Why is 40K more popular than Fantasy?

[agproductions]

Aloha everyone!

Since I'm more of a painter and teacher and not much of a gamer, I've got a question I've been wondering since I WAS a gamer 10 to 15 years ago.

Why is 40K a more popular game than Warhammer Fantasy? I'm not saying that one is "better" than the other, I'm just curious as to the popularity.

I'm serious about this now, so please don't just answer with something like, "cause fantasy sucks and 40k rules"...that doesn't help anyone.

I've got a couple of theories, but I'd like to see what you guys come up with as well.

Here are my ideas:

1) Fantasy, from what I've heard is a more complex game that requires a lot more thinking and a lot more strategy. Additionally, it takes longer to play. Therefore, 40k is more popular because new players can more quickly pick up the game than they can fantasy.

2) 40K is more popular because as people come into game shops, they see people playing 40K. They then ask if anyone plays fantasy, and most of the people there playing 40K say "no", so they figure that if they want to have someone to play with, they need to play 40k as well. Then, the cycle continues as more and more players come into the local game stores.

I'm leaning towards theory 2. When I first got into the hobby, I picked up several Fantasy boxed sets (back when they were only $12.50 for a box of 8 figures) and when I got to the register, the guy behind the counter told me that more people played 40k and if I wanted to have some people to play with, even though I liked the fantasy figures better, I should look into getting some 40k stuff instead.

Anyway, if you have any other theories, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks in advance!

[crazyredpraetorian]

3 words

guns......guns.....guns!!!

[sirrouga]

I best I can do here is explain my thought process when I first started.

Now I was never really into the scifi genre, I was always into the fantasy realm. I mean I have a collection of 100+ daggers, swords, spears, and axes and none of them are from a scifi setting or movie. For reasons unknown even to me, I HATE the concept behind mecha anime. Yet with all of that, when I looked into fantasy and 40k, and then dived into 40k.

Warhammer fantasy just didn't seem really unique at the time, I seen all the armies countless times before in other media, god forbid all the elves I have seen in DnD. The fantasy armies just don't seem that unique to me aside from a small few. I know Warhammer did most of the concepts first but the concepts have ran thin already. Now 40k does have similar races but they are done with an unique look and feel; Orks are their whacky meks, Elves riding jetbikes and walkers, dwarves being eaten by giant bugs. I mean 40k had it all!

I still think about fantasy every once in a while still and maybe would get back into it later in the future. But when I first started, it wasn't anything really stand out for me.

[Subject Keyword]

If you look at sales figures, Fantasy actually does quite well in Europe. 40k only really kicks the pants off WFB in the U.S., where MARINES ALONE out sell all Fantasy. Scary, huh?

My real answer: 40k is just easier to pick up.

[RocketRollRebel]

Warhammer fantasy just didn't seem really unique at the time, I seen all the armies countless times before in other media, god forbid all the elves I have seen in DnD. The fantasy armies just don't seem that unique to me aside from a small few. I know Warhammer did most of the concepts first but the concepts have ran thin already. Now 40k does have similar races but they are done with an unique look and feel; Orks are their whacky meks, Elves riding jetbikes and walkers, dwarves being eaten by giant bugs. I mean 40k had it all!

I still think about fantasy every once in a while still and maybe would get back into it later in the future. But when I first started, it wasn't anything really stand out for me.

I'm in the same boat with that. My GF even says that she is surprised that I'm not more into WHFB since I'm a big history nerd as well. But it just hasn't grabbed my attention in the way that 40k did.

Also I think that GW pushes 40k more and that 40k is easier to get into. Getting an army started is much cheaper and requires a bit less effort.

p.s. please for the love of god don't let this turn into another 40k v WHFB pissing match. Both games are awesome in their own way

[Jokubas]

I'm a number two.

I actually started with LotR, but it didn't pan out (that's another story). I still kinda wanted to play Warhammer, as I'd heard a lot of good things about it, so I looked at my other options.

I intended to play Fantasy at first, but at the time none of the armies really appealed to me. I normally play humans in pretty much anything, but both the Empire and the Bretonnian focused too much on what I hate about the medieval period, and Ogres weren't out yet.

40k, however, was just releasing the Daemonhunters, whose Grey Knights perfectly fit the paladin archetype I was really looking for, plus I had friends playing it. No one else I knew played Fantasy, so it would probably been as much of a waste as LotR (of course, 40k was still yet to really work for me, but that's also another story ).


Now that I know more about the games, though, number one might apply to me as well, but it didn't when I was getting into the hobby. My main two problems with 40k as things are is the rules and the length. I get to play 40k so rarely that I can't even keep up with its rules and most games run far longer than I'm comfortable with.

And it's not that I don't have the patience or the intellectual capability, it's just that I don't do it enough for the rules to stick, and even 40k has enough to remember if it's obsolete or you forget it every time. As for game length, I don't like committing long stretches of time to any one thing, it's one of the many reasons why I don't raid in MMOs.

[eagleboy7259]

For me it really has nothing to do with the game play mechanics, or even the warhammer swords and axes vs the 40k guns. It's just most WFB armies involve alot more miniatures than 40k. Two blocks of infantry have more mini's in them than the last 40k army I built. Not to mention IMOP most WFB minitures are harder to paint well than 40k ones, cloth is pretty trickey to master, along with animal hides, faces and skin... which can be avoided in some 40k armies completely. This factor alone has kept me away from the game for a long time, although I'm sure not everybody is as inconfident in their painting as I am.

[entendre_entendre]

to me it was this question: what's cooler? a huge metal sword and shield, or a chainsaw you used as a sword? i went with the one with the cooler weapons.

also: 40k has tanks and tanks are cool (<-- my actual 11 year old thoughts )

there's also the fluff to consider (maybe):

Fantasy: carnage on a global scale

40K: carnage on a galactic scale, i mean, there's probably dozens of Imperial systems that are simply devoted to f***ing just so they can have more guys for the guard in 20 years!

40k's background is just so much darker (to me at least) than WFB's, though this could be simply from the fantasy "it's all going to be okay" syndrome, i mean, how often does it look like all the humans are going to die in fantasy settings? it doesn't happen in the spotlight as often as in sci-fi (e.g. Battlestar Galactica).

[Shadoq]

For me I actually started with Fantasy then migrated across to 40k. My thoughts on the matter:

-I play 40k because I enjoy throwing dice with friends while using a fairly simple gaming system. 40K in my opinion is a lot easier to work with.

- 40K just "clicked" with me and has never let go.

-40K has a bigger fan base in my area than fantasy. Being able to play with a local group regularly is key to me otherwise I'd be more into other smaller games such as FOW.

-Never such a thing as too many treads!

[DarkLink]

1) Fantasy, from what I've heard is a more complex game that requires a lot more thinking and a lot more strategy. Additionally, it takes longer to play. Therefore, 40k is more popular because new players can more quickly pick up the game than they can fantasy.

Fantasy certainly is much more complex. But I certainly don't buy the "fantasy is more tactical/strategic than 40k" argument. And it's not something worth getting into here, we have a few other threads going right now arguing- I mean, discussing- it.

But, yeah, 40k is more visible, and much more streamlined. I'd be willing to bet that more people start gaming with 40k than Fantasy, so it gets more publicity. And then most of those 40k players see little reason to switch over, probably because it would cost a lot of money.

Plus, starting an army in a whole new system isn't like getting a second 40k army. Someone could try to go into fantasy and fall in love with one of the weak codices and spend a ton of money on bad units, only to get face stomped and realize that they made a bad choice. The complexity of Fantasy certainly doesn't help with this.

It takes a while to learn a new gaming system, and until you have a lot of experience with that system, you won't know what you really want. It's the initial investment required that's the issue. You need to play to get experience, but you can't play without an army.

So if most people start with 40k, it wouldn't surprise me if the majority of them decided it wasn't worth the money and time to learn a second system.