Thing is, GW already knows their customers only last for 2 or 3 years before maybe going into maintenance mode with minimal buying.

 Denny wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
People who enjoy painting all the models in between? Insanity

YMMV.

I can't say I enjoy every model (in the same way as when I go to the gym I don't enjoy every rep) but the pay off is fantastic and makes everything worthwhile. There is massive achievement in spending months or years working hard to achieve a goal. Nothing else comes close.

As I said in my post.... just above the bit you quoted

and I'm sure LOTS of people love painting the last squad in an army and seeing it all completed.

People who enjoy painting all the models in between? Insanity

The reason the last squad is enjoyable is because of the torture you went through to get there.

That's why IMO wargaming models are not comparable to a lot of other hobbies as far as hours burned per dollar spent.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Thing is, GW already knows their customers only last for 2 or 3 years before maybe going into maintenance mode with minimal buying.

Only?
Dont you mean 1 or 2 years if their lucky?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Thing is, GW already knows their customers only last for 2 or 3 years before maybe going into maintenance mode with minimal buying.

But is that because the prices burn out the customers?

GW tracks customer spend really well, and they've gotten pretty good at optimizing the initial army collection revenue.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Denny wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
People who enjoy painting all the models in between? Insanity

YMMV.

I can't say I enjoy every model (in the same way as when I go to the gym I don't enjoy every rep) but the pay off is fantastic and makes everything worthwhile. There is massive achievement in spending months or years working hard to achieve a goal. Nothing else comes close.

As I said in my post.... just above the bit you quoted

and I'm sure LOTS of people love painting the last squad in an army and seeing it all completed.

People who enjoy painting all the models in between? Insanity

The reason the last squad is enjoyable is because of the torture you went through to get there.

That's why IMO wargaming models are not comparable to a lot of other hobbies as far as hours burned per dollar spent.

Depends on your hobbies. If you do anything creative (writing, painting, acting) then significant parts of your hobby time constitutes of being frustrated and hating what you are doing. Ditto any exercise/sport, or anything outdoors.Most hobbies require hard work and persevering through points where you feel like quitting because it’s hard.
And that’s the thing; carrying on when you want to quit is enjoyable. Far more enjoyable than an easy hobby. I understand not everyone feels that way, but I think you need to realise that for some people the fact it is really hard and maddening halfway through is WHY we enjoy it.

I like not giving up. And I like being challenged.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
GW tracks customer spend really well, and they've gotten pretty good at optimizing the initial army collection revenue.

But not so good at retention, looks like. Maybe it has to do with the prices, who knows.

GW recognizes that retention is not important - once they get the first year or two's spend, it always tapers off, and GW doesn't need you, so they don't care if you leave. GW got it's money.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
GW recognizes that retention is not important - once they get the first year or two's spend, it always tapers off, and GW doesn't need you, so they don't care if you leave. GW got it's money.

Which is an incredibly stupid business strategy for GW to have when paired with their strategy of doing zero marketing and depending on their customers to sell the game. GW absolutely needs veteran players to stay in the hobby because they need people showing off fully painted armies in their stores, people convincing their friends to get into the game, etc. If 40k had nothing but kids whining until their parents buy them a starter box of space marines and then promptly dropping the hobby it would be the start of GW's death spiral.

 Denny wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Denny wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
People who enjoy painting all the models in between? Insanity

YMMV.

I can't say I enjoy every model (in the same way as when I go to the gym I don't enjoy every rep) but the pay off is fantastic and makes everything worthwhile. There is massive achievement in spending months or years working hard to achieve a goal. Nothing else comes close.

As I said in my post.... just above the bit you quoted

and I'm sure LOTS of people love painting the last squad in an army and seeing it all completed.

People who enjoy painting all the models in between? Insanity

The reason the last squad is enjoyable is because of the torture you went through to get there.

That's why IMO wargaming models are not comparable to a lot of other hobbies as far as hours burned per dollar spent.

Depends on your hobbies. If you do anything creative (writing, painting, acting) then significant parts of your hobby time constitutes of being frustrated and hating what you are doing. Ditto any exercise/sport, or anything outdoors.Most hobbies require hard work and persevering through points where you feel like quitting because it’s hard.
And that’s the thing; carrying on when you want to quit is enjoyable. Far more enjoyable than an easy hobby. I understand not everyone feels that way, but I think you need to realise that for some people the fact it is really hard and maddening halfway through is WHY we enjoy it.

I like not giving up. And I like being challenged.

I think you're missing my point a bit.

I don't deny that there's joy in coming out at the end of something difficult. My other hobby is cars and I can say I have a love-hate relationship with my car, it doesn't bloody run (or run right) half the time.

It's just I don't place a high monetary value on the the time burned in frustration***. So saying a box of 5 models costing $50 (or whatever) amounts to $1 per hour because you're going to take 50 hours building them is, IMO, a terrible way of judging value. You're paying $1 an hour for suffering, not fun


***I'd also argue the frustration involved in painting wargaming models is WORSE than a lot of other hobbies because it's tedious monotony. Every hour I work on my car it's something different. Even building and painting an airfix model takes a lot longer than your average GW model, but it's not monotonous hours.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 auticus wrote:
90% of my GW tiime is spent painting. Painting and storytelling are the two things I get out of the hobby more than anything. The pure gamers that are only into gaming and not much else surely exist in great numbers but the people that enjoy painting armies are not a tiny minority in my experience.

I never said the others were pure gamers.... I'm sure LOTS of people love reading fluff, creating army list, theoryhammering and mathhammering, coming up with paint schemes, chatting on internet forums or loitering in their local gaming shops. None of that stuff actually requires buying a model though.

I'm sure LOTS of people love painting the first squad or two of their army, and I'm sure LOTS of people love painting the last squad in an army and seeing it all completed.

People who enjoy painting all the models in between? Insanity

I often work on some models that are pure display pieces which never see a gaming table. I enjoy doing so. But they aren't whole armies and nor are they GW models. I spent well over 100 hours on a Spitfire that only cost me $50AUD and actually enjoyed it because it's not monotonous like painting a whole army.

Perhaps some crazy folk find the monotony soothing or something, lol.

Count me as one of these crazy people. Love building kits, love painting. Hell, I even love clipping things off the sprues. I don’t game any GW games much anymore at all, it’s mainly historicals, simply because I have friends that play FOW, Team Yankee, Saga, Bolt Action etc. I don’t have any friends that play GW games, and I’m not really in the hobby just for the sake of playing games - I can’t stand playing strangers and I hate tourneys. It’s a total social thing for me - if we can’t drink beer, listen to death metal and have a laugh and some serious banter while we push little toy soldiers around, frankly, I’m not interested in playing.

Building and painting is my de-stressor after work. I am a faculty head at a huge senior high school, and my job is full on. I interact with hundreds of people a day, and when I’m not dealing with the roller coaster of emotions that are teenagers, I’m managing adult staff (who tend to be worse). After work, I need to be alone for a few hours with just some paint, glue, plastic mans, a good scotch and some heavy metal.

Agreed... assembling/painting stuff while there's something put on the TV just to listen to from time to time is one of the ways I make sure I won't build up enough stress that one day I go to work with a flamethrower.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Thing is, GW already knows their customers only last for 2 or 3 years before maybe going into maintenance mode with minimal buying.

I paid full retail for 10+ years, with a WD subscription for 5 years.
More some years than others, but a couple hundred bux plus magazines.
I bet most others would do similarly if GW gave good reasons, treated with respect, delivered as good as it gets, and so on.
But, GW doesn't.
It takes as much as possible and gives as little as necessary.
Oh, of course, but what about the FAQs and codexes and all the pulp fiction.
Infinite zeroes still add to zero,
and half-a$$ed everything still ends up half-a$$ed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
GW recognizes that retention is not important - once they get the first year or two's spend, it always tapers off, and GW doesn't need you, so they don't care if you leave. GW got it's money.

Which is an incredibly stupid business strategy for GW to have when paired with their strategy of doing zero marketing and depending on their customers to sell the game. GW absolutely needs veteran players to stay in the hobby because they need people showing off fully painted armies in their stores, people convincing their friends to get into the game, etc. If 40k had nothing but kids whining until their parents buy them a starter box of space marines and then promptly dropping the hobby it would be the start of GW's death spiral.

Exalted.
I figure this death is in full spiral,
because the people that sell the game as it is now, well,
maybe another short generation will follow,
but the culture just isn't as deep.
Add the years of accumulated salt, and, well...
I have a bunch of models that I will never use,
and I will be giving those away when I meet the persons who need them.
I will encourage those persons to buy secondhand, to buy from China, to buy third-party,
to avoid giving GW a dime and to look forward to a 41st Age community driven ruleset.
I did buy Chapter Approved,
and promptly gifted it to a friend who will use it.
Drowning in FAQs is not my idea of a good time.
I have a few "new" White Dwarfs and am not impressed.
More pleasure from looking at pizza shop adverts.
The Battle Reports are sometimes OK,
and the fan armies are of course the highlight,
but, well, AoS, Stormcastes, Primaris...
All sorts of half-a$$ed toys with the base let to rot.
Insulting, really.
Why carry their water, when they do their best to drill holes in my bucket?

For me, it's a case of am I receiving value for my money, and the answer is definitively no. And I'm a keen painter, who spends hours cleaning up mould lines, assembling and painting (to an admittedly mediocre standard) yet I still think GW charge far too much.
Years ago you could get this many models for this much money, blah, blah, blah, this argument doesn't interest me, I understand prices will rise, and not just due to GW's costs rising, but even so, GW should be ashamed of some of their prices, and I say some, a few of the sets are priced fairly in my opinion.

 Denny wrote:
Fair enough.

I think partly it depends why you buy stuff.

I enjoy painting and modelling as much (maybe more?) than playing. It also takes me ages to paint stuff because I take my time and my wife/son also need my attention (as well as work/family/etc).

Now, if I factor in the painting time as 'fun' then some of the expensive kits don't look like too bad value for money; I'm gonna get hours of fun out of the kit before I've even put it on the table.

If you are a gamer who sees painting stuff as almost a tax for getting your fun then the value for money argument looks a lot less compelling.

I enjoy painting miniatures - I currently have a biweekly painting session getting kids into the hobby.

But I primarily paint to play.

It is why, when GW's rules started really sucking, I ditched both their games and their miniatures.

Had they continued producing overpriced minis, but also continued producing good or at least enjoyable rules, I might well still be playing their games.

Kvetching? Heck, yes!

But playing.

Now, from what I gather, the rules have started getting better again. They are fixing a lot of the problems and listening to their players again.

But... I have to say that getting back on the horse is harder than I expected - I like the new Necromunda figures, and planned on using them for Oldcromunda... but I keep finding things that I would rather spend the money on.

I have fun painting - but there are less expensive things that I can paint with the exact same amount of enjoyment.

And still play games with them - which is the whole point.

So, I can put $25 on a single plastic miniature, or I can buy a whole passel of miniatures from other companies - and get exactly the same amount of enjoyment per figure.

Heck - I would rather put the money towards a Kickstarter, and wait a year than buy a $25 character model.

Your mileage may vary, etc. but....

The Auld Grump - this week we are starting a Mordheim campaign.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

Heck - I would rather put the money towards a Kickstarter, and wait a year than buy a $25 character model.

I've mostly stopped doing this. I have a ton of KS minis I have little interest in painting, because after - usually more than - a year, I'm sick of still waiting for the mini and have lost interest. Kickstarter is worse than Early Access games at killing interest by release date, at least from my experience. That's pretty low on the scale of value. At least my Cthulhu Wars is perfectly playable without painting/assembly.

I used to buy GW's stuff because I thought I liked playing the game.

In the past year or three, I've come to realize that isn't the case. There's plenty of other better, cheaper games. But I still find myself buying the models, assembling and painting them - though I'll still seek out the cheapest price I can get and avoid the stupidly overpriced character models.

And I simply don't play their games - at least, more than in passing (all of 2 games in 8th edition, about 12 from 6th/7th and maybe a handful from 5th - prior to that, maybe a dozen games of RT & 2nd).

I have to say, I really enjoy putting the models together. A little less on the painting - I only paint because I can't afford to have someone paint my models up for me. Unfortunately, I've only gotten decent it at, but my skills aren't even 'Eavy Metal quality. Just enough to be able to have painted models on the battlefield. Not for a game, but for a session of solo mental 'pew pew'. Which I have found, is good enough for me.

Lets put it this way a space marine comander would set you back the hansome sum of £6:50 later incresed to £8 (I looked in the old White Dwarf) back in 2006 now in 2018 a space marine commander will set you back £14 for exactly the same spure. The inflation to me seemsto have neglected the fact that we have seen economic crash and a fall in the real term wages plus also the fact the inflation rate in the uk is 0.5%

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
GW recognizes that retention is not important...

In your long and sordid history with this site DD you've said some real zingers.

This might be right up the top though.

GW has also reversed that approach. In their last two financial reports (I think that's what they are called?) they specifically call out keeping customers and getting back lapsed customers as priorities.

I believe it's true that a person spends the most in their first year or so of being in the hobby, but I don't think it takes that long for the reduced or maintenance spending year in, year out to eclipse that. And if a person can be convinced to start a new army, it's like getting a new customer all over again.

One thing that hasn't changed with GW is that different products represent vastly different amounts of models for the same money. A start collecting box vs buying characters individually is a really good example.

I'm not at all convinced that people spend the most in the first year.

See, when I started I were just a nipper. I simply didn't have the cash to do stuff properly. So armies were cobbled together from well-meaning presents, and the odd bit of pocket money saving.

Now? Well, I'm doing me sums and I reckon I can afford to drop £200 on a Custards army this weekend. And I'll definitely be having a slice of whatever Morathi's army turns out to be, because Morathi.

That's money I could only dream of spending all those years ago, even adjusting for GW's own inflation.

And that's not accounting for anything else that might be in the pipeline. The year is barely started, and I'm all excite for Custards, Morathi and Undead stuff. Perhaps I'm the odd one out, but I can only speak from my own experience.

I think the prices are mostly OK, for sure I could lament vs. what prices were like back in RT and second edition when a much younger a less grey version of me got into the hobby but the reality is the detail on the models and the general construction of the sprues is genuinely fantastic and much higher than the limited single pose metals that a nostalgic me still loves.

Are there some bad examples in the current range? of course there are, but there were bad examples 20 years ago.

As far as hobbies go I find it reasonable (compare to fishing prices for example). But it all depends on what you get your fun from, how much money you have available to aid in that and ultimately does it net out at a positive experience?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And that's not accounting for anything else that might be in the pipeline. The year is barely started, and I'm all excite for Custards, Morathi and Undead stuff. Perhaps I'm the odd one out, but I can only speak from my own experience.

I think that's a fair take. I guess the only one who really has complete data on what a first time purchaser tends to buy is GW. I suspect that a new customer is sold some sort of starter type product like start collecting, maybe a codex and some paints? So maybe it's not too much.

I don't really find GW's prices to be crazy, but I don't do 2000 point games. I like 500-1000 with loads of terrain. And talking about the game before playing it so you don't get a bunch of guys with bolters vs 5 tanks.

To get started, the 'recommended bundle' is the boxed game (so 40k, AoS, whatevs), the starter paint set, glue and an undercoat spray. Or at least, it was last time I worked for GW in 2010ish.

You then invite the fledgling hobbyist down to Sunday Beginners. Each week, sometimes just once a month, they'll inevitably add something new. Might be WD, could be just a couple of paints and a brush, could be a large centre piece model - that's left up to them.

But crucially, they're not spending their own money. Because they're kids. A sub-species of human typically characterised as semi-parasitic

They can't do the 'army of their dreams'. They're not the ones going doolally on their new Necromunda board, finally having not only the funds but a wide choice of terrain kits to make it the way you've always craved since, what, 1996ish?

We are. We're the ones with the cashmonies. And being Nerds, we're used to spending our money on toys and trinkets

Heck, as well as the £200ish I may be spending on Custards, I definitely want to add even more to my Necromunda terrain collection. Currently working on a large, ground based LoS challenging pile of tubes and vats and things. I want a set of the Haemotrope reactors to add to that, and maybe some more Plasma or Prometheum pipes. Probably both. I'm looking around £70 from GW for that. Less if I nip over to Darksphere after work.

It's a rare kid that'll be able to match my spending - and that's most months (overtime rules!). Sure, some are incredibly spoiled - I know, I've served them. But they are the exception.

 Chamberlain wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And that's not accounting for anything else that might be in the pipeline. The year is barely started, and I'm all excite for Custards, Morathi and Undead stuff. Perhaps I'm the odd one out, but I can only speak from my own experience.

I think that's a fair take. I guess the only one who really has complete data on what a first time purchaser tends to buy is GW. I suspect that a new customer is sold some sort of starter type product like start collecting, maybe a codex and some paints? So maybe it's not too much.

GW has been tracking customer spend for years and years. They know very clearly what the arc is for a typical customer, and they know for a fact, supported by years of spend data, that most customers are young guys who buy a lot in the first year or two, and them taper down dramatically, to the point that GW simply doesn't care if they stay on or not, as long as there is a new guy coming in buying a new army, and all the stuff that comes with it.

Dakka is the exception for people who continue playing, and especially those who continue buying.

With Apocalypse / WFB 8 / End Times / AoS, GW found that they could sell a few more models to bulk things up, along with really expensive centerpieces to older gamers if it was outlandish, beyond anything that they had ever seen or bought before, supported by garish OTT rules. Then GW found that they could sell all-new Fantasy not-Space Marines to those same older gamers. Then GW figured out that a simpler rulebook would help hook new people.

But once people have their centerpieces and not-Space Marines, GW knows that spend will drop like a stone, and they're OK with that. I skipped out on hordes and ET and not-SMs. I did buy a smattering of Made To Order, but it's not much money from a GW POV. GW knows I'm not a customer any more, and I've finally figured that out, too.

When I got into 40k in the 90s, a smaller model on a 40mm base like a troll, tyranid warrior, ogre or whatever was $16. Vehicle sized things on a similar base like a warwalker or a hive tyrant was $35-42. A single space marine with a lascannon was $13. Two metal miniatures with special weapons like melta or plasma would also be $13 Characters were $13 and Special characters were $18-25. Most fantasy command groups (champion, musiscian, standard bearer) were $15.

GW prices are pretty much the same when you look at things in todays dollars. The only difference is you are getting current plastic kits instead of 90s metal.

Do i think $50 beasts of nurgle and $45 primaris characters are overpriced? Yep. But they tend to get balanced out by start collecting boxes, starter sets and similar products. When the General's Handbook 2017 and AoS Skirmish came out, GW also put out some money saving bundles there as well.

My personal approach is to use ebay bits sellers and build each character I want exactly how I want them. My primaris captain is an dark imperium LT with a head swap, shoulder pad swap and weapons from vanguard and sternguard kits. Oh, I think I may have given him a 30k helmet crest. I made a chaplain in a very similar fashion. I plan on doing something similar with cataphractii legs, a grey knight terminator chest piece and parts to make a primaris librarian. No way I was going to spend $45 a pop on those guys. But if I did, it would really be okay given the deal I've already gotten on Primaris stuff from Dark Imperium.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
GW has been tracking customer spend for years and years. They know very clearly what the arc is for a typical customer, and they know for a fact, supported by years of spend data, that most customers are young guys who buy a lot in the first year or two, and them taper down dramatically, to the point that GW simply doesn't care if they stay on or not, as long as there is a new guy coming in buying a new army, and all the stuff that comes with it.

The last two financial documents talk about GW putting plans in place to get back lost customers. So I don't think it's quite as simple as "GW simply doesn't care if they stay on or not." That might have been true during the decline of sales under the previous CEO, but now they seem vary interested in getting lapsed customers back-- though I think what they want them to come back for is another pass through the sales process that new customers go through. Another buy in, another year or two and then dropping off. Then maybe GW will try something else to get them to do it all again.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I'm not at all convinced that people spend the most in the first year.

See, when I started I were just a nipper. I simply didn't have the cash to do stuff properly. So armies were cobbled together from well-meaning presents, and the odd bit of pocket money saving.

Now? Well, I'm doing me sums and I reckon I can afford to drop £200 on a Custards army this weekend. And I'll definitely be having a slice of whatever Morathi's army turns out to be, because Morathi.

That's money I could only dream of spending all those years ago, even adjusting for GW's own inflation.

And that's not accounting for anything else that might be in the pipeline. The year is barely started, and I'm all excite for Custards, Morathi and Undead stuff. Perhaps I'm the odd one out, but I can only speak from my own experience.

Perfectly well explained.

But although people like yourself are dropping money GWs way, they are pricing out the current nippers. In 10 years, there won't be the influx of people like yourself flinging them money. GW seriously need to think a little bit more long term. Are the next generations of nippers spending pocket money with GW anymore?

I know the local store can't keep the $20/£10 "Easy to Build" boxes on the shelf. I think they're totally in range of most nippers. And with them including data sheets and the core rules for open play being free, I think there's definitely a child friendly way into 40k and AoS right now.

It also may actually give an overall more enjoyable hobby experience than those setting out to do 2000 point tournament games.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:
But although people like yourself are dropping money GWs way, they are pricing out the current nippers. In 10 years, there won't be the influx of people like yourself flinging them money. GW seriously need to think a little bit more long term. Are the next generations of nippers spending pocket money with GW anymore?

My nephews aren't. They're more than happy with the hobby, but their money goes to either CCGs or GW's competitors. They don't have a particular problem with GW - they got into 40k with Dark Vengeance as a Christmas present.

This, again, comes down to GW not having a pocket money price point anymore.

When they're older and have more money to spend, they've been giving money to the likes of Corvus Belli, Wyrd, Knight Models, Wizards of the Coast, etc. And those are likely who they will continue to give money to.

Being able to go and drop $20-$30au and get something actually meaningful is a huge draw for the younger crowd.

 John Prins wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

Heck - I would rather put the money towards a Kickstarter, and wait a year than buy a $25 character model.

I've mostly stopped doing this. I have a ton of KS minis I have little interest in painting, because after - usually more than - a year, I'm sick of still waiting for the mini and have lost interest. Kickstarter is worse than Early Access games at killing interest by release date, at least from my experience. That's pretty low on the scale of value. At least my Cthulhu Wars is perfectly playable without painting/assembly.

*Shrug* It could just be that I tend to go for Kickstarters for minis that I know I will still be interested in, a year later.

Reaper Bones - not tied to any system, and useful for RPGs as well as wargaming. And cheap minis.

Mantic fantasy games - which allow me to use some of the above mentioned Reaper Bones. (Less interested in their SF, for some reason.) And cheap minis. (Right now, waiting on Terrain Crate.)

Heroines in Sensible Shoes - my wife is a female gamer, and she wears sensible shoes... mostly. (Doc Martins are sensible, right?)

Or just be that, except for the Reaper Bones, I tend to 'fire and forget' - not worrying or even much thinking about the minis until they are in my grubby little mitts.

More often, I am sorry that I didn't pledge on a given Kickstarter. (The mediaeval CMoN Zombicide - should have, didn't.)

Mind you, I only back one or two Kickstarters in a given year.

The Auld Grump

What I dont understand is the disparty in prices just between the UK and Aus.

A plastic Contemptor dread on the UK store is $35 pounds($61.81AUD)

On the AUS store that same kit is $100 ($56.62 pounds).

Thats a fairly drastic price diffrence.

Now that is a strange one. i think Gw just doesn't like you guys.

i know its been like this for a while and i believe it was when the kangaroo bucks were worth quite more but as it changed gw kept the price or is adjusting them slower for some reason.

Ha with an over 40% price hike I am inclined to agree with you.

But it makes it prohibitively expensive.

I would imagine that if the price point was at comparable to that of the UK or US stores they would sell more in AUS.
Mind you Im not sure how large of a market Australia to them so it may simply be a case of not caring about us at all lol.

 Klayhero wrote:
What I dont understand is the disparty in prices just between the UK and Aus.

Probably something to do with Australia's entire import situation. You know, the ones that make you spend $120 AU for a video game? This isn't just a GW problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Tax. It seems to boil down to that most companies don't really want to do business on the other side of the globe unless they can charge them out the yin-yang. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume GW keeps a distribution center somewhere in that area rather than ship halfway around the world (Sydney, given how they're looking for an accounts officer in that city) every time they get an order. So they have to deal with import taxes on shipments over $1000 AU as well as distribute across a big country*, which bulks up the cost of doing business. This doesn't account for the entire cost increase (as the wikipedia article states), but it accounts for some of it. The rest of it is that you folks - because of this very problem - are used to paying more for basically everything, therefore continue to swallow high prices**.

*same as with Canada, but in Canada we're mostly along the US border, where Australians are mostly along the coasts of a good sized continent.
**equally true in Canada, which again, has most of the population close to the US border, but we still pay a lot more for stuff like Cars and appliances, JUST BECAUSE Canadians are willing to pay more.

Once upon a time the £UK was worth three times the AUD$. When that stopped being the case, GW never really updated.

Then when AoS came out each release was more expensive than the last (a way of "not doing price increases" by just increasing products rather than a whole product line), and we bore the brunt of that (along with NZ, Japan and a few other places in similar situations) because our prices are so much more than the US and UK.

It's not getting any better, and it's why finding retailers with deep discounts and, yes, even 'alternate methods', have become more popular/sought after.

 Klayhero wrote:
What I dont understand is the disparty in prices just between the UK and Aus.

Go price Flames of War in NZ, US and the UK, and let us know if they're the same in constant USD or GBP.

And this is relevant how, DD?

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I'm not at all convinced that people spend the most in the first year.

See, when I started I were just a nipper. I simply didn't have the cash to do stuff properly. So armies were cobbled together from well-meaning presents, and the odd bit of pocket money saving.

Now? Well, I'm doing me sums and I reckon I can afford to drop £200 on a Custards army this weekend. And I'll definitely be having a slice of whatever Morathi's army turns out to be, because Morathi.

That's money I could only dream of spending all those years ago, even adjusting for GW's own inflation.

And that's not accounting for anything else that might be in the pipeline. The year is barely started, and I'm all excite for Custards, Morathi and Undead stuff. Perhaps I'm the odd one out, but I can only speak from my own experience.

Perfectly well explained.

But although people like yourself are dropping money GWs way, they are pricing out the current nippers. In 10 years, there won't be the influx of people like yourself flinging them money. GW seriously need to think a little bit more long term. Are the next generations of nippers spending pocket money with GW anymore?

I don’t know that that’s right.

What I found when I last worked for GW (2009/2010, so can’t claim to be completely up to date, natch), parents were happy to throw money at the Hobby, because, and I quote, ’it’s not another bloody XBox’

Now of course that’s not gonna be universal, but it was a big slice of my weekly sales. That we effectively ran a Sunday youth club as well added to that appeal. Nerdy kids and ‘normal’ kids socialising.

What I saw was the pocket money being spent on paints and brushes. But Mum and Dad were happy to buy the kits for them, because they saw the educational value of the Hobby. And here’s where you can tell I’m a genuine ex-till Monkey... the Hobby is educational. It helps to develop patience, strategic thinking, mental arithmetic, reading comprehension and of course social skills. Heck, the non-dice rolling side also helps with artistic expression and hand/eye coordination.

Even better for my target was the number of families who’d Hobby together.

So based on my anecdotes, I’m not seeing kids being priced out. But it is only an anecdote. And interestingly, not an actual defence of GW’s prices.

that most customers are young guys who buy a lot in the first year or two, and them taper down dramatically, to the point that GW simply doesn't care if they stay on or not, as long as there is a new guy coming in buying a new army, and all the stuff that comes with it.

I'm not sure if that is still the case. The rise in geek culture over the last few years that allows grown men to own this stuff now allows the end-30s to come back and share the hobby with their kids. And they do spend a lot. Those are the guys who buy titan maniples and they're more common than one would think. In my town the GW store is always filled with college students who usually go on massive spending sprees once they land their first well paid job, and most of them come back at some point even if they gravitate to other systems after a while.
I think GW needs to keep these guys as well, they've got the money and a kept customer is tons better (i.e. cheaper for the company) than a newly recruited one.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I'm not at all convinced that people spend the most in the first year.

See, when I started I were just a nipper. I simply didn't have the cash to do stuff properly. So armies were cobbled together from well-meaning presents, and the odd bit of pocket money saving.

Now? Well, I'm doing me sums and I reckon I can afford to drop £200 on a Custards army this weekend. And I'll definitely be having a slice of whatever Morathi's army turns out to be, because Morathi.

That's money I could only dream of spending all those years ago, even adjusting for GW's own inflation.

And that's not accounting for anything else that might be in the pipeline. The year is barely started, and I'm all excite for Custards, Morathi and Undead stuff. Perhaps I'm the odd one out, but I can only speak from my own experience.

Perfectly well explained.

But although people like yourself are dropping money GWs way, they are pricing out the current nippers. In 10 years, there won't be the influx of people like yourself flinging them money. GW seriously need to think a little bit more long term. Are the next generations of nippers spending pocket money with GW anymore?

Had a twelve year old kid come into the club recently with his mom,he was very interested in 40k. We talked for a long while and we showed him stuff. I then warned his mom that this stuff could get very expensive very fast. She shrugged and said that all hobbies are expensive and that he had like eight years worth of LEGO purchases and presents they could sell to finance it to begin with. And she was happy it was a varied hobby that also had a lot of social interaction. I think parents are used to kids toys and hobbies being very expensive. Kids hobbies aren’t just pocket money affairs, parents take an interest and encourage the ones they like, with both participation and money. And as a father of a three year old I can certainly vouch for LEGO easily getting up there with GW in terms of spending...

GW prices things the way they do because while plastic may not cost much, brick and mortar stores, development, design, and employees costs money. You're not paying for the plastic, you're paying for the shop to exist. Remember, Mantic and Wyrd don't run hundreds of expensive brick and mortar stores where you can play their games. Additionally, GW brick and mortar shops can't sell Magic cards, which is what many LFGSs actually survive on.

I did some calculations using CPI a while ago, and the price increases, while significant, aren't as bad as they would seem at a glance. The UK CPI is up 117% since 1990 (though this doesn't say anything about disposable income), so it's only natural you'd see a doubling of prices (at least). Automisation can only do so much, and you can't staff GWs with robots (however much it might seem they have). GW's costs aren't manufacturing, they're blackshirts/redshirts and assorted others, which they have many, many, many more of these days.Now, there's much less turnover of certain units, such as Blood Dragon Knights, HQs etc., which means they need to charge more, as it's not the actual plastic you're paying for.

GW's profits haven't been very high for the past 10-12 years (not counting the last 18 month's uptick), and possibly negative if you only counted toy soldiers, with royalties from Dawn of War etc. covering the shortfall. Don't get me wrong, I wish GW lowered their prices, but they have a duty to their shareholders, and that is to pay dividends, and their workers, which is to run a sustainable model which will keep them employed. I honestly think they've lost more players due to downright shoddy rules during 6th and 7th than they have to expensive models, which I think 8th edition is showing. If they lowered their prices, would be spend more or less on GW? I'm not sure. Would my plastic crack pile of shame grow? Possibly, but GW's margins would be lower, so even if they shifted more product, they might not be as profitable.

@ChazSexington.
If you are saying that rather than focus on quality game play like game companies do, to grow and keep a customer base.
GW spends a small fortune (appx 56% of gross profit,) on a chain of B&M shops for recruitment.
(Which has been proven to be the least cost effective method of recruitment , post internet age.)

And that the reason GW charge so much is because they have an inefficient business model, then I agree.

I can understand those benefiting from a good B&M store supporting it.

But expecting ALL GW customers to pay for the few that use B&M stores?Nah, its just seems wrong to me...

That's still an argument I find it hard to get my head round.

Any and all business overheads for any business that wants to be successful eventually end up being paid for by the end consumer.

You say it's 'proven' to be the least cost effective. Got a link to that proof, as I'm interested in seeing if it deals specifically with GW's market, or something different.

 Mymearan wrote:

Had a twelve year old kid come into the club recently with his mom,he was very interested in 40k. We talked for a long while and we showed him stuff. I then warned his mom that this stuff could get very expensive very fast. She shrugged and said that all hobbies are expensive and that he had like eight years worth of LEGO purchases and presents they could sell to finance it to begin with. And she was happy it was a varied hobby that also had a lot of social interaction. I think parents are used to kids toys and hobbies being very expensive. Kids hobbies aren’t just pocket money affairs, parents take an interest and encourage the ones they like, with both participation and money. And as a father of a three year old I can certainly vouch for LEGO easily getting up there with GW in terms of spending...

Work partner's kid has hobby that costs 5k a year. That's a lot of miniatures...

Yeah models are out of pocket money reach generally. But not out of hobby budget neccessarily.

Lanrak wrote:
@ChazSexington.
If you are saying that rather than focus on quality game play like game companies do, to grow and keep a customer base.
GW spends a small fortune (appx 56% of gross profit,) on a chain of B&M shops for recruitment.
(Which has been proven to be the least cost effective method of recruitment , post internet age.)

And that the reason GW charge so much is because they have an inefficient business model, then I agree.

I can understand those benefiting from a good B&M store supporting it.

But expecting ALL GW customers to pay for the few that use B&M stores?Nah, its just seems wrong to me...

It might be inefficient at generating max profit in the short term, but this method has solidified their hold on the market, which is good for long term growth.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That's still an argument I find it hard to get my head round.

Any and all business overheads for any business that wants to be successful eventually end up being paid for by the end consumer.

You say it's 'proven' to be the least cost effective. Got a link to that proof, as I'm interested in seeing if it deals specifically with GW's market, or something different.

Fair point, but should we be expected to fund a terrible idea, the B6M chain, via higher price points ? Especially as many of us get no benefit from them, apart from paints I don't think I've purchased anything from my local GW since the last Space Hulk redo

I also think GW kind of ignored the Internet for far too long, the largest two UK 40k Battle channels have 100k subs between them, and whilst you obviously cant exactly translate subs into sales its a lot of eyeballs at I'd imagine way lower cost than a shop

I'm also yet to see any evidence that it's a 'terrible idea'.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I'm also yet to see any evidence that it's a 'terrible idea'.

terrible might be over-egging due to the PTSD flashes I have regarding my local GW, but the financials suggest its not too efficient moneywise but GW can (and will) do as it please and the only real option is to buy or not buy and at the moment I'm fairly in the not group

Being expensive isn't the same as being inefficient or undesirable though.

GW are the major gaming presence on the UK high street (well....typically just off said High Street!). If someone walks into a GW store curious about the Hobby, it's GW solely benefitting.

If someone wandered into say, Darksphere (using that because it's local), then you've got dozens of different lines all demanding your attention and hoping for your money.

If GW closed all their shops, that's gonna affect their immediate sales volumes, and severely affect their recruitment.

But massively cut their overhead to the point where it's almost cost neutral. (If you want citations check any financial report for pretty much any year that's easily available.)

It's a moot point, as they're now so far down the path of their own chain it's totally infeasible for them to change direction, but it is totally possible they could have been just as successful as they are now with much lower fixed and variable costs if they just stuck to making stuff and selling stuff to other retailers at wholesale.

Heck, I'd even go as far as to say one could potentially make a case they may have done better because operating in an environment where they're in direct shelf competition with other companies may have increased focus on making a competitively priced and well received product at management level whereas having a certain percentage of your customers entirely within your eco system paying full retail isn't going to motivate you to really push yourself to the utmost.

It’s not about the profit generated, but the hype.

For a crude and by no means accurate analogy, but the the best I can think of after three pints (day off tomorrow, so natch I’m in the pub).....

You’ve made a movie. You’ve spent a good amount of money just getting it made. You’re pretty sure you’ve made a decent movie that people enjoy.

But few people have heard of your source material. It may be a niche but well respected in its own circle novel, or something completely original.

Do you....

A) Launch a hype campaign, paying additional money to promote your film on tv, radio, trailers and internet, hoping that additizonal cost will be covered by the increased sales.

B) save that money, hoping that pure word of mouth will do the work.

Now there’s no right or wrong answer to that particular analogy. But in reality, it’s often said the budget of any given blockbuster will be matched by the spend on advertising. Whilst it may mean even a £2,000,000 box office take is still breaking even, it’s the residuals that your profit comes in. Toys. Licensing. Home Media, Streaming, Broadcast rights.

GW is doing their own peculiar take on that. See, with their own stores they not only help mitigate shelf competition, but can cross promote their own goodies, employing fans to sell it to other Nerds.

Yes, it’s an expensive approach, no questioning that, and nor have I.

But, you have to look at the long game. With that level of control over NooBs, you can generate further entry sales. One kid stumbles in, is blown away, and their parents drop money. That kid goes back to their fellow nerds, and ropes them in. And because you’ve got the store squarely in your own pocket, with no competition within said store, all those additional sales are yours and yours alone. A well run store brings in new blood on a weekly basis, and makes it harder for people to lapse their hobby. Because as long as you’re there on the high street, you’re visible.

I myself have re-recruited a great many Hobbyists that dropped out years before (You Can’t Compete With Hormones). They’ll be tottering about town, remember their yoof, and wander on in. That’s a surprisingly easy sale, even if it’s just a single White Dwarf.

You can’t underestimate the importance of that high street presence. In itself it may never be profitable, but my word does it drive your sales. Take it away, and how do you recruit new customers? Without showing them how it all works, how to build, paint, model and play, how do you keep the sales hype going?

The stores are the lifeblood of GW, and the reason they’re the dominant force in the market (that survey thing? ICV2 or whatevs doesn’t include GW’s own sales data, so isn’t at all reliable). Because they’re there. They’re the face of the wider Wargaming Hobby. Friendly, knowledgable sales staff recruited from the Hobbyist ranks. Decent locations. Clean, well planned stores.

They know what they’re doing far better than anyone else.

As for ‘competitvely priced’? I’d genuinely argue that with GW’s present position, prices cuts could be truly catastrophic for the wider industry. I mean, PP and FFG have a fraction of the overheads of GW, and for what you’re getting aren’t as far off GW’s as one might expect. For any other company who’s sole strategy is ‘be cheaper than GW’, that could easily mean bankruptcy.

GW Stores. Doesn’t matter if you use them. Doesn’t matter if you think they’re a particularly good idea. They’re here to stay, and not because they’re some kind of half-baked vanity project.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, consider where I started - Hero Quest.

If there wasn’t WD, and the Edinburgh Store, I wouldn’t be typing this right now, because I’d never have got properly started. Those now ancient WD’s would never have been thoroughly pawed over and doodled on.

And GW as a company would be missing several tens of thousands of pounds over the past nearly 30 years.

All because of the commonly alleged ‘millstone round their neck’.

The stores work guys. They do their job.

I don't have the energy right now to tackle everything I disagree with or is simply wrong in that essay, but I'm concerned a lack of response might be interpreted as some sort of concession or agreement.

Also, written in the pub? That length of post presumably on a phone? Good lord.

Anecdotal, but not irrelevant ...

I restarted gaming through a GW store. So did my son. So did 90% of the gamers I know. I used to travel for work, and knew that, with a climbing sack and an army case in the boot, I could find a good evening's entertainment in most places. So, while undoubtedly costly, the B&M stores certainly made it much easier for me to game - and to spend a fair amount of money over an extended period of time.

Yes it's still too expensive, but I also have several gams I've bought & never played because it requires at least some effort to find ANY player locally.

Firstly, that's might be typical for the U.K. where store density is high, but it really doesn't work like anywhere else in the world for GW, and secondly, if GW stores didn't exist, there'd likely be independents fulfilling the same need for all those other games you struggle to find opponents for as well as GW.

But this is drifting away from "price" and more into "what GW could have done differently" so I'm going to bow out and try and let the thread drift back on topic.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
...

GW Stores. Doesn’t matter if you use them. Doesn’t matter if you think they’re a particularly good idea. They’re here to stay, and not because they’re some kind of half-baked vanity project.


...

The stores work guys. They do their job.

I'd hazard a guess that this only rings true in the UK. It's certainly not been my experience here in the US - to the point that "they're here to stay" is a laughable sentiment.

There used to be two GW stores in my county. Both closed years ago and haven't returned. The next closest are 1 hour north and south, respectively. Both of those don't open until noon and close up by 8pm, and are closed completely Monday and Tuesday. Moreover, they're not in what you would call "high street" by any stretch of the imagination. Now, I don't know their communities because going out there is a total hassle, but I can't imagine that they have an enormous amount of foot traffic considering those conditions.

Compare that to the biggest LGS down the road from me (~10min drive). They are open from 11am to midnight every day of the week, and it is almost always packed full. Most importantly (AFAIK), they have a healthy AoS and WH40k community with consistent stock of new items on the shelves. It's not really any surprise then that they (along with the other nearby LGSs, of which there are ~10 in the area) drove the actual GW shops out of business within a relatively short span of time.

Basically my point is many places in the US really haven't worked out for the GW Shop model, and out here they'd probably do a lot better just promoting and distributing through the local stores like WotC does with MTG or like FFG does with X-Wing.

You say laughable, but I’ve only provided personal anecdotes.

As for the US? I noted with interest that despite their lack of density, US GW stores took more money (not allowing for currency conversion) than the UK.

But even allowing for currency conversion, that suggests that head for head, they’re even more successful than their UK counterparts.

That your local scene favours GW Games is a very different subject, given the typical disdain the Intartubes claims to hold GW in.

As for the US? I noted with interest that despite their lack of density, US GW stores took more money (not allowing for currency conversion) than the UK.

Ah, I see the critical problem with much of your analysis. You think 13m is less than 10.5m!

Head for head.

Per Capita.

If I’ve got 20 shops in country A, and they collectively rake in £1,000,000

But I’ve alsp got 40 shops in country B, and they collectively rake in £1,500,00.....

Which, per capita is working out better for me?

I mean, I know I’m pissing on your chips here, and we can prove anything with ‘mere facts’, but please. Don’t misrepresent what I’ve said.

So, who's got the larger population? What's the average take of GW US per capita with a population of 300+ million, or the U.K, with 60?

You know per capita means per person. Right?



You mean per store, but are trying to sound clever.

Yes, per store, the US stores are generating a higher mean average in revenue, but they're in a country with 6 times (give or take) the population. Adjust for that per capita and you'll have a representative figure to compare the two.

For GW NA to match GW UK per capita they'd need to be turning over somewhere in the region of 78m in the same period, not 10.5m.

Per capita is not enough. You need the people within so many kilometres from the store. The population density matters. You simply can't cover the same number of people in the US with the same number of stores as in the UK.

Per store is far more reliable of an indicator.

 Chamberlain wrote:
Per capita is not enough. You need the people within so many kilometres from the store. The population density matters. You simply can't cover the same number of people in the US with the same number of stores as in the UK.

Per store is far more reliable of an indicator.

I agree, t an extent, but we're apparently discussing per capita.

That and I'd speculate the population density of the locations GW US has stores in are going to comfortably balance out the store density of GW UK. London is roughly as populous as New York, for instance, at around 8m and then the U.K. doesn't really have another city that comes close, Birmingham is apparently the second most populous at 1m.

So you've got all those other big US cities with stores, compared to my local GW in a town of around 60K.

I think holding it to per capita because a word was used incorrectly is a bit uncharitable.

I'm not actually sure the people covered do equal out. I think it's pretty much impossible for the coverage of the US with GW stores to be equivalent to the UK stores, even if there were multiples of the current number in the US.

 Chamberlain wrote:
I think holding it to per capita because a word was used incorrectly is a bit uncharitable.

Given how he's outright insulted me on this board recently, hes unlikely to receive too much charity from this particular quarter. Trying to use language you don't fully understand to try and exaggerate the authority of your post doesn't really deserve much either.

I'm not actually sure the people covered do equal out. I think it's pretty much impossible for the coverage of the US with GW stores to be equivalent to the UK stores, even if there were multiples of the current number in the US.

Having actually checked the figures now, rather than take Grotsnik at his word. There were 100 US stores vs 148 UK stores at the close of business 2017. So basically the U.K. has about 30% more stores and took about 30% more money. So, within a spit, they're making a similar amount of money per store, and doing worse by any other metric, and that's on the basis of what he meant, not what he said.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
You say laughable, but I’ve only provided personal anecdotes.

Pardon me. I meant laughable here, where I live. Let me put it another way: In my entire state, there were only 6 GW shops. Of those, the two with the highest street presence (one of which was the regional battle bunker) permanently closed down several years ago. Those that remain have pitiful hours of business (none, AFAIK, open before noon and all close at 8pm or earlier, and every single one is closed Monday-Tuesday) and are located in what would be generous to call "the outskirts" of major metropolitan areas.

The idea that GW would not survive without these 4 tiny, barely open shops - that they could not possibly be profitable or recruit new customers if they had to rely on LGS presence alone - is fairly humorous to hear for someone in my neck of the woods. When you said, "They're Here to Stay", I actually had a little chuckle as I recalled driving by workers washing off the faded remnant of the battle bunker's sign as they finished the paint on the new PetCo.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Having actually checked the figures now, rather than take Grotsnik at his word. There were 100 US stores vs 148 UK stores at the close of business 2017. So basically the U.K. has about 30% more stores and took about 30% more money. So, within a spit, they're making a similar amount of money per store, and doing worse by any other metric, and that's on the basis of what he meant, not what he said.

A friend of mine used to say that if GW ever figured out how to make retail work in the US as good as it does in the UK, they'd make loads of money. Getting the stores to the same performance level per store is huge. If it's something they can actually duplicate going forward, then they may have a lot of potential in the US going forward.

I don't think it's going to be crazy though as there are just only so many places in the US that have enough people within a reasonable distance of a particular location. Can they double their locations in North America and keep up this same money per store? I have no idea.

Would prices be better overall if GW wasn't retailing as much? I don't know. For Canada, it's been the path not taken for 20 years now. For the UK, even longer.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Isn't it right in GW's latest investor report that their own stores are the least efficient in terms of making money? That pretty much any other way of selling product makes them more money after all the costs are accounted for?

Yeah, it's on page 2.

Trade sales £48.0m operating profit: £13.5 which as a percentage is a bit over 28%

Mail order (their website) sales £21.3m operating profit £13.6m, percentage: just under 64%

Retail sales £39.6m operating profit: £1.8m. As a percentage: 4.5%

That's not wonderful. The other two numbers are, but that last one...

Yeah, but are the stores driving mail order sales? Let's face it, the stores are advertising/promotion that manages to scrape out a small profit, but would the mail order and trade sales be as high without them?

Edit: more to the point, given the stores are barely profitable, it would support the pricing regime - the prices are there to make the stores marginally profitable, and they won't drop mail order prices to compete with their own stores.

GW seems to believe that the stores do the recruiting. I have no reason to doubt them as continuing them and expanding them when they are the least efficient way to sell things makes no sense if GW is not getting some larger benefit from having them.

Hi folks.
My point is because GW does not focus on quality game play to drive interest and long term sales.It has very poor word of mouth marketing.(Comparatively.)

If you look at the history of GW , it simply carried on thinking it was stuck in 1992.And the internet was ''..a passing fad...'
There was a period of time when GW could have moved to compete in the open market of war gaming.But that was long ago.

I am not saying GW can simply drop its chain of B&M stores now.

But that it is this chain of stores that is responsible for GW pricing.If all of a sudden you do not need to find an extra £50M + every year.The need to price gouge sort of drops off...

 Chamberlain wrote:
GW seems to believe that the stores do the recruiting. I have no reason to doubt them as continuing them and expanding them when they are the least efficient way to sell things makes no sense if GW is not getting some larger benefit from having them.

I think the stores help GW sell the "idea" of gaming. I think GW knows that most people buy models with the plan to game but never (or rarely) actually play a game with the armies they buy. So the stores are helping sell the illusion of gaming which makes some folks more likely to buy stuff.

Whether or not it still works, who knows. It'd take a proper market analysis for which we don't have the information. GW probably has the numbers in house to evaluate the quality of their stores (e.g. do sales go up in a town after a store opens, even if the sales are through the store itself?).

 Xca|iber wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
You say laughable, but I’ve only provided personal anecdotes.

Pardon me. I meant laughable here, where I live. Let me put it another way: In my entire state, there were only 6 GW shops. Of those, the two with the highest street presence (one of which was the regional battle bunker) permanently closed down several years ago. Those that remain have pitiful hours of business (none, AFAIK, open before noon and all close at 8pm or earlier, and every single one is closed Monday-Tuesday) and are located in what would be generous to call "the outskirts" of major metropolitan areas.

The idea that GW would not survive without these 4 tiny, barely open shops - that they could not possibly be profitable or recruit new customers if they had to rely on LGS presence alone - is fairly humorous to hear for someone in my neck of the woods. When you said, "They're Here to Stay", I actually had a little chuckle as I recalled driving by workers washing off the faded remnant of the battle bunker's sign as they finished the paint on the new PetCo.

US demographics don't suit GW's business model, certainly, which is why there's a higher plurality of wargames/miniature games in the US (that's anecdotal btw and is just my impression. I think with regards to the US, GW doesn't quite know what to do.

And the idea isn't that GW wouldn't survive, it's that these shops are intrinsic to GW's monolithic market dominance. As you point out, short opening hours prevent adults from playing, which is one reason why I play at my LFGS (open til 10, used to be open until we finished) and not my local GW. Their LGSs' main role is not to make up the bulk of the profit - they're there for recruitment and as a place kids can play, paint, and create a community, which drives sales downstream. I'm not arguing this has not worked out as well in the US, but it has worked elsewhere.

 John Prins wrote:
Yeah, but are the stores driving mail order sales? Let's face it, the stores are advertising/promotion that manages to scrape out a small profit, but would the mail order and trade sales be as high without them?

Edit: more to the point, given the stores are barely profitable, it would support the pricing regime - the prices are there to make the stores marginally profitable, and they won't drop mail order prices to compete with their own stores.

that the webstore makes any money at all, besides exclusive models, is mildly surprising, given the majority of online retailers are usually 10-20% cheaper, I can understand buying at a B&M GW store to support it, but thats some hella potent brand loyalty voodoo for it to apply online

 Turnip Jedi wrote:


that the webstore makes any money at all, besides exclusive models, is mildly surprising, given the majority of online retailers are usually 10-20% cheaper, I can understand buying at a B&M GW store to support it, but thats some hella potent brand loyalty voodoo for it to apply online

For some time Element and Firestorm are severely cut when it comes to range availability. Take a look on their Age of Sigmar items - most old stuff, though not labeled as web store only, is still not available. And these items are not even "waiting for stock"- they are just branded as out of stock with the manufacturer. This has forced my hand on buying from their official store.

wasn't aware of that, been running on minimal GW purchases for a while now, any info or rumours as to why ?

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
wasn't aware of that, been running on minimal GW purchases for a while now, any info or rumours as to why ?

I have no idea. All I know is that all the new ranges like stormcast, kharadron, fyreslayers etc are always on stock and you can order anything from the range (99% sure from memory) while other kits that aren't even older ones, cast in metal or resin can't be bought anymore from both element and firestorm (and even wayland as I casually stroll through their site). These kits aren't branded as webstore only yet you have no other choice...

Putting aside the obvious and easy accusation that they're manipulating their customers into buying direct to realise the most profit, GW are apparently suffering legitimate capacity issues at the moment.

Having worked in an industry where my suppliers were also my competition, take it from me it is in no way unusual for a company with limited stocks on hand to prioritse its own channels over third parties.

If once we see in a financial report that they've addressed those issues (not guaranteed, but we won't see it anywhere else, and it is the sort of thing you'd want to reassure your investors you've sorted) and the problem persists, then the more nefarious reason may also become the most likely.

Mad doc must have a thumping hangover. Hes not been back in here

 ChazSexington wrote:
US demographics don't suit GW's business model, certainly, which is why there's a higher plurality of wargames/miniature games in the US (that's anecdotal btw and is just my impression. I think with regards to the US, GW doesn't quite know what to do.

And the idea isn't that GW wouldn't survive, it's that these shops are intrinsic to GW's monolithic market dominance. As you point out, short opening hours prevent adults from playing, which is one reason why I play at my LFGS (open til 10, used to be open until we finished) and not my local GW. Their LGSs' main role is not to make up the bulk of the profit - they're there for recruitment and as a place kids can play, paint, and create a community, which drives sales downstream. I'm not arguing this has not worked out as well in the US, but it has worked elsewhere.

In the US, the overwhelming majority of GW gaming is in basements and garages, or at schools, not in the store. Unlike the UK, we are a country with lots of space.

 Turnip Jedi wrote:

that the webstore makes any money at all, besides exclusive models, is mildly surprising, given the majority of online retailers are usually 10-20% cheaper, I can understand buying at a B&M GW store to support it, but thats some hella potent brand loyalty voodoo for it to apply online

Availability issues would be my guess. It's hit or miss ordering from webstores if they don't keep their inventory up to date (or even if they do). GW generally has what they say they do.

One of the guys in my weekly group buys everything through GW's web store. He buys it and 3 days later he has it. The other reason he gave is that 15% off but pay shipping from a reseller is often more than no discount but free shipping.

As much as I despise most of their games, the one I do actually like (lotr/hobbit) I can only get through mail order, which is cheaper to do at home than bother driving to their broom closet to have to hear how I should buy primaris garbage when all I want is a damn gundabad warband.

 Chamberlain wrote:
One of the guys in my weekly group buys everything through GW's web store. He buys it and 3 days later he has it. The other reason he gave is that 15% off but pay shipping from a reseller is often more than no discount but free shipping.

Maybe a Canadian thing, but there's a whiff of justification about that, as pretty much every major (and most not so major) online seller offers free shipping as well as a discount. There's usually a minimum spend, but there is with GW.com too.

Here's some more 'perspective' on GW's insane prices.

AoS Tzaangor Box = AUD$70
40K Tzaangor Box w/10 Autopistols/Chainswords = AUD$77
Tzaangor Upgrade Sprue w/5 Autopistols/Chainswords = AUD$20

Explain that.

The cost of the upgrade sprue, or the fact that the 40K box isn't $90?

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Chamberlain wrote:
One of the guys in my weekly group buys everything through GW's web store. He buys it and 3 days later he has it. The other reason he gave is that 15% off but pay shipping from a reseller is often more than no discount but free shipping.

Maybe a Canadian thing, but there's a whiff of justification about that, as pretty much every major (and most not so major) online seller offers free shipping as well as a discount. There's usually a minimum spend, but there is with GW.com too.

Thunder games is $13.50 flat shipping, free on $150. Meeplemart is $10 flat shipping, free on $200. I'm sure there are others, but they tend to be like that. Main issue I think is availability/stock levels. The pricing does sound like justification because $80 is free shipping from GW. So there's probably only a small range where it actually makes sense to go with GW. Although there is something to be said for a courier getting it to you in 3 days every time.

eBay is my go to source. Buying on the sprue from UK sellers means I basically get access to their pricing despite any GW mandated embargo and shipping is reasonable. It takes about 10-15 business days most times. I'm fine with that. Other people in my gaming group aren't.

I have very rarely bought from GW's website, but the couple times I have it was because of availability, not hitting the price threshold to get free shipping from the local online discounters and web exclusive items.

As a Brit, and a younger one at that, I think I largely agree with Mad Doc - in my own experience.

I don't pretend to know the money they take in, both in the UK and US, and I'm not really thinking about "per capita" stuff either, but I can certainly say that in my own anecdotal experience, GW brick and mortar stores seem pretty solid to me.

Knowing that in practically every large town or city there's a GW, with people in, stock, somewhere just to go in and have a chat, and there's a degree of consistency between each store is comforting, I guess. I've not felt that in any non-GW gaming store, at all - possibly because there isn't really any single other chain of stores that match them for high street presence. Whereas a GW can nearly always be seen somewhere, and if it can be seen, I'm going in there, damn it!

By having this chain where only their own product is sold, they have some security in that fact. And by having that high street presence, they benefit from recognisability. I doubt I'd be so much in the hobby if not for GW stores being so omnipresent for me.

I don't have solid concrete facts or statistics, but I can personally say that I feel them having stores in the UK at the very least is good.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Here's some more 'perspective' on GW's insane prices.

AoS Tzaangor Box = AUD$70
40K Tzaangor Box w/10 Autopistols/Chainswords = AUD$77
Tzaangor Upgrade Sprue w/5 Autopistols/Chainswords = AUD$20

Explain that.

its the Shark and Jellyfish infested waters, along with all the face eating spiders on land, means freight companys charge danger money to ship to Ozv

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
As a Brit, and a younger one at that, I think I largely agree with Mad Doc - in my own experience.

I don't pretend to know the money they take in, both in the UK and US, and I'm not really thinking about "per capita" stuff either, but I can certainly say that in my own anecdotal experience, GW brick and mortar stores seem pretty solid to me.

Knowing that in practically every large town or city there's a GW, with people in, stock, somewhere just to go in and have a chat, and there's a degree of consistency between each store is comforting, I guess. I've not felt that in any non-GW gaming store, at all - possibly because there isn't really any single other chain of stores that match them for high street presence. Whereas a GW can nearly always be seen somewhere, and if it can be seen, I'm going in there, damn it!

By having this chain where only their own product is sold, they have some security in that fact. And by having that high street presence, they benefit from recognisability. I doubt I'd be so much in the hobby if not for GW stores being so omnipresent for me.

I don't have solid concrete facts or statistics, but I can personally say that I feel them having stores in the UK at the very least is good.

What you're not allowing for is that if GW hadn't done what they've done, the retail landscape for nerd gaming would be a completely different place. There would then absolutely be space in the market for a chain of independents who sold not only GW but lots of other games and product from other associated niches like RPGs, CCGs and board games too. As it stands, an Indy in the U.K. is often going to be limited in where it's viable to areas where there's enough population to support a store without GW product, otherwise it's immediately setting itself in competition with the manufacturer of the most popular brands. I know from conversations with the owner of one of my nearest indies (almost 50 miles away, case in point) that even offering discount doesn't even necessarily work, people are illogical and there's a percentage who will go to the GW store regardless. Anecdotally, there was apparently an independent that opened exactly opposite a GW, advertising the discount in the window, and even then couldn't make it work.

TLDR The assumption that the gaming shop landscape in the U.K. would be worse without GW stores is quite possibly a faulty one, but we'll never know.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
As a Brit, and a younger one at that, I think I largely agree with Mad Doc - in my own experience.

I don't pretend to know the money they take in, both in the UK and US, and I'm not really thinking about "per capita" stuff either, but I can certainly say that in my own anecdotal experience, GW brick and mortar stores seem pretty solid to me.

Knowing that in practically every large town or city there's a GW, with people in, stock, somewhere just to go in and have a chat, and there's a degree of consistency between each store is comforting, I guess. I've not felt that in any non-GW gaming store, at all - possibly because there isn't really any single other chain of stores that match them for high street presence. Whereas a GW can nearly always be seen somewhere, and if it can be seen, I'm going in there, damn it!

By having this chain where only their own product is sold, they have some security in that fact. And by having that high street presence, they benefit from recognisability. I doubt I'd be so much in the hobby if not for GW stores being so omnipresent for me.

I don't have solid concrete facts or statistics, but I can personally say that I feel them having stores in the UK at the very least is good.

What you're not allowing for is that if GW hadn't done what they've done, the retail landscape for nerd gaming would be a completely different place. There would then absolutely be space in the market for a chain of independents who sold not only GW but lots of other games and product from other associated niches like RPGs, CCGs and board games too. As it stands, an Indy in the U.K. is often going to be limited in where it's viable to areas where there's enough population to support a store without GW product, otherwise it's immediately setting itself in competition with the manufacturer of the most popular brands. I know from conversations with the owner of one of my nearest indies (almost 50 miles away, case in point) that even offering discount doesn't even necessarily work, people are illogical and there's a percentage who will go to the GW store regardless. Anecdotally, there was apparently an independent that opened exactly opposite a GW, advertising the discount in the window, and even then couldn't make it work.

TLDR The assumption that the gaming shop landscape in the U.K. would be worse without GW stores is quite possibly a faulty one, but we'll never know.

We have a comic shop that is literally 20-30 yards away from the local GW. They've just started stocking GW product at a discount. I'd love to know how many people will go there, especially on days when the GW is closed and they're open.

I'd wager it's not as many as they hope.

Probably not. There's a peculiar snobbery amongst the shopping public which I've never quite been able to fathom where a particular brand or retailer seems to be considered the "proper" one, and some very illogical buying decisions stem from it.

I know for a fact that on one occasion, and suspect probably on many more, that, while working for the third largest company in the sector, with over 100 sites across the country (so not a small concern,) I've pitched for business that I've lost to the largest operator, despite actually being cheaper. Brands have value and people be stupid, I guess.

Well, we know that GW stores have stuff first. If you want it right away, the GW store is a better bet than your FLGS. If you're looking for less common retail units, the GW store is a better bet to find the item because they stock more GW product than your FLGS. The GW store is quicker to re-stock, especially on the less common units. The GW store probably has the full range of paints on hand. The GW store can order stuff and get it in quicker than the FLGS can. The GW store guy probably knows more about painting and building minis if you need advice.

Maybe you play at the GW store regularly. Should you support the store with your purchases? Some people feel this way. It's not all about just cold hard cash mathematics for everyone. Maybe they've had bad experiences in that NotSoFLGS across the street and they wouldn't drop a dime there no matter what the discount. Maybe they only want to go to one store and go home, rather than trolling several stores for the best possible discount. Time is valuable too, especially if the shops are NOT literally across the street from each other.

So yeah, I can see reasons to just go to GW and ignore the possible discounts elsewhere. If you're tight on cash and free on time, it's the wrong decision, but chasing the lowest possible price on things can also be the wrong decision in some respects as well. I try to do one-stop shopping for groceries when I can, because I don't want to spend hours running around town. That means going to where the best combinations of discounts can be had, though figuring that out takes valuable time too.

Are the GW stores in the Great White North of a decent size ?

Because the ones in the UK, for the most part, are kind of cupboard-like, meaning they usually can't fit a wide range and are borderline impractical for gaming, maybe I'm a tad biased as both my local indies are far better spaces and the one that stocks GW has a range on par with my nearst GW

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
Are the GW stores in the Great White North of a decent size ?

Because the ones in the UK, for the most part, are kind of cupboard-like, meaning they usually can't fit a wide range and are borderline impractical for gaming, maybe I'm a tad biased as both my local indies are far better spaces and the one that stocks GW has a range on par with my nearst GW

Not so large as to carry everything, but far more than your FLGS will devote space/stock money towards. Of the two that I've visited, one is maybe 5m wide and 20m deep, while the other is maybe 5m x 30m. The first is somewhat impractical for gaming - 2 tables, while the other is okay for casual gaming, but you're not holding events there or anything. I don't think we have any FLGS in the area with comparable stocking, though I haven't been to all of the stores either.

How do GW stores hold events anyway? Do they rent out space? I know baaack in the day when they still did grand tournaments they would rent a convention space for it, I loved going to those.

I think even large GW stores are intentionally under stocked to force people to buy online. The local GW is quite large floor area wise and still only carries a fraction of the range, they stock their shelves very inefficiently. The FLGS down the road has a similar range to the GW but packs it in to a small space where only the new release stuff gets the front of boxes facing the customer and everything else is packed so the side of the box faces the customer.

dosiere wrote:
How do GW stores hold events anyway? Do they rent out space? I know baaack in the day when they still did grand tournaments they would rent a convention space for it, I loved going to those.

My local GW holds small events, it has I guess the capacity for four 4x4 tables. There's probably enough space for up to eight of them if the painting table was pushed in to the corner and the tables butted up against each other, but I don't know if the manager actually has that many tables. I've never actually been to an event there, but I know they have them.

 John Prins wrote:

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
Are the GW stores in the Great White North of a decent size ?

Because the ones in the UK, for the most part, are kind of cupboard-like, meaning they usually can't fit a wide range and are borderline impractical for gaming, maybe I'm a tad biased as both my local indies are far better spaces and the one that stocks GW has a range on par with my nearst GW

Not so large as to carry everything, but far more than your FLGS will devote space/stock money towards. Of the two that I've visited, one is maybe 5m wide and 20m deep, while the other is maybe 5m x 30m. The first is somewhat impractical for gaming - 2 tables, while the other is okay for casual gaming, but you're not holding events there or anything. I don't think we have any FLGS in the area with comparable stocking, though I haven't been to all of the stores either.

5mx30m?
150square meters?
1600square feet?
That is a large area.
Families of 5 live in spaces smaller than that.
Our current apartment is only about 100square meters, maybe a bit more.
2 baths, and families of four are normal in this complex.

 jeff white wrote:

5mx30m?
150square meters?
1600square feet?
That is a large area.

I'm guesstimating, I have not actually taken a tape measure to the store. It might be 4x25, Still decently large, it's a 'main street' retail store in a 30+ year old building in Toronto, but nowhere near downtown. I found a picture of the middle 3rd of the store:


Apparently it has six tables? I usually go to the closer, smaller one.

Well a 6'x4' table requires about 4 x 3.2m of space if you want 1m of clearance around it, you might want more like 1.5m if you want people to be able to walk past each other around the sides of the table.

So you could probably comfortably fit 6 and maybe squeeze 7 tables in to a store that was 5m wide and 30m deep.

A couple of GW stores I visited in the US were in absurdly narrow but very long shops, it seems to be a thing in North America, though the ones I visited were probably more like 15 metres deep.

Mostly got no issues with their prices, the local GW has to pay for rent which would be about $300-500 a week plus utilities then the managers wages like $50-55K and to be really profitable, you can't compare GW to other game companies until they have their own brick and mortar stores, if it wasn't for the stores i'd drop the hobby, so for me i'll spend as much as they need to keep the company alive and thriving because i know i have somewhere i can go to relax or find a game, not go to some random club and hope people bring warhammer and possibly waste a whole day watching people play games i'm not interested in. That said some models are so expensive i will never buy them, like the stormcast dragon or a bloodthirster, sorry but no, that 1 model is a whole fortnight of rent, i'd rather be two weeks ahead in rent that pay that much for 1 model, i'd rather drip feed my hobby each fortnight with a new box or blister pack.

iron_within88 wrote:
Mostly got no issues with their prices, the local GW has to pay for rent which would be about $300-500 a week...

And the rest.

That said some models are so expensive i will never buy them, like the stormcast dragon or a bloodthirster, sorry but no, that 1 model is a whole fortnight of rent, i'd rather be two weeks ahead in rent that pay that much for 1 model

You only pay $170 a fortnight for rent? Lucky bastard I'm trying to find a place to live in Melbourne and I'm more than likely going to end up paying more than that *per week*.

Chamberlain wrote:GW seems to believe that the stores do the recruiting. I have no reason to doubt them as continuing them and expanding them when they are the least efficient way to sell things makes no sense if GW is not getting some larger benefit from having them.

Maybe it's a tax wright off thing? Stores loose money but you save on taxes. I don't get it but that's what I keep reading about other companies doing things like this. What I don't get is if it's to recruit, why are lots of stores in the middle of no where? Basically these stores have customers because they know where to go to, so that means they are not new recruits/fresh blood.

iron_within88 wrote:Mostly got no issues with their prices, the local GW has to pay for rent which would be about $300-500 a week plus utilities then the managers wages like $50-55K and to be really profitable

Rent is that cheap? Wow I thought it would be double that.

That said, finding out other people's hobbies now, GW doesn't seem so insane anymore. Is it still too expensive? Well for me it is. That said it is still worth it if I am enjoying it. In the end it doesn't matter. By that I mean, what I save from getting cheaper, my wife just spends, so in the end I still end up with ZERO money in the end.

Davor wrote:

Chamberlain wrote:GW seems to believe that the stores do the recruiting. I have no reason to doubt them as continuing them and expanding them when they are the least efficient way to sell things makes no sense if GW is not getting some larger benefit from having them.

Maybe it's a tax wright off thing? Stores loose money but you save on taxes. I don't get it but that's what I keep reading about other companies doing things like this. What I don't get is if it's to recruit, why are lots of stores in the middle of no where? Basically these stores have customers because they know where to go to, so that means they are not new recruits/fresh blood.

iron_within88 wrote:Mostly got no issues with their prices, the local GW has to pay for rent which would be about $300-500 a week plus utilities then the managers wages like $50-55K and to be really profitable

Rent is that cheap? Wow I thought it would be double that.

That said, finding out other people's hobbies now, GW doesn't seem so insane anymore. Is it still too expensive? Well for me it is. That said it is still worth it if I am enjoying it. In the end it doesn't matter. By that I mean, what I save from getting cheaper, my wife just spends, so in the end I still end up with ZERO money in the end.

I think it's more the stores are really the main advertising GW does but like you say GW appears to be of the thinking that as a specialist niche store people will go out of their way to visit, which before the Internet was a valid and reasonable strategy, and whilst the stores (overall) more or less break even its not that efficient but as has been previously mentioned the stores are too bedded into the GW way of doing things to be tampered with

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
As a Brit, and a younger one at that, I think I largely agree with Mad Doc - in my own experience.

I don't pretend to know the money they take in, both in the UK and US, and I'm not really thinking about "per capita" stuff either, but I can certainly say that in my own anecdotal experience, GW brick and mortar stores seem pretty solid to me.

Knowing that in practically every large town or city there's a GW, with people in, stock, somewhere just to go in and have a chat, and there's a degree of consistency between each store is comforting, I guess. I've not felt that in any non-GW gaming store, at all - possibly because there isn't really any single other chain of stores that match them for high street presence. Whereas a GW can nearly always be seen somewhere, and if it can be seen, I'm going in there, damn it!

By having this chain where only their own product is sold, they have some security in that fact. And by having that high street presence, they benefit from recognisability. I doubt I'd be so much in the hobby if not for GW stores being so omnipresent for me.

I don't have solid concrete facts or statistics, but I can personally say that I feel them having stores in the UK at the very least is good.

What you're not allowing for is that if GW hadn't done what they've done, the retail landscape for nerd gaming would be a completely different place. There would then absolutely be space in the market for a chain of independents who sold not only GW but lots of other games and product from other associated niches like RPGs, CCGs and board games too. As it stands, an Indy in the U.K. is often going to be limited in where it's viable to areas where there's enough population to support a store without GW product, otherwise it's immediately setting itself in competition with the manufacturer of the most popular brands. I know from conversations with the owner of one of my nearest indies (almost 50 miles away, case in point) that even offering discount doesn't even necessarily work, people are illogical and there's a percentage who will go to the GW store regardless. Anecdotally, there was apparently an independent that opened exactly opposite a GW, advertising the discount in the window, and even then couldn't make it work.

TLDR The assumption that the gaming shop landscape in the U.K. would be worse without GW stores is quite possibly a faulty one, but we'll never know.

I think you're right on that. It's a massive hypothetical, and it's very true that, even with the discount, people still don't buy from there.

I can speak on experience on that. I currently live on a street where there was both a GW and a LGS opposite over the road. Whenever I went for purchases (which wasn't that often, and usually in between my study hours), I'd go to the GW because of familiarity of knowing GW, and knowing they'd probably have what I wanted, and if they didn't I could order in store, and get free delivery.
I considered going into the LGS, but never did - not enough time, and I didn't feel like going in for something that may-or-may-not be in there, which may-or-may-not be cheaper than the GW stuff. I ended up going in there once, on a whim very late at night, when I found out that, A, they had a 25% discount (might have been 20%), and B, were closing down that very night.

I ended up impulse buying about £80 worth of models that night, and my student budget wept for the rest of that term, but by and large, I hadn't ever gone in that store because I simply didn't know it. I had no idea they'd be cheaper, didn't know they'd have what I wanted, and didn't feel I had a relation to them. GW, on the other had, does, and that is a considerable factor in the current situation.

However, yes, I do agree that we'd never know what the GW situation would be like if they closed their stores down.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

iron_within88 wrote:
Mostly got no issues with their prices, the local GW has to pay for rent which would be about $300-500 a week...

And the rest.

That said some models are so expensive i will never buy them, like the stormcast dragon or a bloodthirster, sorry but no, that 1 model is a whole fortnight of rent, i'd rather be two weeks ahead in rent that pay that much for 1 model

You only pay $170 a fortnight for rent? Lucky bastard I'm trying to find a place to live in Melbourne and I'm more than likely going to end up paying more than that *per week*.

Yeah i actually take that back, that was a pretty bad guesstimate, i had a look at alot of commerical building plots are being rented out for $28,000-$45,000 per year, i know that when the local GW moved into their new location a while back the entire street was being offered periods of rent free access because the area was very dead and they wanted to bring it back to life as a local hotspot, that was a while ago so i doubt they are still getting free rent so really think the local GW very minimum expenses would be $100k a year, privateer press models are almost as expensive as warhammer without those expenses so makes me wonder why people don't question their prices but question GW.

trust me us WMH players are quite engrumped with the ever increasing costs, personal tinfoil theory is PP got it into their heads they could charge near GW prices because their game is 'better', this may have backfired as anecdotally I've heard a few recasters have started doing PP stuff and morals / legal / etc issues aside that wouldnt happen without demand as £55ish for a 12 person unit trumps even GW, personally nearly all my Hordes stuff has been from Ebay for the last few years

May be a bit late to chime in on this, but I have some exp with plastics through a similar company.

The biggest expense is of course the mold. 10-60k to have them made cheaply in china depending on the size (with no guarantee they won't make their own) and you can drastically increase that cost to have it made domestically.

Molds have a long lifespan, and if you're making say plastic spoons, you'll likely use it enough to even wear out the mold. However, miniature production is lower volume. Molds can be expected to survive 500k - 1mil uses. However, with high detail minis, half or 1/4 that lifespan. Eventually the corners will lose their detail through repeated friction. While that may easily pay off for really popular models like space marines, It probably won't pay off for 1-model-per-army things like the Assassins or Eldar characters. That's why the prices are so stupid for things like the Primaris Librarians. Not every SM player even has one.

So with 250k uses for a 30k mold comes out to about 6 cents per use. These also the cost for the plastic, but it's negligible. Probably 3-4 cents per space marine.

However, if you only use that mold 5k times, your cost goes up to 6 dollars per use + plastic cost. In the long run, the investment will pay off as they can keep using that same mold, but the company doesn't want to invest in the mold, artists, and production costs for something that will take 3-4 years to turn a profit, especially when other items are in demand.


In cases with the less popular armies they are probably doing simple math to determine whether or not to make something in plastic. If the Eldar SuperElf only sold 500 models per year for 5 years, 30k/500 = 60 dollars cost per model sold, just for the mold. Even if adjusted for expected sales jump due to a new model and it being in plastic - that may still cost them $20-30 per use.

Also, the price tags for the molds i mentioned above doesn't include 'redos'. Plastic engineers are able to use software to test where the plastic will flow and to make sure the mold won't produce miscasts. Downside is that the software isn't always 100% accurate and the first test-runs may still come out with flaws. Now you've got a sold hunk of expensive metal that is spitting out flaws. They either have to go in and manually correct the mold or go back to the engineers/artists, get it corrected, and make a whole new mold.

With miniatures, that 2nd part is a lot more problematic than with things like spoons or plastic drawers or kids toys. A certain level of flaws are expected in cheap consumer goods. With detailed miniatures, you can't have a divot or abscess because it will either destroy details or just cause an ugly spot on the model.

So when explaining this to the mold manufacturer, they will likely increase their price estimate as the production time could easily double or triple and they'll end up having to scrap a mold or two.

TLDR: Molds cost a lot. Molds from outside of China cost a lot more. Molds that need to be flawless cost even more. Characters and one-off models cost more because you don't buy 20-30 of them for an army. Fewer presses = higher cost per press.

Basically - GW isn't really ripping people off. The production cost is a lot higher and involves more risk than just 4-5 cents worth of plastic in it.

 Azreal13 wrote:
What you're not allowing for is that if GW hadn't done what they've done, the retail landscape for nerd gaming would be a completely different place. There would then absolutely be space in the market for a chain of independents who sold not only GW but lots of other games and product from other associated niches like RPGs, CCGs and board games too. As it stands, an Indy in the U.K. is often going to be limited in where it's viable to areas where there's enough population to support a store without GW product, otherwise it's immediately setting itself in competition with the manufacturer of the most popular brands. I know from conversations with the owner of one of my nearest indies (almost 50 miles away, case in point) that even offering discount doesn't even necessarily work, people are illogical and there's a percentage who will go to the GW store regardless. Anecdotally, there was apparently an independent that opened exactly opposite a GW, advertising the discount in the window, and even then couldn't make it work.

TLDR The assumption that the gaming shop landscape in the U.K. would be worse without GW stores is quite possibly a faulty one, but we'll never know.

Of course that scenario isn't that good for GW so...

Price for GUO during 2nd: 30 DM (ca. 15 Euro).
Price for new GUO: 110 Euro.

That´s really quite insane.I am so glad that I purchased the old model.

@SirWeeble - that's all true on a standalone basis; however, GW prices on a network basis, covering ALL of the things they sell. GW can afford to have Orks or Nids break even after 4 or 5 years once you understand that they exist as something for SMs to fight - basically a really big SM accessory sprue, or a really big Primaris Librarian.

The only thing GW can't have is things that sell so poorly that they never recoup their tooling cost. Like, say, Sisters of Battle. Cue both SoB players jumping in to defend the indefensible...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Strg Alt wrote:
Price for GUO during 2nd: 30 DM (ca. 15 Euro).
Price for new GUO: 110 Euro.

That´s really quite insane.I am so glad that I purchased the old model.

Yeah, but the original GUO looks like ass.


Even at DM30, you overpaid!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The only thing GW can't have is things that sell so poorly that they never recoup their tooling cost. Like, say, Sisters of Battle. Cue both SoB players jumping in to defend the indefensible...

Or you know, asking you to back up inane arguments with hard data. One or the other. And I don't even play Sisters.

@JohnHwangDD:

Yeah, but the original GUO looks like ass.


Even at DM30, you overpaid!

 Albertorius wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The only thing GW can't have is things that sell so poorly that they never recoup their tooling cost. Like, say, Sisters of Battle. Cue both SoB players jumping in to defend the indefensible...

Or you know, asking you to back up inane arguments with hard data. One or the other. And I don't even play Sisters.

The very fact that GW cannot make a business case to produce plastics Sisters of Battle (nor Eldar Aspects) is evidence enough, despite the production of other items that we know cannot possibly sell in any significant volumes (e.g. Primaris Librarians).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Strg Alt wrote:
@JohnHwangDD:

Yeah, but the original GUO looks like ass.

Spoiler:

Even at DM30, you overpaid!

We can agree to disagree. The new model is not only bad because of it´s enormous price tag but also it´s size has been increased beyond a reasonable scale. It hardly fits on any terrain that I have built for my 40K collection.

Price for GUO during 2nd: 30 DM (ca. 15 Euro).

That dude fits into the new one about 5 times. I've got one of every generation of GUO (I really like GUOs, always have) , but that old dude is smaller than a spawn. It's barely bigger than a 2nd edition beast of nurgle.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:


It sounds to me like the real problem is that you didn't buy Official GW Terrain.

So tell me, how is Nathan Poe?

I don't play 40k like I used to. I don't go looking for games very often either, and do not play competitively. I have enough for me and a friend to play small games with a variety of armies if we ever want. I usually only buy bitz these days,just to add a little variety for what I already do have.

What I do buy more than anything else, is their terrain. I do admit can be pretty expensive, but I don't make my own, and well, they have the best around. I can justify buying the nice stuff because it will always look good.

I would be feeling pretty down if I was just getting into the game today, and trying to play competitively. I don't know how much more expensive the game is since Rogue Trader, as it and Epic were expensive for me back then, and I don't know what inflation has done, but what is worse for me is how over time armies lose models or become stronger or weaker depending on what version of the rules are out. That's a killer to me.

I feel like my smaller 2nd/3rd edition games went further with fewer minis than the modern versions do. I felt the same about Epic as it evolved over the years too.

Can't complain about GW's prices if you never buy from GW

 Grimtuff wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:


It sounds to me like the real problem is that you didn't buy Official GW Terrain.

So tell me, how is Nathan Poe?

Shhh...

tneva82 wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
What you're not allowing for is that if GW hadn't done what they've done, the retail landscape for nerd gaming would be a completely different place. There would then absolutely be space in the market for a chain of independents who sold not only GW but lots of other games and product from other associated niches like RPGs, CCGs and board games too. As it stands, an Indy in the U.K. is often going to be limited in where it's viable to areas where there's enough population to support a store without GW product, otherwise it's immediately setting itself in competition with the manufacturer of the most popular brands. I know from conversations with the owner of one of my nearest indies (almost 50 miles away, case in point) that even offering discount doesn't even necessarily work, people are illogical and there's a percentage who will go to the GW store regardless. Anecdotally, there was apparently an independent that opened exactly opposite a GW, advertising the discount in the window, and even then couldn't make it work.

TLDR The assumption that the gaming shop landscape in the U.K. would be worse without GW stores is quite possibly a faulty one, but we'll never know.

Of course that scenario isn't that good for GW so...

Why not?

At the moment their obligations in terms of costs roughly equal the income they generate from their stores. There's absolutely no reason that in a parallel universe somewhere there's no such thing as GW Retail, yet GW is as profitable while being more nimble and reactive because it has a smaller cost base to cover.

The assumption that GW Retail was vital the the success of GW is very much a symptom of the Kerbett era, and Rountree really has no choice but to run with it now, but it isn't precisely that, an assumption because the alternative was never tried, and now we'll never find out.

In the last report thingy they do mention a project to recruit new customers through the internet. I don't know how quickly it could work (if it ever does) but if it does end up that they can get new customers without the stores, I think they'll embrace it. It's supposed to launch later in the year. I wonder what it'll be like.

On GW prices, I think in the previous report they talk about new releases being a third of their sales and a targeted average price increase of 3%. So new releases need to be 9-10% more expensive than the average price of the previous year. Compare the Agressors with the new Custodes Allarus Terminators. Compare First Strike with Storm of Sigmar.

Anyone who wants to not pay 9-10% more can just stick to not getting the new shiny thing. The start collecting sets and all the kits that came out in previous years might be a better place to look.

 Chamberlain wrote:
In the last report thingy they do mention a project to recruit new customers through the internet. I don't know how quickly it could work (if it ever does) but if it does end up that they can get new customers without the stores, I think they'll embrace it. It's supposed to launch later in the year. I wonder what it'll be like.

Good luck to them, but I don't see this being fruitful.

Brick and mortar stores are an anchor for the customer. They know that's where they get GW products, they're not exposed to better pricing in the store or competitors products, and they know that's where they can go to get a game. To see a competitors products you need to travel to another store - if there's one in the local area.

Recruiting online means they're recruiting people with instant access to competitors products and prices, with no incentive to actually visit a GW store other than to game. When they want to venture out to find a store to play in and meet the local gamers, the chances of them finding an independent retailer instead of a GW store is, depending on the area, quite good, which means they're also seeing people in the store playing competitors products.

It's good they want to finally embrace the online aspects of the hobby, but as a recruitment tool they're going to be careful otherwise they'll get people interested in the hobby, but not their product.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Chamberlain wrote:
In the last report thingy they do mention a project to recruit new customers through the internet. I don't know how quickly it could work (if it ever does) but if it does end up that they can get new customers without the stores, I think they'll embrace it. It's supposed to launch later in the year. I wonder what it'll be like.

Good luck to them, but I don't see this being fruitful.

Brick and mortar stores are an anchor for the customer. They know that's where they get GW products, they're not exposed to better pricing in the store or competitors products, and they know that's where they can go to get a game. To see a competitors products you need to travel to another store - if there's one in the local area.

Recruiting online means they're recruiting people with instant access to competitors products and prices, with no incentive to actually visit a GW store other than to game. When they want to venture out to find a store to play in and meet the local gamers, the chances of them finding an independent retailer instead of a GW store is, depending on the area, quite good, which means they're also seeing people in the store playing competitors products.

It's good they want to finally embrace the online aspects of the hobby, but as a recruitment tool they're going to be careful otherwise they'll get people interested in the hobby, but not their product.

Valid points but as has been mentioned it suggests a lack of confidence on GW's part in their own product, or in tinfoil hat land a tacit admission that their games just aren't good enough to compete outside the GW bubble

 Strg Alt wrote:
Price for GUO during 2nd: 30 DM (ca. 15 Euro).
Price for new GUO: 110 Euro.

That´s really quite insane.I am so glad that I purchased the old model.

Apples and oranges. Different time, material, design, size, rules etc. The only thing they truly share is the name and imagery.

 ChazSexington wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
Price for GUO during 2nd: 30 DM (ca. 15 Euro).
Price for new GUO: 110 Euro.

That´s really quite insane.I am so glad that I purchased the old model.

Apples and oranges. Different time, material, design, size, rules etc. The only thing they truly share is the name and imagery.

Apples and oranges:
Used with reference to two things that are fundamentally different and therefore not suited to comparison.

Source: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/apples_and_oranges.

First model is a GUO from the ´90s and the second one is a brand new GUO. Both fill exactly the same unit entry in a codex. Apples and oranges indeed.

I can think of at least one difference; I’m really looking forward to getting the new Great Unclean One whereas the old one was the only Greater Daemon I didn’t own because of how horrible it looked. And not in a good way.

But hey, you prefer it, and that’s 1) cool and 2) really lucky for you because you like the cheaper one.

Likewise I’m sure there are people who think a Morris Minor is more visually attractive cars than a Ferrari. And that’s fine too, providing those people don’t assume that their particular preference is shared by the majority.

While the new miniatures is lovely, I think comparing it as a Morris Minor vs. a Ferrari is a bit OTT

Morris Minor? Better would have been Reliant Robin.

That TG segment on that was hysterical!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Morris Minor? Better would have been Reliant Robin.

That TG segment on that was hysterical!

Correct, the new GUO is certainly a plastic pig...

 Turnip Jedi wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:

 Chamberlain wrote:
In the last report thingy they do mention a project to recruit new customers through the internet. I don't know how quickly it could work (if it ever does) but if it does end up that they can get new customers without the stores, I think they'll embrace it. It's supposed to launch later in the year. I wonder what it'll be like.

Good luck to them, but I don't see this being fruitful.

Brick and mortar stores are an anchor for the customer. They know that's where they get GW products, they're not exposed to better pricing in the store or competitors products, and they know that's where they can go to get a game. To see a competitors products you need to travel to another store - if there's one in the local area.

Recruiting online means they're recruiting people with instant access to competitors products and prices, with no incentive to actually visit a GW store other than to game. When they want to venture out to find a store to play in and meet the local gamers, the chances of them finding an independent retailer instead of a GW store is, depending on the area, quite good, which means they're also seeing people in the store playing competitors products.

It's good they want to finally embrace the online aspects of the hobby, but as a recruitment tool they're going to be careful otherwise they'll get people interested in the hobby, but not their product.

Valid points but as has been mentioned it suggests a lack of confidence on GW's part in their own product, or in tinfoil hat land a tacit admission that their games just aren't good enough to compete outside the GW bubble

Not at all. The problem is simply that their stores are a bubble of zero competition. They're very controlled environments where they can dictate how people do their hobby if they want to play in their stores.

The internet is not that. GW can't dictate anything. They're right there alongside all of their competition - other games, people selling alternative models for their games, people selling cheap second hand GW models. These are things that continually beat GW on price, and have very vocal supporters. Even if they get people to play their games, they might not even end up buying the majority of their models from GW or GW resellers. Whoever GW gets to try to recruit online is going to have to drown out those supporters in order to get their message through.

 -Loki- wrote:

Not at all. The problem is simply that their stores are a bubble of zero competition. They're very controlled environments where they can dictate how people do their hobby if they want to play in their stores.

The internet is not that. GW can't dictate anything. They're right there alongside all of their competition - other games, people selling alternative models for their games, people selling cheap second hand GW models. These are things that continually beat GW on price, and have very vocal supporters. Even if they get people to play their games, they might not even end up buying the majority of their models from GW or GW resellers. Whoever GW gets to try to recruit online is going to have to drown out those supporters in order to get their message through.

This right here. Does anyone else remember the decade of "the internet does nt exist, what are you talking about" denial from GW?

 -Loki- wrote:

 Chamberlain wrote:
In the last report thingy they do mention a project to recruit new customers through the internet. I don't know how quickly it could work (if it ever does) but if it does end up that they can get new customers without the stores, I think they'll embrace it. It's supposed to launch later in the year. I wonder what it'll be like.

Good luck to them, but I don't see this being fruitful.

Brick and mortar stores are an anchor for the customer. They know that's where they get GW products, they're not exposed to better pricing in the store or competitors products, and they know that's where they can go to get a game. To see a competitors products you need to travel to another store - if there's one in the local area.

Recruiting online means they're recruiting people with instant access to competitors products and prices, with no incentive to actually visit a GW store other than to game. When they want to venture out to find a store to play in and meet the local gamers, the chances of them finding an independent retailer instead of a GW store is, depending on the area, quite good, which means they're also seeing people in the store playing competitors products.

It's good they want to finally embrace the online aspects of the hobby, but as a recruitment tool they're going to be careful otherwise they'll get people interested in the hobby, but not their product.

How many potential new customers are out there who would never try to lookup GW online after discovering the brick and mortar store? Even these hypothetical people who don't use the internet and are wandering the streets looking for game stores will come across the local independent store eventually, if one exists.

In my experience sometimes people just like going to heavily branded, focused stores. Some people like to shop at the Apple store, or the Polo store, or the Disney store, or the M&M store, or the Nintendo store. It's not because they've been sheltered from competitors' products or cheaper retailers. Well, maybe Apple has managed to do that.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 ChazSexington wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
Price for GUO during 2nd: 30 DM (ca. 15 Euro).
Price for new GUO: 110 Euro.

That´s really quite insane.I am so glad that I purchased the old model.

Apples and oranges. Different time, material, design, size, rules etc. The only thing they truly share is the name and imagery.

Apples and oranges:
Used with reference to two things that are fundamentally different and therefore not suited to comparison.

Source: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/apples_and_oranges.

First model is a GUO from the ´90s and the second one is a brand new GUO. Both fill exactly the same unit entry in a codex. Apples and oranges indeed.

It's actually econ 101. An apple produced today is different from an apple in the 90s. From regulations, to GMPs, technology, salaries, taxes etc.

Either way, not interested in discussing something this basic.

I thought GW couldn't surprise me with pricing anymore . . .

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-AU/The-Harbingers-Collection-2018

I actually scrolled up to check if I was on the NZ website. That's US$175 BTW. For four 32mm models.

Even 100€ is stupid.

 ChazSexington wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:

 ChazSexington wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
Price for GUO during 2nd: 30 DM (ca. 15 Euro).
Price for new GUO: 110 Euro.

That´s really quite insane.I am so glad that I purchased the old model.

Apples and oranges. Different time, material, design, size, rules etc. The only thing they truly share is the name and imagery.

Apples and oranges:
Used with reference to two things that are fundamentally different and therefore not suited to comparison.

Source: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/apples_and_oranges.

First model is a GUO from the ´90s and the second one is a brand new GUO. Both fill exactly the same unit entry in a codex. Apples and oranges indeed.

It's actually econ 101. An apple produced today is different from an apple in the 90s. From regulations, to GMPs, technology, salaries, taxes etc.

Either way, not interested in discussing something this basic.

I think better examples would be items that are re-released after a period of time (literally apples for apples) For example we have today the Skullvane Manse released again. Last sold in about 2016 it sold for £46 IIRC. Today it has been released at £65. That's a 40% increase over three years. The price increase is questionable. The design work etc has already previously been undertaken. There will increased staffing and other inflationary pressures but that won't account for the rate increase as the costly elements have already been undertaken.

RoninXiC wrote:
Even 100€ is stupid.

Correct. I bought recently Sly Marbo & Inquisitor Greyfax for 20€ per model. These two were already quite expensive but apparently not expensive enough for the tastes of GW. Definitely not going to pay 25€. And what ´s the point to sell all four together with no discount?

I was in my FLGS today and noticed they had Shadespire on the shelf and a few... warbands?

Now this is how you price a fething low entry game, GW, even in Australia. $95 for a base game that includes 8 nice, unique plastic miniatures with some high quality board game components? Very nice. Extra warbands look super nice as well, and they're $50? For 7 unique plastic Skeletons or 4 huge Orcs? I've even heard good things about the actual game.

This is the GW I want to see more of. Not the one charging two hundred and thirty fething dollars for a greater deamon.

I'll never convince people I know to play Shadespire, but I might just pick up a set of Sepulchral Guard because they're super nice.

They're not huge Orks. They're just Black Orcs. If they were the Brutes, different story, but they're not.

GW doesn't charge based on materials or difficulty or points cost. They supply materials for a luxury hobby. So it gets benchmarked against other luxury hobbies like golf and, I don't know, hard-core cinema going or something, and price accordingly.

Teafortheteapot wrote:
I thought GW couldn't surprise me with pricing anymore . . .

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-AU/The-Harbingers-Collection-2018

I actually scrolled up to check if I was on the NZ website. That's US$175 BTW. For four 32mm models.

Anyone who pays that price is stupid.

 -Loki- wrote:
I was in my FLGS today and noticed they had Shadespire on the shelf and a few... warbands?

Now this is how you price a fething low entry game, GW, even in Australia. $95 for a base game that includes 8 nice, unique plastic miniatures with some high quality board game components? Very nice. Extra warbands look super nice as well, and they're $50? For 7 unique plastic Skeletons or 4 huge Orcs? I've even heard good things about the actual game.

This is the GW I want to see more of. Not the one charging two hundred and thirty fething dollars for a greater deamon.

I'll never convince people I know to play Shadespire, but I might just pick up a set of Sepulchral Guard because they're super nice.

Yarp as GW-skeptic as I am had Shadespire arrived 12-18 months earlier I'm fairly sure they'd have lured me back in, but following the debacle of 7th most of the local players picked up other non-GW games instead, heck if the inevitable Elf warband(s) catches my eye theres a middling possibility I'll put aside my concerns over longevity and card creep and dive in as £50-£60 is a reasonable buy in

I still just don't get it...

10 top quality multipose Necromunda figures = £25
Or
4 AoS monopose figures = £80

Even more bizarre, Necromunda box set, 20 figures, card terrain, dice, rules OR for just £5 more, you could have 4 similar sized figures.
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/The-Harbingers-Collection-2018

GW pricing is insane because of the variability, not just the high amounts.

 Flinty wrote:
GW doesn't charge based on materials or difficulty or points cost. They supply materials for a luxury hobby. So it gets benchmarked against other luxury hobbies like golf and, I don't know, hard-core cinema going or something, and price accordingly.

Citation needed.

Because that's a fairly bizarre method of pricing if true. I mean, why not pick precious gem collecting or race driving and really charge for their stuff.

What you're effectively arguing there is Tesco can charge £20 a dozen for chicken eggs because caviar.

Teafortheteapot wrote:
I thought GW couldn't surprise me with pricing anymore . . .

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-AU/The-Harbingers-Collection-2018

I actually scrolled up to check if I was on the NZ website. That's US$175 BTW. For four 32mm models.

the US site has it as $140, not a direct currency conversion. I believe aussies and kiwis can do some weird thing about a p.o. box in oregon (gotta go through my pms, but i did a deal with an aussie and it was what he had me do, he told em about it) and you can get stuff shipped from US to US and it forwards to aussie or kiwiland.

 thekingofkings wrote:

Teafortheteapot wrote:
I thought GW couldn't surprise me with pricing anymore . . .

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-AU/The-Harbingers-Collection-2018

I actually scrolled up to check if I was on the NZ website. That's US$175 BTW. For four 32mm models.

the US site has it as $140, not a direct currency conversion. I believe aussies and kiwis can do some weird thing about a p.o. box in oregon (gotta go through my pms, but i did a deal with an aussie and it was what he had me do, he told em about it) and you can get stuff shipped from US to US and it forwards to aussie or kiwiland.

Or, like an increasing number of Aussies and Kiwis, you just play games from companies that let you buy their stuff however you want and don’t gouge you because of location.

Harbingers? Two great figures. Two awful ones. None of them worth £20 each.

 thekingofkings wrote:

Teafortheteapot wrote:
I thought GW couldn't surprise me with pricing anymore . . .

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-AU/The-Harbingers-Collection-2018

I actually scrolled up to check if I was on the NZ website. That's US$175 BTW. For four 32mm models.

the US site has it as $140, not a direct currency conversion. I believe aussies and kiwis can do some weird thing about a p.o. box in oregon (gotta go through my pms, but i did a deal with an aussie and it was what he had me do, he told em about it) and you can get stuff shipped from US to US and it forwards to aussie or kiwiland.

Mail forwarding service;
For the Kiwis - https://www.nzpost.co.nz/tools/youshop
For the Ozzies - https://shopmate.auspost.com.au/

Also can be used to get stuff from the UK. The onward shipping cost is calculated on the dimensions of the box not the weight which is worth keeping in mind.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:
I still just don't get it...

10 top quality multipose Necromunda figures = £25
Or
4 AoS monopose figures = £80

Even more bizarre, Necromunda box set, 20 figures, card terrain, dice, rules OR for just £5 more, you could have 4 similar sized figures.
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/The-Harbingers-Collection-2018

GW pricing is insane because of the variability, not just the high amounts.

And this is my main problem with silly character models...

4x Primaris Space Marine Characters = $140 + Shipping (free from GW)

or...

30x Tactical Space Marines in MkIV
5x Cataphractii Terminators
2x Space Marine Characters
1x Dreadnought
+Card/Game/Dice/Books
...for $150.

Alternatively you can also get:

30x MkIII Tactical Marines
5x Custodes Figures
5x Sisters of Silence
5x Tartaros Terminators
2x Space Marine characters
...for $150.

I've purchased three of the above boxed games, and...zero GW plastic characters.

Azreal13 wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
GW doesn't charge based on materials or difficulty or points cost. They supply materials for a luxury hobby. So it gets benchmarked against other luxury hobbies like golf and, I don't know, hard-core cinema going or something, and price accordingly.

Citation needed.

Because that's a fairly bizarre method of pricing if true. I mean, why not pick precious gem collecting or race driving and really charge for their stuff.

What you're effectively arguing there is Tesco can charge £20 a dozen for chicken eggs because caviar.

Boxed sets had prices set to their game worth rather than parts count. Remember the Space Hulk Terminator plastics that were sold as a boxed set? Those were the price of 10 standard marines, or 16 Dark Eldar warriors. Their pricing is still every bit as skewed, sprue count has nothing to do with it anymore.

 Elbows wrote:

 Gimgamgoo wrote:
I still just don't get it...

10 top quality multipose Necromunda figures = £25
Or
4 AoS monopose figures = £80

Even more bizarre, Necromunda box set, 20 figures, card terrain, dice, rules OR for just £5 more, you could have 4 similar sized figures.
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/The-Harbingers-Collection-2018

GW pricing is insane because of the variability, not just the high amounts.

And this is my main problem with silly character models...

4x Primaris Space Marine Characters = $140 + Shipping (free from GW)

or...

30x Tactical Space Marines in MkIV
5x Cataphractii Terminators
2x Space Marine Characters
1x Dreadnought
+Card/Game/Dice/Books
...for $150.

Alternatively you can also get:

30x MkIII Tactical Marines
5x Custodes Figures
5x Sisters of Silence
5x Tartaros Terminators
2x Space Marine characters
...for $150.

I've purchased three of the above boxed games, and...zero GW plastic characters.

GW have come out with a few characters I'd like to paint up but walk out of the store laughing (metaphorically) when I see the prices they put on them.

I'd rather they bring back metal if it means we can get characters for half the price and I actually start buying them again


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 -Loki- wrote:
Now this is how you price a fething low entry game, GW, even in Australia. $95 for a base game that includes 8 nice, unique plastic miniatures with some high quality board game components? Very nice. Extra warbands look super nice as well, and they're $50? For 7 unique plastic Skeletons or 4 huge Orcs? I've even heard good things about the actual game.

I wasn't entirely sure if you were serious. 8 models for $95 doesn't sound great to me (it doesn't even look good next to other GW board games like Blood Bowl or Space Hulk). I guess the entry price is lower which is good but the price per model isn't great.

And $50 for 4 not so huge Orcs? $12.50 an Orc is good?

I think you've been looking at GW's clampack character pricing too much and have lost track of what is and isn't good pricing

It's not even great value compared to other GW pricing, like the Blood Bowl teams which get you 12 models in 6 different poses for only $5 more.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
Now this is how you price a fething low entry game, GW, even in Australia. $95 for a base game that includes 8 nice, unique plastic miniatures with some high quality board game components? Very nice. Extra warbands look super nice as well, and they're $50? For 7 unique plastic Skeletons or 4 huge Orcs? I've even heard good things about the actual game.

I wasn't entirely sure if you were serious. 8 models for $95 doesn't sound great to me (it doesn't even look good next to other GW board games like Blood Bowl or Space Hulk). I guess the entry price is lower which is good but the price per model isn't great.

And $50 for 4 not so huge Orcs? $12.50 an Orc is good?

I think you've been looking at GW's clampack character pricing too much and have lost track of what is and isn't good pricing

It's not even great value compared to other GW pricing, like the Blood Bowl teams which get you 12 models in 6 different poses for only $5 more.

$95 for a skirmish game starter is about normal. Infinity is over $100au, Batmans Suicide Squad was nearly $200au (though that doesn't seem to be available anymore, likely due to the swap to Resin). Malifaux is $80au.

$50au for a warband is again in line with the industry - starter boxes for Infinity are $50-$60au for 6 models, and Malifaux between $50au and $70au for 5-7 HIPS models. Knight models, after the shift to Resin, you'll likely go about $60 for your starting crew as well depending on which one you go with (looking at built crews you're likely going to start with a 'starter' set and an extra goon pack or couple of solos). Even Frostgrave (assuming you go with the Northstar sets, since it's a game that's very, very easy to shop around for) you're looking at about $55 to start for a multipart box and a wizard.

Shadespire is actually in line with the industry for skirmish games. Maybe a little high, but still within what you'd expect in the skirmish side of the hobby.

Price isn't everything - how much value do you get out of the various starters, both in what it includes and how much you have to add to get a complete force?

 Stormonu wrote:
Price isn't everything - how much value do you get out of the various starters, both in what it includes and how much you have to add to get a complete force?

this is broadly why the aforementioned oddly variable GW pricing is baffling for around £50-£60 you can get either a one faction Starter box for 40k, or a Bloodbowl / Sharespire box and xpac with 2/3 factions and whilst £ per model value is higher in the Start Collecting those boxes aren't really enough to start playing

But ultimately value is how many people justify hobby spending, for example my 10 player Guild Ball teams come in at £80-£100ish, more expensive than most GW stuff but worth it to me I play it far more often than 40k despite having nearly everything Eldar barring a Phantom

Its largely pointless trying to be objectively comparative about value, because it's a nebulous and inherently subjective idea, but way back I tried expressing cost as a percentage of a typical size force to play the game at the intended level, as opposed to a starter or other slightly unusual setup.

It's not perfect, but when a £10 Guild Ball player is 15% of a full sized force, or an X Wing fighter sized expansion can represent anything between 11-40+% of a typical list, whereas a £2.50 Tactical Marine represents ~0.5% it starts to eliminate some of the inherent weighting that skirmish games must apply to their price model simply to be viable in the market. Nor will it eliminate the wilfully narrow viewed people who insist they get no value from X because they like painting Space Marines and only Space Marines will do, but it's something that smooths out the bumps of a model for model comparison when not all games need anything like the same amount, and cost to play is hugely more relevant than cost per model any ways.

I don't really think bringing up concerns that are specific to me like "I only value space marines" really says anything at all about a general comparison of games in terms of cost to play. Those kind of idiosyncratic objections don't actually say anything about the comparison.

What I think is a valid criticism of the approach though, is to ask what the elements are that make up the percentage. You can download some free rules like the good One Page Rules. Then head down to the dollar store and get some army men and have $2 be 100% of a full sized game. So now does every commercial game come off as bad value in comparison? Maybe.

I don't think it's idiosyncratic to want miniatures that are better than generic factory recasts of 50+ year old toy soldier sculpts, even if in doing so you pretty much have infinitely worse value in terms of percentage of a full game.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
GW doesn't charge based on materials or difficulty or points cost. They supply materials for a luxury hobby. So it gets benchmarked against other luxury hobbies like golf and, I don't know, hard-core cinema going or something, and price accordingly.

Citation needed.

Because that's a fairly bizarre method of pricing if true. I mean, why not pick precious gem collecting or race driving and really charge for their stuff.

What you're effectively arguing there is Tesco can charge £20 a dozen for chicken eggs because caviar.

No I'm not. Tesco aren't selling a luxury hobby, they sell basic foodstuffs with totally different market forces. Games Workshop have found a niche and are pushing the price as far as they think they can get away with. Because they produce extremely high quality model products and have a great market presence they can currently get away with it.

 Chamberlain wrote:
I don't really think bringing up concerns that are specific to me like "I only value space marines" really says anything at all about a general comparison of games in terms of cost to play. Those kind of idiosyncratic objections don't actually say anything about the comparison.

Yet people have used this as an argument with a straight face. On multiple occasions, and multiple posters.

What I think is a valid criticism of the approach though, is to ask what the elements are that make up the percentage. You can download some free rules like the good One Page Rules. Then head down to the dollar store and get some army men and have $2 be 100% of a full sized game. So now does every commercial game come off as bad value in comparison? Maybe.

I don't think it's idiosyncratic to want miniatures that are better than generic factory recasts of 50+ year old toy soldier sculpts, even if in doing so you pretty much have infinitely worse value in terms of percentage of a full game.

The "well I'll just use plastic toy shop £1 soldiers" defence is another old favourite too. We'll chuck the "I might as well just use home made card tokens" argument on the pile as well while we're at it.

Ultimately if people are willing to trot these out as defences of GW pricing, they're likely not really arguing in good faith, and should be treated as such. There's a clear, and, to my mind, fairly self evident, delineation between a product intended for war gaming and a product usable for war gaming, that line can blur, but comparing Warlord plastic kits to GW plastic kits (or, Bolt Action to 40K) is a more intellectually honest argument than Space Marines to toy shop "Bag O Soldiers."

 Azreal13 wrote:

Ultimately if people are willing to trot these out as defences of GW pricing, they're likely not really arguing in good faith, and should be treated as such. There's a clear, and, to my mind, fairly self evident, delineation between a product intended for war gaming and a product usable for war gaming, that line can blur, but comparing Warlord plastic kits to GW plastic kits (or, Bolt Action to 40K) is a more intellectually honest argument than Space Marines to toy shop "Bag O Soldiers."

I completely agree. I thought I had found the bottom with the bag o soldiers, but I forgot about paper/card.

As someone who does a lot of skirmish gaming (even with GW stuff) I don't see GW's pricing on a full army basis as applying to me but I think it's a great overall evaluation to look at the average cost of a 1500 or 1750 point game. I'd say 2000 points, but I keep hearing on tournament based podcasts that 2000 point games are not fitting in the promised time of 2 hours that GW talked about during the launch of 8th and I think most major events might shrink the points size a bit.

It's actually kind of a strange conundrum. On the one hand, it's very obvious that a individual set should be evaluated in terms of value for itself, but then there's the whole piece of a larger gaming purchase going on. A primaris character being £22.50 or a start collecting at £50 or a Know No Fear set at £50 can all be evaluated either by themselves, in comparison to one another, as part of a larger gaming outlay or in any of those ways in comparison to any product from any other company.

A friend of mine was very happy to buy the primaris librarian and chaplain after buying a Dark Imperium set and then trading the nurgle for another of the primaris set. the total outlay to get the army he has seemed quite reasonable to him even when adding in the expensive character. Would he feel the same had he built genestealer cults and bought the overkill box and then had trouble getting rid of the deathwatch half and then ended up with no where near as many points? Or any other army without a box set at all (start collecting, board game, starter or otherwise)? Probably not.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
There just seems to be so many disparate facts, conflicting priorities, inconsistencies in this discussion that I can see the appeal of just going with a percent of a full army evaluation.

It sort of cuts through all that, but I guess the objection then is that we're not comparing like vs like. A 200 figure WW1 army is not the same thing as a gang of 11 guys for a wild west shoot out. So percentage of full army might need to get broken down into types of games, but then we're back into the fragmentation and different priorities that caused the need for the comparison in the first place.

I guess the problem is that it's really hard to make meaningful comparisons on anything other than a single product basis. I can actually compare one infinity character with a single GW character. Or a small squad box of infinity guys with a small squad box of GW guys. Substitute other company's as you like. But as soon as I'm comparing a 4 ship X-Wing list to a 120 model 40k list, something seems off.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, isn't there a lot of psychological research that says that people make decisions for emotional reasons and then justify them with logical sounding ones after the fact? I wonder if its the same for evaluations for GW's pricing? We'll look at a price for a given release, come to our conclusion on a gut level and then frame our comparison in a way to let us tell ourselves it was all logical and rational?

Again, I think attempting to come up with frameworks like percent of a full army is part of cutting through this confusion, but I think it might actually not really solve anything. Either comparing a 100 pt X-Wing list of 2-8 ships to a 2000 point 40k army of 50-150 miniatures will resonate with us or it won't. Then we'll hunt for reasons to present to others that our acceptance or rejection of the comparison is actually rational.

$45 canadian Primaris Librarian vs $45 canadian Infinity: Yu Jing Guijia seems a lot more straightforward to me. What do I get for the same money when buying an individual miniature?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I'd rather they bring back metal if it means we can get characters for half the price and I actually start buying them again

Last time GW changed to a different material to save money we got FineCost.

The price will never go down.

 thekingofkings wrote:

Teafortheteapot wrote:
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-AU/The-Harbingers-Collection-2018
For four 32mm models.

the US site has it as $140,

$140 seems a rather poor value when the Kingdom Death : Monster Dragon King expansion has a $150 MSRP.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/poots/kingdom-death-monster-15/posts/1748638

Pretending that the GW 32mm figures trade against 4 of the 35mm figures, for $10 more, KD provides a couple extra 35mm figures, an Ogre-class boss (Tyrant) *and* a giant Dragon.

For me, smaller companies like Perry, Victoria, Warlord, Gripping Beast, North Star and others can make plastic miniatures at a fraction of GWs prices. And that's with out sourcing production.

GW is overpriced but smart. I always thought everyone would be willing to pay forgeworld prices for normal GW plastic kits and here we are.

Teafortheteapot wrote:
I thought GW couldn't surprise me with pricing anymore . . .

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-AU/The-Harbingers-Collection-2018

I actually scrolled up to check if I was on the NZ website. That's US$175 BTW. For four 32mm models.

WHO buys this?
Honestly, does ANYONE actually buy this?

 jeff white wrote:

Teafortheteapot wrote:
I thought GW couldn't surprise me with pricing anymore . . .

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-AU/The-Harbingers-Collection-2018

I actually scrolled up to check if I was on the NZ website. That's US$175 BTW. For four 32mm models.

WHO buys this?
Honestly, does ANYONE actually buy this?

I suppose there might be some sort of theoretical AoS player who has an order, chaos, destruction and death armies and wants the new characters for all of them.

Actually when I see people's signatures and they say things like "Dark Angels: 9000 pts, Tyranids 3000 pts" dropping that much on four characters seems totally possible for at least some portion of GW's customer base.

And since it's just bundling together 4 separate items at no savings, it doesn't take whoever enters it into GW's website that long to do. I bet there's a form on their back end for creating new web store items and they just paste in the text, mark what internal product codes will need to be shipped, upload some pictures, mark a time/date for it to appear as a preorder and a time/date for it to become a normal for sale item and hit "submit." How many people who were thinking of buying 2 or 3 of the harbinger figures that end up buying all four instead needs to do so before making such a "click saving" bundle becomes a no brainer?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
$140 seems a rather poor value when the Kingdom Death : Monster Dragon King expansion has a $150 MSRP.

No, really, are you a plant DD?

Do KG sponsor you or something?

Looking at 4 harbingers vs dragon for a $10 price difference two thoughts come to mind.

One is Kickstarter - while this one appears to have a good track record, $150 is a punt. I might get nothing.

Secondly, I don't actually LIKE the dragon's head. Therefore, to me, the model has zero value. I would perhaps risk $20 on conversion material, but probably not even then (because I already have a large build pile).

Similarly, I dislike two of the harbingers, so, again, the bundle has zero value. I MIGHT buy the two I like, but not at that price.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Its largely pointless trying to be objectively comparative about value, because it's a nebulous and inherently subjective idea, but way back I tried expressing cost as a percentage of a typical size force to play the game at the intended level, as opposed to a starter or other slightly unusual setup.

It's not perfect, but when a £10 Guild Ball player is 15% of a full sized force, or an X Wing fighter sized expansion can represent anything between 11-40+% of a typical list, whereas a £2.50 Tactical Marine represents ~0.5% it starts to eliminate some of the inherent weighting that skirmish games must apply to their price model simply to be viable in the market.

Unless you play Shadow War of course, in which case that Marine is about 10% of your force and therefore a far better deal than the Guild Bowl player.

For that reason I don't think trying to quantify value based on the size of the game really works.

fair point but Shadow-War imho was one of the most underhanded bits of sharp practice GW have pulled in a longtime, a filler between 7th and 8th with enough opening support to imply Necromunda either wasn't going to happen or was a long way off to push sales (i'll admit the terrain was cracking and more than good enough as a stand-alone)

I haven't played it so I won't disagree.

My point is more that any objective attempt to quantify the value of a miniature by its price, size, in-game value or any other criteria is not going to work because the value of the miniature is subjective.

Why would someone pay millions for a painting when you can get a similar sized piece of art for a fraction of the price? Well, because some people may think the former is a masterpiece . . . whilst others think it is a piece of %^&£. But neither side can objectively explain why their view is *right*.

Yeah, I'm here to rant, but 4 champions for £80? Fething disgrace

I stopped buying GW stuff 4-5 years ago, but I foolishly left myself on their mailing list, so imagine my surprise when I get that AOS email with those prices.

I also got an email from Warlord Games, and there pushing their Waffen SS started army which is £90.

4 minis for £80 or 33 minis + tanks and artillery for £90?

GW you make is so easy

Do we really need to go through the differences between fantasy/sci-fi and historical ranges again?

At the end of the day, there are people that will divide the cost of the army by the models gained, and that is what is most important to them, regardless of quality, scale, or anything of that nature.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
33 minis + tanks and artillery for £90?

What a rip off.

306 men plus 4 vehicles: £11.99.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B075J4XFLK/ref=sspa_dk_detail_3?psc=1

 auticus wrote:
At the end of the day, there are people that will divide the cost of the army by the models gained, and that is what is most important to them, regardless of quality, scale, or anything of that nature.

Quite.

You can buy a 3500 Point 30k army for 300€.

30 Marines, 2 Characters, 5 Terminators and a Cybot for just 100€. That's a really good start. Over 1200 Points.

OR you can spend 85€ for a single squad of Seraphin. Or 80€ for a single 100 Point Solar Auxillia Squad.

It really depends on what you want.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Do we really need to go through the differences between fantasy/sci-fi and historical ranges again?

If the difference you're talking about is the cost to design a fantasy/sci-fi model compared to just copying something from history, it's a largely completely irrelevant difference when GW is involved. The look/style/design/aesthetic of GW's stuff is fairly well set in stone by this point with all of the artwork done over the last 20+ years. By this point, GW might as well be treated the same as historicals in this regard.

 frozenwastes wrote:

GW is overpriced but smart. I always thought everyone would be willing to pay forgeworld prices for normal GW plastic kits and here we are.

People prefer plastic as their medium of choice. If the plastic detail is 'good enough*' compared to the resins, and is far less of a headache to clean/prep/assemble/paint than resin, why shouldn't folks be willing to pay the same price for plastic as for resin? People will pay for convenience, full stop.

stroller wrote:
Looking at 4 harbingers vs dragon for a $10 price difference two thoughts come to mind.

One is Kickstarter - while this one appears to have a good track record, $150 is a punt. I might get nothing.

Secondly, I don't actually LIKE the dragon's head. Therefore, to me, the model has zero value. I would perhaps risk $20 on conversion material, but probably not even then (because I already have a large build pile).

Similarly, I dislike two of the harbingers, so, again, the bundle has zero value. I MIGHT buy the two I like, but not at that price.

Please be aware that the Dragon King expansion was developed with Kickstarter funds, and presold on Kickstarter, I am comparing MSRP, not KS price. The KS price is significantly lower.

 John Prins wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:

GW is overpriced but smart. I always thought everyone would be willing to pay forgeworld prices for normal GW plastic kits and here we are.

Some People prefer plastic as their medium of choice. If the plastic detail is 'good enough*' compared to the resins, and is far less of a headache to clean/prep/assemble/paint than resin, why shouldn't folks be willing to pay the same price for plastic as for resin? People will pay for convenience, full stop.

I always found a 2 to 3 piece resin model way quicker to clean and glue together than an equivalent plastic model made of maybe 10 pieces which still needs removing from a sprue, mold lines removing then gluing together.
And spray undercoating and painting is identical for resin and plastic.

I don't really get your point, unless you're talking about GW/FW resin which is in all fairness pretty lousy at times.

Hi John: You said:

$140 seems a rather poor value when the Kingdom Death : Monster Dragon King expansion has a $150 MSRP.

Then you linked to a kickstarter web page. I used the price you quoted. Assuming that that WAS the kickstarter price doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

The subjective like/not like is only marginally affected by price - for me at least.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:


I always found a 2 to 3 piece resin model way quicker to clean and glue together than an equivalent plastic model made of maybe 10 pieces which still needs removing from a sprue, mold lines removing then gluing together.
And spray undercoating and painting is identical for resin and plastic.

I don't really get your point, unless you're talking about GW/FW resin which is in all fairness pretty lousy at times.

I was. And more to the point, I've yet to see anyone who refuses to work with plastic, while tons refuse to work with metal/resin - though again, that's partly a GW quality issue, but plenty of folks refuse to buy ANY metals regardless of source.

stroller wrote:
Hi John: You said:

$140 seems a rather poor value when the Kingdom Death : Monster Dragon King expansion has a $150 MSRP.

Then you linked to a kickstarter web page. I used the price you quoted. Assuming that that WAS the kickstarter price doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

The subjective like/not like is only marginally affected by price - for me at least.

I linked to the KS page to show the $150 MSRP and content (HUGE Dragon, ogre-sized Tyrant, 6x 35mm Survivors).

If you had scrolled down, you would have seen that the KS price was $75, not $150.

The $150 MSRP is apples-to-apples with the GW $140 MSRP.

 John Prins wrote:

 Gimgamgoo wrote:


I always found a 2 to 3 piece resin model way quicker to clean and glue together than an equivalent plastic model made of maybe 10 pieces which still needs removing from a sprue, mold lines removing then gluing together.
And spray undercoating and painting is identical for resin and plastic.

I don't really get your point, unless you're talking about GW/FW resin which is in all fairness pretty lousy at times.

I was. And more to the point, I've yet to see anyone who refuses to work with plastic, while tons refuse to work with metal/resin - though again, that's partly a GW quality issue, but plenty of folks refuse to buy ANY metals regardless of source.

I’m with you on the metal. I don’t enjoy working or playing with metal models, and I know that’s a thing beyond just GW customers. I avoid it at all costs.

Resin though is widely used to great effect across the industry. Aside from GW, I’ve never heard anyone voice a complaint about resin. It holds great detail, is easy to clean, weighs about the same as plastic, allows for larger pieces to be cast than is typical for a plastic spruce, and would allow for far cheaper limited castings like these characters. Seems like a win-win, aside from the fact that GW can’t figure out how to produce high quality resin casts reliably. Some of the best models I’ve seen have been from a company called anvil industries out of the UK. I prefer them to GW plastic even.

The post about forge world prices for GW plastics is sort of obvious/inevitable when you think about it.

GW spelled it all out in a previous report. They only want to increase prices on new releases. They want an average price increase of 3% a year, around 1/3 of their sales is new releases so the new kits need to be around 9-10% higher each and every year.

Given time GW's prices of new kits will be around the prices of past FW kits.


Lugft Huron £23


Primaris Librarian £22.50

It took five years, but it did happen. And it's only up from here. 9% a year on new releases, some savings in start collecting boxes and stand alone game boxes/starters, old kits keep their current price (even AoS reboxes with round bases).

In 10 years basic infantry boxes will cost the double from now? :0 Those beautifull 80€ 10-man infantry squads. We all will feel like sisters of battle players

 Chamberlain wrote:
The post about forge world prices for GW plastics is sort of obvious/inevitable when you think about it.

GW spelled it all out in a previous report. They only want to increase prices on new releases. They want an average price increase of 3% a year, around 1/3 of their sales is new releases so the new kits need to be around 9-10% higher each and every year.

Given time GW's prices of new kits will be around the prices of past FW kits.


Lugft Huron £23


Primaris Librarian £22.50

It took five years, but it did happen. And it's only up from here. 9% a year on new releases, some savings in start collecting boxes and stand alone game boxes/starters, old kits keep their current price (even AoS reboxes with round bases).

maybe its just me, or maybe its the quality of the painters, but that Huron model makes the primaris look like basically wet garbage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I am not a fan of kingdom death (though I do have the crossover model for WoK) the point he is making on cost vs "quality" is pretty obvious that one is overpriced even comparatively even if you dont like the aesthetic you are still getting more product for the same price.

" They want an average price increase of 3% a year"

Is that in nominal prices or excluding inflation?

I'm not an expert but I think most corporate financial reports don't talk in terms of inflation. I think it's probably 3% in actual currency rather than inflation adjusted.

I've said it many times- what kind of gak glue are people using that makes metal models so undesirable? Why do people think they'll fall apart with only a funny look given to them?

This happens to precisely zero of my metal models and there is so much internet hyperbole here it's just not funny.

Issues with metal:

1) Paint chips/rubs off more easily. Especially annoying in game like blood bowl or Necromunda where you are constantly standing models up and down. It also rubs off more easily when painting which is kinda annoying.

2) It bends. Although this can help conversion work it is super annoying to find a warped sword that you need to try and straighten (and is never quite right). In fairness resin bends too, which is why a lot of people prefer plastic, but at least hot water works on resin.

3) Conversion are harder; pieces are heavier and need to be pinned (which is fiddly) and more greenstuff work is required because superglue doesn't give the same smooth finish as plastic glue.

4) Detail. Metal swords are never as pointy, metal chains are never as detailed, metal cloaks are too chunky etc.

Do I still buy metal? Sure, for single piece man sized models (or two or three piece models).

Would I buy a metal dragon or similar large creature? Not unless there were no plastic or resin versions available anywhere.

For 2 so does plastic and when it bends it's harder to bend back than metal.

I prefer plastic myself.
It would be really interesting to see a graph of GW prices overlaid with Forgeworld and average inflation over the last few years.
We’ve always complained about high prices, I just wonder how high they are rising.

 Denny wrote:
Issues with metal:

1) Paint chips/rubs off more easily. Especially annoying in game like blood bowl or Necromunda where you are constantly standing models up and down. It also rubs off more easily when painting which is kinda annoying.

2) It bends. Although this can help conversion work it is super annoying to find a warped sword that you need to try and straighten (and is never quite right). In fairness resin bends too, which is why a lot of people prefer plastic, but at least hot water works on resin.

3) Conversion are harder; pieces are heavier and need to be pinned (which is fiddly) and more greenstuff work is required because superglue doesn't give the same smooth finish as plastic glue.

4) Detail. Metal swords are never as pointy, metal chains are never as detailed, metal cloaks are too chunky etc.

Do I still buy metal? Sure, for single piece man sized models (or two or three piece models).

Would I buy a metal dragon or similar large creature? Not unless there were no plastic or resin versions available anywhere.

People talk about metal like it's some kind crystal that breaks just by looking at it. So much misinformation it's sad. I just think peeps are copy pasting some old metal myths.

Prep time for metal minis like Infinity is the same ( maybe even less cause of fewer parts) as GWs. Minis won't fall apart with a decent glue. You don't need to pin them just a bit of scoring will do.


1. True, paint will cheap easier cause of the heavier and sharper material.
2. Plastic bends and breaks as well.
3.True
4.This is just untrue. Metal and resin are both much superior in details. This and being stronger (metal) material are big pros over plastic.

 Grimtuff wrote:
I've said it many times- what kind of gak glue are people using that makes metal models so undesirable? Why do people think they'll fall apart with only a funny look given to them?

This happens to precisely zero of my metal models and there is so much internet hyperbole here it's just not funny.

as a grumpy old relic of the Lead age I broadly agree, its these young whippersnapper to used to Lego like plastics, yes of course Plastic and Resin offer a higher resolution but often, especially in GW cases, its nudges designs towards far too busy models and swirly gak which is fine for centre piece HQ's and the like but it tends to tickle down, like I said before some of the charm of the older GW metals is the limits of metal defining their character (although all metal 40k vechiles where terrible)

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Do we really need to go through the differences between fantasy/sci-fi and historical ranges again?

We can make a like for like comparison.

For example, everybody knows what a skeleton looks like, so when GW do a skeleton warrior, there's not much design work beyond adding a spear and shield.

Other companies also do generic skeleton warriors with a shield and spear.

And yet, GW's is more expensive, and there's really no justification for it.

4-5 years ago, you were getting 30 Wargames factory skeleton warriors for £20.

GW were doing 10 skeleton warriors for £18...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Do we really need to go through the differences between fantasy/sci-fi and historical ranges again?

If the difference you're talking about is the cost to design a fantasy/sci-fi model compared to just copying something from history, it's a largely completely irrelevant difference when GW is involved. The look/style/design/aesthetic of GW's stuff is fairly well set in stone by this point with all of the artwork done over the last 20+ years. By this point, GW might as well be treated the same as historicals in this regard.

Good post.

GW could phone in Space Marines by now.

 Turnip Jedi wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
I've said it many times- what kind of gak glue are people using that makes metal models so undesirable? Why do people think they'll fall apart with only a funny look given to them?

This happens to precisely zero of my metal models and there is so much internet hyperbole here it's just not funny.

as a grumpy old relic of the Lead age I broadly agree, its these young whippersnapper to used to Lego like plastics, yes of course Plastic and Resin offer a higher resolution but often, especially in GW cases, its nudges designs towards far too busy models and swirly gak which is fine for centre piece HQ's and the like but it tends to tickle down, like I said before some of the charm of the older GW metals is the limits of metal defining their character (although all metal 40k vechiles where terrible)

Plastic does not offer higher resolution!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Do we really need to go through the differences between fantasy/sci-fi and historical ranges again?

We can make a like for like comparison.

For example, everybody knows what a skeleton looks like, so when GW do a skeleton warrior, there's not much design work beyond adding a spear and shield.

Other companies also do generic skeleton warriors with a shield and spear.

And yet, GW's is more expensive, and there's really no justification for it.

4-5 years ago, you were getting 30 Wargames factory skeleton warriors for £20.

GW were doing 10 skeleton warriors for £18...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Do we really need to go through the differences between fantasy/sci-fi and historical ranges again?

If the difference you're talking about is the cost to design a fantasy/sci-fi model compared to just copying something from history, it's a largely completely irrelevant difference when GW is involved. The look/style/design/aesthetic of GW's stuff is fairly well set in stone by this point with all of the artwork done over the last 20+ years. By this point, GW might as well be treated the same as historicals in this regard.

Good post.

GW could phone in Space Marines by now.

I believe that's that case why we see so many space marines cause it takes much less hassle, copy-pasting, to do pink marines than something new.

I hate metal simply because I hate super glue. I vastly prefer plastic glues that set faster and are less nasty when they get on me.

 Modock wrote:
People talk about metal like it's some kind crystal that breaks just by looking at it. So much misinformation it's sad. I just think peeps are copy pasting some old metal myths.

I own a lot of metal models and have been painting them for a couple of decades.
I'm not talking about my experience of what people have said, I'm talking about why I don't like metal.
You are free to disagree of course, but please don't suggest I'm spreading metal myths (which sounds like a VH1 show. Do they still have VH1?)

 Modock wrote:

1. True, paint will cheap easier cause of the heavier and sharper material.
2. Plastic bends and breaks as well.
3.True
4.This is just untrue. Metal and resin are both much superior in detals. This and being stronger (metal) material are big pros over plastic.

On 2), IMO plastic rarely bends but does break far more than metal. However plastic breaks are very easy to fix and tend to be just as strong. When metal breaks you have a problem (I still remember when Richard stepped on my metal High Elf dragon back in the 90's. Wing snapped at the mid point. Model was ruined forever. Still angry about it. Of course he also blinded me in my left eye in an unrelated incident, so maybe its partly that, but dang I liked that dragon.)

4) Maybe this depends on what you mean by details, but I just finished a metal chaos champion where the sword was basically a giant club with a vague point at the end. Metal cannot do sharp points or fine details well; look at that new ghost character model from AoS. There is no way that model could be produced in metal; it would bend under its own weight.

 auticus wrote:
I hate metal simply because I hate super glue. I vastly prefer plastic glues that set faster and are less nasty when they get on me.

Gorilla glue is your friend. I've dropped countless metal models on the floor with it when painting them with no components having come apart. It's that damned good.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Denny wrote:


4) Maybe this depends on what you mean by details, but I just finished a metal chaos champion where the sword was basically a giant club with a vague point at the end. Metal cannot do sharp points or fine details well; look at that new ghost character model from AoS. There is no way that model could be produced in metal; it would bend under its own weight.

I'm sorry, but are you high right now? There is literally no way to refute this without me being rude.

 Denny wrote:

 Modock wrote:
People talk about metal like it's some kind crystal that breaks just by looking at it. So much misinformation it's sad. I just think peeps are copy pasting some old metal myths.

I own a lot of metal models and have been painting them for a couple of decades.
I'm not talking about my experience of what people have said, I'm talking about why I don't like metal.
You are free to disagree of course, but please don't suggest I'm spreading metal myths (which sounds like a VH1 show. Do they still have VH1?)

 Modock wrote:

1. True, paint will cheap easier cause of the heavier and sharper material.
2. Plastic bends and breaks as well.
3.True
4.This is just untrue. Metal and resin are both much superior in detals. This and being stronger (metal) material are big pros over plastic.

On 2), IMO plastic rarely bends but does break far more than metal. However plastic breaks are very easy to fix and tend to be just as strong. When metal breaks you have a problem (I still remember when Richard stepped on my metal High Elf dragon back in the 90's. Wing snapped at the mid point. Model was ruined forever. Still angry about it. Of course he also blinded me in my left eye in an unrelated incident, so maybe its partly that, but dang I liked that dragon.)

4) Maybe this depends on what you mean by details, but I just finished a metal chaos champion where the sword was basically a giant club with a vague point at the end. Metal cannot do sharp points or fine details well; look at that new ghost character model from AoS. There is no way that model could be produced in metal; it would bend under its own weight.

4.I don't know which century is that mini from but you're simple wrong! Metal can go smaller and thinner than plastic.

Take a look at that knife on the left mini. No plastic can go that thin and remain strong as that.

 Grimtuff wrote:
I'm sorry, but are you high right now?

If only.

 Grimtuff wrote:
There is literally no way to refute this without me being rude.

There literally is.
You could try. 'That's really not my experience. Were you working on an old model or something?'

 Modock wrote:
4.I don't know which century is that mini from

20th.
That was the last one right? It had all the digital watches and global conflicts.

 Modock wrote:
but you're simple wrong! Metal can go smaller and thinner than plastic.

Take a look at that knife on the left mini. No plastic can go that thin and remain strong as that.

Does look good. I'm only basing this on my own experiences and could be wrong.
As a counterpoint though, can you show me a metal miniature with a cloak as thin as the Knight of Shrouds?
Plus . . . that's a small knife. Metal can do spikes/knives no problem. It struggles more with the longer thinner bits in IMO. But most of my metal models tend to be classics. Maybe that's the difference; I'm talking about the metals from back in the day, not these new fancy whippersnappers with their new fancy metal models.

Let's just say there's a reason why pikemen for historical games usually are either made of plastic or come without pikes. Long, thin metal bends very easily and is impossible to get straight again (I used to collect WFB Dogs of War, I know a thing or two about bent pikes). That is why you use steel or copper rod on historical minis a lot. Also, you can bend it back, sure, twice, maybe three times. Then we're getting into the realm of breaking and that tends to be very difficult to fix compared to plastic models.

I am a big fan of metal models (I like the heft, my IG consists of about 300 metal guardsmen and associated stuff), but a lot of modern gaming models couldn't be made in metal properly. Not necessarily because of details, but because they wouldn't stand up or could not support their own weight. Anybody remember the 2nd edition face-plant Hormagaunts?

The knife is 0,7mm thick, I measured it. For comparison sake I added a GW mini. Notice the huge scale difference.
The details are superior on Infinity models. The fingers on female mini are tinnnny.




Well this is getting way off topic so I'll leave it be.

I liked metal when it was actually lead. Filing pewter is a PITA.

Metal is superior to plastic for detail, but often it doesn't matter - plastic has ENOUGH detail. If I wanted to put the effort into a top-end paint job, I'd go with resins, but I'm not that ambitious anymore.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:

Teafortheteapot wrote:
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-AU/The-Harbingers-Collection-2018
For four 32mm models.

the US site has it as $140,

$140 seems a rather poor value when the Kingdom Death : Monster Dragon King expansion has a $150 MSRP.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/poots/kingdom-death-monster-15/posts/1748638

Pretending that the GW 32mm figures trade against 4 of the 35mm figures, for $10 more, KD provides a couple extra 35mm figures, an Ogre-class boss (Tyrant) *and* a giant Dragon.

I like a lot of the KD models, but the details on that dragon aree terrible. Look like a cheap plastic toy. I got it for 25$ (IRRC) on the first kickstarter, but I honestly wouldn't pay more than 50 or at the very max 75 for it (cause the other minis are really nice)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jeff white wrote:

Teafortheteapot wrote:
I thought GW couldn't surprise me with pricing anymore . . .

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-AU/The-Harbingers-Collection-2018

I actually scrolled up to check if I was on the NZ website. That's US$175 BTW. For four 32mm models.

WHO buys this?
Honestly, does ANYONE actually buy this?

Yeah, it's mindboggling

 Grimtuff wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I hate metal simply because I hate super glue. I vastly prefer plastic glues that set faster and are less nasty when they get on me.

Gorilla glue is your friend. I've dropped countless metal models on the floor with it when painting them with no components having come apart. It's that damned good.

When I search for Gorilla Glue, google only gives me information about marihuana seeds...

And yeah, Resin and Metal have a finer detail than Plastic by virtue of being casted in a 3D mold instead of 2D sprues. Plastic has come a long way, of course, so right now the difference in detail is not THAT big that makes the status quo of old stand.
I prefer plastic all day. But at the same time I'm not as worried about the finnest of the detail in my miniatures. I prefer a more accesible medium to my miniatures, because I play mass battles games. (But I have a ton of metal/resin heroes from 3rd party companies without a problem)

 Galas wrote:
When I search for Gorilla Glue, google only gives me information about marihuana seeds..

https://www.gorillatough.com/ and https://www.gorillatough.com/international-distributors/

Smoke glue everyday?

But wow yeah lot of the images is of the herbal type.

 Azreal13 wrote:

The "well I'll just use plastic toy shop £1 soldiers" defence is another old favourite too. We'll chuck the "I might as well just use home made card tokens" argument on the pile as well while we're at it.

Speaking as a veteran player, in bygone days, of The US Marines vs. The Invasion of the Cheap Plastic Dinosaurs, I will defend the value of the Bag O' Soldiers (and dinosaurs) over that of the Space Marines.

I had a lot of fun playing that game. (Gods, I haven't played it since 1984?!)

I fully intend to introduce my daughter to wargaming via cheap plastics bought in bags.

The Auld Grump - a lot of folks got their start from Airfix, back in the day.

 auticus wrote:
At the end of the day, there are people that will divide the cost of the army by the models gained, and that is what is most important to them, regardless of quality, scale, or anything of that nature.

Now you see, I would agree with you here but GW's models are not good quality. I can sculpt details better than they can, and their 'hair' looks more like tentacles or fins or a mix of both. Warlord Games produces figures for Bolt Action that manage to be both cheaper and superior to GW's by a fairly large margin, and then there is CB whom someone else mentioned above, but I'll leave them out as comparing GW to them would be like comparing Doctor Who to Rick and Morty.

No, GW made a grave error with its move towards this new cartoony theme. I can only hope that they realise this at some point.

 master of ordinance wrote:

 auticus wrote:
At the end of the day, there are people that will divide the cost of the army by the models gained, and that is what is most important to them, regardless of quality, scale, or anything of that nature.

Now you see, I would agree with you here but GW's models are not good quality. I can sculpt details better than they can, and their 'hair' looks more like tentacles or fins or a mix of both. Warlord Games produces figures for Bolt Action that manage to be both cheaper and superior to GW's by a fairly large margin, and then there is CB whom someone else mentioned above, but I'll leave them out as comparing GW to them would be like comparing Doctor Who to Rick and Morty.

No, GW made a grave error with its move towards this new cartoony theme. I can only hope that they realise this at some point.

Bolt action?

well i guess if you are into that sort of thing but find them pretty dull with no real details. some of the konflict stuff is cool until i saw the first sculpts of those heavy us marines and nearly gagged.

but in all seriousness this is all subjective for everyone and its going to be of different value to everyone.

 Ghaz wrote:

 Galas wrote:
When I search for Gorilla Glue, google only gives me information about marihuana seeds..

https://www.gorillatough.com/ and https://www.gorillatough.com/international-distributors/

Thanks! I swear, I don't smoke weed

 Desubot wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

 auticus wrote:
At the end of the day, there are people that will divide the cost of the army by the models gained, and that is what is most important to them, regardless of quality, scale, or anything of that nature.

Now you see, I would agree with you here but GW's models are not good quality. I can sculpt details better than they can, and their 'hair' looks more like tentacles or fins or a mix of both. Warlord Games produces figures for Bolt Action that manage to be both cheaper and superior to GW's by a fairly large margin, and then there is CB whom someone else mentioned above, but I'll leave them out as comparing GW to them would be like comparing Doctor Who to Rick and Morty.

No, GW made a grave error with its move towards this new cartoony theme. I can only hope that they realise this at some point.

Bolt action?

well i guess if you are into that sort of thing but find them pretty dull with no real details. some of the konflict stuff is cool until i saw the first sculpts of those heavy us marines and nearly gagged.

but in all seriousness this is all subjective for everyone and its going to be of different value to everyone.

I guess it is down to a matter of taste, but even if I leave aside that and just compare quality-too-quality of the mini's Warlords still wins hands down against GW's over proportioned and poorly detailed models that seem to rely on being covered in gribbly bits to prevent the viewer noticing the poor quality of the detailing.

Infinity models are cool, but I am unsure why the thickness of a knife on a model matters.

It goes to the various properties of the different materials that was under discussion at the time, one person asserted that metal meant thick sword blades etc, that was offered as an example that it wasn't the case.

Denny wrote:Does look good. I'm only basing this on my own experiences and could be wrong.
As a counterpoint though, can you show me a metal miniature with a cloak as thin as the Knight of Shrouds?
Plus . . . that's a small knife. Metal can do spikes/knives no problem. It struggles more with the longer thinner bits in IMO. But most of my metal models tend to be classics. Maybe that's the difference; I'm talking about the metals from back in the day, not these new fancy whippersnappers with their new fancy metal models.

Knight of Shroud, this one? Probably not because the miniature is just a cloak but if you don't care if the there's a body included and just want nicely sculpted fabric then some of these could work. From what I remember (these are over a decade old) some might be a bit thicker but more detailed (and those miniatures tend to be a bit smaller than GW's due to less exaggerated proportions) and Rackham was kinda famous for their slightly exaggerated fabrics. Their older sculpts were rathe chunky but they got use to sculpting differently and made some fine stuff near the end (most of the examples). I put a spoiler tag because nobody wants two dozen links at once.

Mario wrote:

Denny wrote:Does look good. I'm only basing this on my own experiences and could be wrong.
As a counterpoint though, can you show me a metal miniature with a cloak as thin as the Knight of Shrouds?
Plus . . . that's a small knife. Metal can do spikes/knives no problem. It struggles more with the longer thinner bits in IMO. But most of my metal models tend to be classics. Maybe that's the difference; I'm talking about the metals from back in the day, not these new fancy whippersnappers with their new fancy metal models.

Knight of Shroud, this one? Probably not because the miniature is just a cloak but if you don't care if the there's a body included and just want nicely sculpted fabric then some of these could work. From what I remember (these are over a decade old) some might be a bit thicker but more detailed (and those miniatures tend to be a bit smaller than GW's due to less exaggerated proportions) and Rackham was kinda famous for their slightly exaggerated fabrics. Their older sculpts were rathe chunky but they got use to sculpting differently and made some fine stuff near the end (most of the examples). I put a spoiler tag because nobody wants two dozen links at once.

Spoiler:

http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpBbGNoZW1pc3RzIG9mIERpcnovU2NvcnBpb25OZXVyb21hbmNlci5qcGc=/?ref=
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpBbGNoZW1pc3RzIG9mIERpcnovU2VudGluZWxzb2ZEYW5ha2lsLmpwZw==/?ref=
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpBbGNoZW1pc3RzIG9mIERpcnovU2V0aGluLmpwZw==/?ref=
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpBbGNoZW1pc3RzIG9mIERpcnovU3lraG9Wb2xlc3RlcnVzLmpwZw==/?ref=
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpBbGNoZW1pc3RzIG9mIERpcnovU2luQXNzeXJpcy5qcGc=/?ref=
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpBbGNoZW1pc3RzIG9mIERpcnovVGhlSGVyZXNpYXJjaHNTcGF3bi5qcGc=/?ref=

http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpFbGZzIC0gQ3lud2FsbC9DeW53bGxBc2FkYXJzMS5qcGc=/?ref=
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpFbGZzIC0gQ3lud2FsbC9DeW53bGxBc2FkYXJzMi5qcGc=/?ref=
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpFbGZzIC0gQ3lud2FsbC9DeW53YWxsQ29uc3RydWN0V2FycmlvcnMuanBn/?ref=
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpFbGZzIC0gQ3lud2FsbC9DeW53YWxsS2hpZGFyeW1zLmpwZw==/?ref=
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpFbGZzIC0gQ3lud2FsbC9DeW53bGxTeW5jaHJvbm1lLmpwZw==/?ref=
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http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpFbGZzIC0gQ3lud2FsbC9MZW5zTWVka2Vubi5qcGc=/?ref=
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpFbGZzIC0gQ3lud2FsbC9Tb21FcXVhbmltV2Fycmlvci5qcGc=/?ref=
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpFbGZzIC0gQ3lud2FsbC9TeWRkZUthaWJlci5qcGc=/?ref=
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpFbGZzIC0gQ3lud2FsbC9TbGFubmtoaWRhcm1jaGFtcGlvbi5qcGc=/?ref=

http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpHcmlmZmlucyBvZiBBa2t5bGFubmllL0VzY2hlbGl1c3RoZUFyZGVudC5qcGc=/?ref=
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpHcmlmZmlucyBvZiBBa2t5bGFubmllL0dyaWZmaW5GdXNpbGllcnNCb3guanBn/?ref=
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpHcmlmZmlucyBvZiBBa2t5bGFubmllL1ByYWV0b3JpYW5HdWFyZC5qcGc=/?ref=
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpHcmlmZmlucyBvZiBBa2t5bGFubmllL1RoZVRlbXBsYXJzb2ZIb2QuanBn/?ref=
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpHcmlmZmlucyBvZiBBa2t5bGFubmllL1RlbXBsYXJ3YXItc3RhZmYuanBn/?ref=
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpIeWJyaWQgYW5kIE5lbWVzaXMvR3JpZmZpbk1pbmUtTGF5ZXJOZW1lc2lzLmpwZw==/?ref=
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpIeWJyaWQgYW5kIE5lbWVzaXMvQW1icm9zaXVzLmpwZw==/?ref=

http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpMaW9ucyBvZiBBbGFoYW4vUHl0aGlhb2ZBemwuanBn/?ref=
http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/cGF0aDpMaW9ucyBvZiBBbGFoYW4vUmVhcGVyc29mQWxhaGFuMi5qcGc=/?ref=
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