As I've said before, you can't hold us to your low standards!



Bigger and cheaper.



Not quite as large, but a fraction of the price and readily available.



Again, not quite as massive, but ultimately more available, and substantially cheaper.



Again, much lower RRP, optional parts, readily available once released (ie not limited.)

You can still say "I like Smaug" but ultimately, there nothing 'premium' about him except his price and artificially limited availability. He is unquestionable a decent dragon, but it isn't like he's a creation of GW, is it?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Let us not forget GW showing itself how it's done via FW again..

Herzlos wrote:

 Talys wrote:

Yes, but I'm not trying to analyze a trend. Plus, we don't have region-by-region breakdowns for each year (GW didn't always provide it).

Any speculation as to why that is?

Why would a company, which will have fairly detailed trading reports for each store/country/region, keep changing their reporting regions, and now get rid of them entirely by moving to channels?

Do you think it makes it easier for them to report, do is it more likely it's an effort to hide poor numbers?

I think thats just a facet of both IFRS and UK GAAP. Dont forget, financial statements are for users of financial data: investors and shareholders, and primarily crafted for those entities that reside in the same Country as the Companies stock is listed in.


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I also think the move to channels is the current fad in business management. It works with all kinds of silly verbage about "removing silos" and "revamping our supply chain to a more customer driven experience"

i was not objecting to anyone's personal taste...
i am asking how one qualifies a company's miniatures as objectively better than any other company's minis...
when it comes time to spend money, surely the deciding factor is preference...
preference of material, sculpting style, price point, or manufacturer...
seen as how there are no two companies producing the same exact models, there is no way to say one company is "producing objectively better product"...

@Jehan: i did point out that the third dragon is actually a better quality of sculpt, in my opinion...
it is just too similar to the Rackham resin dragon for me to feel the need to buy it, since i already have the Rackham one...

@Az: i was not commenting on the premium part of Mr. Burning's post, but the "objectively better" part...
is there an objective way to compare and classify what makes a better mini???

@Talys: Smaug is pretty awesome, but CMON's Cang is my pic for my favorite dragon on the market...

cheers
jah

The Carmine Dragon is epic. I've got one I'm in the middle of painting up as Seraphon, Malekith's Black Dragon.

@Jah, and I wasn't responding to your post at all.

I do agree that I think Cang is better than Smaug,but as it's been OOS every time I've looked, and Smaug has long since sold out, I'm not sure they can be described as "on the market" right now.

 Talys wrote:

If you want to talk about the coolest of them all, and resin is on the table... Smaug does that for me.

Yes, of course it does - that qualifies as 'least shocking revelation - evah!' l)

Angrislaug does it for me though!



Obligatory scale shot:



Big, but not so big as to be completely unusable on the tabletop!

Anyway, we seem to have wandered far afield in here - is there...much point to continuing on?

Or do we...wait until the next Half Year?

 Azreal13 wrote:
@Jah, and I wasn't responding to your post at all.

I do agree that I think Cang is better than Smaug,but as it's been OOS every time I've looked, and Smaug has long since sold out, I'm not sure they can be described as "on the market" right now.

fair enough, sorry for any confusion...

cheers
jah

 Alpharius wrote:

Anyway, we seem to have wandered far afield in here - is there...much point to continuing on?

Questioning goes to establish that GW's financial trouble is, in part, related to a dissonance between premium pricing and sub-premium product, your Honour!

yes, i do think the whole premium label Kirby pushes for is ridiculous, and counter-productive...
i see price pushing a lot of people away from GW, but i would contend that GW's plastics are of equal quality to any other plastic wargaming models on the market...
i wouldn't complain if they lowered their prices, though...

cheers
jah

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:

Anyway, we seem to have wandered far afield in here - is there...much point to continuing on?

Questioning goes to establish that GW's financial trouble is, in part, related to a dissonance between premium pricing and sub-premium product, your Honour!

Fair enough - I'll allow it!

If you choose to self identify as a premium brand, you instantly lay a whole burden of expectation on your products with your customers and apply a pressure on your R+D dept they don't need.

Should your company grow to be regarded as a premium brand because you do good work, that a wholly different question, a much more organic process.

GW are calling themselves premium, failing to deliver a premium product for many, and focussing, or at least have been said to be focussing in the past, on the least discerning element of the market, while almost seeming to deliberately isolate itself from those most likely to appreciate quality and be willing and able to pay extra for it.

In terms of premium quality, I just don't think plastic is the medium to be working in. It's well suited to large stuff, high volume stuff and gaming pieces, due to its resilience, lack of weight and diminishing overheads with units made, but it's tough to match what can be produced in resin.

GW plastics do equal the quality of anyone else, in some instances they exceed it, but they're still charging an unjustifiable premium. You need a very good reason to pay £15 for 10 GW Skeletons when you can get 30 WGF ones for a similar price.

i totally agree with you, Az...
there is no need for Kirby to push the premium angle, aside from some misguided ego issue maybe...
it is definitely detrimental to the amount of product that could have been moved with lower prices...

i don't buy into the schtick of GW's plastics being a premium product in the same sense that a Studio McVey resin LE is...
i just don't have a problem with GW's U.S. pricing, nor am i put-off by Kirby's vision (i do, however, think he may be completely crazy, if those preambles are anything to go by)...
i don't buy anything from GW because i think they are "premium products", but because they produce minis i actually want to paint, print books i actually want to read, and art i really get inspired by...
they are not the only one in the industry capable of any of these things, that's for sure...

like i have said many times, i get why people are being driven away from buying GW, but i don't get why people would act like those of us still buying are not capable of seeing outside the GW box...
i just hope GW can turn it around in the next five years, but i think there is too much bitterness among the ex-fans now...
i don't even think a 50% price-cut would do the trick...

cheers
jah

@Az: I think it's possible to get close with today's plastic technology. Some of the new GW kits (and many of the Wyrd kits) have very fine detail on them. I looked at the DA upgrade spure today and was pretty impressed. On the other hand you get the new Sigmarines and their aesthetically smooth armor, so YMMV.

What do you guys think about GW's new AoS Repacks... Dryads went from 12/box to 16/box. 33% more dudes for 17% more money. It would seem like a savings, unless you don't need that many dudes. I have no idea how this works in AoS.

Looks like the Plague Monks stayed the same price at $42? The paintwork on the 360 degree view of the Plague Monk is laughably bad.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jah-joshua wrote:
i don't even think a 50% price-cut would do the trick...

Are you kidding? At 50% off, I'd be impulse buying crap (for use with other game systems) like no tomorrow. Unfortunately, GW's latest items are designed to be as incompatible with other systems as possible. To me this is idiotic, because sales for use in competing systems are still sales!!!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On a side note... does anyone have any idea how in Sigmar the new campaign books are supposed to work? Presumably there's new warscrolls / scenarios for that $90 premium content. Are the rules optional? Campaign only, or legal for everything? I suppose the new units / formations / scenarios rules are not to be released online as that would defeat the purpose of selling the book?

Does anyone buy the LE editions at $180?

There are lots of other cool models, for sure. I don't think the market is mutually exclusive, so if you like dragons, there are many to paint. And I hadn't thought of some of those great dragons - thanks for reminding me of them

The three things great about GW's large models and that I'm sure help GW's sales are: plastic is just a lot easier to model and paint; there is a large variety of large size fantasy models; and they're readily available at brick and mortar shops.

In particular, having a catalog with dragons, sphinxes, demons and really unique stuff like Nagash is cool. None of this has been profitable to GW like 40k has been, but I often wonder how profitable GW's Fantasy line is compared to other, lesser known (but fantastic) fantasy models. I don't really collect or buy very many fantasy models from any vendor, GW included, so it's not like I have any skin in the game.

Oh, on the topic of plastics, I got the PP Nephilim Warrior last week and actually returned it today. The casting was just awful, and it was $19 USD MSRP (less 25% discount), by the way -- for an infantry sized model (40mm base, I think). I Popped open 2 other boxes at the store, so I returned it, which is extremely uncharacteristic of me. The Nephilim Bolt Thrower, also plastic, was pretty crappy too.

I think dollar for dollar on fantasy plastic models versus PP, GW is on pretty solid ground now.

 jah-joshua wrote:

i just hope GW can turn it around in the next five years, but i think there is too much bitterness among the ex-fans now...
i don't even think a 50% price-cut would do the trick...

cheers
jah

I think more effective than a price cut would be a greater sense of value and engagement with the product. Moving to such a quick turnover in rulesets and codex lifecycles makes each book you purchase feel less valuable. Potentially even more detrimental is when someone has an army concept which they've been working on getting converted and painted up and it is invalidated by a new release less than two years after their book was last updated.

While it has been some time since they previewed upcoming releases (though their FW branch seems to be immune to much of their madness) It seems the information embargo has been having a more tangible negative effect than before. This entire End Times event seemed to turn a lot of people from purchasing new units and armies and is even now still making people uneasy about the future of the other systems offered by the company.

It seems more than any other competitor new releases are met with worry and concern over what it might mean for those players.

@keezus - the campaign books rules are TOTALLY optional.

Half of the content is photography or artwork (really nice, though). Out of 264 pages, the first 132 are just backgrounder.

The next 100 are campaign scenarios, with lots of flexibility in what/how you play them.

The last 32 pages are warscrolls (that are freely available) and a few formations.

Two of my local stores have said that the first campaign book has sold like crazy, with sales numbers in the order of Codex: Eldar's launch month. The other store I frequent I didn't ask.

Incidentally, perhaps one of the reasons price is less of an issue here: There are 3 great independents; one normally sells stuff at 17% off, another at around 20% off, with sales at 30%; and the third regularly has sales of 25%. Two of them will apply all discounts towards web orders, too. Those are prices available to everyone -- regulars will often get a better price than that.

For me, it wasn't price that drove me away. (Okay, maybe codex prices helped a little) It was the rules and GW's attitude toward its players.

I collect guns and minis are my 'cheap' hobby. But with GW I didn't think it was worth my time and effort, and eventually wasn't worth my money.

Communication would help them greatly. Maybe 75%. But their rules are in such a deplorable state that it chases more and more people away.

Yes, the premium thing is a joke. They don't make the highest quality minis out there. They make really good ones but there are higher quality products out there. Yes, taste is subjective, but quality of composition, sculpt and molds is not.

 jah-joshua wrote:
i see price pushing a lot of people away from GW, but i would contend that GW's plastics are of equal quality to any other plastic wargaming models on the market...

Their multipose models definitely are. But multipose is, ironically, quite restricting and you end up with similar poses across the army because there's only so many ways to pose a model that doesn't look unnatural. The downside is the models themselves have restrictions on how they're designed so each peice can fit.

Malifaux plastics are single pose, but really put GW's efforts to shame. The downside is a huge number of parts - try building something the size of a Night Goblin that is actually 10 small parts - but the end result is much better looking plastic models.

If GW overnight put up the price of the rulebook by 60%, and you got it at a 30% discount, the new book would still be a lot more expensive than the old one, and possibly more expensive than rival rulebooks.

GW actually did put up the price of rulebooks and codexes by 60 to 100% over the past three years. Basic rules went from £30 to £50 and the codexes went from £15 to £30. I dropped out at that point.

Even the softback book in the 40K starter set is now going for about £25 on eBay, because it has been dragged along in the slipstream of increasing prices. I can get three or four softback rulebooks for other games for the same amount of money, and they will be proper size print, with colour illos.

Once you fall out of love with GW, even the crumbs from the table start to look expensive.

 -Loki- wrote:

 jah-joshua wrote:
i see price pushing a lot of people away from GW, but i would contend that GW's plastics are of equal quality to any other plastic wargaming models on the market...

Their multipose models definitely are. But multipose is, ironically, quite restricting and you end up with similar poses across the army because there's only so many ways to pose a model that doesn't look unnatural. The downside is the models themselves have restrictions on how they're designed so each peice can fit.

Malifaux plastics are single pose, but really put GW's efforts to shame. The downside is a huge number of parts - try building something the size of a Night Goblin that is actually 10 small parts - but the end result is much better looking plastic models.

Malifaux's plastics are amazing and I would put them over GW's in terms of finished product. I like GW's poseabilty, but the character each Maliefaux mini has beats even GW's characters out of the water.

Az, the first dragon in the top post on the page, what is it? And how do I get it?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If GW overnight put up the price of the rulebook by 60%, and you got it at a 30% discount, the new book would still be a lot more expensive than the old one, and possibly more expensive than rival rulebooks.

GW actually did put up the price of rulebooks and codexes by 60 to 100% over the past three years. Basic rules went from £30 to £50 and the codexes went from £15 to £30. I dropped out at that point.

Even the softback book in the 40K starter set is now going for about £25 on eBay, because it has been dragged along in the slipstream of increasing prices. I can get three or four softback rulebooks for other games for the same amount of money, and they will be proper size print, with colour illos.

Once you fall out of love with GW, even the crumbs from the table start to look expensive.

This is true, but 7e books are really nice compared to 5e and previous books. The full color, hardback, and all that make the product really fancy, and from my end, desirable as a physical product.

Ironically, the same attributes make them lousy as a gaming resource, because they're big, thick and heavy. So gorgeous library items, great for kicking bak and reading, lousy for dragging to the store to play a game with. Sound like a familiar trend?

I think the iBook versions are much netter suited to gaming, as are the mini hardcover books.

But a reasonable compromise would be electronic and softcover B&W smaller versions (about the size of old Visions) for $25 (each), hardcover color version for $50 and LE version for silly price.

And, $15 off any combo version, where you get both iBook and paper copy.


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 PlaguelordHobbyServices wrote:
Az, the first dragon in the top post on the page, what is it? And how do I get it?

That's Cang the Implacable, and Az and Jah are right -- it's one of the best dragons ever. $300 without the rider, which I think is pretty fair, but I have never seen it in stock.

https://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/cang.html

 Talys wrote:
There's also the possibility that people will buy AoS models for games like KoW, especially with the new reduced prices for models and if that trend continues. I think that at $3 - $5/model, Citadel plastic miniatures become awfully attractive for large scale fantasy.

Wait, what?
$3-$5 a model becomes attractive for large scale fantasy? Are you use? I can get fantasy stuff from Avatars Of War for nearer $1-2 which is at least as good. $5/infantry is pretty steep unless you're talking about metals, and pretty unsuitable for large scale.

For high fantasy, the terrain pieces are also nice; and the large kits (like dragons) are much better than competitors' kits at similar price points, if you're looking for a "premium" model (as opposed to a Reaper Bones dragon, for instance).

Again, I'm not sure I understand. Can you show me a competitors dragon that costs the same as a GW one, that's much inferior?
I know you've used Bones as an example, but Bones stuff is a fraction of the price. That Kalladrax thing was about $50 and had a 2ft tail, so bigger than Smaug, quarter of the price.

@Herzlos - for sure, there are cheaper alternatives. I'm just suggesting that some people will buy the cheaper GW models to use in KoW and other games, because they like them and the prices are more affordable. It's not really an original idea; I've seen people say they'll do this on other threads.

Dragons are probably the easiest to find large generic models, and again, there are lots of alternatives, not that I think the GW ones are bad or anything. But if you want phoenix, or gryphon, or sphinx, or large undead, or giants, etc. -- GW has some nice models on its large model collection. Plus, they are similarly scaled, in a unified aesthetic, made from nicely fitting plastic, and easy to see in a physical store, if any of these things matter to you.

There are actually really few large PLASTIC dragons. As someone who has built metal, resin, plastic, and whatever rubbery crap Bones are made from, I think plastic dragons are just infinitely easier to work with. You never have to greenstuff torso and wing joints, and large, snaking tails are just single piece. Plus, you can have launching flight poses like the high elf one that would be less practical in other mediums. The metal dragon I got for Christmas is taking more time to build and prep than a plastic one will take to finish, and the final product will be unusable in a game (for fear that it will fall apart, despite 50 pins).

 Alpharius wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:

Anyway, we seem to have wandered far afield in here - is there...much point to continuing on?

Questioning goes to establish that GW's financial trouble is, in part, related to a dissonance between premium pricing and sub-premium product, your Honour!

Fair enough - I'll allow it!

Though now I'm beginning to regret it.

It is starting to become (!) a bit of an echo chamber in here.

It really might be time to...wait for the next GW Financial Report.

I dunno man. How can it be an echo chamber when the acoustics keep changing every time Talys moves those goal posts?

 Talys wrote:
@keezus - the campaign books rules are TOTALLY optional. Two of my local stores have said that the first campaign book has sold like crazy, with sales numbers in the order of Codex: Eldar's launch month. The other store I frequent I didn't ask.

It will be interesting to see how fast the LE sells out. This seems to be a decent overall metric of how well the books are moving since the LE is sole sourced direct and is sold to the entire world.

Regarding PP plastics: You won't get any argument that they are absolute crap. Comparing GW product to them isn't any metric of technical dominance because PP's quality sets the bar too low. You'd be better off comparing them to Wyrd who is also pushing technical boundaries.

 Azreal13 wrote:

Actual premium dragon..

Spoiler:

This cuts to the heart of GW proper, unlike FW, they're trying to be premium, and they're just.. not.

Although I tend to think that GW's "premium" label is not unlike use of word "democracy" in "People's Democracies", I don't see much "premium" in that dragon either. Average detail, not great pose, looks toylike.

Smaug is in "good but uninspired" category, though much of it is not actually GW's fault.

Well, I don't know what to address first, the total failure to grasp the post from a moderator urging things more along the financial route or the fact that a miniature with every scale hand sculpted and individually textured is described as "average detail."

 Azreal13 wrote:
Well, I don't know what to address first, the total failure to grasp the post from a moderator urging things more along the financial route or the fact that a miniature with every scale hand sculpted and individually textured is described as "average detail."

Me too!

In fact, I think this thread's run its course - we'll see what happens the next time reality knocks upon GW's door via a Financial Report.