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I've been following what Reaper are doing with their bones range and it got me wondering. Shouldn't GW be investigating this route? At some point even they are going to have to have a rethink about the direction they are heading in(oblivion if you ask me). Wouldn't it make more sense in the long term if they opted for a similar bones approach and started again? If a big company like Reaper can go back to the start almost in terms of pricing, surely other big companies can do likewise?

No. GW lives pretty much exclusively on high prices, they aren't going to change.

Slipstream wrote:
I've been following what Reaper are doing with their bones range and it got me wondering. Shouldn't GW be investigating this route? At some point even they are going to have to have a rethink about the direction they are heading in(oblivion if you ask me). Wouldn't it make more sense in the long term if they opted for a similar bones approach and started again? If a big company like Reaper can go back to the start almost in terms of pricing, surely other big companies can do likewise?

Reaper isn't afraid of lowering prices. They have almost always tried to keep things affordable for their customers, now with Bones and before that with the P-65 line of figures. Back in 2009, they actually dropped the prices on their tin figures because the price of tin had stabilized and dropped (after one or two price increases in the years prior due to skyrocketing tin prices).

I don't think you will ever see that sort of a response from GW - at least not under their existing management.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

Slipstream wrote:
I've been following what Reaper are doing with their bones range and it got me wondering. Shouldn't GW be investigating this route? At some point even they are going to have to have a rethink about the direction they are heading in(oblivion if you ask me). Wouldn't it make more sense in the long term if they opted for a similar bones approach and started again? If a big company like Reaper can go back to the start almost in terms of pricing, surely other big companies can do likewise?

Reaper isn't afraid of lowering prices. They have almost always tried to keep things affordable for their customers, now with Bones and before that with the P-65 line of figures. Back in 2009, they actually dropped the prices on their tin figures because the price of tin had stabilized and dropped (after one or two price increases in the years prior due to skyrocketing tin prices).

I don't think you will ever see that sort of a response from GW - at least not under their existing management.

GW sees prices as a one way street, and that way is up. GW doesn't ever alter prices based on factors like the mold being paid off or the price of plastic dropping.

Look at the 1998 Tactical Marine box. That mold HAS to have been paid off long ago, yet the prices only ever went up.

 Aerethan wrote:
Look at the 1998 Tactical Marine box. That mold HAS to have been paid off long ago, yet the prices only ever went up.

The tactical marine mold used now is not the same as the one from the 3rd edition launch. Various other parts have been added, which would require a new mold to be cut.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Aerethan wrote:
Look at the 1998 Tactical Marine box. That mold HAS to have been paid off long ago, yet the prices only ever went up.

The tactical marine mold used now is not the same as the one from the 3rd edition launch. Various other parts have been added, which would require a new mold to be cut.

The command/special weapons are a second sprue.

Even then, the design costs on the marines themselves were paid years ago. And how long ago were those additions? If it's a top selling unit, the cost per box should be considerably lower now(overhead wise) than when it first released at the lower price point.

Before games workshop Canada was folded into games workshop north America (having 40-60 or so people working in their Canadian HQ was a bit overboard considering they had about that amount of store staff across the entire country) they dropped the prices by about 10-20% across the board expecting that this would in fact cause GW sales to increase...after all, everyone kept saying price was the reason they weren't buying as much.

The result.....Games workshop Canada's revenue decreased by almost the exact amount of the price cut, sales volume didn't rise at all as a result of the price drop and GW realized the miniatures market wasn't all that elastic.

never happen. which is too bad. The Bones Line from Reaper are actually really awesome to work with, easy to convert, practically impossible to break, easy to paint and have tons of detail with very little problems... It is kinda what GW tried to sell "Finecast" as... lol

I like the Bones line, but please.

Those minis aren't of the same quality as any multipart plastics that GW does, and certainly doesn't have the detail of a decent resin model.

The only problem with the Bones models I've had was the fact that some primers don't react well to it and stay sticky. Other than that they are great, and cheap. Amazing for D&D.

But like others have said, GW stuff has far more detail and far more parts per model.

I agree with what others have said about Reaper Bones. You get what you pay for, but that is why I like Reaper: you get what you pay for.

Are there things about Bones that make the models less desirable than a multi-part posable plastic kit with lots of extra bits, sure. But Bones models are also dirt cheap, are cast nice and clean, and now come in a very respectable range.

The Bones models are aimed at a particular market, and my guess would be the table top RPG crowd, i.e. those folks using miniatures with a pen and paper RPG, and those folks playing a TT miniatures game with a heavy dose of RPG elements.

I have an encounter in my RPG that has Gnolls. I would prefer to have some actual gnoll models, but how often am I going to use gnolls? Is it worth shelling out 40-50 bucks for miniatures I may not use very often? Along comes Bones which allows me to pick those miniatures up at half the price or less! Now it is an impulse buy.

I want to start a dungeon crawl campaign. I need skeletons, zombies, umber hulks, evil dwarves, demons, etc. etc. etc. I need a large pile of miniatures to do all of the encounters that I want, and often only a handful of each. I do not need 40 skeletons, maybe something like 10. I only need one or two umber hulks. Before Bones, I could grab most of everything I needed from Reaper, often at reasonable single miniature prices...which meant a hefty price tag when the cart is loaded up. Along comes Bones and I can get everything I want and more for a couple hundred dollars. Now I can GM a whole campaign for the price of a modest TT wargaming army.

As has been said. Bones would probably never work for GW. Bones works well for single part or few-part models. GW is all about kits with hundreds of options for armament, pose-ability and conversion.

GW could use bones for characters, but even if bones was as good in quality as finecast or metal (I think it's close, but not quite), PVC doesn't have the cache' to fetch the kind of prices that GW likes to charge for those type of miniatures. GW's fans would never pay finecast (or even slightly reduced) prices for minis made from bonesium.

All this is before you even consider that the GW board has shown no interest in price lowering and mainly focuses on paying dividends regardless of GW performance.

Despite all this, Bones appears to be a bonanza for Reaper. They reported that even before the KS, Bones had become their biggest seller. Combined with their reputation of being a customer-focused company it's been very good for them. I wouldn't at all be surprised to see more companies doing PVC figures.

Orktavius wrote:
Before games workshop Canada was folded into games workshop north America (having 40-60 or so people working in their Canadian HQ was a bit overboard considering they had about that amount of store staff across the entire country) they dropped the prices by about 10-20% across the board expecting that this would in fact cause GW sales to increase...after all, everyone kept saying price was the reason they weren't buying as much.

The result.....Games workshop Canada's revenue decreased by almost the exact amount of the price cut, sales volume didn't rise at all as a result of the price drop and GW realized the miniatures market wasn't all that elastic.

Was this direct sales at stores or including FLGSs?
Honestly I would buy from normal stores if the prices of the states and Canada were pretty close, like the gap right now is not even justifiable since me driving to the states to buy a good lot of stuff is still cheaper than buying in Canada.
All I buy now are hobby kits and supplies from FLGS to support them, but minatures? no, probably not going to happen unless I want something really specific that I can't get.

Orktavius wrote:
Before games workshop Canada was folded into games workshop north America (having 40-60 or so people working in their Canadian HQ was a bit overboard considering they had about that amount of store staff across the entire country) they dropped the prices by about 10-20% across the board expecting that this would in fact cause GW sales to increase...after all, everyone kept saying price was the reason they weren't buying as much.

The result.....Games workshop Canada's revenue decreased by almost the exact amount of the price cut, sales volume didn't rise at all as a result of the price drop and GW realized the miniatures market wasn't all that elastic.

First; how long was the period of the discount? Second; how well was it publicised?

Because I'm extremely skeptical of the idea that "the miniatures market [isn't] all that elastic" considering said market's continual year-on-year growth despite a global recession and the rash of new games and companies which have popped up over the last few years who all appear to be doing quite well for themselves.

 Aerethan wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
The tactical marine mold used now is not the same as the one from the 3rd edition launch. Various other parts have been added, which would require a new mold to be cut.

The command/special weapons are a second sprue.

The base marine sprue was changed as well, though. When the multi-part marines were released at the start of 3rd edition, they were moulded with one complete marine and one or two gubbins on a little mini-sprue, and then 10 of those mini sprues linked together. At some point (might have been the 4th edition codex launch) they recut the sprue to the current configuration.