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So I bought a box of Raveners and a box of Warriors -- mid-size Tyranid monsters if you didn't know.

The Ravener kit contains two sprues. The Warriors contains 4 sprues the same size as the Ravener sprues. You can build three monsters from each kit.

The Raveners have four alternative weapon torso front bits, and a spare base with the monster half in the ground. The Warriors have a selection of weapon and CC arms, and a base of Rippers (worth £6 in itself.)

The Raveners costs £30 and the Warriors costs £18.

What is the explanation for this massive variation in cost?

Warriors and Raveners cost the same points in game. They are worth about the same in combat -- if anything the Warriors are better.

at least your not paying $55 nz for warriors and $95 nz for ravenors

im thinking warriors + green stuff is the way to go for Ravenors

Kilkrazy wrote:So I bought a box of Raveners and a box of Warriors -- mid-size Tyranid monsters if you didn't know.

The Ravener kit contains two sprues. The Warriors contains 4 sprues the same size as the Ravener sprues. You can build three monsters from each kit.

The Raveners have four alternative weapon torso front bits, and a spare base with the monster half in the ground. The Warriors have a selection of weapon and CC arms, and a base of Rippers (worth £6 in itself.)

The Raveners costs £30 and the Warriors costs £18.

What is the explanation for this massive variation in cost?

Warriors and Raveners cost the same points in game. They are worth about the same in combat -- if anything the Warriors are better.

Really? Up here, the Warrior kit costs $42.50, and the Ravener kit costs $49.50.

Considering the size of the Raveners, I think it's a pretty fair deal.

...Well, actually, I think they're both grossly overcosted, but the Ravener compared to the Warrior kit should costs a couple of bucks more.

Buy the cheaper Warriors kits and then go online for the bits you need to convert them to Raveners.

Kilkrazy wrote:The Raveners costs £30 and the Warriors costs £18.

Raveners cost £27 actually. Not that that invalidates your argument though.

Yeah, it's a bit odd. Basically £27 for 3 medium-sized plastic models is the latest price structure device from GW, eventhough some are more medium-sized than others (Raveners - Minotaurs - Killa Kans). There's also a strong chronological bias in effect in this case. The Tyranid Warriors box is relatively old now, from a time when a different price structure existed. The Raveners are the "latest thing" and latest things not only tend to have a little price bump for being the latest things, but also sometimes contain a little future proofing for the next price rise. Not saying that's specifically the case here, but wouldn't surprise me.

To sum up, it's part of GW's new blunt approach to pricing. They will lump certain classes of models/units into a particular price structure eventhough you might get wild disparities between armies and also sometimes to existing kits within the same army. It's all pretty arbitrary though, GW will quite happily just invent new prices for new products. They have basically thrown the rulebook out the window. Thankfully as part of this blunt approach, they also occasionally take a more cost effective look at some larger units and give us more reasonably priced kits like the Skaven Clanrats and Tyranid Gargoyles.

That puts some sensible perspective on it.

I did not know Raveners were a new kit compared to Warriors.

I think the success of the pricing strategy can be seen in the fact that Malestrom Games have run out of Warriors and have 36 boxes of Raveners in stock.