Warhammer 40k pay to win.

Its no great secret that the digital gaming world is fast becoming a free to play venture. But with most of these free to play games there is still a price attached. They sell off bundle packs and all the good stuff separately meaning they gain a revenue from the people willing to pay for items to increase there In game ability's and weaponry etc. the system works. People don't mined paying the odd £3.99 for a better weapon in the game. Using planet side 2 as an example. The game is vast, huge in fact. And it's totally free. And for the most part is playable without ever having to pay a penny. The issue with this is of course when you go up against a bunch of guys who all have purchased weaponry. You are going to come off worse in most instances. But the option is there if you are struggling that much to buy a decent weapon so you are more equipped to deal with those situations.

We have a phrase for games like these. It's not free to play. It pay to win. And that's pretty obvious. 

Now wile I actually like some of these extra rules we are getting, and the supplements are great for fluff. It does seam as though GW are falling into the same trap with this pay to win. The supplements caused some upset, with some being just cheesy tournament lists. Farsights all suit lists, and 4 helldrake black legion lists. But they where not as common. We had the warriors code posted at the weekend, allowing is to use imperial armour, escalation, stronghold, data slates and practically any officially produced army list with exceptions to 30k lists. In all warhammer world events from now on. Now initially I thought this would be great. Elysian drop troop army's, chaos renegade army's, death Corpse army's. But just one little search of Games workshop on iBooks makes you realise just what is actually going to happen.

These data slates that where introduced mainly in the advent calendar that GW and black library produced at Xmas time are going to be the lists we will see at tournaments. Buy a data slate from iBooks and you can bring the best units from the new codex's without even having to worry about force organisation. 

And this is where the pay to win factor comes in, GW are producing a lot of these data slates now, I saw one today different from the tyranid one, allowing you to take 1-6 storm talons per unit. 

As long as you have a tablet PC you can purchase these overpowered lists for £4.99 and become the ultimate douche bag at you next GW tournament,  ok calling someone a douche for taking advantage of these data slate rules is probably harsh. But for the most part true.

And granted yes GW has always been pay to win of sorts. But it's getting worse and worse now. A box of 3 centurions, that uses less plastic than a tactical squad does for half the price. Hell 3 centurions are more expensive than land raiders. It has long since been a case of paying for a stat line over the model it's self. I think we all know this. So yes I personally think that GW is turning into a pay to win game system. The more money you can throw at extra rules the more games you are going to win. 

It is now legal to turn up to a GW tournament. With a space marine captain, two 5 man space marine squads and a Reaver Titan. Just as long as you have a copy of escalation and the latest FW updates.
Sure you cant grab many objectives using only two 5 man squads, but neither can you openent when his entire army has been wiped out by a reaver titan on turn 2.

But yet I'm not going to say any of this is Games workshops fault. At the end of the day all they are doing is producing more rules to keep a game system alive, And get people to buy more models. I applaud them on some of the rules, death worlds, and massacre being awesome little systems to play with. But if I am perfectly honest about this. the 40k game system has enough holes in it without having to add any more. 

I guess we will fined out just how bad things are going to get when the warhammer world tournaments start up again.