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This thread reminds me I need to go email in an order for 6 more boxes to my store. You can never have enough orks.

 welshhoppo wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 DanielBeaver wrote:
Yeah, that argument is basically "Well, if you buy less it doesn't cost as much!"

Strange how that's a bad argument for GW but an acceptable one for PP, Corvus Belli, Wyrd... none of them are any cheaper per figure.

Well for PP the games are an awful lot smaller. You rarely see more than thirty models in a Warmahordes game. WH40K is offset by the actual size of some of the games.

I wouldn't trust game size as an indicator for costs, really. I know WM/H players who happily spend exactly as much as they did/do on GW products for the exact same reasons.

I've never collected Warmahordes myself, but my experience with Infinity is quite telling. I started a PanO army, chose the miniatures I liked (TAGs and dronbots - I'm a sucker for Infinity's robots, you see) only to find myself losing every single game against Nomads and Combined Army, which by some trick of "balance" made like 90% of the local roster of Infinity players. After trying a few games with my pal's Ariadnans, I found it was not my skill (or lack thereof) as a player what was making me the laughing stock amongst the Infinity crowd, but my list. I was just fielding the wrong models. So much for "It's not what you play, but how you play".

So, with Human Sphere around, I decided to give the game a second chance. There was a vibrant Infinity community in my hometown then, 40k had been almost displaced by it in most indie LGSs and I just didn't want to be left out. I picked a new batch of miniatures to build a NeoTerran sectorial, faring slightly better but still encountering some hard counters which pretty much obliterated my army at whim. By late 2012 I was kinda tired of PanOceania and decided to start an Aleph force adding some new toys to the few bots and Devas I already had for my Neoterrans. But by then, the Infinity bubble had collapsed. For some or other reason, the scene vanished as quickly as it rose, most players having switched over to other skirmish games. So my Infinities got shelved never to see the tabletops again (well, my PanO drones have since been repurposed as 15mm alien walking tanks ).

In all, during my brief brush with Infinity I spent like 300-400€ on it. That's more or less what I've invested on my Dark Angels. I know Infinity can be played with a much smaller investment, 150€ or less will buy you a decent army of any faction. But my desire to stay competitive (or at least attempt to be competitive) and to keep up with the volatile local meta had me making purchases on a frequent, almost weekly basis. Now, I don't complain about it. I won't call it money-gouging or wallet-plundering or whatever. It's a real, natural aspect of our hobby, and every company uses those little tricks to keep us hooked and their businesses running. Besides, I had a great time while it lasted - I'm immensely grateful to Corvus Belli for that.

In the end, the business tactics behind GW and CB are more or less the same. It's not a fire-and-forget boardgame they're marketing: Both companies rely on the wargaming hobby being social and addictive, on players making regular purchases in order to meet certain goals, and that requires expanding on the games' core premises and shaking up the established metagames from time to time.

It's not about market costs and inflation, it's about perceived value.

Fluff is cheap. We can find out much about our favorite factions on one of three major wikis (2 serious, 1 tongue in cheek). Black Library books are within standard market costs for eBooks and what not and are chock full of silly power armored adventures (or w/e else you're in to these days...).

Pretty pictures aren't what they used to be. We now have sites like DakkaDakka and many others that share the communities brightest stars and guides for the best new builds, ideas, kitbashes, etc. This used to come from codecis and White Dwarfs. Now just google what your idea is and you can probably find something similar enough for inspiration.

So that leaves what a Codex has always been about: Rules. The rules have not been getting better. Nay, I'd say they've been coming fast and loose. And with a higher price tag. Many books, like Codex Inquisition, LotD, Imperial Knights, contain a great deal of copy and pasted rules with new wrappers of fluff and pictures. The latter I have already established of being lower or marginal value to players thanks to the internet. The rules? Well, you can try to run an all LotD army, but you automatically lose if you do. Cool?

The models, while still rock star (those new Dwarfs!) are losing ground versus Kickstarter and their other game competitors. As digital artwork (and 3D printing) grow, the barrier of entry to make great minis is dropping. Meaning the days are numbered to where GW will have "The Best Minis in Town" (I think a lot of third parties have better offerings, but opinion there).

But even their minis don't have "value" in some terms. A Riptide is a cool looking model, $85, very effective in game. A Master Grade Gundam kit is a bigger model, $60~$80, has triple to quadruple the sprues/parts, is fully posable, and even comes in colored plastic for those lazy folks. So you're paying a premium for...? It's not physical cost of model production, design, or materials. It's the name and to play them in the game.

I love GW. But I live in a new area where they play W/H. Played a few games already at low point levels and the tactical nature of the game got me all hot and bothered, something a 40k game hasn't done much outside of latter portions of tournaments.

Has the price gone up? Yes. Does it compare to other games? Sure, determining on how deep you go in those rabbit holes.

But does the VALUE compare to other games or even itself in the yesteryear? I'd argue a strong no, it does not.