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With the constant heavy prices that GW are now inflicting onto the Australian Market (through currency conversion) I have had to walk away from the hobby, I still have plenty of figures to paint, and will try to finish them off.

However with new product coming out at around $90 AUD to $100 AUD per kit I can't continue. As a 10 veteran it does sadden me.
With the cost of living, GW comes last on priorities.

Although it is a farewell to the hobby, i'll continue to come back here from time to time.

There is a world of games out there. Don't despair.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
There is a world of games out there. Don't despair.

I thought about getting into something cheaper, but alas the Aussie Dollar and the exchange rate makes it impossible to look at anything else : (

The rules drove me away. But there are much cheaper games out there. $100 buys you into infinity.

 Achaylus72 wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
There is a world of games out there. Don't despair.

I thought about getting into something cheaper, but alas the Aussie Dollar and the exchange rate makes it impossible to look at anything else : (

I don't understand. if you're walking away from 40k, sunk cost fallacy is gone.

Other wargames pricing holds up remarkably well in Australia. For the cost of a single 40k army, you can buy full armies in several systems at local pricing - with a discount if you buy through somewhere like the Combat Company.

Games Workshop is the only company where buying overseas was a real consideration, because they're the only company that doubles the RRP. Other companies price sensibly over here. Added to that other games don't involve nearly as many models, so you're just not buying as much anyway.

Where do you live? Different games thrive in different areas. Infinity has been picking up a lot of steam in Australia.

Try some historicals. Without a single company monopolizing the sculpts you can choose what kind of quality you want to pay for. Plus, once you have the figures you can just play whatever system you want. A Heer soldier with a Kar98k in one game is a Heer Soldier with a Kar98k in another.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Achaylus72 wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
There is a world of games out there. Don't despair.

I thought about getting into something cheaper, but alas the Aussie Dollar and the exchange rate makes it impossible to look at anything else : (

I don't understand. if you're walking away from 40k, sunk cost fallacy is gone.

Other wargames pricing holds up remarkably well in Australia. For the cost of a single 40k army, you can buy full armies in several systems at local pricing - with a discount if you buy through somewhere like the Combat Company.

Games Workshop is the only company where buying overseas was a real consideration, because they're the only company that doubles the RRP. Other companies price sensibly over here. Added to that other games don't involve nearly as many models, so you're just not buying as much anyway.

Where do you live? Different games thrive in different areas. Infinity has been picking up a lot of steam in Australia.

+1

No other company gouges us like GW, most other games are very reasonably priced.

Infinity for example you can comfortably get into for an investment of $200.

Warmachine might be a little pricier but the rules are now free so that's nice. X wing can cost as little as like $60 to get into casually and that has really take off everywhere you look.

Guys, if you look at what Achaylus72 said, he's looked into other games, but with the Australian dollar and such, they too are beyond reach for him:

 Achaylus72 wrote:
I thought about getting into something cheaper, but alas the Aussie Dollar and the exchange rate makes it impossible to look at anything else : (

@Achaylus72 - Sorry the hobby has gotten out of reach for you bud. And definitely, increasing costs of living don't help! Hope your situation changes in the future, and pop back in here and there and see what may tempt you to jump back in

 Talys wrote:
Guys, if you look at what Achaylus72 said, he's looked into other games, but with the Australian dollar and such, they too are beyond reach for him:

 Achaylus72 wrote:
I thought about getting into something cheaper, but alas the Aussie Dollar and the exchange rate makes it impossible to look at anything else : (

@Achaylus72 - Sorry the hobby has gotten out of reach for you bud. And definitely, increasing costs of living don't help! Hope your situation changes in the future, and pop back in here and there and see what may tempt you to jump back in

The Aussie dollar has fallen hard with commodities of late, but at this point it mostly just means you're better off sticking to local sources like The Combat Company rather than trying to import them. Eventually if the exchange rate stays poor, local prices will go up as well, but at this point it's not all that bad.

GW just happens to be one of the worst and as soon as the exchange rate started to falter they went full slow with their (already quite high) pricing out here.

Infinity rules are free to download: http://static.infinitythegame.com/archivo/descargas/%5BENG%5D_Rules.pdf

And you can play with whatever miniatures you've got. You only need about 7 miniatures to play the game. They don't even have to be official Infinity miniatures, Mantic, Eisenkern, Statuesque, Raging Heroes etc, would all blend in scale-wise, and even 40k minis would be fine as proxies.

Mantic stuff is insane cheap, If you can't afford a squad of Mantic Corp Marines, and some D20s, then you probably can't afford to eat... In which case... fair enough, spend your money on food! But otherwise, no, there is no reason you need to quit wargaming altogether. Just quit GW, half the people on here stopped playing GW years ago.

Maybe sell of the 40k stuff before you paint it, and use the money to get into another system?

Just play with what you got, I know 40k is a arms race but you don't have to keep up. I gave up with trying to keep up with the arms race years ago.

You could try skirmish games. There a plenty out there, most of them with free rules, low model count.
The more I play skirmish games, the less I miss 40K/WHB because those games are a lot more tactical, faster, cheaper.

You can buy you a handfull of miniatures, paint them in a week or two and play.

 Talys wrote:
Guys, if you look at what Achaylus72 said, he's looked into other games, but with the Australian dollar and such, they too are beyond reach for him:

 Achaylus72 wrote:
I thought about getting into something cheaper, but alas the Aussie Dollar and the exchange rate makes it impossible to look at anything else : (

He's looking at other systems from the angle of shopping overseas for them. This is dumb outside of GW games because other companies games are priced sensibly over here. If you live in Australia, you're making the hobby outside of GW more expensive if you're buying from overseas.

This is what I responded with too. Some of that reading you think highly of would help here?

I am not leaving the GW hobby but they are loosing my extra spending money for these reasons.

1. Time - I work a full time job and have minimal free time, so I can only get a few games a year in. A game has to be good to fight for my groups time. Its not always the new shiny games that gets my groups attention; just better be good or the wrath of the other players heckling will be never ending. So known games are the best approach, shorter learning curve (we are old and forget things) and we know we had fun last time.

2. New is not better - After throwing down my money for the past few 40k codexes; I found there was very little changes made and was basically buying a "reprint". Also felt the two mech codexes could been one instead of broken apart as a clear money grab. Then there is a game the I wanted to succeed; Age of Sigmar.. I tried the game and its not my style; The round base thing didn't bother me; What pushed me away was after playing it feeling of the game was incomplete and having to guess on how it should be played.

3. Complete armies - As a 20+ game veteran; I collected most armies for some time now; So I have for example Witch elves (or whatever they are calling them now) from each edition, Collecting ten here and ten there.. this allows me to have a max size unit of them. If the new models come out for my favorite unit that don't look crazy good why add them when I already have enough to play any way I like?

4. Prices - I have always had a decent paying job, so paying for something of quality don't bother me.. A good steak jumps to mind.. But the prices GW is throwing out now is crazy.. I don't understand how they are trying to pull in new players at there price point compared to their competitors. And I am not going to pay $33 for a 3" measuring template.

You Australians have a higher minimum wage than us Brits though.

Take a tac squad box. Its £25 and about 3 and a bit times our minimum wage £7 ish and for you guys for you guys its $65, 3 and a bit times minimum wage which is $21 or something like that isn't it?

In regards to currency conversion its a little less than $2 to the £1 at the moment i think, which would mean the £25 tac squad should cost you $50 ish, but then you are on the other side of the world and there's shipping and stuff.

I'm not sure how much different cost of living is, i know when i was in australia its something like $10 for an average beer, just under half the minimum wage which is about the same here of £3 ish. most stuff you guys have is well expensive though.

Not saying the prices are fair, they're nuts, but you guys aren't getting treated much worse than the rest of us.

Taffy17 wrote:
You Australians have a higher minimum wage than us Brits though.

Take a tac squad box. Its £25 and about 3 and a bit times our minimum wage £7 ish and for you guys for you guys its $65, 3 and a bit times minimum wage which is $21 or something like that isn't it?

In regards to currency conversion its a little less than $2 to the £1 at the moment i think, which would mean the £25 tac squad should cost you $50 ish, but then you are on the other side of the world and there's shipping and stuff.

I'm not sure how much different cost of living is, i know when i was in australia its something like $10 for an average beer, just under half the minimum wage which is about the same here of £3 ish. most stuff you guys have is well expensive though.

Not saying the prices are fair, they're nuts, but you guys aren't getting treated much worse than the rest of us.

Don't know much about exchange rates do you. You whole post fails after the first line because of this lack of knowledge. Try again once you understand that even if the make 100% more then you they still make less then half, thank to the exchange rate.

If it was like you posted, GW wouldn't be the only miniature company do it.

Perhaps instead of making facepalm emoticons and bemoaning his 'lack of knowledge' you could explain to him exactly why he's wrong, instead of just saying it's because of exchange rates?

Taffy17 wrote:
You Australians have a higher minimum wage than us Brits though.

Take a tac squad box. Its £25 and about 3 and a bit times our minimum wage £7 ish and for you guys for you guys its $65, 3 and a bit times minimum wage which is $21 or something like that isn't it?

In regards to currency conversion its a little less than $2 to the £1 at the moment i think, which would mean the £25 tac squad should cost you $50 ish, but then you are on the other side of the world and there's shipping and stuff.

I'm not sure how much different cost of living is, i know when i was in australia its something like $10 for an average beer, just under half the minimum wage which is about the same here of £3 ish. most stuff you guys have is well expensive though.

Not saying the prices are fair, they're nuts, but you guys aren't getting treated much worse than the rest of us.

Regardless of the reason, GW products are much more expensive than their competitors here. They can either change that or take the ill will it brings with it. That's all that really matters at this point.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Avatar 720 wrote:
Perhaps instead of making facepalm emoticons and bemoaning his 'lack of knowledge' you could explain to him exactly why he's wrong, instead of just saying it's because of exchange rates?

The exchange rate excuse is BS. Before GW stopped us doing it us Aussies where simply buying from America and paying the exchange rates and shipping ourselves and it still came out cheaper.

Noir wrote:

Taffy17 wrote:
You Australians have a higher minimum wage than us Brits though.

Take a tac squad box. Its £25 and about 3 and a bit times our minimum wage £7 ish and for you guys for you guys its $65, 3 and a bit times minimum wage which is $21 or something like that isn't it?

In regards to currency conversion its a little less than $2 to the £1 at the moment i think, which would mean the £25 tac squad should cost you $50 ish, but then you are on the other side of the world and there's shipping and stuff.

I'm not sure how much different cost of living is, i know when i was in australia its something like $10 for an average beer, just under half the minimum wage which is about the same here of £3 ish. most stuff you guys have is well expensive though.

Not saying the prices are fair, they're nuts, but you guys aren't getting treated much worse than the rest of us.

Don't know much about exchange rates do you. You whole post fails after the first line because of this lack of knowledge. Try again once you understand that even if the make 100% more then you they still make less then half, thank to the exchange rate.

If it was like you posted, GW wouldn't be the only miniature company do it.

I'd love to know what you think is wrong with the logic of my post? They don't cost that much different, in the UK a Tac squads are £25 or $55.12 Australian dollars, in Australia Tac squads are $65, considering GW's based in the UK and australia is on the other side of the world there's not much difference. In comparison to the minimum wage they're also about the same.

I'm not comparing GW to other brands I'm just comparing GW's British and Australian prices.

Call me naive but what's wrong with that?

Taffy17 wrote:
I'd love to know what you think is wrong with the logic of my post? They don't cost that much different, in the UK a Tac squads are £25 or $55.12 Australian dollars, in Australia Tac squads are $65, considering GW's based in the UK and australia is on the other side of the world there's not much difference. In comparison to the minimum wage they're also about the same.

I'm not comparing GW to other brands I'm just comparing GW's British and Australian prices.

Call me naive but what's wrong with that?

The value of the Canadian dollar is about the same as the Australian dollar (about $1 : $1, or very close to it). Yet, a £25 product will cost $50 Canadian and $65 Australian (or more). Compared to the USA, there is also no "premium" for the freight once you factor in exchange rates.

HOWEVER: The difference is overstated, as the Australian price includes a 10% (or so) sales tax. In the UK, US and Canadian price, the taxes are NOT included, so you're looking more at $56 versus $65, if we're doing apples to apples (this is pretty approximate, as Canadian taxes are regional and range from 5% to 13.5%). Still, that's a 14% price difference.

I have no idea about what the minimum wage is, benefits, costs of freight, rent, insurance, other overheads or other factors that would impact distribution costs in Australia. It is possible that other companies are willing to absorb some of those costs, or mitigate it by not having local distribution, whereas Games Workshop chooses to have local distribution even though it's more expensive (for example, to provide better/faster service). I suspect that it's a combination of these factors -- ie if it's true that doing business is more expensive in Australia, perhaps some other companies are willing to make a little less in that region, and operate in ways that reduce the impact to customers in terms of price by, for example, not having a local presence.

Not all US states have a sales tax, tbf.

All UK prices will have VAT (sales tax) included.

All Austrailian prices have Kraken/Godzilla Tax included if imported across the Pacific from civilisation.

 notprop wrote:
All UK prices will have VAT (sales tax) included.

At a rather hefty 20% too, except for the books which I believe are exempt.

I am curious. What are the wages in Australia? Part of the argument of the Aussies paying so much is because compared to the rest of the world the standard of living is much higher and people are payed more than the rest of the world.

Is this true or just a bunch of bunk to hose the Aussies of prices for everything?

Well at the risk of repeating what others have said, think of this as an opportunity to get into something new (see the stickied thread at the top of Dakka Discussions for some ideas).

GW's minis may well be the best in the world, but their games are utter and at the end of the day, good games are what I want to play, not ones with pretty wound counters where all you do is roll dice to get rid of them.

How many big mac meals could I buy in Ozzy for the price of a tac squad? And how does that compare to big mac meals:tac squads in the UK?

You might like to visit our Historicals forum, which is growing rather well.

But inflation, weaker currency and higher costs of living is good and what we should all be targeting...

Davor wrote:
I am curious. What are the wages in Australia? Part of the argument of the Aussies paying so much is because compared to the rest of the world the standard of living is much higher and people are payed more than the rest of the world.

Is this true or just a bunch of bunk to hose the Aussies of prices for everything?

I earn $16 and some change per hour. I believe that is minimum. I get paid sick and annual leave, and a percentage of my gross income is taken out and put into a fund to accumulate for when I retire (this is a legal requirement here). Income tax varies from around 40-50% (I forget the exact numbers), then 10% tax on goods and services. The government is currently looking at adding more taxes to goods, including a special (and very high) tax for online shopping (most Aussies shop online because it is often 1/4 of the price). Housing is crazy here, almost as bad as Japan. The average Australian cannot afford to own a home and it is becoming increasingly common for young people to be unable to afford rent (I fell out of the rental market 5 years ago when rent increases exceeded pay increases). Utilities are insane too, often making up half of a person's net earnings.

I recently heard a representative of Deutchebank stating that they estimate the Australian economy to completely collapse in the very near future with the AUD expected to fall to 0.50 USD. More than likely, GW will be too expensive for the overwhelming majority of Australians in the very near future.