Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I normally don't complain too much about GW price increases. I work as an insurance agent and see rate increases all time, almost always warranted, but the cost of the new VC models has me pretty upset.

I always thought that the reason the Blood Knights were $90 some flipping dollars, which is ridiculous in its own right, was because of the amount of metal that was used and shipping cost. 5 Solid metal pieces and their associated bits is understandably pricey. This wasn't an issue though because you could use cheap plastic empire or high elf models/horses and do some small conversions.

Looking at the new finecrap Blood Knight models they are seriously charging $99? Really? No, tell me that one more time GW, you pay ~$0.10/lbs for your crappy resin, ~$0.50 for packaging, ~$2.00/unit for shipping, ~$0.50/unit for manufacturing costs, and you are going to charge ME $99 for a product full of air bubbles and defects? I don't know what kind of drugs they legalized over in the UK, but everyone in GW management seems to be higher than a kite!

I think I'll just stick to my solid plastic converted models than that garbage.

Luckily, the new sexy Black Knights came out for $30.

I don't see why anyone would buy that ridiculously expensive kit anymore.

That's because all models that go finecast get a price rise. Not just Blood Knights.

-Loki- wrote:That's because all models that go finecast get a price rise. Not just Blood Knights.

Yes, I think we are all aware of that fact, but when you are paying $99 (not including shipping) for five resin models when you can get equivalent models and bits(also made by GW) for about $65 less it makes absolutely no sense how they are charging that price.

The other point is the excuse they used for the metal models no longer applies.

Again - all other metals that go finecast get a price increase. Reducing the price of Blood Knights and increasing all other prices would cause a nerd riot.

No, it's not logical. Pricing them that high when metal wasn't logical either. But it's how it was priced initially - basically as 5 metal mounted characters. And that's how it was repriced for finecast, following how they'd price a box of 5 mounted finecast characters.

The price of the resin Blood Knights means that I'll have to kitbash a set if I ever intend to play them at my local GW store. I refuse to use them, even the metal ones.

They would have more luck selling them individually, for the same/similar price people buy characters individually that once you have 5 or 6 wind up accumulating to a similar price as what there quoting for the box set of knights there. It's bad marketing combined with a set in stone form of pricing which is steadily getting more and more ridiculous.

The kicker is, If I get defective fine cast I always return it, I've returned several models just to get adequately cast characters and I'm sure those returns are costing them more world wide then these obscenely priced kits.

The only time I would ever buy blood knights is, if per-chance they were sold individually I might skimp out 15 or so every couple of weeks to grab one after another but as a single bulk pay out, for the same / less I could get ahold of a battleforce set.

I actually have found a better form of blood knight, cast in metal though from an alternate model making company that looks incredibly cool (waiting for my first one to arrive) its just a shame that I won't be able to use them at the GW.

You must be referring to Gamezone Miniatures mournful knight minis (coincidental that I was just staring at the minis on my computer screen about 10 mins ago).

I've never seen blood knight minis in person, they must be quite large if GW are seriously trying to get me to give them 100 bucks for a unit of 5 of them, when the same amount of money can get me a whole damned battleforce...

To be honest, the knights you get in the warriors of chaos battleforce in my honest opinion are BETTER/cooler looking then the VC Blood knights which costs more then the entire warriors of chaos battleforce. Adding them to finecast just means your liable to pay the money and get crappy quality miniatures to boot, then having to take them back several times before getting a decent set or just demanding a full refund because finecast sucks.

Honestly, I'm looking at grabbing a box. At Australian price (you guys think you have it bad? We pay $165au). However, it'll be my 'the army is finished, here's something slow to work on' purchase, basically what I'm going to do with my Heirophant for my Tyranids.

Basically, I love the sculpts, there's no other mounted knights out there that I like as much. Detail and model posing is basically a unit of characters. So it'll be my reward for actually getting my horde of skeletons and stuff painted.

The black knights however do look very nice, but I don't know how much there going to be being sold for, hopefully not as ridiculously over priced as they sell the blood knights.

They are banking on the brand name - same way they sell their glue and such. Yeah, they are preying on the gullible, but stone cold business is driven by math, and there is no place for morals in math.
I'm not mad at them in the slightest, they do what they can to succeed as a company.
45$ rulebooks do bother me though.

Cryonicleech wrote:Luckily, the new sexy Black Knights came out for $30.

I don't see why anyone would buy that ridiculously expensive kit anymore.

Too bad. They are pretty nice loookng models. But yeah. With the proper riders/horses you can make good custom Blood knights
As for the price increase.....There is nothing i can add to that that hasnt been said.

You only pay 99 consider yourself lucky come across the boarder they are something like 118 or 120.
I suggest not complaining to an ausy about that since they pay ridiculous prices.

I had the blood knights explained to me as pretty much 5 character quality models that come in a set. But who knows.

I dont think its just because of the resin that they charge so much its just price hike time.

But I fully agree the prices are getting ridiculous.

Use, as I have mentioned before, Dragon Princes of Caledor for Blood Knights.

The problem is GW's price elasticity. Eventually its going to break, which will be very detrimental to them.

The sad part is the quality of plastic casts, which is what they should have moved everything to, is much higher than that of metal or resin. They didn't need to spend millions to develop some supposed cutting edge product.

Oh well, in the end "it'll learn em"

AgentP wrote:The sad part is the quality of plastic casts, which is what they should have moved everything to

It's too costly. Tooling a plastic mold is ridiculously expensive. It's good for long run, high yeild models, like troops choices, which every person collecting an army will buy multiple of, but for units where most people will have one or two of, they won't make the money back on the mold in an acceptable amount of time. Rubber spin cast molds for resin/metal are the only real option for them.

Not to mention, plastic molds can't do undercuts due to being unable to have a side pull on the mold, which creates a very flat model. Sure, there's sunken detail, but without overlapping parts, you won't get the same detail as you get out of a rubber spin cast mold. This makes rubber spin cast molds far more preferable for special characters or complex infantry sized models.

While I'm aware of the plastic fantasy characters, there's a couple of reasons these work. First, they use multiple overlapping parts if they need an undercut effect - see the Tomb Banshee and Necromancer for this. This makes converting a nightmare on some of them. Secondly, they're generic heroes, which everyone can use in their army, and in some cases, lower end heroes that people will include multiples of (Tomb Banshees and Wraiths, for example). Third, they have the benefit of being able to fit 4 characters from 4 separate armies onto one mold, which cuts down on any losses they might make from one of the characters not selling well.

Don't get me wrong, they're fantastic models, and it was a great idea doing lesser, generic heroes like that. But it's not something that they can translate to everything that is being done in matel (now finecast) for the same reasons above. For say, Blood Knights, they'd need at least 2 molds if they want the same detail due to needing overlapping parts on the riders and horses. The majority of players will only buy one or two boxes of them since they're a Rare choice, and expensive, and they're only for a single army, so losses can't be picked up by another segment of their buyers.

Moving everything to plastic simply isn't feasible from cost and quality standpoints. Some units are just better suited to metal/resin.

The Blood Knight models are really awsome sculpts and by now the Fincast issues have been fixed so there isn't going to be a problem with the quality.

And lets do a comparison.

Brettonian Mounted Yeomen. $12.25 USD.

a unit of 5 would run you $61.25.

There would be unbelievable nerdrage over a package costing that much. Of course Yeomen arn't all that great so people could care less.



The Blood Knights were packaged when games were smaller and a unit of 5 Blood Knights was about all you would ever see in any game ever. Then they are priced like Characters but not offered singly like characters(dumb move by GW)

A single Blood Knight would run you about $20. The same for a mounted character

GW does need to drop the price because its NOT a character unit, but there is method to the apparent madness of GWs pricing system.

Blood knights used to be sold as singles back when they were metal.

ill take these instead

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/250915957958?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649#ht_1816wt_1163

I already bought them out xD

Thats actually the first alternative Blood Knight I've seen that looks good. All the others look really funky looking. That looks like something that would ride right over a host of infantry with no problem whatever.

Yeah I know, I've been wanting an alternative, while i don't mind eventually paying full price for a box of blood knights (providing I could buy them 1 model at a time) This alternative definitely lets me have things 'my way'

It's just a shame it won't be accepted for use in GW stores over here. At least it will be good for friendlies with friends. Theres full command versions as well but I can't find the pictures now.

Got another link? That one has ended.

Use either Dragon Princes or Chaos Knights as people have said.

I don't have another link :< I baught em xD

I'm not to happy with their prices either but I am glad that I already had more BK than I can field in a 3k army. As for buying finecast, my mangler squig had 2 sets of left legs and no right but GW got them to me asap and there wasn't any mold problems. My Incubi metals are great but my finecast ones left a lot to be desired, lotsa flaws. The only really good ones I got are the court of the archon, no problems.
I have a few friends that have already started to convert the CK to BK. I think that the new VC kits and book will be my last purchase from GW for quit awhile, I have been playing for over 18 years now and can't keep shelling out the bucks. Anything after this will have to be a must have.

giant stegadon wrote:Use either Dragon Princes or Chaos Knights as people have said.

As ive said before, Dragon Princes painted like BK are BK.

Another reason for the insane price of Blood Knights is because no one is ever going to buy loads of them like you will other units.
A rare unit that costs a buttload of pts means most players will likely only ever field 10 of 'em in any kind of typical game. So, to get a good profit on it, GW charges a silly high price. Same reason why all those other monsters and other huge kits cost a hienous amount, how many dragons/terrorghiests/thrones etc... are we ever really going to field at one time?!

Like most sane people, I'll never buy the actual blood knight models. Now a kit-bash between HE dragon princes & DE cold one knights, that's an entirely different matter!

Experiment 626 wrote:Another reason for the insane price of Blood Knights is because no one is ever going to buy loads of them like you will other units.
A rare unit that costs a buttload of pts means most players will likely only ever field 10 of 'em in any kind of typical game. So, to get a good profit on it, GW charges a silly high price. Same reason why all those other monsters and other huge kits cost a hienous amount, how many dragons/terrorghiests/thrones etc... are we ever really going to field at one time?!

Not really. There's plenty of other rares people will only buy one or two of that don't cost nearly as much.

The only reason they're priced that high is they were all metal cavalry, thus priced as individual characters. The reason they still cost so much is, well, GW didn't drop prices on anything with finecast (arguably, some got 'cheaper' by going into a multi-box for slightly less than the same amount individually), so they weren't about to drop the price of one unit, no matter how ludicrously priced.

-Loki- wrote:Got another link? That one has ended.

Try here.