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sourclams wrote:

Mr Mystery wrote:Because you know, I've got a Fantasy army. Ogres it be. Consists of 2 Batallions, 1 Tyrant, 1 Slaughter Master, 2 boxes of Ironguts, and 3 Forgeworld Rhinox Riders. That's a healthy 3,000 point right there, and you know what...it's a pretty cheap (going on todays prices) £250ish, straight from GW. And you know what, I get a lot more variety out of this particular army than your Warmachine one. See, I can play 'lets go for the cheapest possible option' as well.

Yeah, I was a bit hyperbolic.

So let's look at your example.

250 British pounds using today's forex at 1.54 dollar/pound is $385.

So your "cheap" army is over $100 more than the average starter WM/H list.

Thanks for agreeing with me?

Now go build me a 2k mech IG list and see how the prices stack up.

um... then don't compare it to a "starter" list since 3,000pts (his stated army size) is not a "starter" force in WHFB. 2000pts seems to be the average fantasy game i've seen and his army is 150% bigger and, using your own numbers, 150% more expensive. not that great of an example for your case...

I was able to make a WoC list for around 150 quid. It focused heavily on Knights and other expensive things, but it was cheap, and almost all plastic. We're off topic here, but I think the price comparison between PP and GW is completely fair. I'm often put off buying PP models from sticker shock.
Where they have an advantage is that something interesting comes out every month, with rules. GW do their "second wave" shtick, but it's not as effective because there's no new rules buzz to go with it. I mean, sure some people will buy them, but nothing gets people excited like a codex or army book release, and that is still happening far too infrequently for no particularly good reason, and the books that come out are poorly edited.
They have started FAQ'ing properly though, which is great.

sourclams wrote:

Mr Mystery wrote:Round of applause for sourclams for most blatantly skewed price comparisson seen today! I do like particularly how you singled out possibly the worst bang/buck ratio model in an army to 'prove' your point.

...snip...

Because you know, I've got a Fantasy army. Ogres it be. Consists of 2 Batallions, 1 Tyrant, 1 Slaughter Master, 2 boxes of Ironguts, and 3 Forgeworld Rhinox Riders. That's a healthy 3,000 point right there, and you know what...it's a pretty cheap (going on todays prices) £250ish, straight from GW. And you know what, I get a lot more variety out of this particular army than your Warmachine one. See, I can play 'lets go for the cheapest possible option' as well.

Yeah, I was a bit hyperbolic.

So let's look at your example.

250 British pounds using today's forex at 1.54 dollar/pound is $385.

So your "cheap" army is over $100 more than the average starter WM/H list.

Thanks for agreeing with me?

Now go build me a 2k mech IG list and see how the prices stack up.

Basic Ogre Army, consisting of 6 Bulls, 4 Ironguts, 4 Leadbelchers, 24 Gnoblars and a Bruiser to lead it all? £73.50. And yes, I can quite happily make that into a 1,000 point army.

GW do their "second wave" shtick, but it's not as effective because there's no new rules buzz to go with it.

Would you rather go back to the old model, where you had to wait 5 years (or more) for new models AND rules?

No. I'd rather they work faster. That may sound a bit unreasonable, but look at their competitors. They manage.

I'm sure they could always get the guy who did the minotaurs, razorgor, and all the Daemons to do more models...

If it means getting less of that, then I'd rather wait. We don't need any more contenders for "worst models of all time."

Sidstyler wrote:Would you rather go back to the old model, where you had to wait 5 years (or more) for new models AND rules?

I'd rather a middle ground - Wave releases so that it's not 5 years between drinks but a guarantee that all things in the Codex will get a model (like during part of 3rd Ed, where everything got a model - Necrons, Tau, etc.). What we have no might as well be 2nd Ed - where releases were as random as they were likely.

You'll note, I was talking about rules releases.

And rules for hand-in-hand with model releases.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Sidstyler wrote:Would you rather go back to the old model, where you had to wait 5 years (or more) for new models AND rules?

I'd rather a middle ground - Wave releases so that it's not 5 years between drinks but a guarantee that all things in the Codex will get a model (like during part of 3rd Ed, where everything got a model - Necrons, Tau, etc.). What we have no might as well be 2nd Ed - where releases were as random as they were likely.

The plan is indeed to produce models for every entry.

Take the Skaven. If my rather shaky memory serves, all we need now is a Warlitter, Giant Pox Rat and Bonebreaker mount, and I think that's about it. Bound to be overlooking something though.

H.B.M.C.: Fair cop, guv'nor.

warboss wrote:

sourclams wrote:I didn't play Mk1, but it *seems* that model count is roughly the same. Further, the main mechanic in WM/H is that a central character, the "warlock/warcaster", has a battlegroup of warbeasts/warjacks which they allocate limited resources to. The allocation of those resources largely determines how well the battlegroup functions. If you simply up the size of the battlegroup, you dilute the effectiveness of any single model within it (for the most part).

the championship tournament size effectively doubled (see my post above) before MkII. in 2005 (the first year), it was 500pts. in 2009 (the last year under mkI), it scaled up to 1000pts. tournament sizes tend (not always but *tend to*) reflect average game sizes.

Honestly, Masters has rarely reflected the standard for Privateer games. A quick glance at Privateer's events board will show that the vast majority of their events are 35-50 points, roughly equivalent to the 500 and 750 games of Mk. I.

We always used to play 35. 50 was for when we had a bit of extra time or were feeling the need to do silly stuff. YMMV.

12thRonin wrote:@Warboss:
Yes price per model may be the same but when you look at the total you need to outlay to play, it's far cheaper any way you look at it since you can't play with just a unit of stormtroopers or just a unit of Winter Guard. You can't compare model prices between WM and 40k because it's not relevant. That squad of Winter Guard is close to 30% of a 35 point tournament force by itself before you put any attachments to it. The stormtroopers are under 10% of a 1500 point force.

Respectfully, you're absolutely wrong here, actually.

You CAN compare them, you just have to be clear on WHAT you're comparing.
Either you compare a "buy in" cost, which would be the required books and models for a basic force, or you compare the "per piece" cost.

Warboss clearly stated that the "buy in" cost of other games was cheaper, then illustrated (WELL, IMO) the "per piece" cost for the respective games.
Clearly, while GW games have a higher overall investment requirement, they're not overly expensive when comparing model to model, side by side.

Eric

H.B.M.C. wrote:

gorgon wrote:If they were my client I'd be looking for much cheaper, more creative avenues than TV advertising, etc.

TV advertising would be prohibitively expensive, and it is likely that radio advertising would be equally as pricey for a company like GW. Internet advertising on the other hand is something that they haven't embraced - not even on their own website (effective advertising that is - not the ham-fisted 'What's new Today' bullgak which is no different to WD in the way it ends every 'helpful' article with 3-6 links to buy things).

GW needs to embrace the Internet, something they clearly still regard as a 'fad' or 'curiosity' and get out there. It may be a little redundant to do it here, but could you imagine GW advertising in that little banner ad up the top right of your screens? Right now I've got an ad for Wayland Games there. Why couldn't it be GW? Why couldn't it be GW at half a dozen big 40K/gaming sites? Would it be good for the banner ad to change the closer we got to a big release (eg. 'Coming Soon - The Eldar's Dark Kin Arise, coming November '10') and so on? Does it not happen because we mention other games, and GW hates to be reminded of the fact that they aren't the hobby but just part of it?

Internet marketing is one. Actually attending events is another. Heck, I'd be trying borderline guerrilla marketing stuff if it was me. Why not a staged and safe -- but seemingly random and spontaneous -- "battle" between guys in SM and CSM armor at the San Diego Comic-Con? You think that'd go viral? LOL.

And perhaps I shouldn't be giving ideas to GW about how to be more draconian, but you'd think it would have occurred to those at the Reichstag that a good way to exert some influence with the owners of hobby sites is to be a key advertiser at said sites. Actually, it's not even about being draconian, it's about understanding that a community exists and that they should be USING it and interfacing with it to support their business. But again, they don't really understand or even recognize the "community" properly. Their ideas about a company's relationship with its customers seem about two decades out of date, I dunno.

They remind me of all the small business out there that have their own badly designed website and think that people actually care about the 'About Us' section and have spent a lot of time writing it when all customers really care about is the 'What can you do for me?' part.

In my professional opinion and experience, even large companies sometimes fail to understand this point. Unfortunately there are those inside organizations who view and use marketing as some kind of ego stroke instead of for legitimate business reasons. Hence a lot of well-produced but expensive and ultimately ineffective TV campaigns, etc. But hey, said CEO gets to brag to his buddies about the new TV spots, or read how wonderful his leadership is on the web site. *shrug*

Not complaining, per se...as long as stupid clients are paying clients, creative professionals and ad agencies, etc. will happily take the work.

Mr Mystery wrote:Basic Ogre Army, consisting of 6 Bulls, 4 Ironguts, 4 Leadbelchers, 24 Gnoblars and a Bruiser to lead it all? £73.50. And yes, I can quite happily make that into a 1,000 point army.

I hate to beat on this dead horse, but the danger of using models-only analysis on this is that for any GW "cheap" army, you are still looking at a USD $100 output for the army book and rulebook (and/or Island of Blood) before you can play. Island of Blood gives a nice boost for High Elves. Skaven, not so much, as you still need a metric crap-ton of rats to fill out the regiments due to their miniscule points cost. PP doesn't have this entry barrier as you can download the quickstart from the interwebs (included in starter boxes) and play immediately with the included stat-cards. The rulebook is half the cost of the GW book, and the army books are entirely optional.

Competitive (and by competitive, I mean, tournament ready) "Starter army" costs are reasonably flat across the entire PP range, while effective and economical armies within GW's range are heavily dependent on which armies have the good choices available (or convertable) from plastic. The statcard mechanism also means that players aren't waiting for a new book to use their models. GW used to do this by printing rules in White Dwarf (and/or the internet), but general resist doing this as they believe this process is too onerous for casual players.

At any rate, getting back on topic - just because GW does some things right, doesn't mean that their business strategy on the whole is on the right track. Despite their model making wizardry, their balance sheet seems to be unerringly headed towards the toilet.

The initial rulebook, or all those extra ones they release every year, you know, the ones you *need* to buy to stay up to date?

how much did a complete set of Mk1 books cost?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Bueller?

@MrMystery: Are you being intentionally obtuse?

You can play without any of the additional supplements as all models ship with their stat-cards. The supplements are a good read, but hardly necessary. I went through all of MK1 with just the first two, and in MK2, I own a grand total of 0 army books, depite having sizable armies (100 points +) in all the WM factions.

And yet if you wished to use the newer stuff toward the end of Mk1?

It's you being obtuse. You are deliberately showing one in the best possible light, and trying to show the other to be more expensive.

Hell, for £60 I can grab me the full rules for the game, and two decent starting forces. Add on the books, and it's still just under £100.

Mr Mystery wrote:And yet if you wished to use the newer stuff toward the end of Mk1?

Then you just bought the newer stuff you wanted, the rules were (and still are) packaged with the model.

So why produce the books at all?

This is what I don't get. I would rather have the rules I require in just two books (rule and army book) than have to lug around lots of books, or worry about cards. Two books, sheet of paper and all is well.

And what if you wanted to check out a new addition? Buy the book for the rules, or buy the (expensive) model for the rules, and pray it doesn't completely suck?

@MrMystery: Come come now, I didn't think that the idea that players are able to immediately use new release PP models (rulebook-free) becaues the rules are INCLUDED with the model was such a hard concept to grasp.

I'm not trying to paint the situation in any sort of light. Just trying to correct what appears to be an error in your understanding of how PP works its rules releases.

Mr Mystery wrote:And what if you wanted to check out a new addition? Buy the book for the rules, or buy the (expensive) model for the rules, and pray it doesn't completely suck?

If you 'need' the model to 'stay up to date' then you already know it has good rules, or else you wouldn't 'need' it.

Mr Mystery wrote:So why produce the books at all?

This is what I don't get. I would rather have the rules I require in just two books (rule and army book) than have to lug around lots of books, or worry about cards. Two books, sheet of paper and all is well.

And what if you wanted to check out a new addition? Buy the book for the rules, or buy the (expensive) model for the rules, and pray it doesn't completely suck?

Are you familiar with the system at all, or do you just heap scorn on it?

The cards are necessary for damage and other book-keeping tasks. New unit stats are spoiled in the No Quarter magazine and usually math-hammered on the internet. If you have a local retailer, looking at the card is usually no harder than asking if you can open the unsealed model box (and or snap-tite blister).

The books, while optional, contain hobby tips, campaign suggestions, fluff (army organization, alt paint schemes etc). They're not needed, but certainly can enrich the hobby for some.

I have played Warmachine, and really didn't enjoy it. Not my style of gaming.

All I'm challlenging here is the claim that it's an inherently cheaper game to play. Apologies if this seems a little insulting, but the smaller the army, the quicker you tire of it, as it's lack of size necessarily equates to a lack of options (something which I feel the Warcaster centric nature of Warmahordes only exasperates). So you add a new model. A pricey new model if peoples comments are to be believed. Then you tire of that, and add another. The whole design of Warmahordes seems to hinge on this, from my perspective.

So sure, you might need fewer models to play any given game, but what is the size of the average collection, because I don't believe for a second anyone goes '35 points, and that's me'. We're nerds. That just doesn't happen with us.

Does it happen with 40k either? I don't think I've seen anyone collect just the bare bones of a single 1500 point army either.

Welll that's the question.

I'll stick with my aforementioned Ogre army (little further up for reference) that I actually own, and I've been using it since the dawn of 8th Edition. 3,000 points, £250ish of models (with £90 of that being the Rhinox!). That's a big old army, and I can break it down into smaller forces if I wish. Yet to get anywhere near bored of my standard force (there is something about a horde of Ironguts that makes me giggle!). As such with this army and speaking personally I don't think I'll be adding much to it. Of course that might change when I get a new Army Book (possibly this year, maybe 2012). But not in the forseeable future.

So this is only speaking from my own perspective. The people in my usual gaming group are much the same. I guess we all put a lot of thought into what we want in our army before buying, something the Warmahordes style of releases makes an awful lot harder.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also probably worth noting I am not one for Tournaments. Thus, any perceived 'meta' has no real effect on me, so I personally have less impetus to keep up with trends. I'll just keep slugging away with my usual force, barring the odd tweak here and there (for instance, right now I'm not using the Gnoblars or the Leadbelchers). Someone who feels keeping with the 'meta' is an important part of maintaining an edge on their opponents is likely to get very different milage out of any given unit/army than I.

gorgon wrote:Internet marketing is one. Actually attending events is another. Heck, I'd be trying borderline guerrilla marketing stuff if it was me. Why not a staged and safe -- but seemingly random and spontaneous -- "battle" between guys in SM and CSM armor at the San Diego Comic-Con? You think that'd go viral? LOL.

This goes back to what I said about GW's self perception as the hobby and not as a company that is part of a wider hobby (that being 'Table Top Miniature Wargames'). As long as they view themselves as an entity unto themselves - something special and unique that no one out there even comes close to matching - this will never change and they will never attend events. Let's break down GW and events into two categories:

1. GW's Own Events.
2. Events everyone but GW goes to.

Starting with the later, things like Gen-Con and even growing conventions like PAX, GW has no presence because in their minds having a booth next to Wyrd Miniatures or Steve Jackson Games makes them feel 'less than' (and that's not a dig at Wyrd or Steve Jackson - I'm not saying they are 'less than'). They want to appear to be special, different, above and unique compared to everyone else, so attending a non-GW event would be akin to a concession that they are just 'another' miniatures company. Of course, GW's pathological need to be a hobby unto themselves and to never ever mix with the 'masses' of the miniature world is pants-on-head slowed (to quote Yhatzee) because even the biggest companies that would like to be above the rest or even consider themselves above the rest still show up to trade shows. Take E3. I'm sure Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft really hate the fact that they have to share hall-space with one another and would love to be the only console and game maker on the market, but they accept the realities of the situation and promote the ever-loving gak out of their products to maintain market dominance. GW does nothing of the sort, pretends that other companies don't exist, won't associate with other companies, and takes their audience for granted - no promotion outside of their useless monthly magazine and their fumbling website 'articles'.

And now GW's own events. I could forgive a lot of the above if GW made up for their own short-sightedness by using their own annual trade shows (Games Days!) as 'their' way of promoting the 'Games Workshop Hobby'. Unfortunately, they don't. Again, they take their audience for granted, they don't preview anything new, they do nothing to generate buzz about upcoming releases because they are petrified of people having even the slightest clue of what's about to be released. So we'll get nice cabinets full of wonderfully 'Evy Metal painted miniatures... all of which you can buy from the little kiosk to your left if you line up for 3 hours. The weirdest part though is that at these GW events we see a full-blown case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. What do I mean by that? Black Library and Forge World, that's what! These two groups do preview upcoming releases, they do show works in progress, they bring the designers and the writers and answer questions - they use word-of-mouth and the internet generate buzz. Think of all the threads we get after GW run events - the mainstream GW ones are bare, with tiny snippets of rumours, and the Forge World ones are multi-page multi-picture extravaganzas filled with new products, upcoming products and actual real news.

Does no one at GW see the problem there? The disconnect? If your own sub-companies are consistently doing what you, as the parent company, are failing to do at every step... then something has to change!!!

H.B.M.C. wrote:

gorgon wrote:Internet marketing is one. Actually attending events is another. Heck, I'd be trying borderline guerrilla marketing stuff if it was me. Why not a staged and safe -- but seemingly random and spontaneous -- "battle" between guys in SM and CSM armor at the San Diego Comic-Con? You think that'd go viral? LOL.

This goes back to what I said about GW's self perception as the hobby and not as a company that is part of a wider hobby (that being 'Table Top Miniature Wargames'). As long as they view themselves as an entity unto themselves - something special and unique that no one out there even comes close to matching - this will never change and they will never attend events. Let's break down GW and events into two categories:

1. GW's Own Events.
2. Events everyone but GW goes to.

Starting with the later, things like Gen-Con and even growing conventions like PAX, GW has no presence because in their minds having a booth next to Wyrd Miniatures or Steve Jackson Games makes them feel 'less than' (and that's not a dig at Wyrd or Steve Jackson - I'm not saying they are 'less than'). They want to appear to be special, different, above and unique compared to everyone else, so attending a non-GW event would be akin to a concession that they are just 'another' miniatures company. Of course, GW's pathological need to be a hobby unto themselves and to never ever mix with the 'masses' of the miniature world is pants-on-head slowed (to quote Yhatzee) because even the biggest companies that would like to be above the rest or even consider themselves above the rest still show up to trade shows. Take E3. I'm sure Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft really hate the fact that they have to share hall-space with one another and would love to be the only console and game maker on the market, but they accept the realities of the situation and promote the ever-loving gak out of their products to maintain market dominance. GW does nothing of the sort, pretends that other companies don't exist, won't associate with other companies, and takes their audience for granted - no promotion outside of their useless monthly magazine and their fumbling website 'articles'.

And now GW's own events. I could forgive a lot of the above if GW made up for their own short-sightedness by using their own annual trade shows (Games Days!) as 'their' way of promoting the 'Games Workshop Hobby'. Unfortunately, they don't. Again, they take their audience for granted, they don't preview anything new, they do nothing to generate buzz about upcoming releases because they are petrified of people having even the slightest clue of what's about to be released. So we'll get nice cabinets full of wonderfully 'Evy Metal painted miniatures... all of which you can buy from the little kiosk to your left if you line up for 3 hours. The weirdest part though is that at these GW events we see a full-blown case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. What do I mean by that? Black Library and Forge World, that's what! These two groups do preview upcoming releases, they do show works in progress, they bring the designers and the writers and answer questions - they use word-of-mouth and the internet generate buzz. Think of all the threads we get after GW run events - the mainstream GW ones are bare, with tiny snippets of rumours, and the Forge World ones are multi-page multi-picture extravaganzas filled with new products, upcoming products and actual real news.

Does no one at GW see the problem there? The disconnect? If your own sub-companies are consistently doing what you, as the parent company, are failing to do at every step... then something has to change!!!

Is it wrong that I want to feth you so hard right now?

I hope you mean that in a good way...

Umm...

Maybe next time just say "+1".