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I’ve got a few catalogs myself, forget the years. They were worth picking up.

Edit:
’99, ’00, and ‘01

 Nevelon wrote:
I’ve got a few catalogs myself, forget the years. They were worth picking up.

Edit:
’99, ’00, and ‘01

I've had stuff like that surface from time to time. It is interesting to compare both the prices and the model ranges.

GW was at one point the affordable gaming option for starving students. Now it is very much a luxury good. I haven't read WD in years, but I recall they had a column where budget-minded players built up their respective armies. I don't know how one could write something like that today.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
I’ve got a few catalogs myself, forget the years. They were worth picking up.

Edit:
’99, ’00, and ‘01

I've had stuff like that surface from time to time. It is interesting to compare both the prices and the model ranges.

GW was at one point the affordable gaming option for starving students. Now it is very much a luxury good. I haven't read WD in years, but I recall they had a column where budget-minded players built up their respective armies. I don't know how one could write something like that today.

There was a "Tale of Four Gamers” where they followed the growth of a bunch of guy’s armies on a budget, and their bulding/painting/modeling/gaming. Great series. A lot would be lost these days. The budget would be higher, and probably significanty less kitbashing/conversions. It’s been forever since I read them, but I recall a lot of practical advice to stretch your hobby dollar and get into the game starting a new army.

I miss blister backs and impulse buys. While accounting for inflation, they were not as cheep as nostalgia tells me, they were little bite sized chunks. You could buy a plasma gunner to swap out into your squad, or a pair of blisters to add another rank to your WHFB regiment. All for lunch money prices. Nothing in that price range anymore, at least for minis. Single characters are stupid expensive. Maybe the blind boxes when they are out? There is no slow grow, microtransaction anymore.

 Nevelon wrote:
There was a "Tale of Four Gamers” where they followed the growth of a bunch of guy’s armies on a budget, and their bulding/painting/modeling/gaming. Great series. A lot would be lost these days. The budget would be higher, and probably significanty less kitbashing/conversions. It’s been forever since I read them, but I recall a lot of practical advice to stretch your hobby dollar and get into the game starting a new army.

I miss blister backs and impulse buys. While accounting for inflation, they were not as cheep as nostalgia tells me, they were little bite sized chunks. You could buy a plasma gunner to swap out into your squad, or a pair of blisters to add another rank to your WHFB regiment. All for lunch money prices. Nothing in that price range anymore, at least for minis. Single characters are stupid expensive. Maybe the blind boxes when they are out? There is no slow grow, microtransaction anymore.

Yes, that was it. Lots of discussion about battlefield capability vs price point.

The blisters were great to shape your forces, especially on the 40k side when you might want to retool those Devastators for more anti-armor capability.

However, in the modern day you at least get, or some get I guess, your Special Weapons in the main kit.

So, in Scenario A where you only wanted a given Special Weapon for that squad, there’s arguably better value in the modern way.

In Scenario B where you prefer to have spares to switch in and out between games? There is a drawback, as it’s not much trickier to get the spare body. Yes we can pin and magnetise, but that’s still a right faff.

In Scenario C where you prefer to switch in and out during games? You’re a cheating get and should be shunned my all and sundry.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
However, in the modern day you at least get, or some get I guess, your Special Weapons in the main kit.

So, in Scenario A where you only wanted a given Special Weapon for that squad, there’s arguably better value in the modern way.

In Scenario B where you prefer to have spares to switch in and out between games? There is a drawback, as it’s not much trickier to get the spare body. Yes we can pin and magnetise, but that’s still a right faff.

In Scenario C where you prefer to switch in and out during games? You’re a cheating get and should be shunned my all and sundry.

True. Those were the days when the tactical box came with a ML and a flamer, BP/chainsword for the sarge. That was it. You wanted a meltagun? Get the grey hunter box with the extra SW sprue. Or buy a metal blister. God help you if you wanted a combi weapon; get the hobby knife or MO bits from named characters.

Later we got more options then bodies. But a dev box, get 5 bodies (5 and a half, you got the kneeling legs which were not hard to push to a full marine with spares from other kits) and 8 heavy weapons. Splash in some spare tac bodies, and you could stretch your army out with minimal expense. Something lost with primaris.

But in the blister pack era, I could walk into my FLGS with $10 in my pocket and walk out with new minis, and change! Even if we account for inflation, will $20 get me anything these days?

Now I’m old. I have no idea what kids think of as impulse spending. My brain is stuck financially in the early 90s. But when you need to buy full squads at $40+, and more likely $60, that’s not something you do on a whim over your lunchbreak.

 Nevelon wrote:
Now I’m old. I have no idea what kids think of as impulse spending. My brain is stuck financially in the early 90s. But when you need to buy full squads at $40+, and more likely $60, that’s not something you do on a whim over your lunchbreak.

GW prices were rising even before inflation came roaring in, and it's throwing all calculations off. Went to a sub shop that I used to frequent weekly on Friday and two sandwiches (which used to run $15) was $35. So for the current generation, dropping $60 on gaming stuff is cheaper than dinner and a movie.

There’s also the oddity of pocket depth.

When I was young, my disposable income, before I left education, was like, £30 a week, tops.

So a £10 regiment box seems cheap now, but for my pocket was still a chunky percentage of my available dosh.

Fast forward to now? After all my bills and subscriptions? I’ve a good £1,100 or so as disposable income.

So even a £50 Deredeo Dreadnought isn’t a big slice of that. And the Legion Battle Group I spent £100ish on was still less than 10%.

Not something I’d spend weekly on models like, but my point stands.

Value and pricing is weird, because it’s so subjective.

For instance, that battle group might represent a third of the next person’s disposable income. But, if their monthly project is buy, build and paint all of that? They’re getting better value than someone who just sticks it atop their pile of shame.

There was a period when the Start Collecting sets were new when GW was affordable again, but it wasn't really "bite sized" in the same way as the old blister packs.

I think the D&D minis fill that niche to an extent though - 2 or 3 minis for 6 euro is fully possible in my local shop, along with lots of stuff in the 10 euro bracket that's pretty cool. I think those do really well, but there's nothing in the sci fi style with them.

What I miss most about the older era was the hand made terrain being much more common. I really feel the books lost something around 5th edition when they stopped putting stuff about how to make your own terrain in the rulebook and started to only include their terrain kits.

From a business POV makes sense, of course, but I love the hand made stuff in the older books.

I’ve wibbled about that before.

I do partially lament the passing of the days when WD and indeed rule books included scratch building or conversion guides.

But, GW has grown since then.

Originally, conversions and scratch building were necessary, as for a modicum of skill, you could add new semi-official models and thus add variety to your battles.

Overtime, GW added more and more vehicles and terrain, and so the need for such articles just isn’t there. But in the right way. If I want a Whirlwind or Vindicator for instance, I don’t need to hunt down a specific conversion guide, I’ll just…buy one.

Swings and roundabouts my dude, swings and roundabouts.

Yeah, that's fair. I was never very good at scratch building as a kid and I always liked it when scratch built options got a kit, the way I saw it the scratch builders still got to do their thing but cack handers like me got to have a kit too (see the Ork Battlewagon!)

I somehow feel differently about terrain, and I dunno if that's because I can actually do that fairly well and always have been able to, but it's a fair point that others would have been in my exact situation.

But there's something charming about those old guides showing how household junk can become a desert hab dome or some such. It's the vibe I aim for with my own terrain. I guess the gap is filled to an extent with stuff like the Terrain Tutor's book or various Youtube channels too.

Terrain is an odd one.

For those of us of certain undisclosed vintage? Terrain was…whatever we could lay our hands on. Books for hills, Jumpers for Goalposts. Isn’t it? Marvellous!

And the rules reflected that. Terrain was “pretty much anything in the way”, with some very, very loose suggestions on how to represent the effects.

But, now? With Actual Kits came Kit Specific Rules, and worse? Official (but still only suggested) board layouts.

I was really into trying to make a half decent board even when I was 12. I put a lot of time into my crappy terrain and I was really proud of it. I had stuff like felt cut to make rivers or muddy patches, model railway trees, I did those cactus with red toothpicks that were all the rage. A big insert from some packaging was a futuristic building painted with an entire pot of boltgun metal, I had hills made out of layers of cardboard because I couldn't figure out where this foam stuff they used came from. A cannibalised branch from an artificial christmas tree became a bunch of bushes and hedges.

Oh, and ork huts made from the old polystyrene "trays" that used to come in the boxes, stacked on top of each other and washed with Flesh Wash to make sort of Adobe huts.

Not to mention all the 2e Cardboard ruins!

I remember carting all my stuff to uni at 17 and having someone sneer at the quality and feeling quite heartbroken!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Terrain is an odd one.

For those of us of certain undisclosed vintage? Terrain was…whatever we could lay our hands on. Books for hills, Jumpers for Goalposts. Isn’t it? Marvellous!

And the rules reflected that. Terrain was “pretty much anything in the way”, with some very, very loose suggestions on how to represent the effects.

But, now? With Actual Kits came Kit Specific Rules, and worse? Official (but still only suggested) board layouts.

Yes, but there was also lots of non-GW terrain out there for those interested. Model railroaders are obsessive in their soil and stone needs, and that was the direction I went. Lots of trees, lichen, stones, etc., and when combined with a foam cutter and some packing material, it's not that hard to build a first-rate tabletop. Indeed, at one point I was into creating frame buildings out of sprues, but then I discovered the joy of foam core presentation boards.

Oh the *bits* were there. As were guides on what to do with those gubbins.

And I still endorse and celebrate home made terrain. Indeed one could argue that now GW is more or less entirely devoid of metal models? Home terrain terrain is an easier job, as you just don’t need to worry about load bearing and your mate’s models getting smashed if a walkway gave out.

I genuinely advocate all sides. Not a “happy medium” specifically. But that is part of it, because it can’t not be.

If I built my terrain out of stuff you’d normally bin? Or from kits and “official” kits? I don’t care.

All I care is does our mutually assembled battlefield look cool.

If the best both you and I can do is a cunning pile of differently sized books as a hill? Then it’s as cool as we manage, and so it is cool.

If like me you have several hundred quids worth of GW plastic terrain under your bed desperately in need of painting? Then provided I get just painted? We’ll have cool terrain and scenery.

And. Every. Single. Stage. Before. And. After.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

If like me you have several hundred quids worth of GW plastic terrain under your bed desperately in need of painting? Then provided I get just painted? We’ll have cool terrain and scenery.

And. Every. Single. Stage. Before. And. After.

I liked the cardboard building in 40k and Necromunda. Had both sets, loaned to a friend who then thoughtlessly gave them away without asking.

Rick Priestley interview part two. And lots of info I wasn’t aware of!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BxYtJIWS7c&t=80s

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Rick Priestley interview part two. And lots of info I wasn’t aware of!

Quite the contrast between the drive to create multiple games per year and the modern focus on creating the same game every three years.

There was definitely a creative energy in those years, and he's right about how the various editions lacked a "final finish" feel, but they were absolutely on the way to greatness. Had GW taken a moment to refine them, they'd have reached their full potential.

Has this one been posted yet? Quite an interesting interview with Andy Chambers about the early 40k editions.

 Pacific wrote:
Has this one been posted yet? Quite an interesting interview with Andy Chambers about the early 40k editions.

I found his remarks about updating an edition but not changing it too much quite interesting. Obviously, I'm one of those who felt that 3rd was just too different and lost the feel of what I had liked about 40k. I did appreciate his acknowledgement that "enlarging" the game (more figures) came off as commercially motivated but he was correct that players wanted to fight bigger battles.

The sort of "universal house rules" that I've compiled go a long way to achieving that while keeping the feel of the game. Our standard game size is 1,500 to 2,000 points and we have no problem with finishing it in a timely manner.

I also enjoyed his comment that the balance of the game was fleeting because soon the codexes would wreck it.