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Many of you may have seen the recent thread reporting on the efforts of PP to restrict the discounting that online stores have done previously. Rather then rehash that discussion (which is currently still being hashed in the above thread), let me propose a different question to the fine folks of Dakka;

Does PP make miniatures that are worth buying at MSRP?

This thought came to me a few days ago when I first saw that PP was going to try and kill the deep discounting of the game, and I realized... I didn't really care that much, because none of their models seem worth buying to me anymore. Let me distinguish this from their rules: I think that PP still puts out a tight and interesting competitive rule set, but...

But: it is my opinion that PP's Warmachine and Hordes lines suffer from an overabundance of older and dated sculpts. While there has been a noticeable increase in quality and sculpting aesthetics have developed in some areas, this has been most noticeable and significant in the areas of characters, rather then units.


But while many newer solos and characters have been substantially improved, many of the basic units that form the bulk of the models of a force are either old, cast in less preferred materials such as PVC, or both.


Even among units that are of better sculpt (better, not necessarily good) often suffer from being hard to put together. I've delayed buying the Nyss Hunter unit, despite it being a great unit, because the unit is both not exceptionally well sculpted, and notoriously difficult to assemble.


So, all of those factors add up (for me) to one conclusion: most of PP's product is not worth buying at MSRP. There are, of course, some exceptions as they push into HIPS, but a huge number of basic units are out of date and overpriced.

This, of course, means that PP's recent policy that seems to have cut out the discounters leaves people that believe as I do less concerned with where to get more stuff, but priced out of the game. I'm simply unwilling, for example, to pay $100+ for a colossal when I could get something like the Kingdom Death Dragon King expansion, which features a gigantic dragon, multiple 32mm models with tons of weapon options, plus cards and illustrated manuals, all in HIPS, for $150 (eventual retail pricing). In my opinion, PP has simply fallen so far behind the curve that their current pricing becomes almost laughable. What makes this even more perplexing is that they seem to have no urgency about updating their aging lines or materials.

What do you think about this?

Definitely not worth full retail to me in most cases.

Since my FLGS offers me 20% off everything in the store and has sales throughout the year of 30% off everything I can't really complain. They also hand out 30% off coupons when you enter an event. Plus eBay is always an option to people looking for deep discounts. So no I'm not effected

I am kind of torn because I love the game and want to keep playing it but I'm not sure if it figures are worth full retail. My local store offers barely any discount at all, and has hardly any stock. The one about an hour away has a huge amount of stock and offers a 20% discount so with sales tax it's about 13% which is not bad but I'm undecided right now. Their new policy has definitely left a sour taste in my mouth but I am not sure yet but the end result will be since I do still want to play.

I will put it this way I have been sorely tempted to go back to GW over this if that doesn't say something I don't know what will

I often found their stuff hard to justify at the discount price. MSRP is a joke.

I'm done with buying anything from them once I receive my Widower's Wood stuff (which I'll be using for KoW). Funny how they themselves had no problem using an online avenue to sell minis on the cheap directly to gamers and cut out the middle men.

Honestly, kinda yeah. I wouldnt pay retail for their stuff, I dont even really wanna pay 20% off at my local store... 25%-30% just feels more right for what im getting.

Considering their secondary market, and people dropping them?

Oh yeah.....

Love my dealz, BTW...

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xprivateer+press.TRS0&_nkw=privateer+press&_sacat=0

Those prices are pretty good

No it's not worth it. However none of the current top companies produce products that are worth the price in my opinion. I had supported PP since the beginning but I have been disenchanted with the company and game for a while now. I love Sci-fi/Fantasy gaming, but I am leaving it more and more for historical gaming. It's way cheaper and most rulesets for it aren't revamped constantly.

For me it boils down to the fact that I'm not going to pay GW prices for models that aren't as good. The 'restic' or whatever it is does not hold detail well and the kits are not nearly as modular or convertible as GW's. Add in the fact that a decent chunk of GW's line I wouldn't buy at MSRP anyway, and there's simply not much of PPs models I would buy short of a clearance-level discount. Though fwiw PP's army boxes are very well-priced for what you get.

Those are some bad examples - obviously the units that are 8-10 years old are going to look crappy compared to the new stuff (and the blighted elves for Legion you show just did get a nice new plastic kit that looks loads better).

But, to answer your question - no - some of it isn't. The new HIPS stuff is great, and cheap. And the PVC stuff has gotten a lot better with newer kits, but stuff from even 2-3 years ago can be pretty frustrating to work with (they generally clean up nice enough - but they take 3x as long to clean and de-mold line as they should) and isn't worth MSRP IMO (which, I've never set foot in a FLGS that offered even a slight discount).

They still release a disappointing amount of new stuff in metal too, (like Croak Hunters, a 10 man unit in metal, yuck) and still use a fair bit of metal with their resin kits (hybrid kits, double yuck). And stuff like the Butcher 3 is crazy expensive (like $60? for a character model - even if he comes with 2 big dogs is kinda crazy).

I'm pretty annoyed by the whole thing now that MM reduced their discount - as that was where I have purchased practically every WM mini I own.

I will definitely be scaling back on stuff now. I was waiting for a decent sale to buy-in to P3 paints to (as in, buy the whole range) as I really like the few jars of it I have.

Not at all, I'm perfectly happy with their prices. But them I am an Aussie so the measuring stick that GW set down over the last decade or two is totally absurd.

I'm also loving the quality of the recent releases in the on sprue plastic and resin-metal hybrid kits.

I don't like a lot of the older models, so they aren't worth it at any price to me. The newer models I think generally are awesome, even the newer PVC stuff is nowhere near as bad as it was, and the increase in HIPS stuff is great imo, and generally I find them to be worth it.

Very hard to say, expecially as the aesthetic of most of their stuff doesn't interest m(e much bar the odd character model or colossal

certainly the convergance stuff that did interest me when it first appeared was pretty woeful quality wise and pretty much put me off trying anything else from them

I do think an effective 20% price rise (30% online discount falling to about 10%) is not going to do them any favours but I think people who like the game will keep buying but it will put off new potential players and painter/collectors

Pretty happy, to be fair.

'Price per mini' isn't one of my top concerns when I'm investing in a game - in-game-value, game balance and lore trump both, and privateer press are good at both of these in my opinion.

Schmapdi wrote:
They still release a disappointing amount of new stuff in metal too, (like Croak Hunters, a 10 man unit in metal, yuck) and still use a fair bit of metal with their resin kits (hybrid kits, double yuck). And stuff like the Butcher 3 is crazy expensive (like $60? for a character model - even if he comes with 2 big dogs is kinda crazy).

Hang on - when did using metal become a bad thing?

I'm sure I remember hearing on one of the Primecast podcasts (when I was listening to it) that their intent was to use the material to produce a figure that they felt was the best-suited for the design, whether than be metal, resin, PVC or HIPs - or a composite of pieces from multiple materials.

No, although I never thought that PP's output was ever worth the RRP.

They never priced themselves in to my market. I don't know why, I've just never liked PP's offerings enough to actually collect a force. There's a few good models here and there I guess, nothing good enough to get me to buy them when I don't play the game.

I'm curious why this is coming up now actually, I recently picked up a HIP grolar which was SO MUCH better quality than any other Khador jack I ever had, for exactly the same price.

Plastic colossals are coming, and I fully expect those to be cheaper than the resin ones.

Yes some of the recent warcasters and solos like Durst and the Haley trio have had decent price tags on them, but they are bigger than you standard 28mm model (or three of them -_-) and the resin is excelent quality on them.

As I said in my last post though, it really just comes down to the fact that my measuring stick is GW models. The old character are still $30 in plastic, and the new ones fething $50.
I will take a $30 PP resin/metal over a $50 GW plastic any day. Same way I'd take a $56 PP plastic over a.. what's a dreadnought these days? $70+ Aud?

The issue for PP isn't price, imo (although they are expensive per model). The bigger issue is sculpt and material quality for the price, along with game balance. There's been some pushback about their OTT tier lists lately, and they've made adjustments, but with many tier lists being blatant "buy more X unit", they definitely hurt themselves.

This is my main game but honestly I'd love to see a Mk3 reboot. Likely not happening... but yeah, I don't think model price alone is their problem (model count, maybe - but not price).

I've considered getting g into it from time to time. Price was already borderline for me even with the mm discount. Without it they'll never see a penny. Some of the models are decent enough but no entire faction draws me I worth the cost of admission.

I'm still OK with the price as they are making new stuff cheaper, atleast the large kits.

I've been on a self imposed buying freeze (for painting backlog/storage reasons), but I'm finding the new plastic multi kits hard to resist. They still do some excellent characters in metal, and I have a real hard time resisting a lot of those.

Hell, some of the new Protectorate solos/warcasters are on my buy list, and I don't even play them!

Some of the line is dated, but you see that in a lot of games. Infinity, like PP, has been updating sculpts for years. I doubt it'll be too long before the last vestiges of ugly metal units fade into oblivion.

Then again, maybe me not playing at the competitive level anymore means that not having to have all the units to have new, meta shifting options means I'm less susceptible to the prices these days.

Stock is hard to get, they are expensive and not particularly
inspiring sculpts with a few exceptions (the goat lady and the winged dragon lady are cool)
I dont like the game nor the amount of minis required. They make GW look normally priced!

PP minis make GW seem like a bargain.

I bought some over the last few years either as job lots via Dakka swap shop, or those with Mk1 blisters (and card) from retailers and knockdown prices. All that has dried up though.

The Mk1 blisters were especially welcome as you could get all uyou needed for therm wirth one Mk2 card deck. I expanded my stock considerably through this.

This is not my bef with PP though. In many ways they are worse than GW, and get away with it bcause their name is not GW.

First you get the page 5 bullcrap tied in with the fullm metal miniaturtes spin spun again and again, then they went to rsin like everyone else. That was PP just being annoying, so I forgave them.

What I dont forgive is that to play a special character you must have the miniature. Gw are far more reaaonable, sure they wont want you to use Asphixious as your Vampire Counts master necrtomancer, but if you take a GW empire wizard model (the celestial wizard model is fine here) paint him black and use him they are happy. You can even use gaspy if you like so long as he is modelled with some citadel miniatures parts.

However in PP's eyes it you model chains on a berserker you have a berserker with chains, you don't have Drago, and you cant use him as Drago unless you buy the Drago miniature *till-ching* who costs a lot more than a regular berserker.

Now they are outdoing GW on online sales, GW at least had an excuse, they employ workers in their own shopfronts and want to protect that business. PP just doesn't want the community driving the price of their miniatures down. Because if a Warmahordes model is not worth the retail price it is not worth that price, it's worth a lower price and the retail recommended price is a de facto mark up rather than the actual price.

 Orlanth wrote:
However in PP's eyes it you model chains on a berserker you have a berserker with chains, you don't have Drago, and you cant use him as Drago unless you buy the Drago miniature *till-ching* who costs a lot more than a regular berserker.

PP has a new conversion policy actually, I believe that example would be considered legal now: https://privateerpress.com/organized-play/tournament-conversion-policy

Two axes and chains should make a legal drogo, it's more than 50% PP model, it has the iconic parts of drogo (the only thing that makes him different is the chains really), and doesn't infringe anyone else's copywrites.

The above is only relevant if you are playing in a sanctioned PP Steamroller event. Absolutely nothing is stopping you from converting stuff and buying the card separately or using War Room. I have plenty of converted minis for my WMH armies and no one has ever kicked up a fuss.

Hell, PP recently relaxed their conversion rules for said events. You now don't even need to use the original model.
http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?203022-Privateer-Press-Tournament-Model-Conversion-rules-Effective-June-25th-2015

EDIT: Ninjaed!

 Orlanth wrote:
What I dont forgive is that to play a special character you must have the miniature. Gw are far more reaaonable, sure they wont want you to use Asphixious as your Vampire Counts master necrtomancer, but if you take a GW empire wizard model (the celestial wizard model is fine here) paint him black and use him they are happy. You can even use gaspy if you like so long as he is modelled with some citadel miniatures parts.

However in PP's eyes it you model chains on a berserker you have a berserker with chains, you don't have Drago, and you cant use him as Drago unless you buy the Drago miniature *till-ching* who costs a lot more than a regular berserker.

I have to respectfully disagree with this: PP's conversion rules are in place to provide a level of expectation for players entering the game and more importantly, set a benchmark for what to expect in organized, competitive play and to prevent confusion. There is a clause (bolded even) that states that the event organizer has the right to make exceptions. In the case of your example, a berserker with chains may not obviously be identified as Drago. It could just as easily be a "fancy" Berserker with chains (Proxies are still disallowed in the conversion rules). I did exactly this conversion (Berserker to Drago), swapped weapons, gave him a different head and bought the skull/chain thingy. It has never been rejected by organizers as an inappropriate stand-in for Drago.



Getting back on topic. I feel that if one is playing and enjoying the game, PP prices haven't gotten out of control, though I feel that on some (not all) of the new releases, they are getting there. MSRP for Ruin is $85 Cdn after conversion. Dhunian Knot is $45 Cdn after conversion. I can buy a crap-ton of Infinity for that. As I don't play the game anymore, I feel that straight MSRP is too much to pay for painting projects, though I'd be happy to buy at 20-30% off. I have such a huge backlog that I'm not really bothered one way or another. From an entry level perspective, the all in one army boxes and the fact that rules are now free have opened up budgetary space for new players. Paying less than $200 for a strong starting army right out of the gate is a fantastic thing, and something that GW can not match, even with PP prices creeping up. I am not going to comment on PP's hard line with distributors, only that maintenance and protectionism of the independent retailers as recruitment and promotional tools is clearly identified as being more important that pissing off veterans in the short term. I'm sure this is not a decision that PP took lightly.

@Keezus -Is that an upside down Mangler head there?

 Grimtuff wrote:
@Keezus -Is that an upside down Renegade head there?

Good eye. It is an upside down Mangler head. -edit- It's actually not upside down. The top of the mangler's head is conveniently hidden by the Berserker's cowl.