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Firstly, I can't think where this post should go, so if it's in the wrong place, feel free to move it.

Secondly, this post is not meant as a "GW is just trying to charge the Earth" thread, it's merely a "Blimey, that's weird" sort of thread.

Having just received the regular White Dwarf email that announces all the new gubbins, I've had a quick trawl through the new SM stuff and spotted the pricing of the new stuff. Now, I know that we've just had the letter from Random McWhoever saying that 'with the prices of blah and blah going up, we need to raise the price of our metal stuff and some other bits' and I fully understand that. It seems sensible that the prices would have to go up given the current economic state, and we should be grateful that they didn't raise the price of the plastics too. However, it now seems we've reached a point where metal is becoming a little prohibitively expensive. case in point: New Scout Bike, scout + bike, which includes various bits for making yours unique = £6. Scout Sergeant Telion, which is one model with no extra bits = £8!. New Sergeant Chronus, one standing up model and one peeking from a tank = £10!

GW have said that they are looking to expand their plastics range. Should they be looking at making a boxed plastic set for characters? If there are, say, 8 characters for a given army, I'd happily pay £20 or so for a box containing them all, even if there was no customisation possibilities.

Any thoughts?

It's to do with sale volumes and predicted return.

Any given player will likely only ever buy one Telion, or any other named Character. But Scout Bikes, your looking at 5 or 6 per player arguably.

However, what is odd, would by my Savage Orcs.

Previous to the recent price change, 5 Savage Orcs were £12, 10 were £20, and Command £12.

And after? 5 are still £12, 10 are £25, and Command is £15.

Thats right, buy two boxes of 5, and save £1!

Ok, you got me. That's weirder!

I don't think that the pricing woud be the case of "person x will need lots of troop type y, so we'll make that cheap, whereas they only need one of character z, so we'll make that expensive". Surely pricing should be based on materials and labour....

I still think that one box with all the characters in would be a winner.

If they want to keep the price of plastic mini low since they are going to make up the bulk of most armies and have funky pricing with the metals I don't care. It does make some army variants more expensive but as long as the bulk of the 'standard' army is not changing I am not going to complain.

I'm not complaining. I just think it's quite the difference in price now, considering what you actually get.

While plastic is cheaper than metal, the cost of the metal in a figure is only a small fraction of the total retail price.

The cheapness of plastic comes more from mass production. Plastic moulds can be larger than metal and can be used many more times before wearing out. This compensates for the much higher cost of starting up and running a plastic moulding machine.

This makes plastic very good for high volume and bad for low volume figures, which is why we will probably continue to see metal used for special character figures.

The other weirdnesses of pricing come from other factors in cost of distribution and retailing, and GW's judgement about how desireable a unit is within an army.

There's no law to govern the markup over basic costs, so GW will put a higher markup on the figures that are more valuable in combat or as modeller's favourites.

Space Pope broke a new price barrier, in my opinion. £20 for three infantry figures, one of which has a hover chair. I would love to know how many GW have sold. Space Pope is not a popular addition to a Tau army.

If it wasn't for the price I'd take him and his hover segway.

If not for price, I'd buy a couple boxes of plastic Terminators to replace my metals...

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:It's to do with sale volumes and predicted return.

Any given player will likely only ever buy one Telion, or any other named Character. But Scout Bikes, your looking at 5 or 6 per player arguably.

However, what is odd, would by my Savage Orcs.

Previous to the recent price change, 5 Savage Orcs were £12, 10 were £20, and Command £12.

And after? 5 are still £12, 10 are £25, and Command is £15.

Thats right, buy two boxes of 5, and save £1!

well now you went and leaked it and GW will now go back in and fix that won't they.... some things are best not mentioned.. lol

one box full of PLASTIC characters would deffinetly rock. id buy it simply for the 1 i need and the rest for modding. think of all those BITS! id be down for that

KingCracker wrote:one box full of PLASTIC characters would deffinetly rock. id buy it simply for the 1 i need and the rest for modding. think of all those BITS! id be down for that

Exact-a-mundo buddy! It would be superb for that sort of thing and I really think they would sell loads, thus answering the high volume questions. Now, how do we go about getting them to do this?