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Here's something else that's ridiculous. GW has a new SM boxed army for $230 USD. It has about 785 points in 20 miniatures (although it has a Razorback, Drop Pod, Dreadnought and Stormtalon).

A bare minimum army for $230, so assuming you needed the rules too that's over $300 for an entry-level force to play beginner games.

That's the issue. I would buy that without much of a second thought if it was half that price, where it would be a little on the expensive side but not completely unreasonable. At $230, I laugh and shake my head because I can buy a 35-point (i.e. normal game) Warmachine army for that amount and not have just a minimal army.

EDIT: $230 USD, not $280.

Makumba wrote:
I don't know much about star wars. But don't they have a super long story line too with more books then BL. I know they made comic books that are set in the past and future of when X-Wing. Doesn't that technicly mean X-wings lore is bigger then w40ks?

Kind of, since Disney took over I believe most of the expanded universe, beyond Return of the Jedi is now no longer considered cannon or exists because Episode 7 will be where it goes.

I think Star Wars is better fleshed out than 40k but it is rather limited to telling stories of similar nature on or around the same systems. They at least seem to stick to a rule for all their force and weapon abilities though. I think 40k's fleshing out is sticking to the Horus Heresy books, they can pretty much go wherever they like because it happened "back then" and now its legend or forgotten. Otherwise its got to be somewhere outside of the main storyline so it can't interrupt the main storyline of "its about to get really bad..." but never gets there. The stories they tell seem significant and draw us in, entertain us, but in the end, really are just insignificant. Nothing can happen that rocks the boat or inches it towards that 'oncoming storm'.

The miniature's game for X-wing I suppose only appeals to people who want to fly as a pilot. If they want to be a Jedi they need to play an RPG, if they want to play with things like ground forces and maybe recreate things like the Battle for Hoth, then they'd have to track down earlier games, or see where Imperial Assault may go. Then if they want to command the big capitol ships, they have Star Wars Armada.

I suppose Star Wars is a bit better equipped to deal with all its facets with different games as opposed to 40k which did have massive battles with Epic, Skirmish with 40k and ship to ship battles with Battlefleet Gothic. Then they kinda made Epic into Apocalypse and then Apocalypse into 40k, forgetting the smaller Skirmish side. Like Battle for Macragge had a story and missions that made a campaign. I don't think the same can really be said for Assault on Black Reach, onwards.

There is also starwars skirmish games, and a new one on the market that flesh out the ability to play as a jedi. And there are conversions made to play X-wing with ground based combat as well.

Something I am surprised hasn't been mentioned here is the subject matter. I don't know a lot of parents who are thrilled about having their kids playing with demon spawn with skulls everywhere. The content of 40k is decidedly adult in its brutal nature, and while there is a portion of the population that enjoy that, it certainly isn't as universally appealing as other more civil lores. I was first attracted to the 40k artwork and gothic future, but I feel it has gone too far for a lot of people's taste. - as an example, I openned up Dakka dakka just now and was greeted by a space marine brutally decapitating a struggling victim with a sword, while my children were behind me...

Jlav wrote:
There is also starwars skirmish games, and a new one on the market that flesh out the ability to play as a jedi. And there are conversions made to play X-wing with ground based combat as well.

Something I am surprised hasn't been mentioned here is the subject matter. I don't know a lot of parents who are thrilled about having their kids playing with demon spawn with skulls everywhere. The content of 40k is decidedly adult in its brutal nature, and while there is a portion of the population that enjoy that, it certainly isn't as universally appealing as other more civil lores. I was first attracted to the 40k artwork and gothic future, but I feel it has gone too far for a lot of people's taste. - as an example, I openned up Dakka dakka just now and was greeted by a space marine brutally decapitating a struggling victim with a sword, while my children were behind me...

I agree, I just gave up on 99% of the backstory and just enjoy some of the ideas like imperial guard variety and so forth. Most of it is just way to over the top. Id worry about my future kid looking too far into the lore personally as well, or even playing the game thats simply mindless childish violence most of the time.

Here in our gaming group we all agree that WM/H is much cheaper to play at the tournament level than 40k and we have tournaments for both systems every two months.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Here in our gaming group we all agree that WM/H is much cheaper to play at the tournament level than 40k and we have tournaments for both systems every two months.

The number of leagues of 40k and WM/H is equal in my area.

Really though while the price of Troops is slightly expensive (on average), it's everything else that's ridiculous, and part of that is because GW tends to price things based on the number of individual components, instead of logically. Take the Sternguard squad. It's $50 for FIVE models, and why? Because they're Elite? Because they have a ton of fancy crap that isn't really needed? A Tactical Squad is $40 for 10, so why on earth is Sternguard $10 more than that for half as many guys when they're virtually identical other than having a bit of robe/tabard on their armor? If I wanted to field a lot of Sternguard, I'd basically have to pay double for every squad for essentially no reason (and given that I was looking at a 1st Company/Sternguard army, I know this for a fact). Five regular sized models isn't worth $50 just because they include extra junk on the sprue instead of additional models but this is a common GW issue - they'll say how the sprue has 120 pieces, but who the hell cares how many pieces when you can only make five dudes? Do real model kits (e.g. gundams, tanks, etc.) make such a big deal about how many actual parts they come with, or is it the finished product which counts?

It's things like that which just help to reinforce the idea that you're being cheated.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Here in our gaming group we all agree that WM/H is much cheaper to play at the tournament level than 40k and we have tournaments for both systems every two months.

The area I used to come from there was definitely a little more prevalence of PP but the area I just moved to which is the area of where my hometown is, 40k by far out weighs everything else followed by X-wing (And actually, there is a guy here that has a SM army that is themed with Star Wars. His Boba Fett marine is pretty awesome.) so for me to go into anything else, I would definitely find less players. And as I said before, I am still a relative happy GW customer.

Although, I did see someone who is a very happy GW customer post on here and then the community tore him apart for his opinion. If he is that satisfied with GW, why do have to go and tear it apart?

 Envihon wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
Here in our gaming group we all agree that WM/H is much cheaper to play at the tournament level than 40k and we have tournaments for both systems every two months.

The area I used to come from there was definitely a little more prevalence of PP but the area I just moved to which is the area of where my hometown is, 40k by far out weighs everything else followed by X-wing (And actually, there is a guy here that has a SM army that is themed with Star Wars. His Boba Fett marine is pretty awesome.) so for me to go into anything else, I would definitely find less players. And as I said before, I am still a relative happy GW customer.

Although, I did see someone who is a very happy GW customer post on here and then the community tore him apart for his opinion. If he is that satisfied with GW, why do have to go and tear it apart?

Link please? Generally the only people who get "torn apart" are the ones who are rude and call everyone else whiners who should just stop playing/quit complaining while ignoring every argument or the fact that just because they are happy doesn't mean everyone else is, and doesn't mean everything is sunshine and rainbows.

Well I've disproved myself in another thread here at Dakka discussions.
My Cyriss army has about the value as my Necron army and I play both armies in tournaments and Crons also in apoc games.

Every game/hobby costs what you put in to it. Entry cost is definitely high for WH, but it's also high for rebuilding a classic car. Or buying top notch musical equipment. Or medical bills from dirt bike racing. Some of us on here find GW prices too high. Others still don't mind the price. I won't buy their models for their games anymore, but I did just buy Karl Franz NOS for $39 on eBay-shipped. Damn good price for that model. I actually want an empire general on horse because I made a terrible decision and sold my converted Aldebrand Ludenhoff. I want to remake him now...

I paid 300 euro for my 1500-2000 point CSM army and thats including the codex, psychic power cards, mini 7th rulebook, templates, dice and a tape measure.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Every game/hobby costs what you put in to it. Entry cost is definitely high for WH, but it's also high for rebuilding a classic car. Or buying top notch musical equipment. Or medical bills from dirt bike racing. Some of us on here find GW prices too high. Others still don't mind the price. I won't buy their models for their games anymore, but I did just buy Karl Franz NOS for $39 on eBay-shipped. Damn good price for that model. I actually want an empire general on horse because I made a terrible decision and sold my converted Aldebrand Ludenhoff. I want to remake him now...

40k is not a hobby. It is part of the tabletop wargaming hobby.

Comparing 40k to other hobbies is utterly meaningless.
Comparing it to other games in the tabletop wargaming hobby shows it to be the worst value for money by a wide margin with an utterly insane start up cost.

Isengard wrote:
Long and short of it for me is not so much the cost as the overall experience. Arguably other people's models are as good as GW's, certainly true in many instances. However, the big seller for me and what draws me into spending money is the background, the depth, the detail, the colour. It is so developed now over so long. I think it helps to be British as it is very unmistakably British in style. That's it for me, I love the background I can really identify with my army. When I look at other games I see an attempt to knock off a similar background such as WMH. If 40K's background is an ocean, deep and overflowing with detail and interest WMH is a shallow pond which holds no interest to me. I cannot be wooed with the promise of cheaper games. I don't want to play skirmish or small unit games, I want large armies. You can't win me over by saying "this only costs £50 to buy into". I'm lucky I guess that I have spare cash but if you show me something which has cheaper smaller armies I just think "show me the background, is it compelling and deep?" and the answer is always "no". So I keep loyal to GW as long as they keep producing this immersive experience. I know so much about my armies, their background, history, etc. I really identify with them and they feel like proper fully fleshed out and detailed societies. I know GW is derivative but they've taken it and exploded it out into so much more. It was originally space elves, space orcs, etc but now it is so rich, so deep, so compelling. Also I accept that they have not built up the Tau and Necrons as much but all the other races have great backgrounds.

Really because i find myself disliking the british style if all it has to offer is centurions, wolf chariots and other stupid crap.

I often wonder what 40k would look like if made in the USA by like dreamforge for instance - probably much better imo.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jlav wrote:
There is also starwars skirmish games, and a new one on the market that flesh out the ability to play as a jedi. And there are conversions made to play X-wing with ground based combat as well.

Something I am surprised hasn't been mentioned here is the subject matter. I don't know a lot of parents who are thrilled about having their kids playing with demon spawn with skulls everywhere. The content of 40k is decidedly adult in its brutal nature, and while there is a portion of the population that enjoy that, it certainly isn't as universally appealing as other more civil lores. I was first attracted to the 40k artwork and gothic future, but I feel it has gone too far for a lot of people's taste. - as an example, I openned up Dakka dakka just now and was greeted by a space marine brutally decapitating a struggling victim with a sword, while my children were behind me...

The subject matter is all a facade anyways. To little Timmy's mind it's brutal, dark and taboo but in reality he's still just a nerd playing with plastic toys. They set it up like that on purpose.

Well, I wonder if the re-sell value of 40k models say on eBay is higher than that of PP models.
Somebody with experience here?

 jonolikespie wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Every game/hobby costs what you put in to it. Entry cost is definitely high for WH, but it's also high for rebuilding a classic car. Or buying top notch musical equipment. Or medical bills from dirt bike racing. Some of us on here find GW prices too high. Others still don't mind the price. I won't buy their models for their games anymore, but I did just buy Karl Franz NOS for $39 on eBay-shipped. Damn good price for that model. I actually want an empire general on horse because I made a terrible decision and sold my converted Aldebrand Ludenhoff. I want to remake him now...

40k is not a hobby. It is part of the tabletop wargaming hobby.

Comparing 40k to other hobbies is utterly meaningless.
Comparing it to other games in the tabletop wargaming hobby shows it to be the worst value for money by a wide margin with an utterly insane start up cost.

This.

People really need to stop these apples to oranges comparison by comparing 40k to restoring cars or golf or what have you. When you compare 40k/WHFB to other tabletop wargames (you know, their competitors), GW tends to be higher overall cost. The only time this isn't true tends to be when you're comparing things on a price-per-model basis which is also largely irrelevant since the price of individual figures isn't a valid comparison.

Like I said for me it's more about value than the price. For what you get game-wise in a box of GW figures, it doesn't feel like a lot of value because you generally need more to make it useful, sometimes even for the same unit because GW gives a ton of extra crap you don't need, and uses that to justify a high price, in place of stuff you do (I'd rather not have extra chest/shoulder/heads on my SM sprue and get additional heavy weapons, something that's actually useful, for example). I don't feel that way about things I buy for Warmachine because they are usually complete kits - buy one, field one, not buy multiples to field one or buy multiples to do anything meaningful. To bring up the point I made earlier paying $230 for a beginner-level army is way too much money (not even factoring in cost of rules). At half that price I'd definitely pay it; at $150 it would be on the expensive end but not unreasonable (again, disregarding the cost of rules which would still push it to unreasonable levels). At $230 it's a complete joke.

Even the humble Tactical Squad at $40 isn't that bad a price (but still higher than it should be, as I recall them being $25 for basically the same guys in 3rd edition which was reasonable and what they should still be today), but would be a lot better if you actually got all the heavy weapons parts so you didn't need to also buy a Devastator squad (or scour ebay/trading sites) if you wanted a heavy weapon other than a missile launcher. Little things like that just reinforce the idea that you're being cheated by GW because they think you're a dumbass who will just buy both and not see that you're paying $75 for a single squad because they can't be fethed to give you all the options in the actual squad box.

Only company that has come close in terms of equalling the quality of GW models is Rackham. And they went bankrupt.

Someone made a very valid point earlier though about the disparity between the relative price of kits and clampacks of comparable size. Why are some single sprue clampacks over 15 pounds yet others only 10? Why are some 4 sprue boxes only 25 pounds when other 3 sprue boxes are 30? There's no visible logic behind pricing and it keeps going up and up. The fact that there are SO MANY releases these days (which admittedly may slow down in 2015 when everyone has a hardback book) also doesnt help the public perception of cash grab. That was EVERYONE'S reaction to 7th edition after 18 months as well.

Perception and customer goodwill as a whole seems to be dropping. Not dead. Not terrible. But noticeably dropping.

And as people who love the hobby and the GW universe, obviously we dont want to see that happen.

AlexRae wrote:
Only company that has come close in terms of equalling the quality of GW models is Rackham. And they went bankrupt.

Corvus Belli
Privateer Press (newer stuff at least)
Dreamforge games
Mierce minitures
Knight models
Anvil Industries
Spartan Games
Maxminis
Wyrd
Raging Heroes
Hasslefree
Zenit Minitures
Studio McVey
Victoria Minitures
Wild West Exodus
Cypher Studioes
Avatars of War
Scale 75
Red Box Games
Kromlech

Doesn't Scibor count or are people doing models for w40k or fantasy games not counted?

Nope. They do not come close to the level of detail of the current batch of GW sculpts.

I will give you Avatars of War, but they put out a handful of figures a year unfortunately.

AlexRae wrote:
Nope. They do not come close to the level of detail of the current batch of GW sculpts.

I will give you Avatars of War, but they put out a handful of figures a year unfortunately.

Are you saying that to ALL of those companies Jono posted?

If so, I'm calling shenanigans. There is no sculpt in the IG range that even comes close to what Victoria Miniatures puts out.

 Blacksails wrote:

AlexRae wrote:
Nope. They do not come close to the level of detail of the current batch of GW sculpts.

I will give you Avatars of War, but they put out a handful of figures a year unfortunately.

Are you saying that to ALL of those companies Jono posted?

If so, I'm calling shenanigans. There is no sculpt in the IG range that even comes close to what Victoria Miniatures puts out.

Yeah, I'm calling BS on that too. Those companies are BETTER quality than GW's garbage, and in more expensive materials to boot, and STILL charge less.

Scibor et al are real boutique miniatures, GW is a cheap commodity that's priced like a boutique miniature. GW is like a McDonalds that charges you $20 for a burger because that's what a gourmet burger costs, and they think they're selling gourmet burgers.

I don't disagree that GW models are overpriced.

But the quality of the sculpts on Infinity, Victoria and any of the others are not superior. The facial detailing, the proportions and the overt manga styling isn't of a higher technical quality.

Painting them in NMM for display and making them look pretty doesn't make them better sculpts.

Oh and the Scions are superb sculpts. Which are pretty much the only minis sculpted in the last 10 years for the IG range.

In terms of GW quality:

When potatoes attack:


This flag will stop people from noticing that my face has been carved out of a potato:


We put a corpse in a commissar's uniform and no one seems to have noticed:


Potato having a stroke:

GW's faces have always been awful. Have you looked at the WHFB Empire troops? And people claim the Mantic Basileans are garbage; IMO they still look better than deformed ape-men that are State Troops.

Although RE: the Commissar isn't that Yarrick (he has a power klaw) and, if so isn't he like over 100 years old? He looks like a very old man because he IS a very old man

WayneTheGame wrote:
GW's faces have always been awful. Have you looked at the WHFB Empire troops? And people claim the Mantic Basileans are garbage; IMO they still look better than deformed ape-men that are State Troops.

Heh, just looked at State Troops. At least that explains why the VC Zombie heads look so bizarre,

WayneTheGame wrote:

Although RE: the Commissar isn't that Yarrick (he has a power klaw) and, if so isn't he like over 100 years old? He looks like a very old man because he IS a very old man :p

There's a difference between looking like an old man and looking like a corpse. Yarrick is most certainly the latter.

 vipoid wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
GW's faces have always been awful. Have you looked at the WHFB Empire troops? And people claim the Mantic Basileans are garbage; IMO they still look better than deformed ape-men that are State Troops.

Heh, just looked at State Troops. At least that explains why the VC Zombie heads look so bizarre,

WayneTheGame wrote:

Although RE: the Commissar isn't that Yarrick (he has a power klaw) and, if so isn't he like over 100 years old? He looks like a very old man because he IS a very old man :p

There's a difference between looking like an old man and looking like a corpse. Yarrick is most certainly the latter.

The Empire troops are going to be my retort now whenever someone says how Mantic's figures look terrible - the State Troops look worse and still cost twice as much for half as many, and at least Mantic acknowledged that there were quality issues, something you'll never see GW ever do. Also with yarrick again given how many times he's died/been presumed dead maybe he IS a corpse and is just sentient

AlexRae wrote:
I don't disagree that GW models are overpriced.

But the quality of the sculpts on Infinity, Victoria and any of the others are not superior. The facial detailing, the proportions and the overt manga styling isn't of a higher technical quality.

Painting them in NMM for display and making them look pretty doesn't make them better sculpts.

Oh and the Scions are superb sculpts. Which are pretty much the only minis sculpted in the last 10 years for the IG range.

Infinity sculpts are vastly better than GW for the most part. Infinity faces especially blow me away (bar a couple that look off, but mainly they're older models anyway).

AlexRae wrote:
Nope. They do not come close to the level of detail of the current batch of GW sculpts.

I will give you Avatars of War, but they put out a handful of figures a year unfortunately.

What you're doing here, deliberately or not, is trying to make the discussion about your opinion, which is madness.

You are obviously entitled to think GW minis are the best, but for all I know your personal measure of quality is how many unnecessary skulls are incorporated into any given model.

There does seem to be a line of thinking that more detail = better model, which is simply not the case IMO, but even taking that sentiment at face value, the level of detail on a model doesn't really have a huge bearing on price, but speaks more to the talent (and restraint) of the designer/sculptor. Especially where GW are concerned, who have all their design staff on salary, any extra time spent on modelling extra details when diffused over the production run of a kit would be so small as to be incalculable.

Either way, arguing something as subjective as aesthetics has any relevance to something as tangible as price isn't really a valid way to go.

Wargaming isn't something i would ever describe as being a cheap hobby, at least not to start. The caveat being that whatever games system you chhose, the miniatures are the same scale across multiple games systems, and baring tragedy, the miniatures you buy today will still be useable in 20 or 30 years. i still have classic RT miniatures i use from time to time if the mood takes me.

Now GW miniatures are expensive, but they aren't that much more expensive than similar miniatures from different ranges, in some cases they are in fact cheaper. The difference between a game like say, Infinity, and 40k is that to play infinity i can Download the rules for free, and i only need 20 models per faction (roughly £100 at most) in order to have access to a diverse number of options, generally Infinity 'armies' have 10 guys per side.
You can of course buy the hardback rulebook, which is very good quality if you want. they also have a really nice boxed set which sets you up nicely with 2 factions.

Compared to GW, you need to buy the hardback rulebook, the army codex, and then you need to buy the relevant army boxed set to get a basic army with no options whatsoever. it wouldn't be so bad if, like 2nd ed you needed 20-30 models for an army, but with the push towards bigger games you need more models, and thats what the problem is. the models might be roughly the same price on a per model basis, but you need 2-3 times as many of them.

i quite like some of the GW sculpts, and i would probably buy them even if i didn't play the game. there are plenty of other manufaturers out there who do comparable work, and i have to admit, when i looked at some of the mantic miniatures i was very impressed with some of them, others, not so much. There are also plenty of other smaller scale sculptors out there who just blow my mind, and they produce quality work cheaper than GW does.

so, GW is competing against companies that give their rules out free, the systems need far fewer models, and the sculpts are as good as, in some cases better than GW produces. I suspect one of the only things keeping GW afloat is the large number of people who started playing when there was no competition, still have armies and can't afford/be bothered to change systems.