Planned Obsolencence In Gaming

In tech a term that is being thrown around more often is the concept of planned obsolescence, the planned life of an item before it breaks or is incompatible, which in turn spurs the consumer to want to purchase another. Over the years I have also seen this play out in the tabletop gaming world.

For those of us who can remember the transition from 40k 2nd edition to 3rd or Warhammer Fantasy 5th edition to 6th were welcome changes which simplified cumbersome rules and made for streamlined game-play. Although some of my minis were getting phased out because of the change I eventually came around to seeing that there were overall improvements being made.

Alas, my Squat army was no longer welcome in 3rd edition

For the most part from 40k 3rd to 4th edition, which was about a ten year period there were no major overhauls. Notably, if you played Chaos Space Marines you had to purchase two codices in that time frame to stay relevant. A few of the other major armies also had new codices released during 4th edition, but many of the 3rd edition supplements were usable between editions.

I am mainly focusing on 40k because it has been the most popular of GWs core games in the United States for as long as I can remember. I also recall the frequency in edition overhauls after 4th edition was phased out. With each overhaul came a whole new set of supplements that each had a limited life along with the new edition. At one point when I was very deep into the hobby and playing in lots of events I wanted to have nearly all of the supplements, but I started to grow weary of repeating this cycle every 3 or 4 years. I not only feel this way for all of Games Workshop core game lineup, but I feel this way about Flames of War, and Dungeons and Dragons. Just an aside; I found it easier to reject having to always buy a whole new set of books for D&D because as the GM I was able to find a group willing to play in a 2nd edition Greyhawk setting.

My old Dark Elf beastmaster on manticore. Still on a square

Understandably, any of these game developers need to make a profit to keep their business growing, but I think there could be a fine balance struck between making your older editions incompatible vs stagnation. With Age of Sigmar, although I felt that GW through the baby out with the bath water to solve an IP issue, they did do something right with making the core rules available for free. Not only this, they made a game that was far less cumbersome to play, albeit with some flaws that have been worked out over time. Handing off the upcoming Old World setting to Forgeworld was a smart move and I look forward to dusting off some of my old Warhammer models that I didn't want to re-base.

I believe that we as consumers of these products can exert some pressure to get what we want and not just eat what's put before us. I would encourage more gamers to be skeptical about just picking up the next edition unless you feel it's worth it. There is nobody forcing your gaming group to buy into the newest and shiniest product. A smart company will realign if enough people reject the direction they are going.

Project Horus Heresy Dark Angels

My latest project is building a 1st legion army for Warhammer 30K, aka The Horus Heresy. Right now this has been my favorite Games Workshop game for the last couple of years because I love the setting and I also think it has the most balance out of all of their current major game systems as I write this.

The group of friends that I normally play with in the Pacific Northwest are starting a tale of gamers style of campaign where we build up our army in 750 point increments every other month. In my future articles I plan to capture those increments of the progress I make and showcase what my friends are also working on.

I chose the 1st legion for two reasons. I wanted a loyalist legion that had a portion of it that turned traitor, this was also a big factor in my 3rd legion selection many years back. I also really liked the background and look of the Dark Angels. I have been a fan from the earliest days of my introduction to 40k. Their newer 30k specific units look awesome so it was an easy choice for me to make.

Test model front view

Unlike my Emperor's Children project from previous posts, this project will have more planning ahead. I didn't really know what kind of army I wanted to build at first with the 3rd legion so I ended up building and painting units that I rarely use now. This time around I have a fairly good idea which direction I want to take this project and that will hopefully save me some effort.

I decided I wanted to do a Proto-Deathwing style army that included lots of terminators, therefor my army would use the pride of the legion rite of war.

Test model rear view

There are currently a lot of 3rd party conversion bits on the market to add a bit of customization to the various legions. I wanted to include some of these impressive 3d printed pauldrons on some of my terminator sergeants and command squad. These pauldrons come from Pop Goes the Monkey.

At 750 points I only have 12 models to paint, which will be an easy to achieve goal considering all the stay at home time I have due to the current stay at home orders issued across the US.

Two five man squads of Cataphractii Terminators, a Legion Delegatus (for the rite of war), and a Primus Medicae will be my first 750 points.