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MongooseMatt wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
I would be majorly concerned if I were you.

Well, there are other ways to look at it.

Speaking as a publisher, you should never, ever run out of your core books. It causes all sorts of problems, from distributors not trusting you to handle your own lines properly, to gamers not being able to get into the game and thus not buying everything else you produce for it. When stock starts to get low, you order a reprint, and I think we can imagine that GW has sufficient stock control to print enough to cover themselves and give decent forewarning of when to reprint. Not knocking the likes of CB and Mantic, I have run out of core books myself in the past

The core books, right, but he's talking about the limited edition books...which GW would absolutely want to sell out of, like they did with Warhammer Fantasy, and it just doesn't seem to be happening. And if GW were the type of company to be content with a 'good enough' sale instead of a sold-out raging success, well...we'd probably still have Fantasy instead of Age of Sigmar.

With regards to the potential rumor about GW allowing people to play whatever in-store with GW models, I'd be interested to see if that pans out - and how. It would definitely solidify their 'not a gaming company' stance, because why would someone selling miniature objects of jewel-like wonder object to how they were used? It might also be an interesting way to encourage people to keep paying the ever-increasing amounts they're asking for the models. Although you've got to wonder what kind of message would be sent to new customers when they show up and everyone's playing Kings of War...

I'm getting tired of people ripping AOS to shreds. It's the best wargame I've played in years and I'm glad they turned fantasy around as it was boring. AOS is more relaxed and better for it!!!

This thread is about the prices of models.

You can talk about how much you like AoS in the AoS for Optimists thread.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/664468.page

Yes, the price issue is inherently GW, not tied to any one game. The screwjob goes all the way back before Lord of the Rings, though their squad boxed set shell game (halving models but keeping the price them same to hide a 100% markup) seems to really have been born with that game.

I don't remember any of GWs systems being cheap, AOS isn't as bad as you don't need a lot of models. If you don't want to pay a stupid amount for Archaon then DONT buy him. Big models always cost big money it's the same in 40k.

I don't remember any of GW's games being cheap, but I do remember them being cheaper as recently as 7th edition Warhammer Fantasy. Perhaps someone who goes farther back in the hobby can remember when and if they might have qualified as 'cheap'. Regardless, this is absolutely the most expensive I can remember them being. The books, the models, the accessories...it was perfectly possible to play WHFB with just a few models, that's not something Age of Sigmar invented. You could play Skirmish. You could play 500 or 750 point games. You could play Warbands, which included some of the best games of Warhammer I played.

And I'm not buying Archaon, but I reserve the right to grumble angrily about the price and how the model focuses on the mount instead of the rider and the price and how much more intimidating the old Archaon looked and also the price.

What? Maybe I've got a unit of Longbeards I want to get a bonus for :p

I remember $35 for 24 models when I entered the hobby in the lord of the rings days. That was damn cheap.

GW/Citadel figures have always been expensive. FOr example, when I started out in historicals in about 1980, a standard historical infantry figure was 20p, while a GW fantasy foot figure was £25p. You did not mind the difference because you were only buying small numbers of figures for RPGs.

However, in the late 2000s, GW began rapidly to increase the price of kits faster than inflation. This was not applied across the board, so for example the Tau Devilfish went up from £18 to £22, while the Hammerhead went up from £20 to £30. (In 2010 and 2012, these massive inflations were also applied to rulebooks.)

Consequently the volume of complaint about prices rose rapidly in the lat 2000, and this is where the idea comes from that people have always complained excessively about prices.

In truth, some of the GW kits now are fairly good value, in GW terms. For instance a box of 24 Skinks is only £20.50. However, as you can buy boxes of historical figures for about 30p a figure, the proce differential between historicals and GW has only increased over the decades.

Other fantasy and SF figure makers have taken a cue from GW's high prices and priced their offerings higher than comparable historicals.

Just to give an oddball answer like I often do, I feel like it got cheaper and then got more expensive.

When I was playing in Second Edition it used to cost £12.50 for a Necromunda gang IIRC and £15 for a 10 man squad in 40k

It now costs me £15.50 for a box of 10 Empire dudes.

It feels like when it went from mostly metal to mostly plastic multipart kits around 3rd edition 40k the game became cheaper.. but has now recently skyrocketed in price over the past couple of years.

It's hard for me to gauge because I was saving up my pocket money when I was younger and everything was so far out of my price range, now I am making mad bank as an adult.

I was making mad bank as an adult there for a while but with Australian prices I kinda just looked at what GW was releasing and said "Yeah, nah. I worked hard for this money, if I'm going to pay that much I want the quality to match."

On the plus side I got well aqquainted with 52 and 75mm display models, especially the limited edition kind.

Maybe it doesn't seem so bad in the UK because the cost of living is so high. Using that Empire State troopers box as an example again, 1 box is cheaper than a day's train fare for my commute to work (which is over £16).

And as an adult with a well paying job, I have the constant problem of buying too many models and not being able to collect/paint them all. Next year I am actually limiting myself to 6 miniature purchases for the entire year - just to help me get through my painting backlog.

I do think GW have shot themselves in the foot with the business model of only increasing prices for new models though (although I am not complaining!!) when you're in the GW and see its £60 for 3 Varanguard Knights or £65 for the Empire battalion which is 20 statesmen, 10 crossbowmen, 8 Knights and 1 canon & 3 crew (42 models vs 3) it really seems like a no brainier which you'd want to buy.

When AOS first came out, I thought it could actually change the gaming scene. Free rules, lower unit numbers. But then I saw the prices on the books and units outside of the starter box and I laughed. They're contradicting the very things that could have made AOS a great starter game.

I can afford more of this stuff than at any time in my life, but I find myself shying away from paying what they are asking because there is just much better value to be found for me.

A lot of that is to do with not liking the artistic direction for the last few years and not being particularly wedded to GW's game systems any more.

I was ready to give AoS a fair go, and there are ideas in there that I kinda like. But on the whole, it's just more of the same problems I found offputting from before.

I honestly don't think GW is that expensive compared to other companies. PP is insanely pricey if you actually want to play whereas AoS won't set you back that much. Oh and the fact that GW's models are miles and miles above any other company in technical value is just a bonus. I mean, look at WarmaHordes - The minis are still in metal and resin and the casting quality is gak, the sculpts are gak and the posing is gak (because they don't use 3d technology on a computer the same way GW does. Only company that comes close to GW is Wyrd, but their miniatures are single pose because it would be too expensive to make otherwise.

 Da Boss wrote:
I can afford more of this stuff than at any time in my life, but I find myself shying away from paying what they are asking because there is just much better value to be found for me.

A lot of that is to do with not liking the artistic direction for the last few years and not being particularly wedded to GW's game systems any more.

I was ready to give AoS a fair go, and there are ideas in there that I kinda like. But on the whole, it's just more of the same problems I found offputting from before.

This. I can afford to buy the entire GW catalog but I don't feel there's any value for me, personally, so they don't benefit from my monthly nerd budget. Conversely, I have more board games now than I ever have before and am getting into bolt action.

Andreas 2.0 wrote:
I honestly don't think GW is that expensive compared to other companies.

They are and they aren't. The models, individually, aren't egregiously overpriced (the hero figures for $30-$40 are, everything Everchosen), but Games Workshop has built its model around a minimum purchase amount that is much higher.

By that I mean, say you want to add to your hobby every month, so you have a modest budget for it. With Warmachine (or Infinity, which I recently started), you can comfortably add to your hobby with under $50 a month. Individual models in Warmachine (like Warcasters) tend to range from about $10 to $20, Jacks tend to be about $30-$40, and units can range from $30-$60 in general. Infinity's individual models are about $10-$15, with sets of models being $40-$50. In short, with a $50 month budget, you can buy multiple items per month, usually with some left over for next month.

Age of Sigmar, however, has a base of about $50. Since AoS started, there's been no boxes of units for under $50 - many being $60 or so. Some being $100. The repacks are generally a good deal, but they didn't reduce the price of the boxes, just added more models. So you can't get 8 Saurus Guards for under $30, you need to buy 15 Saurus Guards for $55 (even if you only want 8). Then end result is that at $50 a month, you will only be able to buy a box every other month. And this extends to the books as well. In short, in order to keep adding to your hobby every month, with Age of Sigmar, you'd need at least $75 (enough to get free shipping from GW.com), but would probably be better off with $100.

Part of this is that GW controls the online market place so it is impossible to find AoS stuff for discounts. Some shops, like Frontline Gaming, sell GW stuff at 20% off - but then has $10 shipping, which erases the discount at $50. Meanwhile, Miniature Market and Amazon both carry Warmachine and Infinity figures for significant discounts. I believe this also applies to Malifaux. So when Warmachine says a model is $60, you can get it for $45. When Games Workshop says a model is $50, you are paying $50.

(Just today, Fantasy Flight Games/Asmodee announced that they would do something similar with their products, so FFG just went full Games Workshop. You never go full Games Workshop).

So no, Games Workshop is not ultimately more expensive than the other games (most of the time), but because of the grouping of products into more expensive bundles, you have to make large lump purchases at one time. And with fewer discounts or options for purchases, you ultimately end up paying MSRP where you wouldn't with other, less uptight companies.

Who are you and what have you done with the real Sqogar?

Andreas 2.0 wrote:
I honestly don't think GW is that expensive compared to other companies. PP is insanely pricey if you actually want to play whereas AoS won't set you back that much. Oh and the fact that GW's models are miles and miles above any other company in technical value is just a bonus. I mean, look at WarmaHordes - The minis are still in metal and resin and the casting quality is gak, the sculpts are gak and the posing is gak (because they don't use 3d technology on a computer the same way GW does. Only company that comes close to GW is Wyrd, but their miniatures are single pose because it would be too expensive to make otherwise.

You're speaking as if plastic and CAD sculpting are objectively good things. They aren't.

Newsflash though, all the high end display companies doing truly amazing sculpts that blow GW out of the water because they are designed to be painted and sit on a shelf, not played with, they all use metal or resin. Both materials hold better detail than plasric and allow for undercuts. In fact I am loving that PP are moving to resin bodies with metal parts for their characters and real plastic for jacks.

I'm also not sure what you mean by other companies not using 3d sculpting technology the way GW does. As far aa I am aware GWs method is no different from PP or CBs.

 Bottle wrote:
Who are you and what have you done with the real Sqogar?

Due to an absurd sequence of events, December ended up costing me a stupid amount of money just to have things that I already had, only less broken. So I had to reduce my monthly budget for miniature games by half and discovered that at $50 a month, I couldn't do jack gak. I still like Age of Sigmar as a game. I just can't afford to play it for the next six months.

Ironically, I was thinking that going back to Imperial Assault would be a good value, and then FFG pulls a GW!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jonolikespie wrote:
In fact I am loving that PP are moving to resin bodies with metal parts for their characters and real plastic for jacks.

PP's resin models are AWFUL. Haven't see their plastic jacks yet, but it can only be an improvement.

Their PVC is pretty crap, their new resins blow GWs new plastics out of the water.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Their PVC is pretty crap, their new resins blow GWs new plastics out of the water.

Which models have the new resins? The stuff I ended up with as part of the all-in-one boxes was practically unusable, with holes and mould lines through details (like faces!), and aren't strong enough to support metal components (I hear some of the cavalry models' legs eventually crumble under the weight). The terrible model quality is half the reason I quit Warmachine.

Durst is the first to come to mind, all that pretty little gold circular patterns are sculpted onto him. His body is a big resin chunk then the parts coming off him are metal. The new Hayleys are similar, as are the guys riding the desert thing and the cephelix caster. It seems to be the new way of doing things, and its a huge step forwards imo.

Sqorgar wrote:I still like Age of Sigmar as a game. I just can't afford to play it for the next six months.

Commiserations on your financial situation, but I have to ask, would you mind if someone took that quote out of context and sigged it...?

Some on-topic comment... um... harrumph harrumph prices harrumph.

Seriously tho. After hearing about how free rules, list freedom, and smaller model counts were going to bring about the Age of Sigquarius or something, it didn't take long before rules hidden behind the same ol' expensive hardcovers, and big model bundles costing the guts of a grand, based on must-have 'roided-rules warscrolls in said books, started showing up. That's what proves that it's - literally - business as usual at GW.

No good.

jonolikespie wrote:Durst is the first to come to mind, all that pretty little gold circular patterns are sculpted onto him. His body is a big resin chunk then the parts coming off him are metal. The new Hayleys are similar, as are the guys riding the desert thing and the cephelix caster. It seems to be the new way of doing things, and its a huge step forwards imo.

So this is a new thing? If PP has truly changed their ways with their gakky models, I'll give them another chance. I have issues with Warmachine as a game, but that's not nearly as insurmountable as poor quality models.

Vermis wrote:

Sqorgar wrote:I still like Age of Sigmar as a game. I just can't afford to play it for the next six months.

Commiserations on your financial situation, but I have to ask, would you mind if someone took that quote out of context and sigged it...?

I don't have any problems with miniatures being an expensive hobby, so quoting that makes it sound like I'm complaining about the value rather than about my current poverty. I mean the amount of time you get out of a single model assembling/painting it, then playing it - and they last for years (or even lifetimes) - they beat the crap out of a $60 video games with $300 in DLC that you play for 6 hours then lose access to it a year later because EA turned off the servers. It's not a bad value proposition, all things considered. I've got some Saturn games in the closet that would be worth several hundred dollars, if they weren't riddled with bit rot making them unplayable.

It's just that at $50 a month, you'll go long periods of time unable to buy more AoS stuff. The weird thing is that AoS is a pretty good skirmish game. About 50 models is all you need to have a great time. But GW sells them in packs of 20, so you can never seem to get the right amount of models for the right amount of money. If they sold boxes of 10 models for $25, the game would be amazing at $50 a month. Hell, with hero models, you could have as few at 6 models on the table and have a great time. But the hero models are $40, not $10. Age of Sigmar SHOULD be perfect for $50 a month. It's not really the price of the model (the heroes are grossly overpriced though), but the size of the bundle you have to buy to get them. I don't think I ever want more than the minimum size for most units, so why are they all sold in double and triple the number of models?

I think GW expects people to play much, much larger games of Age of Sigmar than I think anybody really wants to play.

Actually, I guess the thing to do would be to halfsies with someone else. Buy a box of 20, keep 10, give 10. We'd end up with identical armies, which would be a bit weird, but I think that could actually work out...

Seriously tho. After hearing about how free rules, list freedom, and smaller model counts were going to bring about the Age of Sigquarius or something, it didn't take long before rules hidden behind the same ol' expensive hardcovers, and big model bundles costing the guts of a grand, based on must-have 'roided-rules warscrolls in said books, started showing up. That's what proves that it's - literally - business as usual at GW.

The rules ARE free. The hardcovers are completely optional, frankly not worth the money, and I think most of the scenarios can be bought for a dollar or two from the app. The battalion warscrolls can be overpowered, but you don't have to play with them (or could factor their power into balancing). The big models are exorbitant, but GW isn't unique there. I mean, WMH has a $70 warcaster about the size of some of the $80-$90 GW models, and super expensive colossals. Archaon for $165 is a WAY better model than Convergence's $145 colossal.

The main problem with Age of Sigmar is that it bundles too many models together to force you to buy more models than you want or need, just to make sure that every box set is at least $50 - which sucks when you only have $50 budgeted. You can have smaller games... you just can't BUY smaller games. I guess a secondary problem is that GW's online scam forces you to pay MSRP prices, while Miniature Market has that ugly Convergence $145 colossal for $108.

 Sqorgar wrote:
I think GW expects people to play much, much larger games of Age of Sigmar than I think anybody really wants to play.

I'm actually really curious about this, what is the average sized game people play? The rules suggest that 100 models a side but to me that seems dumb, it's not much smaller than a WHFB game so it really doesn't seem cheaper or anything there if people take that suggestion.

Having said that I find more people wanting angame to be 1-2 hours and an evening of gaming is just multiple games so I don't really expect people to play thar size anyway.

I don't usually go over 50 models, after that I find it too cumbersome. Especially if you are playing full scenery rules.

I think Age of Sigmar is priced very nicely if you're looking at playing with the old WHFB box sets. There's loads more gaming value to be found in one of those 10-men sets now than there was in 8th Edition.

- BUT - yeah the new AoS factions are priced so far out of that range. And the Stormcast aren't nice models either in my opinion.

If GW is aiming AoS at the new gamer, they missed the mark. Only the starter set caters, and everything else is far too expensive.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
Their PVC is pretty crap, their new resins blow GWs new plastics out of the water.

Which models have the new resins? The stuff I ended up with as part of the all-in-one boxes was practically unusable, with holes and mould lines through details (like faces!), and aren't strong enough to support metal components (I hear some of the cavalry models' legs eventually crumble under the weight). The terrible model quality is half the reason I quit Warmachine.

The models in the all in one boxes are plastic (PVC) not resin. Their resin models are superb, and the HIPS models they've started producing are apparantly pretty good too, it's the PVC ones that are pretty bad.

The rules suggest that 100 models a side but to me that seems dumb, it's not much smaller than a WHFB game so it really doesn't seem cheaper or anything there if people take that suggestion.

Having said that I find more people wanting angame to be 1-2 hours and an evening of gaming is just multiple games so I don't really expect people to play thar size anyway.

I've not seen them suggest 100 models a side, where are you getting that? They say 100 models a side will probably take an evening to play (and is probably not far off so far as I've seen), but that isn't a recommendation to play with 100 a side just a guide as to length of play. Based on that it is not too hard to work out what to size at for a 1-2 hour game. Their events may be a better guide to what they see as 'suggested' sizes. Just looking at the warhammer world events. The one yesterday was a 30 models format and they were allowing 1.5 hours per game. The next one says 60-70 models should be about right for the 3 hour format.

At the moment my current opponent fields probably around 100 models, but he just has mass 1 wound models and they very quickly drop in number. I haven't currently fielded more than 20 models, but they're monstrous infantry and monsters.

Re the 1-2 hours per game being wanted? I expect that there a is a very wide variance there. Those I play with want a game to take an evening if we get together for an evening. On the other hand I suspect a game that can be played quicker will probably attract a newer generation who maybe do want quicker games. Interestingly that came up in discussion yesterday when we were playing another game. Our one resident competitive tourney player was saying how he gets a bit annoyed by what appears to be an increasing trend with X-wing players at tournaments complaining about tourney games being too long (i.e. 2.5 hours), presumably as the star wars brand is bringing in those who have never really been into gaming; especially tourney gaming.

AoS seems good for that as you can have good games that are small enough for a 2 hour game or larger evening games. I never found WFB was never very satisfactory for shorter/smaller games. I can't really see KoW being that good for a quick (sub 2 hour game) either, though I'm struggling to remember how long it was taking us to play when we last played it.

But small number of models AoS are very unbalanced and unfun. And technicly you can just have a basic set and try to play with it, but in reality to have a working army you need just as many models as you needed in WFB just to counter the stuff other people deploy. AoS is like a more extrem version of Warmahordes 3lists tournament armies.

Has there been any AoS battlereports in WhiteDwarfWeekly?
If so, how big has those forces been?