a wargame-RPG mix than just a flat out wargame.
Sad fact of the matter is that there's just better boardgames out there. There's better wargames out there.
'Ones that don't involve such a high degree of chance ... ones that just get better the more players you have. Ones that even involve diplomacy, treachery, and duplicity and all that fun stuff. Whereby a complete newb can win the game simply because the skills they bring into a game are weighted (like being able to smile and straight out lie to your friend's face when they have known you for
years and still pull it off, so it makes it feel as if your victories and failures
are yours and yours alone.
The moment they went pure wargaming they lost something truly wonderful.
Warhammer, for the longest time, has been one of those games with a high obstacle of entry, with a low payoff ... because why buy into Games Workshop when other games do it better?
What made Rogue Trader great is what made Necromunda great ... the idea of your characters being customised and changing as the narrative went on. W40K sells itself on its narrative alone because its mechanics and its characterization is
rubbish. Essentially why W40k became as big as it did was because it was after the first Golden age of late-modern boardgaming, and before the second Golden age of boardgaming.
For a long time Warhammer was the only way to get your wargaming fix ... and it still uses six sided dice. For almost everything. And because of that it's losing its once enviable slice of the 'boardgaming pie' to smarter, better, less costly tactical board games on the market.
At this point, I'd rather get into the X-Wing miniatures game than go back in any iteration of Warhammer ... and that's a shame because I fucking loved my Lizardmen, Eldar and Imperial Guard. I had a penal legion Imperial Guard army whereby I bought up shitloads of Necromunda models. Usually Orlock, Escher and Van Saar models ... mixing with standard Imperial Guard models. Point is that you don't need to play Warhammer to get a gaming fix. And unless they're willing to change not only how they do business, but how they play their games, in a manner that is conducive to what shrinking per capita fan base of boardgaming market they have in an increasingly saturated market ... then 9th edition will be out in about a year and a half's time.
Basically GW is having their Sega moment.
