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If GW wanted good gamer will they could do an awful lot to promise that. They want to garner the good will of cash money and that's it. Really they rely on the good will of people will take anything they offer out with happiness and joy. All the rest goes on with momentum of being still the largest game in town as the saying goes.

Good, bad they realize when you're the most played game in many areas you can cruise by as what choice do people really have ? It's like Magic in that regard, when you're the industry leader in a number of regards with such name recognition you can just do what ever you want and as long as you don't fubar it'll keep moving.

 vipoid wrote:
Why does clipping off a part from a sprue necessitate throwing the rest of the sprue away? What exactly stops them from selling the other parts from that sprue individually as well?

For one extra manual work. Or you thinking they will have somebody cut those pieces for free? Any idea on the scale things would be?

The price of individual parts would be rather expensive fast for it to make sense for GW. As it is it's more cost effective to send whole sprue to replace sprue with damaged part(remember sprue itself is essentially free for GW) than have somebody cut the piece away. Nor is it cost efficient for them to combine replacement shipment for new/existing order about to be shipped. It's literally cheaper for them to send extra package in mail.


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Gitdakka wrote:
There is usually way too few models per box in general whan dealing with gw kits. Veterans remember the day orks and guardsmen etc came in boxes of 20. A box of 5 aspect warriors cost basicly the same in shelves space, storage, manufacture, transport for gw, but the idea that players will buy 4 of those boxes rather than one more price worthy is faulty. I think gw strategy here is bad.

Yet the strategy is giving them bigger profits than ever...

You know how success is measured? Profits.


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 vipoid wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Furthermore most kits have bits that are popular and the rest that are not. They would fast reach a point where they'd have ample mountains of bits that are never bought whilst still having to cast whole sprues for the few that do sell. At which point they are either storing an ever growing backlog of plastic or throwing the plastic away.

There's a phrase for this.

It's called Market Research.

See, most companies have strange ideas like producing more stuff that people actually want to buy and less stuff that they don't want to buy.

You realize right that they can't produce PART of a sprue? They produce sprues in full. There's not "cast this piece of sprue but don't the rest". If they produce sprue that contains popular part A and unpopular part B they are getting them on 1=1 ratio. There's nothing market research do. You physically CANNOT cast part of the sprue. That's not the way casting works.


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 Excommunicatus wrote:
I cannot think of a single box that gives you all the weapons/equipment that the unit it makes can take.

Well I can think up several actually. Necrons are fairly good in that department.

I know GW cares only to love us all but really they don't even include all of the options in the newer kits they put out and it would cost them no extra money.

Like the new chaos terminator kit, base options just left off the sprue, no reason. The new havocs, would it kill them to knock one option off to place two chaincannons ? No, but they didn't. Leaving options there missing one of two pieces makes sense on their end, same as only placing a minimum of needed options forces buys.

It isn't done out of malicious intent, it's just business, though never assume GW is your friend or has your best interests at heart, it never does. They don't give a crap, as long as we all keep buying.

None of old classic Infantry units it should perhaps read since they are the ones with a ton of options and limited choices on the sprues.

Primaris dont really have options and many of the vehicles have very few so its not surprising they have what you need.

Not so bad if you buy rather recent kits since if you buy a few of each of the classic marine range for example you can use bits from one unit on another. If you have older models/kits/units from when there were more limited amount of extra bits on the sprues its more of a hassle since you wont have as an extensive bitbox to choose from.

Had to dig through my boxes, trade online, get from the club and a friend, for extra right handed powerfists so I could equip my Sanguinary Guard with 10 fists since there is only one in each box of 5 and the non fist option is garbage in this edition. 16pts for a str+1 ap2 d3 weapon when a powerfist that gives 3 more str and 1 more ap for only - 1 to hit costs 7pts less. Thats 70 wasted points on a whole unit. I get a whole unit of troops for less.

The Newman wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
I cannot think of a single box that gives you all the weapons/equipment that the unit it makes can take.

Redemptor Dreads
Invictor Warsuit
Centurions (twice actually, the box builds every option in two different squads)
Taros Terminators
Cataphracii Terminators
Both Repulsor kits
Ironclad Dreadnaughts
All the Rhino-based tanks
Attack bikes
Hellblasters
Assault Marines
Land Raider Crusader/Redemptor box
Inceptors
Aggressors
Eliminators
Intercessors (before the Serg option expansion at any rate)
Custodian Wardens build every option for a squad -or- builds two characters and an extra dude.
Custodian Guard, same as the Warden box
Dawn Eagles, every squad option -or- a character and two extra dudes
Contemptor Dreadnaught

Oh, and if you ignore the index options regular Dreadnaughts as well.

You could argue Primaris Librarians, Chaplains, and Apothocaries and Phobos Captains and Librarians. They do have every available option on the sprue, but I don't think it should count since "every available option" is exactly one layout.

Assault Marines definitely do not. I don't recall Dreads having all the options either, but I only ever built one so I won't labour the point.

I haven't used any of the other kits, 'cause except for two they're all new and they're all Imperium.

This has been a long standing GW trend of forcing you to buy more entire boxes of fresh units for just a few extra bitz you need (the newer CSM box gatling gun springs instantly to mind). Apparently GW has deemed this to be more profitable overall than whatver money they loose from people instead getting extra bitz from 3rd party producers. This is a trend that likely will unfortunately never change.

As has been mentioned the casting of new moulds requires a very high start up cost (though after that the plastic sprue cost is negligable) so the selling of individual bitz from various exsisting sprues is not viable economicaly. That being said I would deem it much more viable if GW instead comissioned some individual large sprues of a selection of generic bits around a theme (esp for imperial units), similar to the SM chapter specific conversion bitz sprues.

For example there could be a generic 'imperial heavy/special weapons' sprue and an 'imperial close combat/pistol' sprue. I have especialy always wanted a generic imperial 'gothic' bitz sprue which includes a selection of things like servo skulls, cyber cherubs, purity seals, skull/aquilla ornaments, torches, books/scrolls ect. As GW already makes a generic 'skulls' box I dont see why something like this would not be popular enough to pay back the initial mould investment.

Okey, but lets take the havock example. The reaper was a new weapon. It is the only weapon that is a single in the box, while the squad takes 4 heavy weapons. Instead there are a ton of hvy weapons that no one will ever use that are on the sprue. Why not give the havocks 4 or at least 2 of the weapons people want, and skip on lets say the heavy bolter no one wants.

GW has to know that that probably not even the ultra whales are going to buy 4 boxs to get one 5 man squads of havocks. It is lost sales, that go to recasters and 3ed party companies. And when people get used to using those, soon they may stop buying the original stuff at all. Why buy a great leviathan form FW, when you can have 3 for the cost of a FWone, and still have left over money for priority mail?

Gw is not a charity company.

They're just employing the standard "6 buns, 8 wieners" marketing.

You can bit bash the missing pieces. Gargoyle tails work. this guy makes zoans from pure extra bits...
http://maximumheresy.blogspot.com/2011/12/modeling-tutorial-cheap-plastic.html

 Excommunicatus wrote:

The Newman wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
I cannot think of a single box that gives you all the weapons/equipment that the unit it makes can take.

Redemptor Dreads
Invictor Warsuit
Centurions (twice actually, the box builds every option in two different squads)
Taros Terminators
Cataphracii Terminators
Both Repulsor kits
Ironclad Dreadnaughts
All the Rhino-based tanks
Attack bikes
Hellblasters
Assault Marines
Land Raider Crusader/Redemptor box
Inceptors
Aggressors
Eliminators
Intercessors (before the Serg option expansion at any rate)
Custodian Wardens build every option for a squad -or- builds two characters and an extra dude.
Custodian Guard, same as the Warden box
Dawn Eagles, every squad option -or- a character and two extra dudes
Contemptor Dreadnaught

Oh, and if you ignore the index options regular Dreadnaughts as well.

You could argue Primaris Librarians, Chaplains, and Apothocaries and Phobos Captains and Librarians. They do have every available option on the sprue, but I don't think it should count since "every available option" is exactly one layout.

Assault Marines definitely do not. I don't recall Dreads having all the options either, but I only ever built one so I won't labour the point.

I haven't used any of the other kits, 'cause except for two they're all new and they're all Imperium.

The Assault Marine box is short the Sergeant's Power Maul option, so you're not wrong. It's the only thing the box is missing though, and in all fairness I'm not sure any Marine kit actually has one of those.

You got me on the Dreadnaught though, even just looking at the Codex options it's missing the Heavy Plasma Cannon.

Still; that's two kits out of 27, and I posted the list because you said you couldn't think of a single kit that had all the options.

DW Vets have Power Mauls.

Karol wrote:
Okey, but lets take the havock example. The reaper was a new weapon. It is the only weapon that is a single in the box, while the squad takes 4 heavy weapons. Instead there are a ton of hvy weapons that no one will ever use that are on the sprue. Why not give the havocks 4 or at least 2 of the weapons people want, and skip on lets say the heavy bolter no one wants.

GW has to know that that probably not even the ultra whales are going to buy 4 boxs to get one 5 man squads of havocks. It is lost sales, that go to recasters and 3ed party companies. And when people get used to using those, soon they may stop buying the original stuff at all. Why buy a great leviathan form FW, when you can have 3 for the cost of a FWone, and still have left over money for priority mail?

And yet no one is spamming chaincannons, because once again the internet gets its gak bunched up.

The other weapons on the box are entirely usable. And what about people who do want a heavy bolter? Who made you king about what people want?

I use HB's .....

 JNAProductions wrote:
DW Vets have Power Mauls.

the Ravenwing upgrade sprue too.

I'd definitely like to see more upgrade sprues, or "use your bits" auxiliary sets.
Never gonna happen because we're not supposed to buy Old Marines now, but a box of Marine legs (and maybe a couple of torsos, at least torso backs) would be a great little way for folks to use up spare parts to create more models. And when you've run out of bitz, you'll have to buy more new kits! I can think of the Devastator, Assault and Death Company boxes right away were a few bodies would go a long way to maximising the kits' potential. A set of CSM torsos and legs would probably be a decent idea for the Havoc kit, or the standard CSM, seeing as there are double the options for weapons.

Really? I love how one bunch complains about a lack of assembly options while another complains that all the options means your are only a few bits away from assembling another full model.

You can't have it both ways! Either you get a kit that uses every bit, but can only be assembled in one (or a very few limited) ways or you end up with extra bits once you assembled your more unique models.

Imperial Guard Basilisk only comes with Heavy Flamer, no heavy bolter which is the logical kit choice. And the instructions have been wrong for years now.

And you want some free bitz for your perfect kit? Please