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Vampire Counts Blood Knights - $99 US for 5 of them. Um, why do they cost nearly 3x the amount of 8 Bretonnian Knights of the Realm. Unless you fart money, who in their right mind wouldn't convert something instead of using the actual models?

And of course there are the lovely Ogre Man Eaters that sell for $25 a pop...that people run in units of 6-8. SMH.


I'm sure I've overlooked something that is even more expensive. Why are these so bloody much?

Probably the new $40 Failcast Ogre characters.

To be fair the blood knights are all character quality and there are 5 of them.

Cannons and such for the empire and for dwarfs are kind of expensive. 35 for a cannon and you usually field more than 1 in a gun line that whats 6 of those sets for empire (3 mortars 3 cannons) thats 210 before taxes.

Chosen are kind of expensive 5 guys 40 bucks and you need at least 20 plus the rest of the army.

Most things sold by Games Workshop are priced based on in game value and how many boxes of "x" they expect you to buy.

For example:

16 Tomb King Skeleton Warriors, $42 Canadian
10 Tomb Guard, $50 Canadian

So you get less models for more money. Why?

Tomb Guard cost more per points. GW doesn't expect you to buy more than 2-3 boxes.

Skeleton Warriors, on the other hand, they expect you to buy lots of. So GW gives you a price break since they expect to make it back in volume.

The fixed production costs (paying the sculptor, making the moulds...etc) are about the same for each unit, though. If one sells more than the other, the best way to make back the fixed cost of the lower turn over unit is to raise the price.

Blood Knights are in the same boat. Rare choice, high points cost, typically wouldn't use more than 5-10 at most.

Compared to Brettonian KotR, Core choice, less than half the points cost of a Blood Knight, probably going to buy 3-4 boxes worth.

I'm pretty sure you can find the odd exception here and there, but I believe this is how most things are priced out.

Zoned

Zoned nailed it. All your plastic special units that come in boxes of 10 and sell for $41+
Bestigor (BTW minotaur 3 for $44.50 but 6 ogres cost $40? WTF!?!)
White Lions and Pheonix Guard (at least they have a cheap option in IoB SMs)
Temple Guard
Black Orcs
Greatswords
Tomb Guard
Grave Guard

Metal models are more expensive yes but plastic is so cheap and while these models are definitely cooler looking then their Gor, Spearmen, Boy, Saurus, State Troops, and Skeletons other then the actual time needed for 1 artist dude to sculpt the mold is not that much more. Then GW charges 60% more for a the product, it's the same amount of plastic and it's not like the same artist that makes the mold creates a new mold every time, it's a one time thing. I tell you what GW how about you let me pay $25 for my 10 GD figures, which is already insane BTW, and I'll send a 5 spot to the artist who sculpted it.

I feel sorry for the HE player out there that in this 8th edition wants to run 30 White Lions and pays $135 after tax to do it. At least with my Bestigor I can say eh it's 25mm and I get 10 in a battalion and I need 3 battalions for a good start.

Mr. Self Destruct wrote:Probably the new $40 Failcast Ogre characters.

The tyrant actually got cheaper and the others only went up a very tiny amount.

Grey Templar wrote:

Mr. Self Destruct wrote:Probably the new $40 Failcast Ogre characters.

The tyrant actually got cheaper and the others only went up a very tiny amount.

Yes, but it's so very easy to say "Failcast" and sound like a big ole toolbox.

With that being said, I think that Bragg, Goglfag, and the Firebelly are overpriced at $38 and I own all of them. I think around $30 would have been a more appropriate price. The Maneaters at $25 a piece is actually pretty spot on in terms of the rest of the market for a miniature of that size.

He could have also said "finecost"! so atleast there was some choice involved

Most overcost? Giants.. all of them. Based on their on board performance they're only worth about 3$ retail

IDK, Giants are actually quite decent monster killers and they can tarpit quite well thanks to Stubborn.

They don't have decent saves, but then again no monster does.

Well, think of it this way, which do you have more? Money or creativity?

Money over mind? Buy the figures
Mind over money? Do conversions

I can buy an Ogre Tyrant for 38 USD, or I can get a box of bulls for 40 USD and convert them to make 4 tyrants.

Also, there's a store close by that has had the Vampire Counts Blood Knights box in there store for at least 3 years or so. I've got a friend who works there and says they've been there before he even started working there, which was about 2 years ago. Sure, when you think about it, the price isn't that bad per vampire, considering the sculpt and whatnot, but still, selling them in boxes of 5 for 90 bucks? I wonder how many stores regret carrying that specific item.

Swordmasters of Hoeth. £15.50 for 5 models when you're gunna need about 4-6 times that amount. Two units of 14 cost £62, compared with the £51 of White Lions, and that's without the SM command models; if you want command models, then it's going to be £66 for the SMs.

Once you hit 3k, you're going to have spent over £100 on just swordmasters if you don't manage to scoop the plastic IoB ones up cheap on Ebay (I consider myself lucky, I bought 30 plastic SMs for about £25 from a friend).

My store had a pack of Blood Knights for years.

They were marked down 50% for the last couple and still no one bought them. They finally got bought by someone not from our group.


even with a 50% markdown, they weren't bought for years.



although you do have to admit the Blood Knight sculpts are pretty awsome. They certaintly arn't worth $90, but I would price them above a $45 box. maybe $55.

Grey Templar wrote:My store had a pack of Blood Knights for years.

I'm VERY curious as to how frequently this happens.

I think the blood knight scenario all depends on what your store prices them at (if they have the same price as gw or cheaper if they are not a gw).
Also depends on the people that are there going there if you have people that have high income jobs that dont really care if they drop 20 bucks or 200 in 1 go.
Then it comes down to are the people any good with sculpting green stuff etc.
Since I have seen some really nice conversions done with dragon princes.

But yes sword master are expensive except for the iob ones.

of course, if you actually break the cost down to a per model basis it isn't much less expensive then buying a single mounted character. $19.80 per Blood Knight.

Expensive, yes. But compared to other mounted characters from GW and other companies it isn't much less expensive. and the detail is exquisite.

I agree with Grey templar since the quality of the blood knights is very high.

I can't believe no one has mentioned Archaon yet.

Seriously, go have a gander at his new price post-Finecast.

Everyone does realize that the price increase was NOT due to Finecast?

They just made the horrible marketing decision to launch Finecast at the exact same time as their annual price hike.

Grey Templar wrote:of course, if you actually break the cost down to a per model basis it isn't much less expensive then buying a single mounted character. $19.80 per Blood Knight.

Expensive, yes. But compared to other mounted characters from GW and other companies it isn't much less expensive. and the detail is exquisite.

Which goes down to the big issue with the Blood Knights.

They're a unit of 5-20, and priced like characters.

Actually, there was, which is evidenced by Finecast re-releases that are higher but weren't affected in their metal form with the price hike (Tyranid Venomthropes weren't in the initial release, but the metal model did not go up, though was still available. It only went up with the Finecast model was released in the following month - price hikes are done in one massive change, not gradually). Also the fact that the metals are still available on the GW website (I got linked to the metal Hive Tyrant by GW's 'you might like' section, which was still available to order and still had it's old price).

Don't take it the wrong way - I'm a Finecast fan and will gladly pay the extra on models simply so I don't have to work with metal. The reason I'm not ordering that Lahmian vampire right now is I don't want it as a metal. But Finecast did increase the prices of the models redone in it.

That also doesn't change the fact that Archaons new price is ludicrous.

Many of the cases where it shows the metal ones, you cannot actually order them. The links were improperly updated.

Most overcost? Giants.. all of them. Based on their on board performance they're only worth about 3$ retail

Tethlis the Slayer wrote:

Most overcost? Giants.. all of them. Based on their on board performance they're only worth about 3$ retail
And that is why GW doesn't sell models based on gaming effectiveness.
Otherwise I'd be picking up a few 50c shadow warriors.

To be fair, if we didn't have Eagles, Shadow Warriors wouldn't be quite so useless; but as it stands, Eagles are cheaper, faster and do the same job + others, and often do it better.

Bretonnian mounted yeomen, £7.70 (~$12.30usd) each, interestingly the same price as a grail/questing knight. 7 pounds 70 pence for a single fast cav model, at least if you get 5 blood knights they stick around to do something and don't fall over to the lightest breeze.

curtis wrote:Bretonnian mounted yeomen, £7.70 (~$12.30usd) each, interestingly the same price as a grail/questing knight. 7 pounds 70 pence for a single fast cav model, at least if you get 5 blood knights they stick around to do something and don't fall over to the lightest breeze.

Good catch I forgot about those. Those are annoying too, because running 3-4 of them as screening/charge denial units would be fun. Alas, they cost too bloody much.

Hydras.

OH, you meant the models in the real world? I don't know, I think they are all pretty absurdly overpriced.

-Loki- wrote:I can't believe no one has mentioned Archaon yet.

Seriously, go have a gander at his new price post-Finecast.

oO Did his price go up 250% or is it just me?

Amaya wrote:

-Loki- wrote:I can't believe no one has mentioned Archaon yet.

Seriously, go have a gander at his new price post-Finecast.

oO Did his price go up 250% or is it just me?

Just you, he seemed to of had the same hike as gul'avar ie 7 quid(or just over 33%), but he's still a house.

Jeebus H, I didn't know he went up that much.