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Omegus wrote:I agree, I don't think GW understand the supply/demand curve. People in our hobbies are as much collectors as gamers, more often than not. If they made their stuff cheaper, everyone would likely have one of every army for the hell of it.

I'm sure if Titans were say 1/4 of their price (i.e. still significant profit margin given materials), they would sell 10 times as many.

They don't care about "selling 10 times as many", to be honest.

Reavers, Mantas, Imperial Fortresses, etc--they're all cast to order.

There's not exactly a warehouse just laying around full of Titans, Mantas, etc.

I would if I had the extra income, my FW fund may have to get pillaged soon, the girlfriend is making hints towards a ring, and I doubt it's a LOTR reference.

Kanluwen wrote:
They don't care about "selling 10 times as many", to be honest.

Reavers, Mantas, Imperial Fortresses, etc--they're all cast to order.

There's not exactly a warehouse just laying around full of Titans, Mantas, etc.

Keep telling yourself that. I won't pay that muchfor a Chinese made model that has no funtion.

focusedfire wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
They don't care about "selling 10 times as many", to be honest.

Reavers, Mantas, Imperial Fortresses, etc--they're all cast to order.

There's not exactly a warehouse just laying around full of Titans, Mantas, etc.

Keep telling yourself that. I won't pay that muchfor a Chinese made model that has no funtion.

You, sir, are misinformed. It's not chinese labor casting these models.

@Valhallan42nd-Then it is the other FW models that are being cast and they are saving the Manta for custom orders only?

The only stuff I've got that says "Made in China" from Forge World is the infantry upgrade kits for my Cadians.

Inquisitors Rex+Lok are all made in the UK, as is my Deathwing Dreadnought and the Deathwing shoulderpads.

The reason I am dubious is that FW is a company that is a part of a multi-national corporation.

These corporations will open factories all over the world. They then will quietly shift their production around as demand increases and decreases. When demand is high they will send the equipment necessary for production demand to multiple factories. Oddly enough this equipment is often sent to the factories with the lowest payscale as opposed to the ones that can ramp up the fastest. When the demand drops the equipment stays with the factory for future use. At some point these factories receive the equipment to make the full range of products "in anticipation" of high demand.

I used to work in the packaging/warehouse section of a major manufacturer. In the morning I was palletizing and labeling the production run with tags that stated where we were. In the afternoons production run we were producing our sister plants model line using their labels. The sister plant was 1500 miles away. They did the same thing to our plant when the shifted production farther south into mexico.

It doesn't have to be a corporation either.

These days my wife and I run our own business, hand making our product. We work and sell in at events that surround us with other artisans, crafterspersons, and artists. In this environment people are supposed to make the items that they sell. We've watched people start off making their products but eventually move to shipping the production elsewhere(Out of country). They do it as an excuse to give themselves more time to work on the high-end hand-made custom pieces but they end up moving all of their production and rarely ever make those masterpieces that they aspired to. I will support and pay a premiun for the early hand crafted peices but I will not pay those prices when the item is being mass produced.

Resin casting pieces like the Manta isn't a production line job like polystyrene moulding. Each piece is cast by hand.

If they made several moulds from the master, they can cast several pieces simultaneously. However at the price, it's unlikely they ever need to cast more than one Manta per day.

Has anyone ever seen a Manta or even a picture of a Manta, at a show or something, which wasn't the FW model on tour?

The whole point of FW is to offer models which don't have a demand to justify mass production. If such demand appears, or the mother company decides to make the model part of their main range, then they make a plastic sprue for it in GW's main plant, or wherever they want to start producing the thing. It would be counter-productive for them to have a parallel mass production capability for ForgeWorld models.

Omegus - the previous but one rhino kit, one of the most ubiquitos vehicle kits, only made ROI about 6 months before it was retired.

That is why everything isnt 1/10th the price - running hobby shops is *expensive*. they make very little profit per piece sold instore.

Borkin wrote:Does it only have burst cannons on it? For 800 pounds id want a large killy cannon on it.

It has like heavy burst cannons or something like that and the large cannon is a..heavy something rather then other TITAN KILLER weapon. It can carry like 188 stuffs at one time and well...if you read the rules on it the Manta is one rediculous piece of transport that shouldn't be allowed to be fielded.

I would buy one if I was Rich but I am not! Having like...three of them would make your shop like the premiere Apocalypse 40k in your area.

Kilkrazy wrote:Resin casting pieces like the Manta isn't a production line job like polystyrene moulding. Each piece is cast by hand.

If they made several moulds from the master, they can cast several pieces simultaneously. However at the price, it's unlikely they ever need to cast more than one Manta per day.

Has anyone ever seen a Manta or even a picture of a Manta, at a show or something, which wasn't the FW model on tour?

@ KK, I know about resin casting. Several of the crafter/artisans I know make their products out of the stuff, mainly because you can mass produce with it. Instead of hand carving each item they make several molds of the items and start producing the pieces in production runs. One of these crafting companies makes fully animitronic puppets. I know what can go wrong with resin because I've helped them when they were behind in production and because I make use of a 2 part polymer resin on a regular basis.

Many of the problems with producing hand-cast pieces have to do with air pockets and temperature. When a small business that does a fraction of FW's business can buy and use a Vacuum chamber, create a temperature controlled space to insure quality, and to sell their pieces affordably..... just can't buy into FW's Status Symbol as being anything other than a tool to seperate fools from their money.

Don't get me wrong, FW Makes some beautiful with much of their product line priced much more reasonably than their prestige/status symbol prices.


Quick question. Does anyone know the wait time for a Manta?

I can't imagine buying something like that myself. I've never even heard anyone seriously consider buying one! That being said, considering how much money I've spent on my armies and fleets over the last several years, it probably isn't beyond the realm of possibility for someone with more time than sense.

If I had that much spare money I would buy another big 6mm Napoleonic army.

I want a motorized titan.
"Oh no, my foe has an army of tau hammerheads! I'll just take my motorized titan and push them off the table."

Focusedfire wrote:Quick question. Does anyone know the wait time for a Manta?

It doesn't say on the website, which is odd as it used to.

However, going off the Fortress Walls: "This model will be cast to order so please allow up to 8 weeks for delivery".