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 Leth wrote:

 Chute82 wrote:

 Leth wrote:
Wait so for paints it is going to cost me an extra like 5 dollars a year at the rate I use up paints? Lord have mercy that's enough to drive me out of the hobby I tell you what

If you saw $5 on the ground Iam sure you would pick it up.

Sure, and I could afford the difference by buying 5 less boxes of Pasta, or being more fuel efficient on my driving for 2 gallons worth of gas.

You can throw around percentages and statistics to try and make it seem like its a big deal. It's a quarter. I lose more than that to broken Washing machines every year

Okay, but why would you spend more for the same product?
Other companies' paints are just as good but cheaper. Why knowingly pay more for no gain?

 Leth wrote:

Sure, and I could afford the difference by buying 5 less boxes of Pasta, or being more fuel efficient on my driving for 2 gallons worth of gas.

Are we getting back onto the 'GW products are cheap because they cost less than a car' thing?

I'll bet if you started losing 75 cents to broken washing machines, you'd complain louder too.

 Vermis wrote:

 Leth wrote:

Sure, and I could afford the difference by buying 5 less boxes of Pasta, or being more fuel efficient on my driving for 2 gallons worth of gas.

Are we getting back onto the 'GW products are cheap because they cost less than a car' thing?

I'll bet if you started losing 75 cents to broken washing machines, you'd complain louder too.

Not if I only washed my clothes once every few months.

Seriously, do you guys buy paint twice a week or something? I buy one every couple of months, maaaybe more if I'm using a lot of one and am in a crazy painting mood. I probably find enough loose change in the meantime to fund the difference.

 Vermis wrote:

 Leth wrote:

Sure, and I could afford the difference by buying 5 less boxes of Pasta, or being more fuel efficient on my driving for 2 gallons worth of gas.

Are we getting back onto the 'GW products are cheap because they cost less than a car' thing?

Guys my hobby is collecting classic cars and rebuilding them using parts only made of diamond studded gold so that they look extra good when I blow them up.
No one has a right to complain their yachting hobby is expensive

 jonolikespie wrote:

No one has a right to complain their yachting hobby is expensive

Easy there.

You should know how much I paid for my yacht. The docking fees alone are absurd.

Sometimes I even pay for a caterer for long voyages.

 Blacksails wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

No one has a right to complain their yachting hobby is expensive

Easy there.

You should know how much I paid for my yacht. The docking fees alone are absurd.

Sometimes I even pay for a caterer for long voyages.

Must be nice

I never said it was cheap, I was addressing the actual significance of the price change

it's simple economics. While the price is less than what it is worth to me I am willing to buy it. When it is more I won't.

I want the nagash model. However because I won't use it the price is not worth it so I don't buy it. However I will instead invest that same money into a skitarii army that I will use.

Do I wish I could pay less? Of course, no one likes paying more than they have to. But while the personal value is worth it I will continue to use it.

Cost is not simply monetary, there is space taken up, trial and error with a new line of paints, matching of paints, not supporting my local store, etc. So yes while it does cost more money, the actual cost difference does not justify switching lines

 Chute82 wrote:


Must be nice

Its hard being this wealthy.

Do you know how costly a good cleaning person is?

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Talys wrote:
@MWHistorian - when did I ever say that GW's quality beats everyone else's? I never made that claim.

You did.
Right here.

First off, I do not agree that GW models are inferior to any other companies.

I don't see how that quote means Talys says GW quality beats everyone else's. It says they are not worse than everyone else's.

 durecellrabbit wrote:


I don't see how that quote means Talys says GW quality beats everyone else's. It says they are not worse than everyone else's.

So...semantics?

 Leth wrote:
I never said it was cheap, I was addressing the actual significance of the price change

it's simple economics. While the price is less than what it is worth to me I am willing to buy it. When it is more I won't.

And we're saying the paints are not worth the new price to us (or aren't worth the price now) as they are some of the most expensive on market already.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Leth wrote:
I never said it was cheap, I was addressing the actual significance of the price change

it's simple economics. While the price is less than what it is worth to me I am willing to buy it. When it is more I won't.

And we're saying the paints are not worth the new price to us (or aren't worth the price now) as they are some of the most expensive on market already.

Yep, I was never saying anyone was wrong. Personal value is personal value. I just hate when people manipulate numbers and statistics to make it seem like a bigger deal than it is

 Talys wrote:

 Vermis wrote:

 Korinov wrote:

ORicK wrote:
And the price per model for GW units is not even that high compared to most competitors.

Untrue.

Unless all the "most competitors" you know is Privateer Press.

Virtually everyone else is producing

a) high-quality resin models that are priced the same or a bit higher than GW plastics.
b) models cheaper than GW.

This, so much. You have to get out of the blinkered view of 'the competition' consisting of the other handful of premium-price sf/f manufacturers (which call for a far smaller count of expensive minis in their games anyway) when a lot of other companies producing plastics sell them for about 50p a figure, and even a lot of metal minis sell for as much or less than GW plastics.

It doesn't make sense to compare GW models with anyone other than scifi-fantasy miniature manufacturers. Who cares what the price of a WW2 infantryman costs, or a civil war dude with a bayonet, or a SR-71 scale model or a bi-plane. Or a catamaran or man-o-war, for that matter. These things appeals to a totally different audience.

Without discussing quality and aesthetic, since these are highly personal and subjective in nature, Mantic and Reaper sell reasonably complete scifi/fantasy miniatures at prices that are cheaper than GW. Infinity sells a small but high quality line of infantry-sized miniatures that are price-competitive, but not cheaper, than GW. Privateer Press sells a reasonably complete line of miniatures that are as expensive or more expensive than GW. DUST is kind of incomplete, and has little model variety.

The other companies that produce scifi/fantasy can't really compete with GW in the breadth or depth from a modelling perspective. They just don't have a collection that you can really dig into. I'm not saying that there aren't good companies that have some great models; but if your thing is modelling futuristic armies with some reasonable variety of troops, vehicles, and stompy robots, the options are very limited. Guys like Anvil Industries are great, but you can't really build something substantial with them.

Also: HIPS is generally the most desirable material for hobby now, not metal. Producing metal minis is great for nostalgia, and single-piece metal makes it easy to paint, but for modelling purposes, HIPS is vastly superior to white metal. Plus, good luck trying to build something like an Imperial Knight (a 200+ piece kit), made out of metal. If you don't like kits that are 75-300 pieces that take a lot of time and care to build, stay away from GW for any sort of gaming, because every current, major faction has them (I'm not including Sisters or Inquisition or Assassins...), and practically requires them to play an averageish game, casual or otherwise.

Also, many people who have the hundreds/thousands/tens of thousands of hours to throw at hobby necessary to build such armies to resemble anything remotely like GW's vision of what a table should look like will also often have significant disposable income. Obviously, GW is catering to them, at the expense of customers who wish, for example, to just buy a few models and play a game.

A few problems with your post I have noticed, the first real big thing is all those companies produce complete miniature lines too their own games. 28mm simply does not work on a massive scale with vehicles and all this is simply an indoctrinated view some gamers have created by GW. 28mm works for skirmish games and RPGS if you want a large scale game like what you are describing you need to look at doing a smaller scale 15mm and smaller. This is why their are next to no companies that due such large scale games in 28mm it simply doesn't work, is too costly and risky of an investment, also the market is moving towards faster to play games, that means in 28mm you want to be doing a game that does not require a lot of painting and a large amount of miniatures to move around hence lowering game length.

second big thing is HIPS is an inferior material far as I am concerned, do you know how much it costs to produce a single mold for the material? 5K - 20K not including currency exchange rates. The material has short comings in casting, and detail quality. further more because of the high costs you limit the diversity of your range and ability to keep up with new range expansions due too the high costs. Unless you want to become reliant on kickstarter every time you want to expand your range ( like certain companies out their that produce in HIPS have become) you need to look at more reasonable cost effective materials. Metal is a fantastic material for casting mold costs are a huge difference from HIPS , resin is also the best material for casting detailed miniatures and metal is right up their as well. metal miniatures also can be melted down when you update a old sculpt ( this is exactly what infinity does and one of the main reasons they use purely metal only in their range).

Imperial Knights are ridiculous miniatures to begin with and do not fit in a 28mm scale game, they would be much better represented in something like Epic ( which they killed off and never supported ). that is why you don't see more reasonable companies producing things such as that, they are silly and way oversized , harming the game scale and any form of sensibility in a games scale of combat.

The market is going towards games that can be played in a little under or over an hour , not for games that go on for several hours in one go. This is why skirmish games, miniature / board game hybrids are becoming so dominant. Resin and Metal are fantastic materials and will continue to stay the dominant, look at wrath of kings right now they have released a plastic range, had that held up because the only somewhat less expensive place to do plastic miniatures is China and hence got held in port with delays. They now have to sell a lot of miniatures to make up enough money to be able to produce anything new in their range if they want to keep with plastic miniatures. Which is not a very good idea for doing a skirmish game ( which usually rely on having a high miniature diversity) , I think their good miniatures but I think doing that is going to really hurt them in the long run, when we have companies like Dark Age who are producing in metal, who are able to produce a lot more miniatures vs those who go with highly expensive plastic ones, and as we have seen it requires so many sales to be able to produce a new HIPS miniature were those of us who produce in the other two materials can get many more miniatures produced for much less of the price it takes to produce a HIPS miniature.

As I have said many times we need innovation in casting as with digital and traditional sculpting have out done what we can cast, had Restic been a better quality material HIPS would have very well become nearly none existent outside of GW as their would be zero reason to use HIPS. as it sits right now the only time I myself would ever , ever consider HIPS is for a starter box and that would be the limit of what I would ever consider doing miniatures in HIPS, it is simply too expensive for a mold vs the other two materials and you cannot get as near as good detail as the other two materials and I am supporting local casters instead of commissioning my work over to china were the workers are being paid low wages.

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Talys wrote:
@MWHistorian - when did I ever say that GW's quality beats everyone else's? I never made that claim.

You did.
Right here.

First off, I do not agree that GW models are inferior to any other companies.

No. Not inferior is not the same as BETTER. It actually means, NOT WORSE.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MWHistorian wrote:

Okay, but why would you spend more for the same product?
Other companies' paints are just as good but cheaper. Why knowingly pay more for no gain?

1. Because the colors are NOT the same
2. Because the paints are NOT the same
3. Because droppers are pain with wet palettes, and p3 paints are limited in colors
4. Because some people like the convenience of being able to buy paint at a nearby store, and that store happens to carry citadel
5. Because not everyone has the same animosity for GW as you
6. Because some people actually like GW and their products. I know, wow, huh?

 Talys wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Talys wrote:
@MWHistorian - when did I ever say that GW's quality beats everyone else's? I never made that claim.

You did.
Right here.

First off, I do not agree that GW models are inferior to any other companies.

No. Not inferior is not the same as BETTER. It actually means, NOT WORSE.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MWHistorian wrote:

Okay, but why would you spend more for the same product?
Other companies' paints are just as good but cheaper. Why knowingly pay more for no gain?

1. Because the colors are NOT the same
2. Because the paints are NOT the same
3. Because droppers are pain with wet palettes, and p3 paints are limited in colors
4. Because some people like the convenience of being able to buy paint at a nearby store, and that store happens to carry citadel
5. Because not everyone has the same animosity for GW as you
6. Because some people actually like GW and their products. I know, wow, huh?

You're still saying there's not a single miniature range that is better than GW. All my points still stand.,
As for your paint points.

1.Colors might not be the same, true. And I can see buying the same color to match previously painted models...until GW changes it all again.
2. Umm...what?
3. Some other companies sell pots...for cheaper.
4. So, "it's your only choice" isn't a good defense and does nothing to answer "why pay more?"
5. What does that have to do with answering "Why pay more?" You're letting your emotions ruin your reason here.
6. Same point as 5 and same response.

Besides "it's their only choice" you haven't answer, "Why pay more?"

I... Wat?
Droppers are FAR better than flip tops for a wet pallet..

 jonolikespie wrote:
I... Wat?
Droppers are FAR better than flip tops for a wet pallet..

Agreed. I blend colors a lot and hate pots.

@underfire wargaming -- I'm happy for the people who like quick, sort games requiring little investments and small models. They should stay far, far away from GW, as they will not be happy with it.

As I mentioned, IK was the most popular and best selling 40k kit last year. So while it isn't your idea of fun to toss in a giant, stompy, nigh impossible to kill robot onto the battlefield, a lot of 40k disagree. Different priorities, man.

For people like me, I want an immersive experience shared with hobbyists who likewise wish immersive experiences. We have TONS of models, and happily buy little models, jets, and gigantic models. For us, 40k is perfect, and we would not enjoy it as a wee skirmish game.

If all the people who want little skirmish games leave 40k, I could care less. There are enough people who want the opposite that GW will stay on business and service these people in some way. I also don't really care if GW makes hundreds of millions or shrinks to a smaller company; makes no difference to me.

My only real experience wit restic is PP, and I hare those. As I said, I enjoy large models as well as small, and HIPS is ideal for that. Also, love them or ate them, the multipart plastic kits largely eliminate undercuts, which is virtually unavoidable with metal. Oh yeah, remember drilling out gun barrels on metal minis? :|

Requizen wrote:
Not if I only washed my clothes once every few months.

Seriously, do you guys buy paint twice a week or something? I buy one every couple of months, maaaybe more if I'm using a lot of one and am in a crazy painting mood. I probably find enough loose change in the meantime to fund the difference.

Well, there's also the issue of a newbie who has to stock up in one go; the hobbyist who has to buy a bunch of different paints for that new army and new paint scheme; the fanboy who has to keep up when the entire paint range and it's colors change almost overnight...

For guys with an established 'collection', a few cents each time adds up, and I'm not just talking about miniatures paints. It's just one extra expense in general that isn't really necessary, especially if you consider the disparity between those 12ml pots and 17-18ml of comparable or superior paints in pots and bottles that don't cause them to constantly dry out. In that case it and it's implications (confirmations?) about GW's overall attitudes are also kind of insulting, a few cents as it may be.

Just turning my head to look at my collection of 200+ mini paints. (I have a sickness) A lot of them are Ral Partha Miniature Paints, bought within a relatively small window of time when they were 85p for a 15ml pot. I think about that time, GW paints were £2.25? Going by number of pots, all-MP would've cost over £170, and all-GW over £450. Going by total ml of the MP pots, GW would've cost over £550 at the time. Now obviously this is a bit unrealistic, as that number of paints is probably a tad excessive for the average hobbyist; I don't buy just one brand (and definitely not at 85p a pot, anymore); and even buying lots at the time I didn't buy 200 pots in one fell swoop. Even so, I don't think the potential saving in my case, even if the number of pots were halved, would've been much to sniff at.

 jonolikespie wrote:
I... Wat?
Droppers are FAR better than flip tops for a wet pallet..

No. Any paint I don't use up makes a mess (spreads out) overnight, doubly so if you use flo-aid or medium.

With a dropper, one drop is like... 5x more paint than I often want. So I end up wiping away all my unused paint. I far prefer to grab the right amount of paint from a fliptop.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vermis wrote:

Requizen wrote:
Not if I only washed my clothes once every few months.

Seriously, do you guys buy paint twice a week or something? I buy one every couple of months, maaaybe more if I'm using a lot of one and am in a crazy painting mood. I probably find enough loose change in the meantime to fund the difference.

Well, there's also the issue of a newbie who has to stock up in one go; the hobbyist who has to buy a bunch of different paints for that new army and new paint scheme; the fanboy who has to keep up when the entire paint range and it's colors change almost overnight...

For guys with an established 'collection', a few cents each time adds up, and I'm not just talking about miniatures paints. It's just one extra expense in general that isn't really necessary, especially if you consider the disparity between those 12ml pots and 17-18ml of comparable or superior paints in pots and bottles that don't cause them to constantly dry out. In that case it and it's implications (confirmations?) about GW's overall attitudes are also kind of insulting, a few cents as it may be.

Just turning my head to look at my collection of 200+ mini paints. (I have a sickness) A lot of them are Ral Partha Miniature Paints, bought within a relatively small window of time when they were 85p for a 15ml pot. I think about that time, GW paints were £2.25? Going by number of pots, all-MP would've cost over £170, and all-GW over £450. Going by total ml of the MP pots, GW would've cost over £550 at the time. Now obviously this is a bit unrealistic, as that number of paints is probably a tad excessive for the average hobbyist; I don't buy just one brand (and definitely not at 85p a pot, anymore); and even buying lots at the time I didn't buy 200 pots in one fell swoop. Even so, I don't think the potential saving in my case, even if the number of pots were halved, would've been much to sniff at.

It's just preference. It is a pointless exercise trying to convince someone who is happy using Vallejo, reaper, P3 or citadel that their favorite paint is not good value. One thing is for sure -- don't commoditized them, because they are not all 'the same'. Just like paintbrushes and airbrushed are not all 'the same'

I like dropper for airbrush and pot for paintbrush.

Talking with reasonable arguments doesn't work.

It comes down to this;
rule 1 : Other companies, make better quality miniatures at a cheaper price but it is not GW.
rule 2 :Other hobbies are also expensive so GW being expensive is OK.
Honorable mention;
rule 3: GW is not for peasants (ergo poor people should stick to little green men)

so product x is better than GW product y retaliate with rule 1
But the GW one is more expensive! retaliate with rule 2 (or rule 3).

Damn that forgeworld warlord titan doesn't fit in my Ferrari

Some fascinating comments....

Regardless of how much anyone loves GW's product or not...the fact remains.

If your company is losing sales (demand) and profit - the worst possible answer is to raise prices.

Only time will tell. Hopefully, the new CEO will make changes in policy and culture before he is required to step down as well....or worse.

4. GW has lost its core target base and is making a money grab at a slowly dwindling market.

TSR learned the same lesson the hard way.

You die hard do know that this "price increase" is an ongoing issue, right? It doesn't stop with silly things like paint and expensive modeling tools?

Personally, I love GW and won't play any other game. I'm just not interested in any others.
The nice thing is, the rules are there, minis can be bought, so even if GW goes under I will still be able to enjoy their great games.

I think their high prices have pushed others like me to get the minis by other means, such as Ebay where we can at least try to get them cheaper and a lot of times at a great deal.

My opinion is that GW needs to just simply drop the paint/tools/hobbit/lotr/etc and just simply focus on what made them great to begin with - 40k and whfb. Bring back the old board games like space hulk, tyranid attack, hero quest, etc. and bring their prices back down.

They need to draw people back and get them buying more. People will tend to buy more if they feel they are getting a good deal.

*edit*
1 suggestion I had sent GW a number of years ago and I believe would have made a huge difference in sales, was when they were releasing the core game in a box set which came with the rules and 2 armies. My suggestion was simple:
say you plan on releasing 10k copies of the game in the box set form, and say you have 10 different factions/armies in your product line.
The create 5 different box sets, each with 2 different starting armies. That way any player would be more than happy to buy the box set because they would be able to choose 1 that contained pieces for his/her army. Thus increasing the amount of total sales of the box set instead of just the rules.

kaotkbliss wrote:
Personally, I love GW and won't play any other game. I'm just not interested in any others.
The nice thing is, the rules are there, minis can be bought, so even if GW goes under I will still be able to enjoy their great games.

I think their high prices have pushed others like me to get the minis by other means, such as Ebay where we can at least try to get them cheaper and a lot of times at a great deal.

My opinion is that GW needs to just simply drop the paint/tools/hobbit/lotr/etc and just simply focus on what made them great to begin with - 40k and whfb. Bring back the old board games like space hulk, tyranid attack, hero quest, etc. and bring their prices back down.

They need to draw people back and get them buying more. People will tend to buy more if they feel they are getting a good deal.

The problem is GW don't understand any of this, they have stated, in front of a judge and jury no less, that they think their customers favourite part of the GW hobby is buying GW products.

 jonolikespie wrote:

The problem is GW don't understand any of this, they have stated, in front of a judge and jury no less, that they think their customers favourite part of the GW hobby is buying GW products.

In a way that's true, we purchased GW models to expand our armies. Then we purchased more models to convert them. Then we purchased more models to try new armies and we hand made scenery to complement our armies on the battlefield

kaotkbliss wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

The problem is GW don't understand any of this, they have stated, in front of a judge and jury no less, that they think their customers favourite part of the GW hobby is buying GW products.

In a way that's true, we purchased GW models to expand our armies. Then we purchased more models to convert them. Then we purchased more models to try new armies and we hand made scenery to complement our armies on the battlefield

That's...kinda sad. I don't meant that derogatorily, but saying your favorite part of the hobby is buying the product says very little good about the hobby itself.

No, it's not my favorite part, but it is fun building up my army, putting together new models and painting them up and such.

There is one thing that GW can't fix: people have less disposable income, and less free time now.

By the way, saying that 40k is not expensive compared to hobbies like RCs and train sets, or sports like ski or golf, or even entertainment per hour like movie theatres is not elitist. It is a simple statement of fact.

40k is a large scale, collectible hobby that eats up gobs of time and is expensive. So are many other non-digital niche hobbies. I now have lots of hobby time, but when I had less, the fact is 40k was far less ideal either as a hobby or game. 40k is a hobby that is best enjoyed obsessively, rather than casually. It's a lousy casual hobby, because there is so much of everything and it is so time consuming that you never get to enjoy it if you don't have the spare time.

 Leth wrote:
I never said it was cheap, I was addressing the actual significance of the price change

it's simple economics. While the price is less than what it is worth to me I am willing to buy it. When it is more I won't.

I want the nagash model. However because I won't use it the price is not worth it so I don't buy it. However I will instead invest that same money into a skitarii army that I will use.

Do I wish I could pay less? Of course, no one likes paying more than they have to. But while the personal value is worth it I will continue to use it.

Cost is not simply monetary, there is space taken up, trial and error with a new line of paints, matching of paints, not supporting my local store, etc. So yes while it does cost more money, the actual cost difference does not justify switching lines

All this really demonstrates is that you don't understand the concept of principles. $5 is obviously not breaking anyone's bank. Whether it's an expensive price increase or not isn't really the point.