The problem with the 21st century and this hobby

[Sotek]

It started with tournaments around the 3rd edition time. Every game became a 'practice game'.

Now with the interweb, YTTH, 3++ et al its quite competitively minded.

I'd love to play an apoc game - but no one wants to

[gitburna]

In response to the OP, I think its changing attitudes within everyone as they grow older. As someone with a job, mortgage, bills to pay, wife etc, i enjoy the escapism of the game. Bitching about points values and whats efficient in this edition or any of that doesn't interest me, how is that fun? I can think of better ways to spend what free time i've got. I want to build models and scenery that i like the look of, and then play against my friends. We want to win, nobody plays to lose, but our attitude to the game is much more relaxed.

I've never been interested in tweaking my army out to gain every last iota of efficiency for that one particular snapshot of time in the evolution of 40k, i've been in this game 20 years now, its counterproductive - i'd only have to change it wholesale once the dynamic of the game changed. Then what am i going to do, leave the army on the shelf while i build the next flavour of the month?

I'd love to play an apoc game - but no one wants to

That's a real shame, i've only played in two, but they were really cool. Carnage, surprise tricks (and army choices!), special characters. It was the same group of us that always play, but the opportunity to do something a bit different and all play in the same game at once!

it would be a pain in the **** to try and organise this all the time, because people live all over the country and there are always drop outs, but even so , i'd say it was well worth it!

[WodenMHC]

"heres the thing. you were 9. you were a kid. things look different to kids. we all remember that somehow as a golden age. trust me. its not. you are extremely guilty of the "rose tinted glasses" syndrome"

This - Certainly. I started with Rogue Trader, and there were plenty of RTT's I attended that were consistently dominated by the same people/builds/armies/models. It's a simple fact of wargaming with any system. While I agree the availability of information on the internet has made the proliferation of a particular way of playing an army more common, in the RT-2nd-3rd-4th Ed. era there were still fan news letters, magazine submissions, and most clubs stayed in touch with one another through bulletins etc - "Lightning Claw Terminators are WICKED" sticks out in my mind as from that era (and colloquially, my Northeast USA geography...'wicked' needs to come back). I think it is less "it was a golden time" and more "I got something different out of the game" when I/you/we all were younger.

Maturing in a wargame does in fact mean -you- can have a good time playing your kind of game while your opponent plays -their- kind of game at the same time. Rarely will they match up, but does that mean you rarely get to play your choice of wargame? I'd hope not.