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 frozenwastes wrote:


GW is expensive in comparison to other options, but this notion that it's some luxury hobby that people need to quit... Even if you can't afford GW, Privateer, Corvus Belli, Warlord, Perry, Gripping Beast, Wyrd, or any of the other known companies, you can still get some figures to paint on the cheap and combine it with some free rules and cheap terrain making ideas and get playing. I've even seen people paint and play with cheap green plastic army men (not my cup of tea, but they'll work).

Spoiler:

Of course you basically just pointed out that anyone who bothers with Warlords WW2 is wasting their money just as much as anyone who bothers with GW.

 loki old fart wrote:

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:

And look at the price of other Space Marine plastic HQ character blisters, and they are right on course for those, with a slight increase in price considering the size increase that is coming with Primaris over standard Marines.

Your defending GW prices by comparing them to GW prices. How is one over priced model OK, because the other model is over priced.

I didn't defend their pricing. I justified it within the context of their established pricing model. They won't sell as many HQ/character kits as they will basic Troops and Transports, so they increase the price of those HQ models for that reason. I never said that it was right or fair, just that GW is following their own methods they have established. There is a "perceived" value in the models that GW wants to encourage. I put together many HQ models out of the Sternguard and Vanguard Veteran kits because they had tons of cool bits that I didn't want to use on my basic troops, and so I was "lost sales" to GW for buying the kits with tons of bling options for characters instead of the single-pose blisters that were $30 at the time.

Again, GW recognizes that customers want less expensive bundles for their models, and they are now listening to their customers and responding in positive ways, which is the point of my initial post. GW actually lowered the price of one of their kits, and yet people are still complaining about their price increases. The prices are not increasing, but staying the same or even decreasing. Look at the Age of Sigmar Fyreslayers Magmadroth now and compare it to two weeks ago - about $30 less than before AND bundled with a 10-man box of infantry.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

rmeister0 wrote:
Heck, pick up half a dozen Bones models from Reaper, buy a copy of Song of Blades and Heroes, and you're in business for less than $50.

Yeah, but then I'd be playing with models that are only marginally better than what one finds at the dollar store. No thanks.

That's your choice. Doesn't make the statement untrue.

Although your statement about the quality of Bones models is your opinion. They're considerably better than what you're suggesting, and plenty of people are buying them.

I own some Bones models, and they are not good. Rubbery, soft detail. Huge fills.

The only good thing about Bones is that they come in at well over 100 models for $100. Considering that it's direct sales, it's absolutely the same as dollar store quality.

silent25 wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:


GW is expensive in comparison to other options, but this notion that it's some luxury hobby that people need to quit... Even if you can't afford GW, Privateer, Corvus Belli, Warlord, Perry, Gripping Beast, Wyrd, or any of the other known companies, you can still get some figures to paint on the cheap and combine it with some free rules and cheap terrain making ideas and get playing. I've even seen people paint and play with cheap green plastic army men (not my cup of tea, but they'll work).

Spoiler:

Of course you basically just pointed out that anyone who bothers with Warlords WW2 is wasting their money just as much as anyone who bothers with GW.

I'm of the opinion that nice miniatures are worth buying even if cheaper models exist. How much more they are worth will be up to the individual, but if someone is finding the hobby too expensive, these super cheap options exist.

Just because you can game with toy store plastic toy soldiers doesn't mean it'll be everything you wish it could be. You can make things look better by putting a bit more money in, it's just a question of whether or not it is worth it to you.

And if it is worth it, then it's (pretty much by definition) not a waste of money.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I own some Bones models, and they are not good. Rubbery, soft detail. Huge fills.

The only good thing about Bones is that they come in at well over 100 models for $100. Considering that it's direct sales, it's absolutely the same as dollar store quality.

I'm no fan of bones, but this is ridiculous. While the line is inconsistent, for the average gamer a good number of the bones miniatures are indistinguishable from the metal versions once they are painted. Unfotunately many will also require resetting their weapons with hot water and mould line removal is a slower process, but they are hardly "dollar store quality." And they are certainly not bad enough that suggesting using them as a budget alternative should be just dismissed out of hand.

It's also totally 100% irrelevant what your tastes are. The point is that people who don't want to spend a lot of money have options and your idea that people should quit the hobby as a solution to prices they don't want to pay is just stupid. They can instead go for cheaper (often much cheaper) options. Your opinion of those options is irrelevant and will never change the fact that the hobby can be done on the cheap by those who want to go that route. They don't have to quit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:
GW actually lowered the price of one of their kits, and yet people are still complaining about their price increases. The prices are not increasing, but staying the same or even decreasing. Look at the Age of Sigmar Fyreslayers Magmadroth now and compare it to two weeks ago - about $30 less than before AND bundled with a 10-man box of infantry.

So even for those who have price as their most important issue, things are different now than a few uears ago. It's just not as far as those people would like. What price would the Primaris characters have to be for me to right this second go order them? $20? Yeah, that would do it. However just because GW doesn't meet my personal price point for an item that all the changes with the company are suddenly imaginary?

That's the real issue here. This notion that if the prices aren't what a given person thinks they should be, that must somehow be GW not having "learned their lesson" and the substantial changes GW has undergone are written off as "smoke and mirrors."

There's a huge fallacy comparing historical miniatures - anything pre-existing really - to non-historical miniatures.

Historical miniatures include a relatively short amount of development and design time, because all of the design work has been done for you already, dozens or hundreds of years ago, and is neatly cataloged by professional archivists. As a sculptor, if you wanted to sculpt a Viking or a French Voltigeur, you can buy a $15 Osprey uniform book and start sculpting right away.
Even strange uniforms from strange nations from strange time periods may involve a few dozen hours of research, maybe, more, hell, let's say a hundred hours of research!

Meanwhile, Magnus the Red took 850 hours of design time to sculpt. What is that sculptor's wages?
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2016/11/28/designing-magnus-the-red-with-matt-holland/
There is no $15 Osprey book on Magnus the Red.

 judgedoug wrote:
There's a huge fallacy comparing historical miniatures - anything pre-existing really - to non-historical miniatures.

Historical miniatures include a relatively short amount of development and design time, because all of the design work has been done for you already, dozens or hundreds of years ago, and is neatly cataloged by professional archivists. As a sculptor, if you wanted to sculpt a Viking or a French Voltigeur, you can buy a $15 Osprey uniform book and start sculpting right away.
Even strange uniforms from strange nations from strange time periods may involve a few dozen hours of research, maybe, more, hell, let's say a hundred hours of research!

Meanwhile, Magnus the Red took 850 hours of design time to sculpt. What is that sculptor's wages?
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2016/11/28/designing-magnus-the-red-with-matt-holland/
There is no $15 Osprey book on Magnus the Red.

While I agree with your general premise, I think you may be underestimating the time it takes to design and develop a sprue that works for whatever design you're making. Granted, that is likely not done by the sculptors, but it's still a pretty significant part of the creation of miniatures.

Also, Osprey, while valuable, is as valuable as you'd think. So yeah. . .I don't think even the research phase of creating historical miniatures takes only 100 hours. . .I mean, I truly doubt it takes only 2 and a half weeks. Probably more like multiple months of work, even if a team is working only one project.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

While I agree with your general premise, I think you may be underestimating the time it takes to design and develop a sprue that works for whatever design you're making. Granted, that is likely not done by the sculptors, but it's still a pretty significant part of the creation of miniatures.

Also, Osprey, while valuable, is as valuable as you'd think. So yeah. . .I don't think even the research phase of creating historical miniatures takes only 100 hours. . .I mean, I truly doubt it takes only 2 and a half weeks. Probably more like multiple months of work, even if a team is working only one project.

Haha, that's excellent. You are vastly overestimating the size of the historical miniatures market. "Multiple months of work by a team"?

Warlord has one sculptor on staff, and they shoot out minis constantly. An entire Australian range is on preorder, all sculpted by one guy.

I can't even imagine what you think Front Rank looks like. A high rise office building with teams of designers working on the next pack of Dutch Napoleonic casualties for several months?

Anyways, we have Victrix, one digital sculptor on staff, and near monthly plastics releases. https://www.facebook.com/victrixlimited/

Way to miss the point. . . . You realize a team can comprise of more people than just sculptors, right???

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Way to miss the point. . . . You realize a team can comprise of more people than just sculptors, right???

Wait, I'm missing the point? That was the point I originally made, that a huge amount of work is already done for you, necessitating less development time, by an order of magnitude at least, in the overwhelming majority of cases.

Which is, at least in part, cancelled out by the ability to make gak up from your arse when sculpting a fantasy model.

Comparing a WW2 infantryman or vehicle (which is essentially the total scope of the range, unless they've retconned giant stompy robots into Dunkirk when I wasn't looking) to one of the largest kits GW make is already inherently lop sided, how's about comparing it to a Space Marine that's already established, has, we are told, a substantial library of 3D objects already on file to drag and drop in and is a much more comparable in terms of workload?

Alternatively, maybe look at a scale Battleship or similar, which is probably comparable to Magnus in terms of size, and despite all the details being established, is going to take a lot of time to ensure those intricacies are faithfully reproduced?

Just cover it in skulls and it doesn't matter half the time what it looks like. A large amount of GW customers will buy it because of its rules regardless of how silly it looks.

Make a mistake on a historical miniature and the rivet counters will denounce your entire company forever.

I cannot justify GW prices, but the work they have done on 8th has brought out all the former 40K members of my gaming group and now they are playing the game again and some have even bought a box of new figures or two (a first since about 5th edition).

CB

 judgedoug wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Way to miss the point. . . . You realize a team can comprise of more people than just sculptors, right???

Wait, I'm missing the point? That was the point I originally made, that a huge amount of work is already done for you, necessitating less development time, by an order of magnitude at least, in the overwhelming majority of cases.

And I've seen some pretty shoddy scultping of historical miniatures. In order to attempt to negate that, finding as many photos (or depictions, for pre-photography period pieces) of the subject, from as many angles as possible alleviates this

The new financial reports went into their pricing model on new releases. Basically a third of their sales come from new releases while two thirds of their sales are from existing products. They then price their stuff so that the average new price is increased by 3%. The new primaris character prices pretty much fit right into this paradigm being about 10% more than other 40mm based character miniatures.

''Make the rules look simple so more kiddies can play...''
Is not the same as ,
'Writing clearly defined rules that encompass the intended game play, elegantly and efficiently.''

Major issues from the 3rd ed 40k battle game still have not been addressed.

GW is still in the business of selling toy soldiers to children.
And so gamers will continue to buy from games companies instead of GW ...

Lanrak wrote:
'
GW is still in the business of selling toy soldiers to children.

Preferring a simple game does not make one a child. Nor is Warhammer is not appropriate for "kiddies". Being that demeaning is uncalled for.
Not that either Warhammer is a masterpiece in terms good rules writing or tactical depth.

And so gamers will continue to buy from games companies instead of GW ...

40k is still the most popular wargame ever, hands down and it's doing better with the new edition (as is fantasy). Based on the bookings I do for my club and what I have heard.

GW's "Kirby era" did leave other companies time to take root , but Warhammer is still king.

As I've said before, I anybody is worried about the price of wargaming, then take a leaf out of my book, and go for a FOW heavy tank company from the Grey Wolf book.

Your HQ is 1 King Tiger Tank, and your two platoon choices consists of 1 King Tiger tank in each platoon.

That gives you 1000+ points. Zvezda sell King Tigers for £5 each. Very high quality kits.

Yip, it's horribly imbalanced, but when they're not bogged down, King Tigers are awesome.

Honest to God, that has to be the cheapest wargaming army I've ever bought.

 DarkBlack wrote:

Lanrak wrote:
'
GW is still in the business of selling toy soldiers to children.

Preferring a simple game does not make one a child. Nor is Warhammer is not appropriate for "kiddies". Being that demeaning is uncalled for.
Not that either Warhammer is a masterpiece in terms good rules writing or tactical depth.

And so gamers will continue to buy from games companies instead of GW ...

40k is still the most popular wargame ever, hands down and it's doing better with the new edition (as is fantasy). Based on the bookings I do for my club and what I have heard.

GW's "Kirby era" did leave other companies time to take root , but Warhammer is still king.

I wonder if we are only now starting to see Kirby's master plan?

All of the law suits, the price rises, the poor development of rules, death of WHFB etc. Without these, it would have given a number of other wargaming companies very little chance of establishing a foothold.

But, gain a foothold they did, and gained enough market share to force GW to start to take notice, and to try and do things better.

And then, out of it all, GW emerges stronger than ever?

..

Just think about it!

I think you are ascribing an intelligence to Kirby that simply wasn't there. He was literally attempting to throttle the golden goose to get that last egg out of it, and had he remained at the helm, would have sunk GW.

That doesn't make Roundtree a saint (yet) though. GW still has issues, though it seems they are slowly attempting to rectify the most offensive ones. Fixing pricing just isn't a big concern for them as it is for most of us.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
As I've said before, I anybody is worried about the price of wargaming, then take a leaf out of my book, and go for a FOW heavy tank company from the Grey Wolf book.

Your HQ is 1 King Tiger Tank, and your two platoon choices consists of 1 King Tiger tank in each platoon.

That gives you 1000+ points. Zvezda sell King Tigers for £5 each. Very high quality kits.

Yip, it's horribly imbalanced, but when they're not bogged down, King Tigers are awesome.

Honest to God, that has to be the cheapest wargaming army I've ever bought.

I know your being funny with this post, but 'if GW is too expensive, play a game where you can buy 3 cheap models for a full army' is kind of missing what's so great about the wargaming hobby at the moment. You don't need to go from the most expensive game on the market to £15 for a 3 model army.

The market is saturated right now with games that are cheaper to fully enjoy than what Games Workshop offers.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
As I've said before, I anybody is worried about the price of wargaming, then take a leaf out of my book, and go for a FOW heavy tank company from the Grey Wolf book.

Your HQ is 1 King Tiger Tank, and your two platoon choices consists of 1 King Tiger tank in each platoon.

That gives you 1000+ points. Zvezda sell King Tigers for £5 each. Very high quality kits.

Yip, it's horribly imbalanced, but when they're not bogged down, King Tigers are awesome.

Honest to God, that has to be the cheapest wargaming army I've ever bought.

I know your being funny with this post, but 'if GW is too expensive, play a game where you can buy 3 cheap models for a full army' is kind of missing what's so great about the wargaming hobby at the moment. You don't need to go from the most expensive game on the market to £15 for a 3 model army.

The market is saturated right now with games that are cheaper to fully enjoy than what Games Workshop offers.

Yeah, I take your point. Going from one extreme end of the spectrum to another, doesn't address the general issue of the middle ground.

We all remember the days when you were getting, say, 20 Cadians in a box for £20, but now it's 10 or something for the same price.

GW are not the only companies doing this. Sweet manufacturers in the UK are shrinking their products but still charging the same.

I suppose that's why games like Mordheim were popular due to the low model count. Ideal if you're on a budget

Skirmish games are the way forward for those one a budget.

GW has learned their lesson. They have realized that collectors collect. They will collect regardless of price, but maybe not regardless of rules. Solution? Make more rules... Their business model is ruthlessly brilliant.

I'm not only a GW owner, but I am also a customer... my only regret is that I am addicted to the product... arrrrrgh....

@DarkBlack.
I do not have a problem with simple games with simple rules.Or with complicated games with straight forward rules.

I just have issues with simple games with badly applied rules , that look simple but need lots of exceptions to work.And end up being pointlessly over complicated.(EG 40k bloat from 3rd to 7th ed.)

Writing rules to make the new minatures sound awesome to their target demographic, (13 year old boys), with little concern for game play issues.Is what GW still does.

And therefore is still in the mind set of 'selling toy soldiers to children' and NOT focusing on the game play that would appeal to collectors and gamers a like.(Higher volume sales means lower prices!)

I have no issue with the art or background that GW produce as it is purely subjective. (There is enough variety to appeal to everyone. )

But rule sets are functional instructions sets.And as such should be objectively compared to arrive at the best combination of game mechanics and resolution methods to deliver the intended game play.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
As I've said before, I anybody is worried about the price of wargaming, then take a leaf out of my book, and go for a FOW heavy tank company from the Grey Wolf book.

Your HQ is 1 King Tiger Tank, and your two platoon choices consists of 1 King Tiger tank in each platoon.

That gives you 1000+ points. Zvezda sell King Tigers for £5 each. Very high quality kits.

Yip, it's horribly imbalanced, but when they're not bogged down, King Tigers are awesome.

Honest to God, that has to be the cheapest wargaming army I've ever bought.

The local Ross has Magic The Gathering boardgames at "flushing it now" prices. For $15 one could buy about four or five Frostgrave bands. The figures are about Heroscape quality, too.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
As I've said before, I anybody is worried about the price of wargaming, then take a leaf out of my book, and go for a FOW heavy tank company from the Grey Wolf book.

Your HQ is 1 King Tiger Tank, and your two platoon choices consists of 1 King Tiger tank in each platoon.

That gives you 1000+ points. Zvezda sell King Tigers for £5 each. Very high quality kits.

Yip, it's horribly imbalanced, but when they're not bogged down, King Tigers are awesome.

Honest to God, that has to be the cheapest wargaming army I've ever bought.

The local Ross has Magic The Gathering boardgames at "flushing it now" prices. For $15 one could buy about four or five Frostgrave bands. The figures are about Heroscape quality, too.

The MTG Boardgame was basically HeroScape 2.0. It was just marketed badly. The core sets were distributed with no discounts promising that the profit would be in the expansions, but no expansions were released with the Core Set, so by the time they did come out 2-3 months later, the game was already dead because game stores refused to get expansions for game they made no profit from and couldn't move.

Herzlos wrote:

Or a scale model kit that costs the same as a Land Raider?

Larger 1:35 tanks from Dragon, Tiger Models, Trumpeteer, etc. are £50-70 (compared to a land raider at £45 from GW or £36 from independent mail order).

It is by law impossible and illegal to buy 1:35 vehicles from independent stores.

You truely cannot compare Tamiya and stuff to a GW Land Raider. That is just a cruel joke on the land raider.

The amount of detail, sprues, photoetched parts, decals, moving parts, options and such is SO MUCH BETTER, HIGHER; MORE AWESOME in any of the 1:35 tank... the land raider has to feel like the unloved son.

Honestly.. don't compare them. It is just not fair.

(damn the land raider is a gakky model)

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Larger 1:35 tanks from Dragon, Tiger Models, Trumpeteer, etc. are £50-70 (compared to a land raider at £45 from GW or £36 from independent mail order).

Frozenwastes posted this earlier in the thread. Compare these army men to your favourite GW sculpt. Now imagine that the land raider is the army men and the 1/35 scale kits are the GW model.

The difference is that pronounced.

GW has made some minor improvements, or in reality normalised their business models after the Kirby Krazy years of 'moats' and ' we don't need market research'.

The return of specialist games is very welcome and eminently sensible and there appears to be a functional edition of 40k for the first time in years (I am interested in playing it for the first time since the demise of 2nd ed nearly 20 years ago).

On the other and their pricing is still ridiculous, WHFB is still needlessly dead and their fluff has continued its downward spiral.

Even though I am contemplating getting back into 40k to at least a small degree I will be buying everything from ebay supplemented by some 3rd party manufacturers. This is significantly cheaper and, to me at least, more satisfying. Additionally I don't like the new aesthetic that GW seems to be going for so older models are a plus for me.

They're also substantially more expensive. The point is, it was suggested that the price of a land raider is high for a tank model (and that military scale models are all cheaper) when it's actually more middle of the road.