I know newbies to the hobby won’t have 5000 points, and specialists who play only ONE army probably won’t, either. But I’ve been playing the game only six years or so and between my Space Marines, Eldar and Dark Eldar I must have well over 8000 points. Surely people who’ve been playing longer than I have will have even more.

* Netterrain
* Terragenesis
* Terrain Thralls

Epic is actually a good wargame, unlike Apocalypse, however. :-)

I have around 4000 points of Tyranids, and using the codex. There’s no way I can field my whole army in a game. But the chance to say screw the codex and field 4 HQs or 8 heavy units seems like it would be a lot of fun.

I find 500-1000pt battles aren’t too bad in 40k, you get a fairly quick game yet usually have enough figures to still have interesting time. Although of course it can unfairly penalise some of the races in 40k because codexes seem to be aimed at the 1500/2000pt range.

And free, down-loadable Codexes?! What the devil! I guess that does clarify my suspicions about GW’s rules systems just being an excuse for purchasing huge numbers of their figures…

Well, you know where to find me! We have a forum too where we (attempt) to organise regular games.

You mention Tamiya of course, but there’s all those fantastic Mecha/Manga robots, figures and spaceships from various manufacturers not to mention that large market for character models from the seemingly infinite Anime shows.

Do Japanese people play a lot of war games? I was always under the impression modeling in Japan was predominantly of the display/diorama kind.

Games Workshop products as a hobby also tend to take up a fair amount of storage space (half of a double bay garage for me) for terrain etc. which one imagines is also an issue for war gamers living in Japan?

Its probably one of those “to each his/her own” things, but this is definately a game I don’t mind making a hobby. (if my ONLY hobby)

And yet year after year their prices go up and the number of figures in each box steadily decline.

Having said that they do have some of the best multi-part plastic figures in the industry. I largely stopped playing 40k/WHFB though because I find their rules systems are secondary to simply selling you figures. Consequentially there’s much better tabletop games out there to play. In fact several of GW’s older skirmish level efforts are great games (Mordheim for WHFB and Necromunda for 40k) and only require 10-12 figures per side.

One of the bigger downfalls of the Warhammer/Warhammer 40k hobby is the fact that these miniatures cost a lot, as well as the paints, tools, glue, and other assorted items you need to put an army together. As a new player (I just started playing and collecting Tau a few months ago), I can see why Warhammer 40k isn’t as popular as it should be. That’s actually the main reason why my other family members DO NOT play the game. Of course, this situation is primarily in the United States. I’m sure its a little different in Europe and Australia, since the game is A LOT more popular in those regions, but still, one must wonder if the financial advisors of GW are in it for the money, rather than customer service. Seriously, this game is going to die out in America if this sort of thing doesn’t change. If they want more people to BUY the stuff, just reduce to cost of it, but then again, you’d be getting into material cost for the plastic, labor for the people putting the stuff into boxes and whatnot.

Of course, with the economy being what it is, as well as the ever-increasing prices on gasoline, its no wonder the hobby is as expensive as it is.

I’ll wrap this up before it turns into a complete tangent though. Either way, you all have a really good point with what’s been said here and the main reason for complaints from ANY gamer that plays 40k, in my opinion, is the cost of a hobby.

But then again, its a hobby. You gotta be committed to it.

To be honest I can’t recommend anybody get into 40k or WHFB these days, however there are plenty of good sci-fi skirmish level games out there that only require a handful of figures. One that looks quite interesting is Star Mogul by Alpha Forge Games which you can use with any generic sci-fi figures.

There’s also plenty of OTHER manufacturers out there with much more reasonable prices, like Pig Iron Productions and indeed Pig Iron have some nice looking killer robots that could be used for Star Mogul.

GW actually have a classic 40k skirmish game called Necromunda which is now FREE to download! Why not play that with a handful of figures?

In short I guess I’m trying to say if you want to play with sci-fi soldiers, don’t feel you have to buy GW! The independent market for both figures and rules is booming thanks to the Internet, which I’m sure has had an effect on GW’s share price…