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If they were smart, they would take a page from Apple Computers, and just give away their "Operating System" (The WHFB/WH40K Rules), and make their money off of miniatures sales.

From what I have been able to gather, they are paying vastly less for their sculptors than other companies who charge ¼ of what GW charges for a miniature.

So... Where is the driver for that extravagant price, and what sort of optimization function are they using that tells them the higher prices generate more revenue than a lower price selling more figures?

Since around 2006, I have been wanting to compare the sales of Miniatures made for games that have armies of 200 - 400 miniatures (like DBx, Field of Glory, or other Historical games as late as the Napoleonic period, where I have seen armies of 700 - 800 figures), and WHFB, which seems to have armies that are between 100 and 200 figures, tops.

For instance, my Lord of the Rings Armies (I have them based for Field or Glory rules, for which we have a fantasy addendum) have between 150 (Rohirrim) and 600 (Misty Mountain Goblins) figures in them, and I have had people gawp open-mouthed at just the150 Rohirrim figures, to say nothing of the 600 Moria Orcs (Which I got at a convention in California from a guy who was selling a garbage bag full of LotR miniatures - I got the entire bag for $50, which contained about 500 miniatures total... About ¾ of them being the Moria Orcs).

But it has always puzzled me that GW did not create rules that pushed for larger armies, like Historical Rules do.

You would think this would allow them to sell more figures, wouldn't you?

MB

 Vermis wrote:
Oh, they did. With a big ol' boob-plate and everything.
.......

I think that.... I'm sorry, what? I clicked your links and got distracted. What were we talking about again?

If anything is happening it is GW is trying to jump back on their money horse because 40k is failing to compete for the kids with the ps4, xbox1 and females. So fantasy will get a huge boom of love

BeAfraid wrote:
If they were smart, they would take a page from Apple Computers, and just give away their "Operating System" (The WHFB/WH40K Rules), and make their money off of miniatures sales.

Apple is the second biggest company in the world, and can't do what they do in the same way I can't just copy Usain Bolt and run 100m in under 10 seconds.

GW sell to an extremely tiny amount of people compared to Apple and so that initial start-up cost to get into the game (rulebook, codex/army book, clippers, glue + paint) is a much needed boost to their profits.

Maybe free rules would get more people involved and switching games etc but, largely speaking, I think the majority of GW's target market are happy enough to pay the start up cost so I can't imagine them changing that. The only thing that'd prompt them to do so would be if any other wargames company that did offer free rules expanded and hit the high street in force.

Games Workshop started the End Times train by making some questionable fluff decisions, and the chant's going round that they're going to top it off by making a new edition with some extremely questionable rules changes including a faction reorganization sometime in the summer or later.

When it comes to fluff you basically just need to know some general things to make sense of it. Nagash came back, Malekith is a good guy now, Uluathan sank, the Lizardmen are getting wiped out and fleeing earth, and at this point Archaon is about to invade after a bunch of Nurgle-guys took out Kislev and softened the Empire up.

BeAfraid wrote:But it has always puzzled me that GW did not create rules that pushed for larger armies... You would think this would allow them to sell more figures, wouldn't you?

MB

I'm sorry... are we talking about the same GW?

Torga_DW wrote:

 Vermis wrote:
Oh, they did. With a big ol' boob-plate and everything.
.......

I think that.... I'm sorry, what? I clicked your links and got distracted. What were we talking about again?

Yeah, I think that's what they're counting on.

Mysterious Pants wrote:Malekith is a good guy now

Still not sure how that happened.

People have already brought up New Coke, so that's kinda torpedoed the point I was thinking of.

Anyhow... I had a Star Trek analogy, that surprisingly wasn't about the reboot.

The way I see it, the plan is:

Take Warhammer Fantasy as the original Star Trek series.
Generally speaking, you then have the 'End Times' as the first 6 of the Star Trek movies. (Although, technically speaking, there's overlap...)

But anyway, at the end of the End Times, you've said farewell to the old [strikethrough]ship and crew[/strikethrough] warhammer world.

Yo then have Warhammer Fantasy 9th Edition: The Next Generation. Still related, but wow, things have changed, the Klingons are now mates with the Federation. And hey... who are these Borg guys that are turning up now?

So yeah, everything's good, and we'll have another 20 odd years of successful Warhammer Fantasy.

Well, that's what I think the plan is, anyhow.

Of course, what could happen instead is what we'll end up having is a Galactica 1980 situation and there won't be a 10th edition of Fantasy, it instead being left to rot like The Hobbit, or even the various specialist games.

Who knows? Maybe in 25 years time, we'll have a Warhammer Fantasy: Reimagined crop up?

Simple answer: Skaven won.

That's pretty much all you need to know.