3.0: failed or not?

[Brofist]

One other unspoken that I've realized has been hurting our hobby- all the plastic releases. Yeah its cool that plastics are here, but they've been dragging it out for a long ass time and its still unfinished. In practice we're rarely getting anything new. It's basically the same roster of units for getting close to half a decade.

[Stitch5000]

6 hours ago, 2PlusEasy said:

Heresy has definitely failed in my local region of Nth QLD Australia. Heresy 3.0 was definitely a contributing reason, but I wouldn't say it was THE reason.

 

My harsh insight and self-reflection: heresy in my local region is full of grognards (myself included). Said grognards treat heresy as the last bastion of what GW games used to be in the 90s / 2000s. Said grognards are all middle aged white men with no time to hobby and don't play more then a handful of times per year: 2.0 was still new, now 3.0 arrived and the betrayal was real. Said grognards are also comfortable with "their people" because of the limited time and energy to risk a bad game with a stranger which has surprisingly resulted in alot of hating "those people in that other small group." Said grognards also had this dream of "narrative" and "casual gaming" but couldn't decide what that meant which resulted in more of sticking with "their people." This led certain grognards who tried to build a unified community to burn out and exit the scene entirely. Said grognards also complain about the hobby and reminisce about the idea of the hobby more then they actually do the hobby: some of their complaints are highly valid, but most of the time they just have nothing positive to say about the hobby at all. Said grognards are also not purchasing heresy from local stores: they've either accumulated what they wanted already over decades, or order from recasters. The new generation of players who do purchase plastic from local stores and play games regularly either never see these grognards, or they only see them complain about the hobby and go "OK boomer" because they don't want to be a part of it.

 

So in all harshness... Locally we killed heresy ourselves. My self-reflection on the matter has really changed my perception on how toxic being a grognard can be if you're not careful.

This is probably the best post that has ever been made on this subject. 

[Xenith]

20 hours ago, Brofist said:

One other unspoken that I've realized has been hurting our hobby- all the plastic releases. Yeah its cool that plastics are here, but they've been dragging it out for a long ass time and its still unfinished. In practice we're rarely getting anything new. It's basically the same roster of units for getting close to half a decade.

 

Would you rather they make up a new armour mark and release new types of marine unit?

[Brofist]

Absolutely. A new unique unit for each marine faction? Hell yeah dawg. Or bring in the imperial army, proper daemon models, complete the SoS range, more wacky mech stuff- there's a long list!

 

I take your point though. The monkey paw curls and we get weird saturnine stuff when they try something new.

[Gorgoff]

They should make a Siege of Terra themed box for 4th edition full of MK7 or MK5 marines in it. That would be an instant buy for me no matter how the edition will be. 

MKII was cool in the current box but the turret was unwanted and the Saturnine very controversial. 

Ideally they'd put 40 mk5 or 7, a plastic Castra Ferrum dreadnought, new Tartaros, couple of characters and one or two bunkers in there alongisde other terrain. All of those Terrain stuff could be cardboard as well. 

I guess that would trigger an urge most of us couldn't easily resist.

Obviously they have to improve Terrain rules in general and fortifications in particular to make them even more desirable. In advance they have to explain that in an warcom article. 

Thinking about it y'all are lucky that I don't work there. I'd get your money in no time. 8)

Edited April 8 by Gorgoff

[Xenith]

 

On 4/8/2026 at 5:26 AM, Brofist said:

I take your point though. The monkey paw curls and we get weird saturnine stuff when they try something new.

I was thinking more Primaris, but same deal! Ah least saturnine were in the lore already. The dread, box whirlwind, disintegration weaponry, all new though. They are starting to move away from the 1:1 replacements and get creative with things, like rapier crew, round doors on tanks, breachers etc.

[Deus de Mortalis]

On 5/12/2026 at 5:41 AM, Xenith said:

 

I was thinking more Primaris, but same deal! Ah least saturnine were in the lore already. The dread, box whirlwind, disintegration weaponry, all new though. They are starting to move away from the 1:1 replacements and get creative with things, like rapier crew, round doors on tanks, breachers etc.

The only thing new that you mentioned is the saturnine dreadnought. They are just making plastic versions of old forgeworld kits or reaching back to 1st and 2nd edition 40k for things to copy.

 

I actually like this a lot vs them coming up with new ideas, because I don't like a lot of their new ideas for things in their "other" games.

[SvenIronhand]

On 4/6/2026 at 9:04 PM, 2PlusEasy said:

Locally we killed heresy ourselves.

Damn.

[The Scorpion]

On 4/8/2026 at 1:23 AM, Gorgoff said:

They should make a Siege of Terra themed box for 4th edition full of MK7 or MK5 marines in it. That would be an instant buy for me no matter how the edition will be. 

MKII was cool in the current box but the turret was unwanted and the Saturnine very controversial. 

Ideally they'd put 40 mk5 or 7, a plastic Castra Ferrum dreadnought, new Tartaros, couple of characters and one or two bunkers in there alongisde other terrain. All of those Terrain stuff could be cardboard as well. 

I guess that would trigger an urge most of us couldn't easily resist.

Obviously they have to improve Terrain rules in general and fortifications in particular to make them even more desirable. In advance they have to explain that in an warcom article. 

Thinking about it y'all are lucky that I don't work there. I'd get your money in no time. 8)

I'm amazed they have not made the plastic castraferrums.

[derLumpi]

With the new 40k edition coming not sure if we will see major releases for heresy. :-/

[The Scorpion]

My fear exactly. But one can always rely on mainstream 40k turning into slop after 2 years

[Razorblade]

I think a major factor in the "who killed the heresy"-mystery is the incessant cussing and moaning about 40k and its competitive scene in particular. Constantly alienating what is realistically the largest group of potential players is not a recipe for a thriving community. 

[Gorgoff]

15 hours ago, Razorblade said:

I think a major factor in the "who killed the heresy"-mystery is the incessant cussing and moaning about 40k and its competitive scene in particular. Constantly alienating what is realistically the largest group of potential players is not a recipe for a thriving community. 

Although true in a way I am honestly unsure if that community of competitve minded player are even desirable as potential playmates. 

[Razorblade]

21 hours ago, Gorgoff said:

Although true in a way I am honestly unsure if that community of competitve minded player are even desirable as potential playmates. 

Quod erat demonstrandum :P

For real though, aside from "the competitive minded player" being a boogeyman that largely exists in peoples imagination, competitive is just the default of playing 40k these days and also your best (only, depending on where you live and how far you're willing to travel) chance to get a game on a regular basis

[Gorgoff]

15 hours ago, Razorblade said:

Quod erat demonstrandum :P

*1

15 hours ago, Razorblade said:

For real though, aside from "the competitive minded player" being a boogeyman that largely exists in peoples imagination,

 

I can give you names and adresses of a lot of those "imaginations".

There are a lot of people who cant play narrative because they have to make everything knto a competition and have no interest in fluff and all that.

I know people who played WHFB for years and never even bothered to read the fluff. 

15 hours ago, Razorblade said:

competitive is just the default of playing 40k these days and also your best (only, depending on where you live and how far you're willing to travel) chance to get a game on a regular basis

That is also untrue. Legions Imperialis, Bols or that Marvel game is played every week with at least 5-6 players each in my gaming club plus all those 40k and AOS players. It's just not true that 40k and those players are the only option. 

Maybe where you live, in which case my condolences, but I for sure wouldn't play the current edition of 40k just to play something. I would put away my whole collection before I play that stupid game tbh. I'd play Stardew Valley instead and tend to my tomatoes. 

 

*1: I'm not :cuss:ting on them.

We are just not compatible in our playstile. So why bother? I don't want to change them and I definitly want to go back to crushing my enemies, drive them before me and listen to the lamentation of their women. So I let them be 

Edited May 19 by Gorgoff

[Razorblade]

On 5/19/2026 at 3:03 PM, Gorgoff said:

I can give you names and adresses of a lot of those "imaginations".

There are a lot of people who cant play narrative because they have to make everything knto a competition and have no interest in fluff and all that.

I know people who played WHFB for years and never even bothered to read the fluff. 

That's not what I'm talking about. The anti-fun, WAAC, Rules-lawyer Grognards conjure in their minds when comp play is mentioned largely exists only there. 

I could not care less wether someone reads  fluff (it's super vague, inconsistent, contradictory and prone to retcons anyways) if they bring decent looking Minis and you can have a good time with them.

In fact if they don't care at least I won't have to listen to a lecture on how femstodes are the death of warhammer, if not civilization itself, whilst trying to play the game.

On 5/19/2026 at 3:03 PM, Gorgoff said:

That is also untrue. Legions Imperialis, Bols or that Marvel game is played every week with at least 5-6 players each in my gaming club plus all those 40k and AOS players. It's just not true that 40k and those players are the only option. 

No one gets into those games first though. (Except for the AMG stuff maybe) Everyone who is playing heresy, LI, Necromunda, etc. has started with 40k at some point (and I'm sure there were specialist games grognards cussing and moaning about the "new" 40k back when they got in the hobby)

Plus some anecdotes from your local club don't change the big picture. I live an an extremely populated area, and thus in the rest of may alone there are four 40k events in a 150km radius, all of them competitive. As for heresy there are 4 events for the rest of the year, all from the same guys and none of them actually narrative. 

On 5/19/2026 at 3:03 PM, Gorgoff said:

I for sure wouldn't play the current edition of 40k just to play something. I would put away my whole collection before I play that stupid game tbh.

No cussing or moaning to bee seen here for sure...

On 5/19/2026 at 3:03 PM, Gorgoff said:

I'm not :cuss:ting on them.

You can argue semantics, but you're definitely saying that you don't want them in your game.

On 5/19/2026 at 3:03 PM, Gorgoff said:

So why bother? 

Because the heresy community is in terrible shape, needs an influx of players and you wouldn't want your Minis to just be fancy sideboard decorations?

[Gorgoff]

2 hours ago, Razorblade said:

That's not what I'm talking about. The anti-fun, WAAC, Rules-lawyer Grognards conjure in their minds when comp play is mentioned largely exists only there. 

Same answer.

I instantly have several examples in my head which are exactly like that.

Dozens to be exact. 

Ive played tournaments for years and in every 5 game event I had at least one of those as an opponent. Plus one addition terrible game for other reasons which doesn't have necessarily to do with my opponent being one of those though. 

So yeah, I don't know what kind people you know or how your experiences were in the psst but I certainly have met my fair share of terrible opponents. 

 

2 hours ago, Razorblade said:

I could not care less wether someone reads  fluff (it's super vague, inconsistent, contradictory and prone to retcons anyways) if they bring decent looking Minis and you can have a good time with them.

Didn't denie that although it rarely is the case.

2 hours ago, Razorblade said:

In fact if they don't care at least I won't have to listen to a lecture on how femstodes are the death of warhammer, if not civilization itself, whilst trying to play the game.

Whataboutism is not an argument.

 

2 hours ago, Razorblade said:

No one gets into those games first though. (Except for the AMG stuff maybe) Everyone who is playing heresy, LI, Necromunda, etc. has started with 40k at some point (and I'm sure there were specialist games grognards cussing and moaning about the "new" 40k back when they got in the hobby)

 

Not the topic we were talking about.

2 hours ago, Razorblade said:

Plus some anecdotes from your local club don't change the big picture.

 

But yours do? 

 

2 hours ago, Razorblade said:

 

I live an an extremely populated area, and thus in the rest of may alone there are four 40k events in a 150km radius, all of them competitive. As for heresy there are 4 events for the rest of the year, all from the same guys and none of them actually narrative. 

Be the change you want.

Organise an event, start the change now instead of complaining about HH being dead.

 

2 hours ago, Razorblade said:

No cussing or moaning to bee seen here for sure...

It is ok not liking a game.

That's not moaning and cussing. It's just an opinion. 

People who take offend to that are also people I won't play with because they usually are weird in other ways as well.

I just recently saw someone screaming at someone for saying that they didn't want to discuss GWs decision that there are no female Astartes. He also acts extreme upset whenever someone doesn't like current 40k not matter how tame they say so.

 

2 hours ago, Razorblade said:

You can argue semantics, but you're definitely saying that you don't want them in your game.

Yup, I don't want to play against competitive minded players. 

Nothing wrong with that.

They play the game in a way which I cannot stand so why would I want them to take part in games with me? 

 

2 hours ago, Razorblade said:

Because the heresy community is in terrible shape,

 

Like I said my condolences that you have lost anyone in your area to play with.

Have you tried just playing an older editon?

 

2 hours ago, Razorblade said:

needs an influx of players and you wouldn't want your Minis to just be fancy sideboard decorations?

I'd rather put them away than playing with those people, yes. 

Because I don't want to force my playstyle on anyone and in reverse will not change mine just to have someone to play.

And I certainly wont do that to play a game with imho terrible rules to begin with.

Are there even people who do that? Who play a game they hate just to be able to play? 

Edited May 20 by Gorgoff

[Brother Sutek]

20 hours ago, Gorgoff said:

 

Are there even people who do that? Who play a game they hate just to be able to play? 

Yes there are and it is strange to me as well. In our old group we had several people who hated 5th edition of 40k with a passion. They showed up, played the game and hung around after for hours and the entire time it was an almost nonstop run of complaining. I ducked out of 8th edition 40k and haven't returned other than to read the new rules and see how the game has changed. I still don't care for it so I'm playing older editions.  I realize my pool of players is more limited and I don't expect to change others opinions,  but I play to enjoy myself and won't play a game I don't like. I'll try new things but I work a lot and have family obligations,  hobby time is a reward.

[Razorblade]

On 5/20/2026 at 7:25 PM, Gorgoff said:

Same answer.

I instantly have several examples in my head which are exactly like that.

Dozens to be exact. 

Ive played tournaments for years and in every 5 game event I had at least one of those as an opponent. Plus one addition terrible game for other reasons which doesn't have necessarily to do with my opponent being one of those though. 

So yeah, I don't know what kind people you know or how your experiences were in the psst but I certainly have met my fair share of terrible opponents. 

 

Didn't denie that although it rarely is the case.

Whataboutism is not an argument.

 

 

Not the topic we were talking about.

 

But yours do? 

 

Be the change you want.

Organise an event, start the change now instead of complaining about HH being dead.

 

It is ok not liking a game.

That's not moaning and cussing. It's just an opinion. 

People who take offend to that are also people I won't play with because they usually are weird in other ways as well.

I just recently saw someone screaming at someone for saying that they didn't want to discuss GWs decision that there are no female Astartes. He also acts extreme upset whenever someone doesn't like current 40k not matter how tame they say so.

 

Yup, I don't want to play against competitive minded players. 

Nothing wrong with that.

They play the game in a way which I cannot stand so why would I want them to take part in games with me? 

 

 

Like I said my condolences that you have lost anyone in your area to play with.

Have you tried just playing an older editon?

 

I'd rather put them away than playing with those people, yes. 

Because I don't want to force my playstyle on anyone and in reverse will not change mine just to have someone to play.

And I certainly wont do that to play a game with imho terrible rules to begin with.

Are there even people who do that? Who play a game they hate just to be able to play? 

I will refer you to @2plusEasys post on the matter to spare us another round of post dissections. Everything said there really

[TheTrans]

So talking with a posse of peeps in my local community that are looking into which edition to try and get up and running, we were discussing what and where it all went wrong, and I think at the end of the day, much like any community, and the particular people in it is that a community and game system, is that it will thrive off of events.

If there are events running, the game looks alive, if the game looks alive people will jump in, or existing people will start new armies, so there is a constant 'flow' of new stuff, people excited about new things etc. But the take away is events, however nebulous or infrequent, and all of a sudden the game looks 'less-alive' which then spirals away peoples impetus to get an army sorted, start something new etc.  I think events are both the sign of a healthy community and also at the same time help grow it. 

Down in Australia, 1.0 had a thriving community and event series, we had a couple of podcasts, events up and down the east coast etc and life was pretty grand. The people running the events were either fantastic hobbiests, prolific gamers, amazing rules-noodlers or all of the above. The level of hobby seen in Australian 30k events was sublime and always sort of in an almost circular process, always had everyone trying to up their hobby, make new armies and develop cool stuff.  Not to mention, the game was 'unsupported' just enough to allow wiggle room for fan-rules, namely stuff by the Mournival guys and the AUS30k Books and events. 

2.0 dropped, with a large bracket of 'its supported, new plastics, faqs' etc, which then killed a lot of the fan stuff (yes we got the panotpica stuff, but I feel they either timed it poorly, or went a bit full on with rule changes to ever be really accepted by a large enough swathe of people), factor in also many, many armies if they were lucky enough to have rules became unplayable and poorly balanced. This without a doubt put a bit of a downer of people especially affected by that, that with a stronger 'Needs to be official' mentality (weather that was a loss of old guard, change of player mentality, or an influx of more maintstream gamers who knows) which then caused more problems etc. We saw a massive decline after the first year of the edition in events. I think this was due to the game suffering from being supported, but poorly (massive imbalances with factions never getting touched, reactions never being toned down) it was essentially abanadonware with pre-made DLCs dropping at what ever time they were pre-setup to drop. 

3.0 comes in in a huge state of issues, we see first hand before the game dropped the huge glut of rules, models and wargear removed in a clear continuation of 40k and AoS's mentality of 'no model, no play' and was only brought back from the brink by that huge legends pdf which I imagine quadrupled in size when GW spotted the :cuss:fight the wholesale removal of models and wargear saw. Not only that you have the clear outline that the system is now in the 'edition cycle' of GW, which was one of the huge selling points of 1.0, that being it was a relatively stable ruleset/sandbox and you could slow build a large army. 3.0 again did away with even more of the 'classic' 40k stuff that we had in 1.0 and to a lesser extent 2.0 (removal of force org, vehicles becoming more like MCs/Infantry and we see the game heading into a direction of 40k with damage profiles etc), which again would have put off more of the grognards who ran events... The new blood, have run zero as far as I can see, from 'mid' 2.0 all the way through to  now, what almost a year, of 3.0?

So while a lot of blame is thrown around for the death of a game system, I can only account for my thoughts on it and my local area, but I lay it firmly on GW for creating a game that a lot of the people that made the community happen, didn't want, because GW wanted more buy in. So while we attack each other, I think the big, forever greedy elephant in the room is GW more so than any community or type of gamer screwing the scene over. 

**Bonus Note** - Another thing I think causes issues, and this is just the nature of the beast in this day and age... I think is the huge changes we've seen in facebook over the last 5-10 years which I feel is a contributing factor also (may be a tin foil hat thing here) but probably what, 5-8 years ago, facebook was the place to go, with a variety of groups dedicated to the hobbies that we loved. Back then if  logged onto facebook I'd be inundated with posts from friends and the groups I joined. Getting slapped with a heap of awesome hobby which you then comment on, which then more people comment on, talk about, get excited about, then gets more people talking, posting etc which creates an alive looking community. Skip forward, you jump on facebook 95% of your stream is going to be adds, people/groups you don't follow and irrelevant reels.. so you never actually get to engage with half the staff you want to, and if you have it in your head (which I feel many of us facebookians do) that a healthy online discourse and presence is encouraging and a sign of a healthy community, well most stuff would look half dead nowadays! So I feel this could also add a bit to the rose-tinted glasses just because :cuss: felt a bit more connected back then as well...

 

[Stitch5000]

10 hours ago, TheTrans said:

Skip forward, you jump on facebook 95% of your stream is going to be adds, people/groups you don't follow and irrelevant reels..
 

The Facebook thing is a great point... Facebook is dead. It's gone. All that is left is a festering pile of low-quality spam content with FACEBOOK written above it. 

Do yourself a favour and get off of that and engage with Instagram at least. 

[Brother Sutek]

6 hours ago, Stitch5000 said:

The Facebook thing is a great point... Facebook is dead. It's gone. All that is left is a festering pile of low-quality spam content with FACEBOOK written above it. 

Do yourself a favour and get off of that and engage with Instagram at least. 

I got off most social media period due to groups becoming political. I'm on your page due to your artistic skills or game knowledge,  not who you sleep with or who you vote for. I get enough of that in the real world. Wargaming is my relaxation time and if we don't agree on that then I won't play you. Same rule for different edition,  I want both people to want to play and have fun. 

[Doghouse]

I keep wanting to try 3rd edition but I think they burnt me with all the 2nd edition books I bought. 3rd feels like it's trying to tie into the new epic system to create a Heresy MCU.

 

If I ever get the chance I may give it a try.

[Stitch5000]

On 5/26/2026 at 9:56 PM, Brother Sutek said:

I got off most social media period due to groups becoming political. I'm on your page due to your artistic skills or game knowledge,  not who you sleep with or who you vote for. I get enough of that in the real world. Wargaming is my relaxation time and if we don't agree on that then I won't play you. Same rule for different edition,  I want both people to want to play and have fun. 

I have an Instagram account for hobby. I have never once posted my face or my opinion on anything other than miniatures. I judiciously prune anyone I follow that veers into non-hobby subjects, no matter how hard IG tries to feed me non-hobby content. It is my sanctuary. 

[Brother Sutek]

6 hours ago, Stitch5000 said:

I have an Instagram account for hobby. I have never once posted my face or my opinion on anything other than miniatures. I judiciously prune anyone I follow that veers into non-hobby subjects, no matter how hard IG tries to feed me non-hobby content. It is my sanctuary. 

I don't have that but I agree with how you deal with it.