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It occasionally ( ) pops up on this board, arguing about GW prices.

I was chatting to a friend the other day who I haven't seen in ages. The price thing got brought up and he said as a rule he wont pay more than £1 per 'regular' model (Tactical Marine, Ork Boy, Guardsman etc.) meaning a lot of eBay and if he is looking for a brand new model that won't be available second hand he hunts the internet for the best third-party discounts. Despite being a huge GW nerd, regularly attending tournaments, owning every computer game and book that gets brought out, he refuses point blank to buy at GW prices for models.

Never the richest of men I usually go for eBay but that is necessity, its certainly not a rule. Question is do people on here buy strictly from third parties? Do they have a maximum spend limit per model?

If I am going to pay full price for GW, I will buy it from my FLGS. Otherwise I will order it from a third party online.

I have never ordered anything direct and probably will never do it.

I have never ordered direct from GW, it just happened to work out that way than anything else.
I have a few times occasionally bought from a GW store, more as thanks for hosting a game I got to play than anything else.
95% of the time I buy from a local hobby store.
The remaining 4.5% is an occasional online deal.
This is no policy of mine, more a matter of convenience / opportunity and some cost savings in mind.

The only thing I buy from GW is washes/inks. For paints I prefer the dropper bottles Valejo uses and as far as miniatures are concerend, there is zero reason to buy fron GW.

Other vendors offer discounts (what GW never does for some reason), ebay is even cheaper and depending on the next delivery I'll probably switch entirely to chinese recasters.

I'll buy GW paint as a) I like their washes but get through them fast and b) my local newsagent stocks them, so it's convenient if I need a specific paint fast. Other than that, I order online, often Darksphere or Wayland. Why say no to a discount?

In terms of money per model, I'll never pay more than £10 for a single infantry figure, regardless of system or manufacturer.

You guys think you have it bad?

Since GW has a shop in Norway (conveniently located about 500km away from me) they have to include Norwegian VAT on their prices in their webstore. 25%. OK, no problem. This just means the prices online are the same as in the store. So far so good.

But then, if I order from gw.com, the stuff is shipped from England. And I need to pay VAT + customs handling fee when the goods pass the border. But I've already paid VAT, right? Nope. GW pockets it and leaves me to deal with customs.

So, if I want a Terminator squad, for example, from GW's online store, I'll have to pay £34 for the box (Norwegian price, includes VAT which GW now gets to keep) plus shipping, plus 25% of the total cost of the Terminators and the shipping, plus £16 for a customs handling fee. Assuming £6 for shipping, I now get to pay £66 for a box of Terminators.

Yeah, no, that's not gonna happen.

Of course, for bigger purchases which have free shipping and the handling fee isn't as great a percentage of the total, the problem isn't as pronounced, but I'm still paying double VAT.

GW could reclaim British VAT (which I'm sure they do) and pass the savings on to me (which they don't), or they could actually pay the bloody VAT and mark it on the shipment, so I don't have to.

Amazingly, much smaller shops manage to do this just fine. So GW's online store can go suck it.

As said above, it's not a refusal for me, but I haven't bought directly from them in ages.
I either go eBay (usually for those oldschool oop minis from the glorious metal ages), or buy at a FLGS (which, here in Spain, usually apply a 15% discount in GW products, like internet retailers).

I made one purchase directly from GW when I started - 3 LotD boxes. One of the boxes was missing a head, so contacted customer service and *poof* 3 boxes became 4. Good experience, but other than the (rare) fact that a few LotD figures I need to round out my squads are cheaper from them than eBay, I'll not be buying from them online again.

Hell, locally I've only made a few purchases from the GW store. Multiple other local FLGS carry GW, and a few sell below MSRP.

I buy what I can from third party shops who offer 20-25% discount.

Reasoning:
1) It lowers the model cost to what GW should be selling them at as standard
2) It helps support FLGs that allow people to play in-store without either a stupid loyalty point scheme like my local GW has in place and allows proxy models / other wargames

I buy characters (not available with much discount) and paints from GW as I tend to like the paints (high pigment count) - except for the pots being poorly designed.


Dare I say it though, I've got enough warhammer, have had enough of the updates and am seriously tempted by Saga

I have more than a few times ordered direct from GW when I couldn't find a model in stock at a 3rd party online when I lived in a town with no nearby FLGS(at least an hour or more drive).

Now I buy through my FLGS because I like having a place to play and I would rather spend a little more to support where I play.

 Wulfmar wrote:

I buy characters (not available with much discount) and paints from GW as I tend to like the paints (high pigment count) - except for the pots being poorly designed.

Paints I buy in store for the colder part of the year, otherwise I have to wait for them to thaw.

You guys don't know the meaning of being screwed until you try paying Aussie or Canuck prices...

I never buy directly from them. Most basic models I buy from my normal internet retailer, who usually offers 10-15%, free shipping (often within the same day of ordering) and I can pay after I recieve the shipment through a bill.

For those items the store doesn't carry, there is always ebay.

I only buy those models from GW that I can't get elsewhere. In the last time I also bought a lot from eBay, but some things just don't come up when I need them.

I buy everything from my FLGS. They run leagues and tournies, have 15 tables, and an infinite amount of terrain. In addition, i just text the manager and he puts in my order, and they hold it until i'm ready to pay.

I used to buy directly from GW many years ago, but stopped that and moved to FLGS. There was a brief stent where I would buy stuff from a GW store because the manager was a pretty cool guy, but he moved on and I didn't feel that driven to go anymore. Heck, most of the time they didn't really have a much better selection, so I would essentially have to order things at the store and then come back and pick them up.

With the way GW has behaved in the last couple of years, I've gotten further away from investing in their models. I still like 40k a fair amount, so I buy from a FLGS that gives $10 off every $100 spent. If a kit is direct-only, I refuse to buy it- I'll convert it or try to find it cheap on eBay, but I won't condone GW's attempt to siphon business directly through their online store, it ain't happening.

Since my gaming venue is GW I tend to buy at least one thing from the store to support it even if it's just paint.

I used to buy mostly direct from GW UK. There were discount sites that were cheaper, but the convenience of having the stuff I wanted generally in stock, and still at around 60% of Australian prices, was worth it.

When GW changed their international purchase rules and forced people into buying from GW in their own country (which would have meant paying the absurd Oz prices), I switched to buying from independents online.

When GW instituted their geo-lock for independents, I largely just stopped buying. What few GW things I do still buy, I get from eBay.


The moral of the story being that the harder a company makes it for a customer to buy their product, the less likely it is for a customer to buy their product.

I certainly haven't bought anything direct from GW (their webstore or an actual GW store) in many years.

I've bought some stuff from Forgeworld, but of late that's mostly been books.

Aside from that, ebay, local stores (that give discounts) and trades are where its at.

The only thing that I've bought direct from GW, ever, was one copy of Space Hulk (I ordered it the instant I got the email). I also bought 3 more from FLGS -- one from each of my favorites

I should have bought the last hardcovers, as my local stores didn't get any at all :(

But yes, 20%-30% is a huge price difference. I mean, that's $280 vs $400 on the RoB battle boards.

I prefer paints from other companies, so I don't buy theirs. I am currently on a boycott of Sisters stuff (from GW) that's now... two years running. I will buy second-hand or third-party SoB stuff all day long, but I refuse to throw money at GW in the (probably) vain hope that they update the model line.

Once in a while, there will be a FW or FC model that I like, generally as an IC for a non-40K game or an RPG of some type, that I'll order... but I buy models from a score different sites, so the event of that happening is pretty rare, as I can often find a better model somewhere else.

My only local gaming store is a GW, the nearest Indy is over an hour away, and I treat it pretty much like I might treat a convenience store for food, ie I buy nearly everything I want (and TBH I buy very little GW made product these days) from the cheaper discounters (the supermarkets in this example I guess) but if there's something I want on a short timescale, or I only want something where the discount is eliminated by the shipping, I'll drop in.

I very consciously avoid giving GW any more cash than strictly necessary, but I don't compromise my hobby time to do so if I want a GW kit, then I'll get it.

I've been playing now for over 4 years and I have yet to buy anything direct from GW. I either use my FLGS for a 20% discount or I use ebay. The more stuff they try to make direct only, the more I buy from ebay, but I can't see paying GW's inflated prices.

I made a decision to stop buying from eBay so I could support my own flgs (and therefore my local economy), which doesn't give me a deep eBay discount, but does give me a fair one.

As for GW, even if I didn't care about my local economy, it wouldn't make sense to buy direct from there website (closest GW store is far away, so that's not even a serious option for me) when discounts can be had.

It's not that I refuse, just that it never works out that way. I buy some paints and washes there. But models?

Those I've only ever purchased from eBay. Even with shipping it ends up being cheaper. Half the time used, half the time from the vendors on there.

Not that I have any excuse. There's literally a GW store two miles from my apt.

I don't really refuse, that implies I am trying to make some sort of a statement. I just don't buy from there. I order from an online retailer who gives me 30% off retail and 10% off direct only.

Its a last resort if no one else has what i need. last last last resort.

avoid like the plague. i dont even buy gw paint from gw anymore.

kb305 wrote:
i dont even buy gw paint from gw anymore.

I gave up entirely on GW paint when they changed all of the names. Too hard to figure out what was what... So that was the final push I needed to just switch back to Coat D'Arms for everything.

I would be willing to order from GW direct if it's something I'm unable to obtain otherwise. I just haven't come into that situation yet. I've been able to find everything for my armies (chaos and necrons) on ebay, new in box, for a good price. Even my Imotekh, my obliterators, and my Munitorium dice sets (yeah, I got all 3. They were just too cool to not get)

I don't really have any problem with GW's prices, I just don't pay them if I don't have to. Same with anything, really. I'm not going to spend full MSRP on something that I can get for less. I have a new baby on the way, and don't make tons of money, so frugality is just part and parcel of my day to day life.

I stopped buying GW stuff retail two years ago (as in not even through stores that they supply, let alone GW retail/online).

I switched to Vallejo paints - I've been using Revell polycement and Zap superglues for over a decade (revell contacta glue for over 20 years).

I'll pick up old GW models at bring/buy sales or swap meets if it's something I'm after, though. Tends to mean models between 5 and 10 years old, though.

I always buy paint/ink from GW, occasionally models.

I've built my SM army almost entirely from ebay with no issues.