Assuming a normal sized hand that is still seems slightly smaller then trade and certainly smaller than the full rulebook.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
I don't think this is trade hard back size; it is smaller, both in content as well as actual size,than the full size book.

It could be a midget holding the book, but it looks about trade size, so bigger than the DV softback, smaller than the Big One.

Games Workshop wrote:
Don't let its size fool you - measuring a convenient 205mm x 150mm, this handy book contains the complete rules for Warhammer 40,000.

Thanks Z, why use a picture when you can use MASSIVE ORANGE CHARACTERS

I don't see the point in raging about it. They have a mini version in DV available on EBAY for around £15/20. Its another pretty looking book which will appeal to a fairly small audience, but if you had no intention of buying a smaller rulebook before the release, why get enraged by one when it is?

 azreal13 wrote:


Thanks Z, why use a picture when you can use MASSIVE ORANGE CHARACTERS

Because tiny green characters are just so damn hard to read...

stargasm wrote:I don't see the point in raging about it. They have a mini version in DV available on EBAY for around £15/20. Its another pretty looking book which will appeal to a fairly small audience, but if you had no intention of buying a smaller rulebook before the release, why get enraged by one when it is?

God forbid people discuss something on a discussion board. God forbid we be critical of something without it being taken as raging.

azreal13 wrote:Thanks Z, why use a picture when you can use MASSIVE ORANGE CHARACTERS

Perhaps my mistake was not posting the measurements in MASSIVE ORANGE.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Why do people need a portable version of the rules anyway? Once you learn the rules you only need a crib sheet of tables and basic reminders, which I assume they still supply.

You own codex, I can see the point in keeping that with you, but the main rules can be left behind.

For me as someone who just doesn't always remember rules the idea of a smaller book es very convinient, as previously mentioned however, the DV book suits me fine.

i don't know why people expect gw to compete with resale on ebay. They sell the starter set at a loss anyway so i doubt they could sell that mini rulebook for cheaper than ebay while still making money.

Not all that excited about this.

xruslanx wrote:
i don't know why people expect gw to compete with resale on ebay. They sell the starter set at a loss anyway so i doubt they could sell that mini rulebook for cheaper than ebay while still making money.

The starter set is almost definitely not sold at a loss.

Exactly how much do you think a few sprues of plastic and a book cost to manufacture?!!

Im looking at this as they are selling this book for 50$ USD and it has 168 pages. The main book is 75$ USD and has 452 pages. Quite a difference for 15$.

 Ahtman wrote:

stargasm wrote:I don't see the point in raging about it. They have a mini version in DV available on EBAY for around £15/20. Its another pretty looking book which will appeal to a fairly small audience, but if you had no intention of buying a smaller rulebook before the release, why get enraged by one when it is?

God forbid people discuss something on a discussion board. God forbid we be critical of something without it being taken as raging.

i just get the impression some people take GW's decisions (which, i do understand aren't always that great) a bit too much to heart. I just don't see the point in having a grumble about something you had no interest in purchasing in the first place. With GWs method of releasing things out the blue (unless they are leaked) it isn't like they had built up any expectation of the product either.

I understand more when it comes to miniatures, since the aesthetic of the model range as a whole is what is so attractive about this hobby in the first place, but getting all up in arms over a gaming aid that you probably never wanted doesn't seam worth the effort. A bit like having a grumble about people having a grumble... and of course the grumble your having about me having a grumble about everyone having a grumble...

 stargasm wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:

stargasm wrote:I don't see the point in raging about it. They have a mini version in DV available on EBAY for around £15/20. Its another pretty looking book which will appeal to a fairly small audience, but if you had no intention of buying a smaller rulebook before the release, why get enraged by one when it is?

God forbid people discuss something on a discussion board. God forbid we be critical of something without it being taken as raging.

i just get the impression some people take GW's decisions (which, i do understand aren't always that great) a bit too much to heart. I just don't see the point in having a grumble about something you had no interest in purchasing in the first place. With GWs method of releasing things out the blue (unless they are leaked) it isn't like they had built up any expectation of the product either.

I understand more when it comes to miniatures, since the aesthetic of the model range as a whole is what is so attractive about this hobby in the first place, but getting all up in arms over a gaming aid that you probably never wanted doesn't seam worth the effort. A bit like having a grumble about people having a grumble... and of course the grumble your having about me having a grumble about everyone having a grumble...

Without criticism (or 'grumbling' as you put it) something cannot improve. While it can be said that not everyone can be pleased, people are allowed to be openly critical of something.

 azreal13 wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
i don't know why people expect gw to compete with resale on ebay. They sell the starter set at a loss anyway so i doubt they could sell that mini rulebook for cheaper than ebay while still making money.

The starter set is almost definitely not sold at a loss.

Exactly how much do you think a few sprues of plastic and a book cost to manufacture?!!

well given that gw's overall profit margin is around 17%, i dont see how the box set, that costs around half of its constituant parts, could be possible.

I don't know how much a few sprues of plastic costs to manufacture, nor do i know how much it costs to have it boxed (the boxes will have to be manufactured, printed and shipped to nottingham remember), pay the packing operatives wage, pay their national insurance contributions and pensions, pay their superviser, pay the guy who distrobutes the packaging, pay *his* ni and pension, pay their supervisors, pay the despatch operative who picks the box up, pay for his pallet truck, pay for the scanner and computer to log the damn thing, pay the lorry driver to pick it up, pay to keep the lights on, pay the cleaner to clean the staff toilets, pay the planners who organise all this, pay the fork lift driver, pay the goods in operatives to unload the plastics and packaging.

Then of course you have to pay for the shops - have to pay for the lights, the heating, the gas, have to pay the employees salary, national insurance and pensions, have to pay for the shiny graphics to outfit the shop (and pay someone to organise the logistics of said graphics), have to pay the delivery guy to deliver the stuff, have to pay the guy who distrobutes stock accross stores...then of course you have to do this all over the world.

But hey, this is the internet. You're right, gw kits only cost a few pence to produce! Shame on them, they should be giving this stuff away, right?

By the time I actually arrange to play a game its on the next edition

I do like kewl books but I prefer warmachine layouts design and artwork etc. GW layout is so damn boring to bowse...

Last rules I got was a ganesha pdf for peanuts, quite happy with what I got there... amateur artwork and super fun rules! RULEbook ftw!

GW does make my decisions easier as a wargammer.

That is just bs glad ı have starter set one.

xruslanx wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
i don't know why people expect gw to compete with resale on ebay. They sell the starter set at a loss anyway so i doubt they could sell that mini rulebook for cheaper than ebay while still making money.

The starter set is almost definitely not sold at a loss.

Exactly how much do you think a few sprues of plastic and a book cost to manufacture?!!

well given that gw's overall profit margin is around 17%, i dont see how the box set, that costs around half of its constituant parts, could be possible.

I don't know how much a few sprues of plastic costs to manufacture, nor do i know how much it costs to have it boxed (the boxes will have to be manufactured, printed and shipped to nottingham remember), pay the packing operatives wage, pay their national insurance contributions and pensions, pay their superviser, pay the guy who distrobutes the packaging, pay *his* ni and pension, pay their supervisors, pay the despatch operative who picks the box up, pay for his pallet truck, pay for the scanner and computer to log the damn thing, pay the lorry driver to pick it up, pay to keep the lights on, pay the cleaner to clean the staff toilets, pay the planners who organise all this, pay the fork lift driver, pay the goods in operatives to unload the plastics and packaging.

Then of course you have to pay for the shops - have to pay for the lights, the heating, the gas, have to pay the employees salary, national insurance and pensions, have to pay for the shiny graphics to outfit the shop (and pay someone to organise the logistics of said graphics), have to pay the delivery guy to deliver the stuff, have to pay the guy who distrobutes stock accross stores...then of course you have to do this all over the world.

But hey, this is the internet. You're right, gw kits only cost a few pence to produce! Shame on them, they should be giving this stuff away, right?

Ah, bless you.

So, if their profit margin at RRP is 17%, how on earth do they sell to third party retailers at 40% off and still make a profit?

You need to learn the difference between net and gross.

 Imposter101 wrote:

Well, you can buy the Dark Vengeance rule book from eBay for (generally) under £15. This is double that price. It's also only £10 under the BRB which has double the pages and is of the same standard and quality.

It's £15 less...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 azreal13 wrote:

 Steve steveson wrote:
And this, to me, says allot about what people want and why GW ignore them. The book seems a reasonable price to me for what it is. A high quality hard back book in trade hard back size. A similar size novel on low quality paper is £20-£25. This is on high quality gloss paper with high quality print. £30 seems like the correct price for what it is.

Wether it is the correct format is another matter. For me it is. I like hard back books, but then I can see why people were wanting soft back.

Find me a regular 168 page hardback novel on sale for £20-25.

http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/catherynne+m-+valente/yume+no+hon/4901120/

Very few novels at that size, but length has little effect on price of hard back novels. Most are 300-600 pages and in the same £20-£25 price range.

Frankly the problem is amazon have devalued books.

 NAVARRO wrote:
By the time I actually arrange to play a game its on the next edition

I do like kewl books but I prefer warmachine layouts design and artwork etc. GW layout is so damn boring to bowse....

To give GW credit where credit is due, their rulebook layout is better than PP's in one respect. They put the rules at the front. PP's page numbers in the big rulebook don't matchup with the small one as they put he fluff at the front (which is cut out in both company's small books).

Anyways....
£30 for a diddy rulebook that is like all of GW's recent books is unnecessarily made only in hardback.
(to continue the picture theme...)

 azreal13 wrote:


So, if their profit margin at RRP is 17%, how on earth do they sell to third party retailers at 40% off and still make a profit?

You need to learn the difference between net and gross.

And you need to realise there is more to the cost of a product than the raw materials, or even base manufacturing costs... But that's beside the point.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:
By the time I actually arrange to play a game its on the next edition

I do like kewl books but I prefer warmachine layouts design and artwork etc. GW layout is so damn boring to bowse....

To give GW credit where credit is due, their rulebook layout is better than PP's in one respect. They put the rules at the front. PP's page numbers in the big rulebook don't matchup with the small one as they put he fluff at the front (which is cut out in both company's small books).

True that.

Although so much more eyecandy.

 Steve steveson wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:


So, if their profit margin at RRP is 17%, how on earth do they sell to third party retailers at 40% off and still make a profit?

You need to learn the difference between net and gross.

And you need to realise there is more to the cost of a product than the raw materials, or even base manufacturing costs... But that's beside the point.

No, I really don't.

17% is (I assume, if he didn't pluck a number out of thin air) their net profit. The gross profit is, at the very least, in excess of 40%, I would speculate nearer 70% on most kits. So the actual cost of the kit, assuming I'm in the ball park, is 30% of the net sale price (before VAT in the UK)

So, based on some quick and dirty maths, a copy of DV costs GW ~£15. TBH, that smells a little on the high side, but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Other costs, such as wages and rent, aren't included in the cost of manufacture, they are the cost of doing business, and come out of your gross margin.

As GW produce a lot of their own stuff as well as retailing it, I'm sure there is further accountancy shenanigans that ensures costs are located wherever they will do the least damage to the bottom line.

The fact remains, Dark Vengeance is not a loss leader, unless GW have let their production costs spiral ludicrously out of control.

 azreal13 wrote:


No, I really don't.

17% is (I assume, if he didn't pluck a number out of thin air) their net profit. The gross profit is, at the very least, in excess of 40%, I would speculate nearer 70% on most kits. So the actual cost of the kit, assuming I'm in the ball park, is 30% of the net sale price (before VAT in the UK)

So, based on some quick and dirty maths, a copy of DV costs GW ~£15. TBH, that smells a little on the high side, but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Other costs, such as wages and rent, aren't included in the cost of manufacture, they are the cost of doing business, and come out of your gross margin.

As GW produce a lot of their own stuff as well as retailing it, I'm sure there is further accountancy shenanigans that ensures costs are located wherever they will do the least damage to the bottom line.

The fact remains, Dark Vengeance is not a loss leader, unless GW have let their production costs spiral ludicrously out of control.

Yes you do, as you seem to think gross proffit has any connection to sale cost. It probably isn't sold at a loss, but the cost of making the product is not the total cost. The cost of actualy making the product has no conection to the selling price. Ask any jewellery shop. They have about 1000% mark up.

xruslanx wrote:

The starter set is almost definitely not sold at a loss.

Exactly how much do you think a few sprues of plastic and a book cost to manufacture?!!

That is what I was commenting on. Just because you make a proffit on the cost of makeing a product dose not mean it is not sold at a loss...

I'm sorry, I hold business qualifications, worked at management level in a large company and run my own company, but I still can't see the point you're trying to make.

Business will generally work to a fixed gross margin, yes, in some industries that runs into 000s of %, but gross margins are generally consistent within an industry sector, give or take.

I agree with that, but can't see your argument?

EDIT

Just saw your second successive post .

With all due respect, we appear to be working on different levels here, so I'm just going to end this before I have to take it massively off topic to explain what I'm talking about.

You know, maybe you don't like the price. Maybe you don't like the format. But neither of those is the most curious to me. To me it's the timing.

I mean, this thing is coming out a looooong time after 6th Ed launched. Who is the target market for this? I mean, it can't be new players, as their target product is DV. So who is it?

 cincydooley wrote:
You know, maybe you don't like the price. Maybe you don't like the format. But neither of those is the most curious to me. To me it's the timing.

I mean, this thing is coming out a looooong time after 6th Ed launched. Who is the target market for this? I mean, it can't be new players, as their target product is DV. So who is it?

Hmmm, I don't see posts from cincy for several days, suddenly start seeing posts again. Posts I agree with...

Who are you, and what have you done with cincy?

I think there will be a surprising number of takers

A fair number of folk (mistakenly in my opinion) don't seem to care about the background and just want rules

Some just don't like buying second hand (ugh ebay! somebody else has touched this) and also can't imagine buying anything they don't want to use (so no DV box set for them as that would mean needing to play DA and Chaos)

So they'll buy this, not the cheapest way to do it, but then again what is in the wonderful world of GW

:-). Gencon must have fethed me up.

Imposter101 wrote:Well, you can buy the Dark Vengeance rule book from eBay for (generally) under £15. This is double that price. It's also only £10 under the BRB which has double the pages and is of the same standard and quality.

 Imposter101 wrote:
But the problem is, it's only £10 more for a book of the exact same quality, and almost double the pages.

£15 more, for more than double the pages (almost triple).

conker249 wrote:Im looking at this as they are selling this book for 50$ USD and it has 168 pages. The main book is 75$ USD and has 452 pages. Quite a difference for 15$.

25$.

My issue in a nutshell:

Big Hardcover Book:
452 pages
11 inches x 8 inches
$74.25 per book
$0.16 per page
$0.002 per square inch

Small Hardcover Book:
168 pages
8 inches x 6 inches
$49.50 per book
$0.29 per page
$0.006 per square inch


For 66% of the price you get 37% the page count or 20% of the paper that you would get for the big book.
The price per page increased 81%. The price per square inch increased by 200%.

That's my problem with this "deal".

 Steve steveson wrote:
And this, to me, says allot about what people want and why GW ignore them. The book seems a reasonable price to me for what it is. A high quality hard back book in trade hard back size. A similar size novel on low quality paper is £20-£25. This is on high quality gloss paper with high quality print. £30 seems like the correct price for what it is.

Wether it is the correct format is another matter. For me it is. I like hard back books, but then I can see why people were wanting soft back.

I have several hard cover collections of full colour artwork on higher quality paper with more pages that cost much less than this. This is still ludicrously expensive, even for what they're offering.

 azreal13 wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
I don't think this is trade hard back size; it is smaller, both in content as well as actual size,than the full size book.

It could be a midget holding the book, but it looks about trade size, so bigger than the DV softback, smaller than the Big One.

That book is £30??!! Ye gods..

Actually, just looking on the side of the screen at the other items on sale, there is some tremendously cheap looking skull tape measure thing for £10 .. I guess I'm just completely out of touch with how much GW stuff costs these days!

For £30 you can buy any other companies full size hardback rulebook. Art & fluff an all. GW seen to think that hardbacks are a revolution but gw as ever are about 10 years behind. Hardbacks aren't all that expensive nor have they ever been. This is just typical gw gouging the idiots still gullible enough to pay over the odds for so little. Lousy rules, bad typos, power creep units, over done rules for new stuff which forces people to buy new stuff, rules that invalidate models wtc

Motograter wrote:
For £30 you can buy any other companies full size hardback rulebook. Art & fluff an all. GW seen to think that hardbacks are a revolution but gw as ever are about 10 years behind. Hardbacks aren't all that expensive nor have they ever been. This is just typical gw gouging the idiots still gullible enough to pay over the odds for so little. Lousy rules, bad typos, power creep units, over done rules for new stuff which forces people to buy new stuff, rules that invalidate models wtc

I'm always happy to stick the boot in to GW when they deserve it, but I am also a customer when it suits me.

I object to being referred to as an idiot, I also would rather we didn't get posts like this, as it does nothing for those who would try to objectively criticise in the same manner as the occasional ludicrous White Knightery does nothing for those who are fans.

Gotta wonder who will bother with a $50 hardcover mini-book. The whole point of mini-books are transportability and this is just more annoying for that.

 d-usa wrote:
For 66% of the price you get 37% the page count or 20% of the paper that you would get for the big book.
The price per page increased 81%. The price per square inch increased by 200%.

That's my problem with this "deal".

Motograter wrote:
For £30 you can buy any other companies full size hardback rulebook. Art & fluff an all. GW seen to think that hardbacks are a revolution but gw as ever are about 10 years behind. Hardbacks aren't all that expensive nor have they ever been. This is just typical gw gouging the idiots still gullible enough to pay over the odds for so little. Lousy rules, bad typos, power creep units, over done rules for new stuff which forces people to buy new stuff, rules that invalidate models wtc

Wait a second. You guys are getting all bent out of shape because GW is selling a product you don't need to buy, aren't being forced to buy, and can get the same stuff in softcover for less?



I swear to God, people will act like GW peed in their Cheerios over any little thing.

 azreal13 wrote:

xruslanx wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
i don't know why people expect gw to compete with resale on ebay. They sell the starter set at a loss anyway so i doubt they could sell that mini rulebook for cheaper than ebay while still making money.

The starter set is almost definitely not sold at a loss.

Exactly how much do you think a few sprues of plastic and a book cost to manufacture?!!

well given that gw's overall profit margin is around 17%, i dont see how the box set, that costs around half of its constituant parts, could be possible.

I don't know how much a few sprues of plastic costs to manufacture, nor do i know how much it costs to have it boxed (the boxes will have to be manufactured, printed and shipped to nottingham remember), pay the packing operatives wage, pay their national insurance contributions and pensions, pay their superviser, pay the guy who distrobutes the packaging, pay *his* ni and pension, pay their supervisors, pay the despatch operative who picks the box up, pay for his pallet truck, pay for the scanner and computer to log the damn thing, pay the lorry driver to pick it up, pay to keep the lights on, pay the cleaner to clean the staff toilets, pay the planners who organise all this, pay the fork lift driver, pay the goods in operatives to unload the plastics and packaging.

Then of course you have to pay for the shops - have to pay for the lights, the heating, the gas, have to pay the employees salary, national insurance and pensions, have to pay for the shiny graphics to outfit the shop (and pay someone to organise the logistics of said graphics), have to pay the delivery guy to deliver the stuff, have to pay the guy who distrobutes stock accross stores...then of course you have to do this all over the world.

But hey, this is the internet. You're right, gw kits only cost a few pence to produce! Shame on them, they should be giving this stuff away, right?

Ah, bless you.

So, if their profit margin at RRP is 17%, how on earth do they sell to third party retailers at 40% off and still make a profit?

You need to learn the difference between net and gross.

Edited by AgeOfEgos

 Breotan wrote:
Wait a second. You guys are getting all bent out of shape because GW is selling a product you don't need to buy, aren't being forced to buy, and can get the same stuff in softcover for less?

No, what they are seeing is a not well thought out, overpriced book, and saying so. As is the right of every Imperial Citizen.

 Breotan wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
For 66% of the price you get 37% the page count or 20% of the paper that you would get for the big book.
The price per page increased 81%. The price per square inch increased by 200%.

That's my problem with this "deal".

Motograter wrote:
For £30 you can buy any other companies full size hardback rulebook. Art & fluff an all. GW seen to think that hardbacks are a revolution but gw as ever are about 10 years behind. Hardbacks aren't all that expensive nor have they ever been. This is just typical gw gouging the idiots still gullible enough to pay over the odds for so little. Lousy rules, bad typos, power creep units, over done rules for new stuff which forces people to buy new stuff, rules that invalidate models wtc

Wait a second. You guys are getting all bent out of shape because GW is selling a product you don't need to buy, aren't being forced to buy, and can get the same stuff in softcover for less?



I swear to God, people will act like GW peed in their Cheerios over any little thing.

I'm saying why I don't like it, and I'm just giving an explanation of why I won't be buying it.
Nothing to get upset over.

 d-usa wrote:
My issue in a nutshell:

Big Hardcover Book:
452 pages
11 inches x 8 inches
$74.25 per book
$0.16 per page
$0.002 per square inch

Small Hardcover Book:
168 pages
8 inches x 6 inches
$49.50 per book
$0.29 per page
$0.006 per square inch


For 66% of the price you get 37% the page count or 20% of the paper that you would get for the big book.
The price per page increased 81%. The price per square inch increased by 200%.

That's my problem with this "deal".

i can get a pint of milk from asda for 50p. Or i can get four pints of milk for a pound. That's the real world mate, if you don't want the book, don t buy it. Personally i think it's about £5 too expensive and i'd rather buy a softback off ebay, but i can see the appeal.

xruslanx wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
My issue in a nutshell:

Spoiler:

Big Hardcover Book:
452 pages
11 inches x 8 inches
$74.25 per book
$0.16 per page
$0.002 per square inch

Small Hardcover Book:
168 pages
8 inches x 6 inches
$49.50 per book
$0.29 per page
$0.006 per square inch


For 66% of the price you get 37% the page count or 20% of the paper that you would get for the big book.
The price per page increased 81%. The price per square inch increased by 200%.

That's my problem with this "deal".

i can get a pint of milk from asda for 50p. Or i can get four pints of milk for a pound. That's the real world mate, if you don't want the book, don t buy it. Personally i think it's about £5 too expensive and i'd rather buy a softback off ebay, but i can see the appeal.

And the big price difference between a pint of milk and four pints of milk is the packaging, which has a higher impact on the price than the milk itself. Which is also one of the things that I acknowledged, that a hardcover is automatically going to cost more than a softcover and that a thinner hardcover is going to have a higher per-page cost than a thicker hardcover since you have a more difficult time to dilute the cost of the binding itself.

Guys, I get it. I'm very sorry that I actually tried to explain my opinion and tried to be objective with it. In the future I will simply post "rabble rabble, it's GW and expensive, rabble rabble" without any actual thoughts or content attached to it. Deal?

Edited by AgeOfEgos

You never did explain, if gw can sell a+b+c for 150 pound seperately while making, let's say 40% profit (that's 60 pound), how can they sell them all collectively for 50 pound while still making a profit? Since you apparently don't beleive in services, you may not refer to them in your answer.

I don't even know what you are trying to say there...

 d-usa wrote:
I don't even know what you are trying to say there...

I think he's drunk and responding to my post, but didn't quote.

 azreal13 wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
I don't even know what you are trying to say there...

I think he's drunk and responding to my post, but didn't quote.

I'm not sure it makes sense as a response to either of our posts

xruslanx wrote:
Edited

You never did explain, if gw can sell a+b+c for 150 pound seperately while making, let's say 40% profit (that's 60 pound), how can they sell them all collectively for 50 pound while still making a profit? Since you apparently don't beleive in services, you may not refer to them in your answer.

You're getting ripped off when you by them separately!

Apart from you can't buy them separately of course.

You have no understanding of how a business' cost structure works, the cost of running the shops is not a factor in the cost to produce an item, logistics costs, staffing, rent and utilities for the retail arm won't be included in what GW deems the production costs of an item, any ore than it would factor in Dark Sphere's running costs when it decides how much to sell it's product to them for.

Oh, and did you just accuse me of being a nerd on a wargames Internet forum you are an active member of?

EDIT
I'll address the a+b+c thing for gaks and giggles.

They make ~70% retail (I think) when they sell direct, which once non-production costs (rent,rates,wages etc) are deducted, leaves them ~17% as pure profit, when they sell to other retailers, they sell at ~40% but that has no further costs attached, so is pure profit.

xruslanx wrote:
Edited

You never did explain, if gw can sell a+b+c for 150 pound seperately while making, let's say 40% profit (that's 60 pound), how can they sell them all collectively for 50 pound while still making a profit? Since you apparently don't beleive in services, you may not refer to them in your answer.

The difference between net and gross is some pretty basic gak. If you're going to make an attempt at discourse, at least attempt to do it intelligently. That's really all we ask.

General warning for the thread;

While posting pictures within a thread is certainly permissible, please limit the amount of 4Chan/gif stylized responses with little to no content.

Also, if you feel someone has stepped over the line with a response---best to hit the "Alert Mod" button over quoting/responding. Thanks.

Ryan

for future reference, three posters ganging up on one and slapping each other on the back over how much of a dumbass the one is, is a surefire way of making sure that the discussion will die on its feet and people will simply start flaming.

You have flat out ignored my question - how can the cost of a combination of products be lower than the combined profit from selling those products seperately, while still making a profit?

It's clear that anyone who isn't a part of your little clique isn't accepted here though so i don't expect anything resembling a rational or coherant reply. Peace bro.

Sorry mate, there's no clique.

As a matter of fact, cincydooley and I are frequently the ones falling out.

Your manner generated those responses independently from the different users, I'd listen to the message that should be sending.

I have tried to explain, you either aren't willing to listen or unable to understand.

One more time.

The stuff is massively overpriced in the first place. Therefore sticking it all in a box and charging less for it just means they are making less profit, not making a loss.

The intrinsic value (the actual worth) of a plastic sprue is tiny, literally pennies. Now, you quite rightly have to factor in the cost of designing that sprue, as well as making the mold.

Those costs will never change though, so if it costs £5000 to get to the point where you have made a sprue, it will only cost £5000.10p to make two, and so on. Once you have made thousands of sprues, the cost of designing and making the sprue becomes almost as small as the cost of the plastic, as that original £5000 cost has now been shared out over many thousands of sprues.

All the DV box is, is some sprues, that, if we are generous, cost £2 each to make, a book at £5 (maybe) and a few other bits and pieces, put in a box, which again would cost very little for each one.

What seems to have you confused is that you seem to think GW are charging you a price based in what their products cost to make. They are not, they are charging you what they think you will pay, which is many, many times more than the price that would clear them a profit.

Part of the reason they have to charge so much is because of their stores, which are a massive drain on their finances, and many critics believe they would be better off getting rid, and just producing product and supporting independent stores.

They are unwilling/unable to do that, so continue to have to pay all the costs associated with running a chain of stores.

These are costs that, from an accounting view point, have absolutely nothing to do with how much it costs them to make stuff, and therefore shouldn't be considered a manufacturing cost that contributes directly to how much it costs them to get product onto the shelf. They are costs though, and have everything to do with how much money they ultimately make.

*edit*

 azreal13 wrote:

All the DV box is, is some sprues, that, if we are generous, cost £2 each to make, a book at £5 (maybe) and a few other bits and pieces, put in a box, which again would cost very little for each one.

If this was true, there should be companies selling equivalent products for fraction of the cost GW does: there are not, so you are wrong.

Even in the model kit industry, which is much more competive, where the moulds can be decades old and any design costs have been sunk years ago, nobody sells big plastic kits for the prices you describe. So, you are wrong.

Backfire wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

All the DV box is, is some sprues, that, if we are generous, cost £2 each to make, a book at £5 (maybe) and a few other bits and pieces, put in a box, which again would cost very little for each one.

If this was true, there should be companies selling equivalent products for fraction of the cost GW does: there are not, so you are wrong.

Even in the model kit industry, which is much more competive, where the moulds can be decades old and any design costs have been sunk years ago, nobody sells big plastic kits for the prices you describe. So, you are wrong.

Yeah, except that there is a thing called price leadership, where in a market with a few or one dominant player, those companies set the prices and other companies follow suit.

Which is exactly what is happening in the wargaming market. Privateer Press charge what they do, in part, because they see what GW get away with, so why should they charge less?

So you are wrong.

Sorry.

EDIT

You would also have to factor in that nearly all the competitors in the wargames market, with the arguable exception of PP, are much smaller than GW, and do not benefit from economies of scale anywhere near as much. Therefore, their costs are legitimately higher, and would force a higher selling price as a result. In addition, I believe GW are the only company in this sector to own their own production, so don't have another company making a living by making their product, again reducing costs.

GW charge amongst the highest prices, and should, barring massive incompetence, have the lowest costs per unit by a mile.

Backfire wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

All the DV box is, is some sprues, that, if we are generous, cost £2 each to make, a book at £5 (maybe) and a few other bits and pieces, put in a box, which again would cost very little for each one.

If this was true, there should be companies selling equivalent products for fraction of the cost GW does: there are not, so you are wrong.

Even in the model kit industry, which is much more competive, where the moulds can be decades old and any design costs have been sunk years ago, nobody sells big plastic kits for the prices you describe. So, you are wrong.

Like Az said, the prices of what the market will bear are dictated by the market leader. It's the reason Nike sells their "premium" shoes (Jordan's, LeBrons) for like $200 when they cost about $10 to make. And as such, that's why Adidas can sell their "collectors" lines for similar cost.

Just because they dont doesn't mean they cant.

If you need a further example, I give you the UK cellphone market (my home turf, so to speak) before 2003.

£30 bought you 200 mins a month on a contract handset, if you were lucky, you could get 50 SMS messages included.

In 2003, the 3 network launched, turning a 4 way battle into a 5 way.

They immediately launched a £30 bundle which offered 500 minutes and 100 texts, alongside Internet usage, which at the time nobody cared about.

Within 2 months, all the incumbents had moved to match or rival the new packages.

This triggered a decade of nip and tuck, where nowadays, the same monthly investment can get you literally unlimited voice and SMS usage, as well as vast amounts of data.

Do you think the 4 existing networks would have made those initial moves if a competitor hasn't forced them to?

Personally, I doubt it, as the status quo had existed for several years beforehand with no significant change.

Sadly, the Wargame market isn't big enough to attract a company with sufficient financial clout to illicit that sort of change, but if it did, I guarantee you would see a change in GW's approach practically overnight.

Yeah, no one can even touch GW enough to make a difference. I think that new FFG financial info shows that. They did $3MM in miniatures sales, and we all know Star Wars is hella popular.

 Kroothawk wrote:

Imposter101 wrote:Well, you can buy the Dark Vengeance rule book from eBay for (generally) under £15. This is double that price. It's also only £10 under the BRB which has double the pages and is of the same standard and quality.

 Imposter101 wrote:
But the problem is, it's only £10 more for a book of the exact same quality, and almost double the pages.

£15 more, for more than double the pages (almost triple).

conker249 wrote:Im looking at this as they are selling this book for 50$ USD and it has 168 pages. The main book is 75$ USD and has 452 pages. Quite a difference for 15$.

25$.

I noticed that an hour after I posted I've been doing math homework all day and my brain was fried.

As a 40k gamer who still doesn't have a 6th edition rulebook, I suppose I fall into the small section of players this product was designed for (Unless you want more than one rule book). So now my choices for getting the rule books are - this book $83, the BRB $124 or DV $165. If it was around $50 sure I'd pick up a copy, but they're joking at $83. Guess I'll just have to wait for the next version (no doubt it will be a wallet-sized version or some such ****).

Still not as good as the DV mini rulebook. Ebay is your friend here.

Not a good pricing move by GW.

 azreal13 wrote:

Backfire wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

All the DV box is, is some sprues, that, if we are generous, cost £2 each to make, a book at £5 (maybe) and a few other bits and pieces, put in a box, which again would cost very little for each one.

If this was true, there should be companies selling equivalent products for fraction of the cost GW does: there are not, so you are wrong.

Even in the model kit industry, which is much more competive, where the moulds can be decades old and any design costs have been sunk years ago, nobody sells big plastic kits for the prices you describe. So, you are wrong.

Yeah, except that there is a thing called price leadership, where in a market with a few or one dominant player, those companies set the prices and other companies follow suit.

Which is exactly what is happening in the wargaming market. Privateer Press charge what they do, in part, because they see what GW get away with, so why should they charge less?

So you are wrong.

Sorry.

Except I already debunked this counter-argument by pointing out the situation in model kits industry, where there is no single market leader, and prices aren't anywhere as low as you describe. "Leadership" you describe only brings GW (and PP et al) bigger profits compared to highly saturated model kit industry, that's all.

 cincydooley wrote:
They did $3MM in miniatures sales, and we all know Star Wars is hella popular.

Still allegedly more popular than Warhammer Fantasy in USA
On the other hand, they don't charge stellar prices as GW does, like 50$ for a single plastic sprue or a mini-rulebook.

Regardless of whatever pprofit or other buisness ideas float about, the minibook is overpriced because you pay 2/3 the price for 1/3 the contents. The smaller size balances with the convenience aspect. So really they are charging you double.

Backfire wrote:
Except I already debunked this counter-argument by pointing out the situation in model kits industry, where there is no single market leader, and prices aren't anywhere as low as you describe. "Leadership" you describe only brings GW (and PP et al) bigger profits compared to highly saturated model kit industry, that's all.

That's more of a rebuttal than a debunking, really, since your analogy is not without flaws. For one thing, GW's standard of moulding is still pretty primitive compared to that in the proper models industry. Just look at the fine detail, GW still uses gigantic troughs for panel lines and fist-sized rivets. For all their purported sophistication, they have not let go of the crutch that's got them this far.

Backfire wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

All the DV box is, is some sprues, that, if we are generous, cost £2 each to make, a book at £5 (maybe) and a few other bits and pieces, put in a box, which again would cost very little for each one.

If this was true, there should be companies selling equivalent products for fraction of the cost GW does: there are not, so you are wrong.

Even in the model kit industry, which is much more competive, where the moulds can be decades old and any design costs have been sunk years ago, nobody sells big plastic kits for the prices you describe. So, you are wrong.

Actually Backfire, plastic kits are a hobby I'm quite into and you aren't entirely correct there.

Some of the current 'market leaders' of plastic kits (in terms of quality) - lets say Dragon, Trumpeter, Hasegawa to name a few - are constantly making new kits and pushing forward. Often these are small upgrades to existing moulds but in any case they have new production involved. The competition has also lead to a much higher quality - I put together a Dragon Stug Kit a while ago. 900-odd pieces, pressed brass and aluminium parts, tiny components that fit together perfectly, down to the fraction of an mm. It was a delight to build. Researching the kit online Dragon had contracted a couple of engineers, involved in the design process, who had travelled to Europe (I think the Czech republic) to study the original blue-prints of the tank, and study an existing surviving example of the tank as it was being dragged out of a swamp(!) - anyone building this plastic kit would know that it is as close of an approximation to the real thing as possible. Yet the price of this kit, despite a sales percentage that must be a tiny fraction of any GW kit and production costs many times higher, is less than a GW Landraider. As for quality there is no comparison.

The 'decades old' moulds do still exist, but stuff like that is the reason Airfix and others first went down the toilet, and now the industry as a whole has really moved past the whole 'cm wide gap between wing and fuselage' effect that plagued it before. Perhaps coincidentally, as we are discussing GW here, because Airfix in particular had become fat and lazy while enjoying a large market share and allowed such crappy products to remain on the market. In the words of the founder of Honda, "competition breeds excellence".

As has been said by other posters, the price of the Land Raider, of this book, is 'because they can'. Which is fair enough, but it's not an indication of quality (I would put GW somewhere near middle range Revell kits at 1/3 cost), or for this book which would cost £20 if it was made by Battlefront, Corvus Belli or any other wargaming company.

Backfire wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

All the DV box is, is some sprues, that, if we are generous, cost £2 each to make, a book at £5 (maybe) and a few other bits and pieces, put in a box, which again would cost very little for each one.

If this was true, there should be companies selling equivalent products for fraction of the cost GW does: there are not, so you are wrong.

Even in the model kit industry, which is much more competive, where the moulds can be decades old and any design costs have been sunk years ago, nobody sells big plastic kits for the prices you describe. So, you are wrong.

don't bother with azreal. Anyone who's so unerringly confident about something that he doesn't actually know, but is simply pulling speculation out of his arse, is not worth argueing with.

If he thinks you get sell a widget at £100 making £20 profit, and sell the same widget at £30 while still making a profit, then let the little dear think that way.

Just because somebody is wrong on the internet, doesn't mean it's worth your sanity or spare time dealing with them.

xruslanx wrote:

Backfire wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

All the DV box is, is some sprues, that, if we are generous, cost £2 each to make, a book at £5 (maybe) and a few other bits and pieces, put in a box, which again would cost very little for each one.

If this was true, there should be companies selling equivalent products for fraction of the cost GW does: there are not, so you are wrong.

Even in the model kit industry, which is much more competive, where the moulds can be decades old and any design costs have been sunk years ago, nobody sells big plastic kits for the prices you describe. So, you are wrong.

don't bother with azreal. Anyone who's so unerringly confident about something that he doesn't actually know, but is simply pulling speculation out of his arse, is not worth argueing with.

If he thinks you get sell a widget at £100 making £20 profit, and sell the same widget at £30 while still making a profit, then let the little dear think that way.

Just because somebody is wrong on the internet, doesn't mean it's worth your sanity or spare time dealing with them.

Good lord, you're a chippy little rabbit aren't you? I read some of your post history, to see if you were always like this or if I should give you the benefit of the doubt, and honestly, the attitude that comes over in most of your posts is one that generally leads to people not using this site for long, because they mysteriously find themselves unable to log in for some reason.

Even when I went to some trouble after you simply hurled insults at me to try and explain why you're simply not grasping the concept and why you are wrong. (Let's be fair, it isn't just me who has told you that you are) You still can't at least be civil.

Lets have one last try before I put you on ignore, as I really don't like to do that unless I feel there is no hope to try and at least understand the other point of view in these sort of situations.

We are talking percentages. Percentages don't change, regardless of the number involved. So, GW's net margin, once all their bills are paid, is 17% on average. That's free money, that is the money they declare they have earned to the tax man for taxation purposes (and you can bet, because of tricky accounting, is the most pessimistic number they could legally generate)

Now, I've taken this number from your posts, and contrary to your accusations, I didn't pull the 70% out of my arse, but simply can't remember where I read it to cite the source, but hey, you seem happy to insult me rather than discuss, so we'll let that go.

70% is their gross margin, that is the amount of money they make (apparently) when they sell a product at full RRP through their stores, which is the cost of the product before tax (VAT) and nothing else. It is from this 70% that the money to pay for wages, rent, Kirby's yacht etc comes from, and when all that is paid for you're left with your 17%, on average, but it will be higher in some things and lower on others.

Now, where you seem to be falling off the edge, is you somehow think that because they sell a box of five terminators for £30, then the 5 terminators in the DV box are somehow worth £30. They are not. This is a value you have ascribed to them, their actual cost to the company, as I tried to explain previously, is likely in the range of pennies, but at most £1-2.

Now, in all likelihood, because the amount of stuff in the box relative to say, a simple vehicle kit or similar, is more expensive, if you had said that they make less money from Dark Vengeance than from £60 worth of paint or kits, then I would have agreed happily.

However, you said they make a loss, and that isn't true. They are selling, ~£15 max of product for over £50 before tax, and unless you somehow wanted to argue they are using accountancy to somehow put a much higher burden on DV percentage wise of costs, which isn't impossible, albeit unlikely, then they are still making money. If they can't at least make something on a (conservatively estimated) 300% mark up, then they are really doing something wrong somewhere in the business.

If this was true, there should be companies selling equivalent products for fraction of the cost GW does: there are not,

You don't just start up a company that competes with warhammer. There are things known as barriers to entry. Warhammer is a huge brand and is protected by its IP. GW has had decades to get where it is with a large following and player base, production facilties, distribution, shops, playing areas etc.

The 'equivalent' products is not going to be 40k enough to use in 40k for a large number of people, any new competitor has to come up with their own IP and build their own brand up. Unlike model makers, that big player base is a huge problem for potential competitors, How many people want to buy into a game and set of models that isn't being played by anyone? I can happily buy new 40k models/books knowing that there is a surplus of people to play against. Anyone can produce a model Stug and sell it to all those who buy Stugs currently. You can't do that with Space Marines, and you can't do it with something 'equivalent' yet different and expect to sell it much less be succesful. There is more competition in model kits - there is less of a barrier to entry, there's no game that needs a player base built up, and little IP that stops you jumping in, and when you do jump in you are very very directly competing against who ever else builds a Stug.

How many model Stugs do you think the dragon stug noted in the earlier thread sold or expect to sell? How many copies of DV do you think GW sold or expect to sell. I suspect that the model kit had a higher cost of production to get the quality and design and sells to far fewer people. The unit cost must be far higher than GW yet they presumably make a profit on it, Why on earth would you think that GW can't be making a profit on DV? What is in DV that makes it so expensive compared to a 900 piece high detailed model kit? If Drgaon make a profit on their Stug then just think how big the profit margin must be on the single GW kits which are probably a lot cheaper to make per unit.

Even if someone does start competing why do you think they must sell at a lower price? They might want to in order and try and capitalise on the price complaints leveled at GW, but unlike GW their unit costs are going to be higher for something that is equivalent, until they have the volumes that GW can sell, the costs of setting up the production are going be less diluted. With high costs to get into the industry at that level they probably can't afford to sacrifice margin on the product, selling at a lower price doesn't mean you sell much more, and it certainly doesn't mean you maximise profit. This is a niche hobby, and it is fairly price inelastic. It could take years of selling cheap to build up enough momentum to start to be noticed, not really investor friendly. The other companies who are already in the business are still minnows compared to GW, that may change over time, but it has and will take a long time, and then you will probably just see that new big fish with similar high prices as GW - companies exist to maximise profit.

 Kroothawk wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
They did $3MM in miniatures sales, and we all know Star Wars is hella popular.

Still allegedly more popular than Warhammer Fantasy in USA
On the other hand, they don't charge stellar prices as GW does, like 50$ for a single plastic sprue or a mini-rulebook.

Yeah, allegedly according to the poll that doesn't take into account any GW direct sales. But that's neither here nor there......

@Pacific - The new $60 and $90 MSRP X-Wing ships that were announces at GenCon would like to speak with you.......

Yes but FFG have to pay for middle-aged women in Ghanzou to sit and paint their stuff. If GW ever release pre-paints, then a comparison will be possible..

 azreal13 wrote:

xruslanx wrote:

Backfire wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

All the DV box is, is some sprues, that, if we are generous, cost £2 each to make, a book at £5 (maybe) and a few other bits and pieces, put in a box, which again would cost very little for each one.

If this was true, there should be companies selling equivalent products for fraction of the cost GW does: there are not, so you are wrong.

Even in the model kit industry, which is much more competive, where the moulds can be decades old and any design costs have been sunk years ago, nobody sells big plastic kits for the prices you describe. So, you are wrong.

don't bother with azreal. Anyone who's so unerringly confident about something that he doesn't actually know, but is simply pulling speculation out of his arse, is not worth argueing with.

If he thinks you get sell a widget at £100 making £20 profit, and sell the same widget at £30 while still making a profit, then let the little dear think that way.

Just because somebody is wrong on the internet, doesn't mean it's worth your sanity or spare time dealing with them.

Good lord, you're a chippy little rabbit aren't you? I read some of your post history, to see if you were always like this or if I should give you the benefit of the doubt, and honestly, the attitude that comes over in most of your posts is one that generally leads to people not using this site for long, because they mysteriously find themselves unable to log in for some reason.

Even when I went to some trouble after you simply hurled insults at me to try and explain why you're simply not grasping the concept and why you are wrong. (Let's be fair, it isn't just me who has told you that you are) You still can't at least be civil.

Lets have one last try before I put you on ignore, as I really don't like to do that unless I feel there is no hope to try and at least understand the other point of view in these sort of situations.

We are talking percentages. Percentages don't change, regardless of the number involved. So, GW's net margin, once all their bills are paid, is 17% on average. That's free money, that is the money they declare they have earned to the tax man for taxation purposes (and you can bet, because of tricky accounting, is the most pessimistic number they could legally generate)

Now, I've taken this number from your posts, and contrary to your accusations, I didn't pull the 70% out of my arse, but simply can't remember where I read it to cite the source, but hey, you seem happy to insult me rather than discuss, so we'll let that go.

70% is their gross margin, that is the amount of money they make (apparently) when they sell a product at full RRP through their stores, which is the cost of the product before tax (VAT) and nothing else. It is from this 70% that the money to pay for wages, rent, Kirby's yacht etc comes from, and when all that is paid for you're left with your 17%, on average, but it will be higher in some things and lower on others.

Now, where you seem to be falling off the edge, is you somehow think that because they sell a box of five terminators for £30, then the 5 terminators in the DV box are somehow worth £30. They are not. This is a value you have ascribed to them, their actual cost to the company, as I tried to explain previously, is likely in the range of pennies, but at most £1-2.

Now, in all likelihood, because the amount of stuff in the box relative to say, a simple vehicle kit or similar, is more expensive, if you had said that they make less money from Dark Vengeance than from £60 worth of paint or kits, then I would have agreed happily.

However, you said they make a loss, and that isn't true. They are selling, ~£15 max of product for over £50 before tax, and unless you somehow wanted to argue they are using accountancy to somehow put a much higher burden on DV percentage wise of costs, which isn't impossible, albeit unlikely, then they are still making money. If they can't at least make something on a (conservatively estimated) 300% mark up, then they are really doing something wrong somewhere in the business.

i have worked in manufacturing (specifically services) for about four years and literally everything you have just said just sounds like a BSc in armchair ceo studies. Profit margins do not scale, and you don't even know what the word 'worth means, if a set of terminators sells for £30 then it is worth £30.

I'm putting you on ignore, i only hope you get banned from threads like this in future so that you and your cronies don't pollute them with 'wah gw prices are too high and finecost sucks' dressed up as rational argument. You might want to try a website called 4chan, you'd love it.

It's ever person on my ignore list...

xruslanx wrote:Edited by AgeOfEgos

xruslanx wrote:Edited by AgeOfEgos

xruslanx wrote:don't bother with azreal. Anyone who's so unerringly confident about something that he doesn't actually know, but is simply pulling speculation out of his arse, is not worth argueing with.

xruslanx wrote:I'm putting you on ignore, i only hope you get banned from threads like this in future so that you and your cronies don't pollute them with 'wah gw prices are too high and finecost sucks' dressed up as rational argument.

I am sick of this trolling. Hope you get what you deserve for it.

 Pacific wrote:

Backfire wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

All the DV box is, is some sprues, that, if we are generous, cost £2 each to make, a book at £5 (maybe) and a few other bits and pieces, put in a box, which again would cost very little for each one.

If this was true, there should be companies selling equivalent products for fraction of the cost GW does: there are not, so you are wrong.

Even in the model kit industry, which is much more competive, where the moulds can be decades old and any design costs have been sunk years ago, nobody sells big plastic kits for the prices you describe. So, you are wrong.

Actually Backfire, plastic kits are a hobby I'm quite into and you aren't entirely correct there.
<snip>

Yes, I am. The point was not that I claimed GW kits representing best value for money within the industry (they don't), but whether the GW could sell them order-of-magnitude cheaper, as claimed by azreal13: they can't. I'm well acquinted with model kit industry myself, thank you, and whilst it's true that the best manufacturers offer better deals quality/size vs price than GW does, they are not fraction of the cost. That Dragon StuG you cited might be cheaper than a Land Raider, but it's not 90% cheaper. Even the crappy old Airfix kits aren't sold that cheap. I am actually just building an Airfix Harrier GR.3 - ugh! That kit costed about 10 euros, equivalent GW kit would have costed maybe 26 euros. So signifantly cheaper, yes, but not order-of-magnitude cheaper, and its quality is really awful compared to even old GW kits. And if Airfix could sell that cheaper, they would, since unlike wargames industry, model kits industry is highly competive.

Another point, of course, is that most model kit makers have their production in China or other cheap labour countries. GW and PP produce their kits in UK and USA.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Deadshot wrote:
Regardless of whatever pprofit or other buisness ideas float about, the minibook is overpriced because you pay 2/3 the price for 1/3 the contents. The smaller size balances with the convenience aspect. So really they are charging you double.

That logic doesn't fly because 1) Big rulebook is a starter product and hence qualifies for loss leader 2) book printing cost does not scale with number of pages in linear fashion.

That said, I do think that the mini-rulebook is overpriced. However, it would be unrealistic to expect it to cost 1/3 of the main rulebook.

This is the last warning for everyone in this thread. If you are using the word "You" or "your" in follow up posts within this thread---it should be in the nature of "I understand your point however I respectfully disagree" or "You make some good points but I think you would find"---rather than "You are XYZ". Any further posts/forum members within this thread that even skirt the grey line between critical debate and becoming personal will receive a breather from Dakka to reign in their emotions. If you get ready to hit Submit and are unsure if you are being a bit personal in your response, I would suggest you let the post sit on your screen for awhile and think hard before clicking.

We are discussing toy soldiers on the internet. Imagine this person is a LGS acquaintance you are just having a friendly debate with in person--and adjust as needed. Thanks.

Ryan

Backfire wrote:

The point was not that I claimed GW kits representing best value for money within the industry (they don't), but whether the GW could sell them order-of-magnitude cheaper, as claimed by azreal13: they can't. I'm well acquinted with model kit industry myself, thank you, and whilst it's true that the best manufacturers offer better deals quality/size vs price than GW does, they are not fraction of the cost. That Dragon StuG you cited might be cheaper than a Land Raider, but it's not 90% cheaper. Even the crappy old Airfix kits aren't sold that cheap. I am actually just building an Airfix Harrier GR.3 - ugh! That kit costed about 10 euros, equivalent GW kit would have costed maybe 26 euros. So signifantly cheaper, yes, but not order-of-magnitude cheaper, and its quality is really awful compared to even old GW kits. And if Airfix could sell that cheaper, they would, since unlike wargames industry, model kits industry is highly competive.

Another point, of course, is that most model kit makers have their production in China or other cheap labour countries. GW and PP produce their kits in UK and USA.

Yes think the Dragon kit was about 10% cheaper than the Landraider, although I'm guessing production costs must be somewhat higher.

Yes some of the old Airfix kits are atrocious.. thankfully, many of them have been assigned to the dustbin of modelling history these days !

Of course not. 1/3 is the price expected if the page/cost ratio was perfect. Idealy it should be 1/3 for 1/3. But of course they want to mae a profit so an extra +/- 10% is acceptable, hell even 20% is ok in my book. As for the starter product idea, well all I have to say is that that type of thing won't ever happen. To GW, the DV is the starter prpduct, so we get a small amount of reasonability in that pricing, but anything else, including the mandatory rulebooks and codexes, is fair game to charge away.


Having said that, £30 is simply askibg too much. £20, or even maybe £25 to really push it, would be my personal limit.

xruslanx wrote:

I'm putting you on ignore, i only hope you get banned from threads like this in future so that you and your cronies don't pollute them with 'wah gw prices are too high and finecost sucks' dressed up as rational argument. You might want to try a website called 4chan, you'd love it.

Favour returned, I'm sure the community at large can see I've tried to maintain a sensible discussion in favour of fairly disproportionate vitriol being thrown in my direction. If I've been a little prickly in some of my responses, I hope it can be understood why.

Edited by AgeOfEgos

Here's to my Dakka experience now being a little bit more pleasant!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Backfire wrote:


Yes, I am. The point was not that I claimed GW kits representing best value for money within the industry (they don't), but whether the GW could sell them order-of-magnitude cheaper, as claimed by azreal13: they can't. I'm well acquinted with model kit industry myself, thank you, and whilst it's true that the best manufacturers offer better deals quality/size vs price than GW does, they are not fraction of the cost. That Dragon StuG you cited might be cheaper than a Land Raider, but it's not 90% cheaper. Even the crappy old Airfix kits aren't sold that cheap. I am actually just building an Airfix Harrier GR.3 - ugh! That kit costed about 10 euros, equivalent GW kit would have costed maybe 26 euros. So signifantly cheaper, yes, but not order-of-magnitude cheaper, and its quality is really awful compared to even old GW kits. And if Airfix could sell that cheaper, they would, since unlike wargames industry, model kits industry is highly competive.

Another point, of course, is that most model kit makers have their production in China or other cheap labour countries. GW and PP produce their kits in UK and USA.

I think you've misunderstood my argument.

I was trying to demonstrate that the production costs are only one component of what determines the final selling price, and that in the case of model kits, is relatively small.

I have never tried to claim that GW could sell anything an "order of magnitude" cheaper than they do. Which is in and of itself a meaningless statement anyway, as order of magnitude could mean anything. I accept it could be taken to mean a massive difference though, but I never argued that.

I accept I'm relatively ignorant of the wider scale model market, but isn't that essentially dominated by a handful of manufacturers in a similar way? Wouldn't price leadership also apply in that industry?

If I'm wrong, then fair enough, perhaps my theory is wrong, but a similar market with a slightly more competitive (ie more large players) environment would certainly explain the slightly lower price/higher quality situation without putting any holes in my argument that the production costs are relatively low and mark up relatively high. Bear in mind that any small players will simply follow established trends in any market, so while I appreciate there are many smaller players in both wargaming and scale modelling, we are really only concerning ourselves with companies that shift significant numbers of kits (and no, please don't ask me to define "significant" I don't have the knowledge or info to even speculate in this instance!)

I'm interested to hear your response, as if you're correct, I might have to be more charitable to GW and their pants on head prices!

Many companies sell rules cheaper because their games regardless of quality ( good stuff out there), cannot really compare in therms of popularity and as such the cheaper price is something extra to get people on board.

With that said if GW was really smart they could make the life of competition a lot harder... For example, how many of us would buy this book if lets say they included a free download version with the physical purchase?

I think if a item is cool enough I can walk the extra mile and pay for it, as it stands personally I dont find this one appealing. I would rather spend 30 quid on some plastic crack and get some new shiny models to play with.

Speaking of tape measures, that skull thing from GW gotta be the most horrible, pointless, ridiculous tape measure ever

As for the discussion about profits, call down guys just open some paint pots and relax.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Breotan wrote:
Wait a second. You guys are getting all bent out of shape because GW is selling a product you don't need to buy, aren't being forced to buy, and can get the same stuff in softcover for less?

No, what they are seeing is a not well thought out, overpriced book, and saying so. As is the right of every Imperial Citizen.

Spoiler:

Quietly awaiting a visit from the Inquisition

Yes, some people are stating that in a reasonable manner, while other are seeing it as some kind of personal attack on them by GW. Some people also make it sound as if GW is litterally stealing thier money, which they are not, as this new book is not at all a necessity when it comes to being able to play the game.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that GW is having issues retaining their customers. Every introductory product seems to be priced higher and higher so that new people getting in will give GW the most money possible before they quit. If the point of this product was to provide a set of rules to existing players so they'd update to 6th, update their armies, get the new codex, get the new units, then they'd not intentionally make it a hard copy with a high price tag. They'd print up more DV books and sell them for a bit more than they go for on eBay.

As it stands, this is another product to sell to new people to get the most money from them up front as possible. If they come into a GW store and play a demo game but don't want DV (say they're not interested in Chaos or Dark Angels) then the employee can put a codex and this rulebook in their hands, try to also get them to buy a unit or a battleforce or something and then some paints and get a nice good upfront sale to a new person.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Pacific wrote:
Some of the current 'market leaders' of plastic kits (in terms of quality) - lets say Dragon, Trumpeter, Hasegawa to name a few - are constantly making new kits and pushing forward. Often these are small upgrades to existing moulds but in any case they have new production involved. The competition has also lead to a much higher quality - I put together a Dragon Stug Kit a while ago. 900-odd pieces, pressed brass and aluminium parts, tiny components that fit together perfectly, down to the fraction of an mm. It was a delight to build. [...] Yet the price of this kit, despite a sales percentage that must be a tiny fraction of any GW kit and production costs many times higher, is less than a GW Landraider. As for quality there is no comparison.

There's also extreme value on the cheap kit side of the market. For my 28mm sci-fi I've been grabbing the introductory type 1/48 scale tanks from people like Academy. You can get suitable vehicles for less than $25 after shipping. Or even $15 if you're willing to buy direct from the country of origin via eBay. Tamiya has some pretty good fast build kits in the $30 range as well.

Steve steveson wrote:And this, to me, says allot about what people want and why GW ignore them. The book seems a reasonable price to me for what it is. A high quality hard back book in trade hard back size. A similar size novel on low quality paper is £20-£25. This is on high quality gloss paper with high quality print. £30 seems like the correct price for what it is.

Whether it is the correct format is another matter. For me it is. I like hard back books, but then I can see why people were wanting soft back.

See, if the book was £20-£25, I'd consider it. That's the tipping-point for me for a book like this, especially something so thin and relatively small. Another thing you need to take into consideration is that the majority of the work for this book has already been done. The content for the rules section was already generated and it looks like they scaled the pages rather than re-doing them. There was the minimum amount of editing required to get it to fit the new format and to update the rules with the FAQ, before they could send it to print, and as such they didn't have to spend very much on wages to put it out. Most of the costs would go to production only rather than months of writing, editing and play-testing.

Why I think they scaled it:-

 LadyCassandra wrote:
...and to update the rules with the FAQ, before they could send it to print...

Wait a second. Where in the product description did it mention the FAQ being included?

 Breotan wrote:

 LadyCassandra wrote:
...and to update the rules with the FAQ, before they could send it to print...

Wait a second. Where in the product description did it mention the FAQ being included?

On the Black Library version it says "This edition contains the rules sections from the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook, up to date with all current erratas and FAQ’s.
(last updated - 2nd August 2013)"

That's for the digital edition, not the print version.

Hello everyone! Saw the topic, read through all 6 pages of 'discussions'. I now try to bring this topic back on track and answer some of the questions people have about this rulebook?

Q: $50 for a Hardback rulebook? Who would buy these over the softback?
A: There are at least 1500 peole who would buy the Mini Hardback, Those willing to drop $300 on the Limited Edition Apoc Set would find their Apoc rulebook to be the same size and thickness of this Mini 40K Hardback. There are also countless people who have different perception of money than naysayers on this forum.

Q: GW must be despreate to release this mini Hardback to make money.
A: I really don't think so. I believe GW found an extra revenue steam to sell their products at premiun prices for its premium buyers. GW knows there are at least a few thousand of these people. You can prove this by totaling up all the limited edition books that they sell (rulebook/codex/army book/suppliment) multiply by their prices. Given its all sold out. The profit is close of a million dollars.

Q: People have to be CRAZY to buy this book! everyone has one already! People who don't will get one on ebay!
A: Not entirely true. This product caters to the collector side of people (limited edition collectors) that value the book itself over its contents. Why do you think bookstores still sells Hardback editions of books? Also, Those who don't already have a rulebook/new players might buy this product simply because they don't know what's out there. A lot of us forum naysayers here. Do you think we got the best deal on our car? house? mortgage? salary? textbooks? wireless plans? Lack of information works great wonders to the business world.

Q: I'll never buy this! Screw GW!
A: I'm in the same boat as you. This product is not for me, and GW pricing is indeed pricy. But.... as long as you visit dakkadakka and the right GW product comes along, you will buy. I was in the camp of never buy from GW again for 6 months until yesterday I got around to painted by first deathkight and I realize that GW does indeed make a good product. and the time it took me to model and paint the damn terminator is acturally cheap compare to what I would spend on a day out. I guess when the right produce come I would indulge in GW again, just they need to do a damn good job to win my money with the current miniture competitions in the market right now.

In the end, its your money and your hobby, spend it however you wish! just make sure its money well spent.

I am an inveterate OCD bibiophile. I love books, particularly beautiful books. I have at least one large bookshelf in every room of my home. My children have large bookshelves in each of their rooms. My coffee tables and, indeed any flat surface in my home is littered with books. I don't even play with 40K rules (ITEN and Fubar 40K FTW); but I am the target market for these kind of books. Unfortunately I haven't bought a 40K rulebook since 4th, because the precious volume didn't even make it home before the pages started falling out. I don't mind paying premiums for books, but I expect durability. I don't know how the latest Britannica size BRBs wear as I can't bring myself to purchase something that will disintegrate. I have an AD&D DM guide from 1979. It is going on 35 years of use, survived trips around the world and many happy hours of page turning/gaming. That thing is still bulletproof.

I think order of magnitude in common parlance means this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_magnitude

So in my case, which only speaks to local variables, Airfix kits are an order of mangitude cheaper. Granted, they represent more work of bitzification, but they are. Udisco has some for 4$.

 Doomsdave wrote:
I am an inveterate OCD bibiophile. I love books, particularly beautiful books. I have at least one large bookshelf in every room of my home. My children have large bookshelves in each of their rooms. My coffee tables and, indeed any flat surface in my home is littered with books. I don't even play with 40K rules (ITEN and Fubar 40K FTW); but I am the target market for these kind of books. Unfortunately I haven't bought a 40K rulebook since 4th, because the precious volume didn't even make it home before the pages started falling out. I don't mind paying premiums for books, but I expect durability. I don't know how the latest Britannica size BRBs wear as I can't bring myself to purchase something that will disintegrate. I have an AD&D DM guide from 1979. It is going on 35 years of use, survived trips around the world and many happy hours of page turning/gaming. That thing is still bulletproof.

The quality of 40k books back then was pretty bad, though I think the quality has gradually increased overall since then.

 ph34r wrote:

 Doomsdave wrote:
I am an inveterate OCD bibiophile. I love books, particularly beautiful books. I have at least one large bookshelf in every room of my home. My children have large bookshelves in each of their rooms. My coffee tables and, indeed any flat surface in my home is littered with books. I don't even play with 40K rules (ITEN and Fubar 40K FTW); but I am the target market for these kind of books. Unfortunately I haven't bought a 40K rulebook since 4th, because the precious volume didn't even make it home before the pages started falling out. I don't mind paying premiums for books, but I expect durability. I don't know how the latest Britannica size BRBs wear as I can't bring myself to purchase something that will disintegrate. I have an AD&D DM guide from 1979. It is going on 35 years of use, survived trips around the world and many happy hours of page turning/gaming. That thing is still bulletproof.

The quality of 40k books back then was pretty bad, though I think the quality has gradually increased overall since then.

The quality of the codices has certainly improved. Not sure how the rulebooks hold up now, but I know my 8th ed fantasy rulebook started peeling from the binding in less than a week with very little handling. Maybe it was just a bad apple in the bunch, but I shouldn't have to deal with that for a 75 dollar book.

My 40k 6th ed book is holding up much better it seems, though I haven't pulled it out in like 10 months

I didn't realize Anyone used their big rulebooks often enough to wear them out

 cincydooley wrote:
I didn't realize Anyone used their big rulebooks often enough to wear them out

I like having the big book for browsing rules at home after a game or whatever. To bring this a little on topic, I'm the kind of guy that prefers a book even when a game's rules are free. I bought the Infinity rulebook just because it is more convenient for me and I like having a book to thumb through.

If this book had been released at the start of 6th ed I probably would have bought it, though the price is too high IMO. For 10 dollars more you can get the full Infinity rulebook that has the fluff, army lists, rules and it is hardback too. The timing of the book is also strange, since anyone who wants a rulebook either has the big one or a DV one. Maybe that is the point though, to drive up sales of the 70 dollar books and starter sets when a new edition drops.

 insaniak wrote:
That's for the digital edition, not the print version.

Hrm, I thought they'd use the same file for both, but if not then the Rules hardback booklet would be even easier for them to make, just a case of exporting the Rules chapter and various extras, doing a preface, two minutes scaling to a new paper size, if that, and then to the printers. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am.

 frozenwastes wrote:
I'm becoming more and more convinced that GW is having issues retaining their customers. Every introductory product seems to be priced higher and higher so that new people getting in will give GW the most money possible before they quit.

Wait until you see the Warhammer Fantasy rulebook next year:
English only, mail order only, for the impulse buy price of 100$ (hardcover 150$, limited edition 300$).

 Kroothawk wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:
I'm becoming more and more convinced that GW is having issues retaining their customers. Every introductory product seems to be priced higher and higher so that new people getting in will give GW the most money possible before they quit.

Wait until you see the Warhammer Fantasy rulebook next year:
English only, mail order only, for the impulse buy price of 100$ (hardcover 150$, limited edition 300$).

Sold out in one month.

As for the argument that this book is premium for collectors... Does not make much sense... this was supposed to be a smaller version of the original in order to be more practical and user friendly to who has to carry the damn thing... not something to be on your book shelf accumulating dust.

wufai wrote:
Q: $50 for a Hardback rulebook? Who would buy these over the softback?
A: There are at least 1500 peole who would buy the Mini Hardback, Those willing to drop $300 on the Limited Edition Apoc Set would find their Apoc rulebook to be the same size and thickness of this Mini 40K Hardback. There are also countless people who have different perception of money than naysayers on this forum.

Except those 1500 people probably already bought the special-edition full rulebook. And if they missed those they already bought the full standard rulebook. This waste of trees has nothing to offer that kind of dedicated collector, unless you're talking about a tiny minority that must compulsively buy every single thing GW publishes.

puree wrote:

If this was true, there should be companies selling equivalent products for fraction of the cost GW does: there are not,

lse builds a Stug.

...selling at a lower price doesn't mean you sell much more, and it certainly doesn't mean you maximise profit. This is a niche hobby, and it is fairly price inelastic. It could take years of selling cheap to build up enough momentum to start to be noticed, not really investor friendly. The other companies who are already in the business are still minnows compared to GW, that may change over time, but it has and will take a long time, and then you will probably just see that new big fish with similar high prices as GW - companies exist to maximise profit.

Hasegawa, Trumpeter and Dragon are working in a mature market, populated by older collectors, and mostly produce in China. Their costs are probably a fifth of what GW's are. In fact, do to any model forum and you'll hear endless complaints about how people like Trumpeter essentially make up a lot of their designs. It's not an entirely different market, but it;s different enough that comparisons aren't particularly illuminating.

Many of your points about GW overcharging might well be reasonable - but if you talk guff about "a sprue costing £2 or a book costing £5" well, as the other poster said, you might as well pull figures out of your backside. It's Noddy economics and undermines your whole argument.

Anyone with a C grade GCSE in Food Tech will know that the cost of amortising equipment and moulds, or originating a book with repro, means that the cost of producing an item is very different the run-on cost. Even if the run-on cost isn't a fantasy pulled from a backside.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

Many of your points about GW overcharging might well be reasonable - but if you talk guff about "a sprue costing £2 or a book costing £5" well, as the other poster said, you might as well pull figures out of your backside. It's Noddy economics and undermines your whole argument.

Anyone with a C grade GCSE in Food Tech will know that the cost of amortising equipment and moulds, or originating a book with repro, means that the cost of producing an item is very different the run-on cost. Even if the run-on cost isn't a fantasy pulled from a backside.

As the comments the "other poster" said refer to things I said, I can only assume you were referring to me, but somehow thought you were cleverly circumventing AgeOfEgos warning about personal attacks.

I've agreed to step back from this thread, but I have recalled where I got the 70% idea from, so will keep this short and sweet.

It was GW themselves!

In their financial reports, their cost of sales (which is essentially just the cost of production in their case as they're so vertically integrated) is consistently around a quarter to a third of their revenue.

So again, not a number I pulled out of my backside, their gross margin on sales is indeed around 70-75%. Now, Dark Vengeance could be an exception, but it is entirely reasonable to assume it has a cost to produce of ~£15 using this info and reverse engineering the RRP. Making my estimates of price per sprue, rulebook etc, not "guff" but in all likelihood pretty accurate.

 Peregrine wrote:

wufai wrote:
Q: $50 for a Hardback rulebook? Who would buy these over the softback?
A: There are at least 1500 peole who would buy the Mini Hardback, Those willing to drop $300 on the Limited Edition Apoc Set would find their Apoc rulebook to be the same size and thickness of this Mini 40K Hardback. There are also countless people who have different perception of money than naysayers on this forum.

Except those 1500 people probably already bought the special-edition full rulebook. And if they missed those they already bought the full standard rulebook. This waste of trees has nothing to offer that kind of dedicated collector, unless you're talking about a tiny minority that must compulsively buy every single thing GW publishes.

I'd consider this one if I played often enough to justify it.

It does look like it will be a hell of a lot more portable than the big book--and while it might be more expensive than the mini rulebook from Dark Vengeance, at least I don't have to trawl eBay for it.

Typing "Dark Vengeance Rulebook" is trawling?

 Ahtman wrote:
Typing "Dark Vengeance Rulebook" is trawling?

Finding one for a price that is not extortionate, IMO, for what someone was going to discard anyways is.

There is a reason I'm actually glad that bits sellers are gone now. They charged anywhere from $20 to $35 for the mini-rulebooks and eBay priced them accordingly.
Plus I hate eBay, but that is another thing entirely.

$83....

feth that, seriously.
This is nothing but a poor late April Fools joke to me.

 Kanluwen wrote:
There is a reason I'm actually glad that bits sellers are gone now. They charged anywhere from $20 to $35 for the mini-rulebooks and eBay priced them accordingly.

Because more options and places you can get things are bad!

And bitz sellers largely are not gone. I know you said you hate eBay, but it's still full of 40k bitz. And copies of the DV rulebook.

 frozenwastes wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
There is a reason I'm actually glad that bits sellers are gone now. They charged anywhere from $20 to $35 for the mini-rulebooks and eBay priced them accordingly.

Because more options and places you can get things are bad!

And bitz sellers largely are not gone. I know you said you hate eBay, but it's still full of 40k bitz. And copies of the DV rulebook.

Actually I was referring to the fact that the prices that they sold individual components for gave GW ideas.

Do you think that $16 for a sprue of 5 Lothern Sea Guard came out of nowhere?

I don't think GW needs to be inspired to raise prices, they just need to wake up in the morning and see the sun. Admittedly they are in the UK so that is only a few times a year, but that is enough I would think.

 Ahtman wrote:
I don't think GW needs to be inspired to raise prices, they just need to wake up in the morning and see the sun. Admittedly they are in the UK so that is only a few times a year, but that is enough I would think.

The Lothern Sea Guard components from IoB were going for $30 before the Lothern Sea Guard frames ever came out.

Now if only they'd see that people like the Dark Vengeance books and sell those as a separate product.

 frozenwastes wrote:
Now if only they'd see that people like the Dark Vengeance books and sell those as a separate product.

Surprisingly the sales figures, from what I've been able to find out, were not as large as you might think for the DV/IOB books.

There was a huge spike at the start of a new edition but past a certain point they basically just sat there, same with the character models from the boxes.

That's a good point. I did a quick search and there are 21 copies of DV available to my location that end over the next short while on eBay. That's a very slow rate of sales when you compare it to GW's yearly revenue.

I think Cincy made a good point that has not been pondered much: Who's the target demographic for this product.

1)It's not the efficiency concerned individual who wants things small and light. DV does that.

2)No limited edition, so I have a hard time thinking this is aimed at collectors (although the term can mean different things to different people, in my mind collectors go after something that has more value-added than a general release product)

3)Definitely not those who love the universe.

4)Those who, a year out, have not bought either the BRB or DV... but what's the incentive except, marginally, the price? Because it is, overall, cheaper. If you're only looking at the price tag and nothing else.

Someone who has come back after a hiatus and just wants to play with the models they already have, would be the target.

 cincydooley wrote:
I didn't realize Anyone used their big rulebooks often enough to wear them out

I Open it every game i play.. I don't have a smaller version. (I have no intrest in buying the DV then selling all the minis, I don't particularly like ebay as it is, and i have no interest in buying thee minidex off ebay either... (not saying i'm buying the hardback mini dex... but i'd probably buy it over the soft version.)

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Who's the target demographic for this product.

The only thing I can think of is "people who are just starting the game and only want the rules, but don't know that ebay exists". So, 12 year olds buying stuff in GW stores.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Who's the target demographic for this product.

The only thing I can think of is "people who are just starting the game and only want the rules, but don't know that ebay exists". So, 12 year olds buying stuff in GW stores.

But those are the target of the DV box set, aren't they? Most likely, anyway? I don't believe GW would cannibalize their own product, call me a hopeless idealist. Unless their target is "the friend that split the box with said Timmy (I loathe the expression) but got the shaft because he didn't get the rules and now Timmy won't talk to him."

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Who's the target demographic for this product.

The only thing I can think of is "people who are just starting the game and only want the rules, but don't know that ebay exists". So, 12 year olds buying stuff in GW stores.

But those are the target of the DV box set, aren't they? Most likely, anyway? I don't believe GW would cannibalize their own product, call me a hopeless idealist. Unless their target is "the friend that split the box with said Timmy (I loathe the expression) but got the shaft because he didn't get the rules and now Timmy won't talk to him."

What if you don't want to play either Marines or Chaos? Maybe you're new but you got a pretty good deal on Eldar/Tau/IG from a friend but need the rules because he quit in 4th or something?

Good point, but I still think a person savvy enough to get a good deal wouldn't feel like he or she is getting one with this.

But you definitely have a point.

I play both marines and chaos, so each of my friends buying DV and telling me they have a ton of useless models is just gravy for me.

 Deadshot wrote:
Someone who has come back after a hiatus and just wants to play with the models they already have, would be the target.

I fall into that category and I have no interest in it. I would think the DV book would work if they just want the rules, or if they want to get back in on the fluff the BRB is a much better deal. I suppose maybe if we amend it to people coming back to the hobby that have no idea of their options, that might work. The DV book is concise, portable, and cheaper whereas the BRB is slightly more expensive (then the $50 book) but comes with tons more material. It just doesn't seem worth it.

How about if the guy had no interest in Chaos or SM of any type. He played Orks and only orks and didn't want to sell them on. To me it looks like a niche inside a niche inside a niche.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I think Cincy made a good point that has not been pondered much: Who's the target demographic for this product.

1)It's not the efficiency concerned individual who wants things small and light. DV does that.

2)No limited edition, so I have a hard time thinking this is aimed at collectors (although the term can mean different things to different people, in my mind collectors go after something that has more value-added than a general release product)

3)Definitely not those who love the universe.

4)Those who, a year out, have not bought either the BRB or DV... but what's the incentive except, marginally, the price? Because it is, overall, cheaper. If you're only looking at the price tag and nothing else.

It might be to collectors, who've got a special edition BRB and want a fancier small book to use day-to-day.


I'm the target customer for this; I've already got an army (so don't need DV) and I'm not interested in the fluff or hobby stuff in the BRB.

However, it's [a] still £10 too expensive. At £20 I'd have bought one, [b] hard-back, so more of a nuisance to flick through and [c] well over a year late; I already bought the BRB to play with until DV came out, sold the BRB, bought DV and sold off the mini's. Net result is I paid about £6 for the mini-book.

So it's of no use to me. Now, come 7th Edition, I might hold out for a mini-book

It's sad that it's so expensive. If it was fairly priced, I could see our clubs getting a few but at that horrendous price tag, I'd rather continue searching ebay for the starter one. I'd pay up to 20€ for it.

I can buy the real thing for the same price from discounter here. I paid $99 for mine and this new one retails for $98 in NZ.

Although saying that, I would be able to get this at discount to. If only they came out with this on release day, I would have purchased this over the big book straight away.

6th edition has been around for a while now, most people know the rules, why bother gw?

 Deadshot wrote:
How about if the guy had no interest in Chaos or SM of any type. He played Orks and only orks and didn't want to sell them on. To me it looks like a niche inside a niche inside a niche.

not reallly. Want the rulebook but don't want to buy the big bad version? Buy this.

xruslanx wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
How about if the guy had no interest in Chaos or SM of any type. He played Orks and only orks and didn't want to sell them on. To me it looks like a niche inside a niche inside a niche.

not reallly. Want the rulebook but don't want to buy the big bad version? Buy this.

More like "Want the rules but don't want the big bad version, or to get/split the DV box or buy the DV rules from somewhere else? Buy this."

Pros to DV version: soft-cover*. £15 at most.

Pros to GW mini-version: hard-cover*, 3 bookmark ribbons.

*Some people prefer softbacks to hardbacks, YMMV.

I know I tend to prefer the price tag of the soft cover, although I do end up messing them up through carrying it around though.

Although I will say this, I greatly regret buying DV in its French version. The USR rules were translated, but the alphabetical order of English was kept. So unless you know the name of the rule in English, good luck finding it fast.

BUt I'd much rather buy a second DV set in English and divvy up the minis with someone else than buy this. Cuz, hey, minis.

I prefer hardbacks for some reason on rule books. If this came out before or at the same time as the big book, i probably would have bought the mini one, as much as i like fluff it's not htat practicle to carry around...

as for who buys it.. same people who go into thte store and buy things now.

BY DV, unless you don't play chaos or dark angels, don't care about those minis, don't want the hassle of trying to sell them just to save a few bux... not everyone in the hobby shops around for the best deal or wants to hassle with selling or buying used... that's who it's marketed for.

So what you're saying is this'll appear in the sidebar of every "one click bundle" on GW's website.

Herzlos wrote:
I'm the target customer for this; I've already got an army (so don't need DV) and I'm not interested in the fluff or hobby stuff in the BRB.

However, it's [a] still £10 too expensive. At £20 I'd have bought one, [b] hard-back, so more of a nuisance to flick through and [c] well over a year late; I already bought the BRB to play with until DV came out, sold the BRB, bought DV and sold off the mini's. Net result is I paid about £6 for the mini-book.

So it's of no use to me. Now, come 7th Edition, I might hold out for a mini-book

To be honest, if you've owned any BRB for background then you're just going to be repeat-reading in the new one.

A bit of nice new artwork.. spend about 15 mins reading the rules changes from the previous edition.. ?

That's been my MO since about 4th edition actually, has saved me a lot of money

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I know I tend to prefer the price tag of the soft cover, although I do end up messing them up through carrying it around though.

Although I will say this, I greatly regret buying DV in its French version. The USR rules were translated, but the alphabetical order of English was kept. So unless you know the name of the rule in English, good luck finding it fast.

BUt I'd much rather buy a second DV set in English and divvy up the minis with someone else than buy this. Cuz, hey, minis.

How I understand you ! Searching for a special rule in French is browsing through a mess.

Even worse are the translation issues, sure most of the times french BRB is accurate, but sometimes it is weird or obviously based upon a beta version of the final text !

One example : the french text has this @ p.35 about fearless USR :
(...) A fearless model cannot get a better cover save than 5+ (meaning any cover save of 4+ or better is reduced to 5+).
Really WTF ! Where this comes from ?!?
Granted, this has been removed by a french FAQ, but not all of these discrepancies have been corrected. One of them being even treacherous.


So...
I've still not bought any copy of the rules, waiting for a good opportunity. I was not obliged to, thanks to my gaming club having purchased a BRB available to all members. So I have restrained myself to this point, and even more, having learnt that a new small book was in the pipeline. Now, what should I do ?

I could still consider buying dark vengeance box to get the mini-book in my language (and more templates). It is way more convenient in tournaments.
This mini BRB does not appears to be a bargain, to say the least. However, between purchasing the DV mini-rulebook from England at increased postal fees, and the new mini BRB for a few € more, and basically free postage from GW, I'm undecided.

Is it true that this new small form factor book has all current errata included in their appropriate position ?

 Ravajaxe wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I know I tend to prefer the price tag of the soft cover, although I do end up messing them up through carrying it around though.

Although I will say this, I greatly regret buying DV in its French version. The USR rules were translated, but the alphabetical order of English was kept. So unless you know the name of the rule in English, good luck finding it fast.

BUt I'd much rather buy a second DV set in English and divvy up the minis with someone else than buy this. Cuz, hey, minis.

How I understand you ! Searching for a special rule in French is browsing through a mess.

Even worse are the translation issues, sure most of the times french BRB is accurate, but sometimes it is weird or obviously based upon a beta version of the final text !

One example : the french text has this @ p.35 about fearless USR :
(...) A fearless model cannot get a better cover save than 5+ (meaning any cover save of 4+ or better is reduced to 5+).
Really WTF ! Where this comes from ?!?
Granted, this has been removed by a french FAQ, but not all of these discrepancies have been corrected. One of them being even treacherous.


So...
I've still not bought any copy of the rules, waiting for a good opportunity. I was not obliged to, thanks to my gaming club having purchased a BRB available to all members. So I have restrained myself to this point, and even more, having learnt that a new small book was in the pipeline. Now, what should I do ?

I could still consider buying dark vengeance box to get the mini-book in my language (and more templates). It is way more convenient in tournaments.
This mini BRB does not appears to be a bargain, to say the least. However, between purchasing the DV mini-rulebook from England at increased postal fees, and the new mini BRB for a few € more, and basically free postage from GW, I'm undecided.

Is it true that this new small form factor book has all current errata included in their appropriate position ?

The Polish BRB allows you to charge after disembarking

 Ravajaxe wrote:

Is it true that this new small form factor book has all current errata included in their appropriate position ?

It looks like that bit probably only applies to the iPAD version rather than the printed one

(but until somebody has it in hand it's hard to tell)

On the topic of rules and value, I got FoW's Open Fire yesterday, which contains a mini-rule book that is leagues ahead of the DV book. I actually thought it was the full one until I checked the website. For £35 (£5 more than GW's basic mini-book) you can get:

The third edition of Flames Of War, The World War II Miniatures Game is a massive 448 page book split across three volumes: Rulebook (Hardback) 308 Pages, Forces (Softback) 100 Pages, Hobby (Softback) 40 Pages.

And the rule book itself contains all the rules, all the army lists / special rules and a big section on missions/scenarios.

It's hard to justify the 40K books compared to that.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:

 Ravajaxe wrote:

Is it true that this new small form factor book has all current errata included in their appropriate position ?

It looks like that bit probably only applies to the iPAD version rather than the printed one

(but until somebody has it in hand it's hard to tell)

This is the only reason I would buy this.
I have the DV softback, and the collector's ed, so the only difference this hew hardback book would have is better rules.
If they bothered to update them.

If I spent #30 on a book I would hardly use it for fear of ruining it, like with the limited addition Black Library ones.

I think this is a good idea, but the price, even for the ebook version, seems a little steep to me.

Buying another hard copy rulebook, even though it is updated, also seems to be a bit unproductive as in time I am sure they will release even more Erratas to correct rules, at least with the ebook version it will be updated as and when these are released. I haven't actually ever bought an ebook so aren't entirely sure if this would be the case, I know on the ipad they update them.

 Ravajaxe wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
snip

Although I will say this, I greatly regret buying DV in its French version. The USR rules were translated, but the alphabetical order of English was kept. So unless you know the name of the rule in English, good luck finding it fast.

snip.

How I understand you ! Searching for a special rule in French is browsing through a mess.

Even worse are the translation issues, sure most of the times french BRB is accurate, but sometimes it is weird or obviously based upon a beta version of the final text !

One example : the french text has this @ p.35 about fearless USR :
(...) A fearless model cannot get a better cover save than 5+ (meaning any cover save of 4+ or better is reduced to 5+).
Really WTF ! Where this comes from ?!?
Granted, this has been removed by a french FAQ, but not all of these discrepancies have been corrected. One of them being even treacherous.


snip

Fearless being a rule I rarely need to reference, I'd never picked up on that. This is... I don't want to say insane... more like disappointing. If you've never had the pleasure of being conquered by the greatest empire in the world, then your rules will be innacurate. Enjoy.