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Indeed, I'd struggle to make out a 28mm face from 4' away never mind <10mm!

 Vermis wrote:
I think it's a mistake to focus too much on facial features at 6-10mm, as a sculptor...

...

I also think it's a mistake to focus too much on facial features at 6-10mm, as a gamer too.

But that's why I like 15mm scale. The models are big enough that you can, if you want, spend some time making them look good when viewed up close. But they're also small enough that you can just put some base colours down and a wash and they'll look fine when you have a hundred or two on the table top (where as 28mm looks a bit crap when you do that). You can also actually fit quite a few of them on a 4x4 table.

You go much smaller than that and the individual models start to look pretty average which I think makes it a harder sell.

At 15mm an average sized tank is about the size of an infantryman in 40k, so you can have tank squadrons and such but the infantry still looks cool. 10mm and lower, the vehicles look ok but the infantry has gotten to the point where details are getting lost.

I'd think the main motivation for going down to 10mm and 6mm would be to have significantly larger things represented (Titans and aircraft), so 6mm Epic made sense, though I didn't love the infantry there. Warmaster I think would have been better at 15mm.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
But that's why I like 15mm scale. The models are big enough that you can, if you want, spend some time making them look good when viewed up close. But they're also small enough that you can just put some base colours down and a wash and they'll look fine when you have a hundred or two on the table top (where as 28mm looks a bit crap when you do that). You can also actually fit quite a few of them on a 4x4 table.

You go much smaller than that and the individual models start to look pretty average which I think makes it a harder sell.

At 15mm an average sized tank is about the size of an infantryman in 40k, so you can have tank squadrons and such but the infantry still looks cool. 10mm and lower, the vehicles look ok but the infantry has gotten to the point where details are getting lost.

I'd think the main motivation for going down to 10mm and 6mm would be to have significantly larger things represented (Titans and aircraft), so 6mm Epic made sense, though I didn't love the infantry there. Warmaster I think would have been better at 15mm.

I think you're missing the point of smaller scales. 10mm and downwards, you stop focusing on the individual models and start focusing on what a base or unit looks like. The spectacle no longer comes from how good looking a 6mm model is, but how many of them you can fit on a table at one time, something that the smaller scales will always beat the larger scales at. You don't even need Titans and aircraft - if you want to do huge scale engagements with infantry, tanks, and artillery, 6mm is always a better choice, especially when considering space.

My 50+ year old eyes struggle to make out the face on a 28mm figure at arms length.

The point of 6mm is to make units look like real units with lots of troops in ranks, etc. Or for moderns, to make tanks look like they are shooting at each other from a range of 1,000 metres instead of 100 metres.

More fool me for not thinking of this earlier. Peter Berry's already said it all. There's this:

https://www.baccus6mm.com/includes/index/i_want_you/i_want_you_text.inc.php

Which leads on to this:

https://www.baccus6mm.com/includes/news/28mmmyth.inc.php

(Seriously, look at the photos there)

And then there's this for good measure:

https://www.baccus6mm.com/howtoguides/HOWTOPaint6mmfigures/

Oh, and my complaint about non-GW 6-10mm was a bit premature. I should have added that a lot of new stuff is better and getting better, and some of the old stuff isn't too bad either. I have a few bags of Heroics & Ros colonial British that should be acting as Epic praetorian guard some day. They don't even have faces, and they're brilliant.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
But that's why I like 15mm scale. The models are big enough that you can, if you want, spend some time making them look good when viewed up close

With modern 6mm stuff you could, if you really wanted, do that as well.

I am currently painting up an Epic Ork army using stuff from Troublemaker games and individual warbikers have fully sculpted facial features, even if the actual face is only about 1mm long. I say fully although you can't actually see eyes given the sheer tininess of them. I have just painted them green and given them a brown wash and that works well enough for me.

This army will be huge when its finished, it would probably fully cover a deployment zone in warbikes and Orky vehicles. I wold only consider doing this army in 6mm, anything larger and the 'scale' gets losts.

 Talys wrote:


Keep in mind that there's now a great way to get the Firewarriors -- the Get Started box is only £50, includes 3 Crisis suits, the 10 fire warriors, and the new Ethereal model. Plus a whole bunch of drones. It doesn't really get much better than that.

Talys, although I can't always understand your continual defense of GW and its business practices, you usually write well thought out pieces and make good points.

The quote above however makes you sound like a well versed red shirt. :-(

I agree though, the £50 starter sets are good IF you get them at 20% off. They're not some kind of fantastic bargain though - just closer to the prices they ought to be for what you get.

10 years ago, three crisis suits and 12 fire warriors and eight drones would have cost you £42. Factor in the increase of VAT and inflation, and £50 for the Tau Starter is actually a pretty good deal.

What makes them a great deal is that crisis suits are now £15 each, and fire warriors are now £30 for 10, so you would have to pay £75 to buy the same kits separately.

Two or three of those starter sets are a good basis for the core of a Tau army.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Two or three of those starter sets are a good basis for the core of a Tau army.

At GW's ridiculously inflated prices.

Compared to the various Bolt Action deals from Warlord, GW's attempt is trifling indeed. For £75 will get you 60 28mm multipart plastic infantry, 4 metal infantry, a metal support weapon and crew, a plastic tank and a plastic halftrack/armoured car. You could easily make a 1k list out of that.

You could make the augment that because this is for historical miniatures it will always be cheaper, perhaps even that GW's offering are in some way a 'premium' product but I find those arguments spurious. When the Perrys can turn out very high quality miniatures for 55 pence a miniature (£1.60 for cavalry) GW have absolutely no excuse other than being able to get away with it (sort of).

 Kilkrazy wrote:
10 years ago, three crisis suits and 12 fire warriors and eight drones would have cost you £42. Factor in the increase of VAT and inflation, and £50 for the Tau Starter is actually a pretty good deal.

What makes them a great deal is that crisis suits are now £15 each, and fire warriors are now £30 for 10, so you would have to pay £75 to buy the same kits separately.

Two or three of those starter sets are a good basis for the core of a Tau army.

No, that does not make the current bundle price a 'great deal' - it means that the price increases have far outstripped inflation - and that the standard price is a terrible deal.

The crisis suits should not be fifteen quid a pop.

The Auld Grump

 Silent Puffin? wrote:
At GW's ridiculously inflated prices.

Compared to the various Bolt Action deals from Warlord, GW's attempt is trifling indeed. For £75 will get you 60 28mm multipart plastic infantry, 4 metal infantry, a metal support weapon and crew, a plastic tank and a plastic halftrack/armoured car. You could easily make a 1k list out of that.

You could make the augment that because this is for historical miniatures it will always be cheaper, perhaps even that GW's offering are in some way a 'premium' product but I find those arguments spurious. When the Perrys can turn out very high quality miniatures for 55 pence a miniature (£1.60 for cavalry) GW have absolutely no excuse other than being able to get away with it (sort of).

While I do think GW price are way too high, Warlord themselves have been saying that historical models are cheaper than sci fi because of additional design costs in response to criticism of their GoA prices. So other sci fi/fantasy games might be better comparisons.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Warmaster Historical like most Ancient rules works just as well with 2mm, 6mm, 10mm, 15mm or 25mm figures, subject to suitable adjustments given in the rules, of measurements.

Scalewise, if you play Epic using 40K range measurements, weapon ranges actually start to make some sense.

T


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

Rick Priestly himself said that in a podcast interview a year ago, they planned to make 3rd edition a tied up and balanced 2nd edition and all the work was done in that direction and suddenly really close to the printing deadline (I remember 6 or 9 months) the accounting demanded the new edition to need twice as many models to play... Rick out of time brought in his homebrew WW2 15mm rules he had for playing games at his home with his friends and 40k 3rd edition (and every edition after it) was born.

That is very interesting... We had been working on a 40K version 2.5 to fix all of the problems l (well, many of them anyway) and were expecting something similar for third edition. We were shocked at 3rd and it did not take very many games before we threw in the towel and quit playing based on how bad the system was.

T

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Two or three of those starter sets are a good basis for the core of a Tau army.

At GW's ridiculously inflated prices.

Compared to the various Bolt Action deals from Warlord, GW's attempt is trifling indeed. For £75 will get you 60 28mm multipart plastic infantry, 4 metal infantry, a metal support weapon and crew, a plastic tank and a plastic halftrack/armoured car. You could easily make a 1k list out of that.

You could make the augment that because this is for historical miniatures it will always be cheaper, perhaps even that GW's offering are in some way a 'premium' product but I find those arguments spurious. When the Perrys can turn out very high quality miniatures for 55 pence a miniature (£1.60 for cavalry) GW have absolutely no excuse other than being able to get away with it (sort of).

There are plenty of valid reasons for GW to charge more, whether one accepts them peraonally is another matter.

Historical models will always be cheaper because there is so many alternatives; be it other companies or other scales. I find it raisable that anyone would play 28mm WW2 when 20mm (1/72) is so much cheaper and traditionally the preferred scale for the period.

Lets be honest here, beyond competition, historical games do not have to design the setting, design the models and are easier to market, have great movies to promote them and many books to reference to.

A non historical game has to do all the above from scratch and some its impossible to do, GW is way to expensive for what they offer, but, they could never be as cheap as historicals are.

On bringing up AoS and 30k sales given the 15% decline in profit when you take out royalties for video games, I think it's also a good idea to look at what 40k product launched at the beginning of this period.

Codex: Space Marines.

Space Marines are their heavy hitter. So we have a 30k release, a reboot/new edition of fantasy and a new codex for their most popular product line.

Flat and falling revenues. Profit down on their core business. Retail locations doubling the amount of money they are losing in a six month period to over 2 million pounds (fortunately their web store sales covered this decline-- see the notes at the end of the report).

At first I thought it was a neutral report, but now I'm not so sure. Looks like it's been another period of slow inexorable decline.

--

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Lets be honest here, beyond competition, historical games do not have to design the setting, design the models and are easier to market, have great movies to promote them and many books to reference to.

A non historical game has to do all the above from scratch and some its impossible to do, GW is way to expensive for what they offer, but, they could never be as cheap as historicals are.

See, while I broadly agree with what you're saying, absolutes like "never" make my teeth itch a little.

While you've neatly summarised the costs going against a non-historical (and I'd guess non-licenced would apply too in this case) in GW's specific case, they've got an awful lot of economies too. Owning their own equipment, having a design studio on staff rather than paying by piece designed, the general economies of being a much larger business than anything else in the sector, owning a setting which will have long since recouped any investment in creative design..

It all comes back around to the same things, their utter conviction that everything they make will be eagerly snapped up, regardless of price, and the massive investment in a retail chain which, to my mind, provides a spectacularly poor ROI.

They look like they've finally woken up to the former, did anyone else notice the new Chaos AOS book is only £20 and is over 300 pages? The latter.. not so much. But then that's a much deeper hole to dig out of with more possible solutions.

Ok I withdraw "never" and yes, I agree increasing the cost of decade(s) old molds is questionable.

notprop wrote:I find it raisable that anyone would play 28mm WW2 when 20mm (1/72) is so much cheaper and traditionally the preferred scale for the period.

One word: polyvinyl.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Ok I withdraw "never" and yes, I agree increasing the cost of decade(s) old molds is questionable.

Not just old moulds, the setting itself has been static in the main since 2nd, the rules essentially the same since third (and if the story about them being Rick's home brew set originally is true, probably cost feth all to develop.)

It's all just been padding, rewriting, patching and fiddling for almost 20 years, and that can't take a massive investment to sustain.

Regarding the pricing of the Start Collecting sets and the Tau box -- Yes, I'm mentally applying a discount of 25%, but I do that for pretty much all the GW stuff, because that's a discount that is pretty easy to get in North America. I think it's pretty easy to get a discount of some kind in the UK, too and the tax is built into those prices. Frontline Gaming makes it so that anyone can get there anywhere in the USA; if anyone needs tips on where/how to get a good discount on the West Coast of Canada, PM me. There are really good discounts to be had (25% and better locally) if you're smart with your hobby shopping.

Yeah, models exist that are cheaper, and if you like the historicals, you'll probably spend significantly less on the hobby per model. But you can say that compared to pretty much all of the scifi/fantasy comparables, like PP, Malifaux and Infinity. Are all sci-fi models overpriced? They cost more, but that doesn't mean the same thing, because the people buying them don't see them as equivalents.

 Azreal13 wrote:
They look like they've finally woken up to the former, did anyone else notice the new Chaos AOS book is only £20 and is over 300 pages? The latter.. not so much. But then that's a much deeper hole to dig out of with more possible solutions.

It's a great deal, IMO, and paperback, too, something that a lot of players have asked for. However, let's be honest -- a lot of people (me included) won't buy it at *any* price, because you can get all the game-related stuff in it for free; and the app is actually pretty good.

If GW made all the game parts of the 40k books free, I'd only buy books for maybe 5 or so factions (the ones I'm actively building armies for), even if they were similarly priced to the Chaos AOS book.

 Talys wrote:
Regarding the pricing of the Start Collecting sets and the Tau box -- Yes, I'm mentally applying a discount of 25%, but I do that for pretty much all the GW stuff, because that's a discount that is pretty easy to get in North America. I think it's pretty easy to get a discount of some kind in the UK, too and the tax is built into those prices. Frontline Gaming makes it so that anyone can get there anywhere in the USA; if anyone needs tips on where/how to get a good discount on the West Coast of Canada, PM me. There are really good discounts to be had (25% and better locally) if you're smart with your hobby shopping.

This is a fallacy though. In order to fairly discuss price, you have to eliminate all possible ways of alternate purchase and focus solely on RRP. You must not, at least when attempting to have any sort of balanced discussion, start throwing around discounts. The RRP is the reference point you need to use, otherwise we then get into the realms of buying second hand etc. Which are all perfectly sound buying strategies, but the logical conclusion is "I'm twice the size of the local GW manager, I'll just go in, trap him in the toilet and help myself, yay, free GW!"

Base your arguments on what GW is asking, not what you pay.

@Azreal13 - MSRP is fine to discuss pricing if everyone sells stuff at MSRP, or if everyone applies discounts at similar levels. Street price is more relevant when discounts are commonplace, and when discounts are at dissimilar levels. The price I'm talking about isn't what I pay: it's what most people can readily purchase product for, hassle free.

If people commonly buy GW models at 10-25% discount, but they commonly get less of a discount on some other models, that should be taken into consideration. It's especially true if in Europe you can get such discounts for web purchases from independents, and in North America, you can get such discounts from a trusted vendor that will ship to most of the areas that are interested in hobby.

To look at it another way, my buying decision between a GW model and a Forge World model should include the 25%+ discount I'll get on the GW model, and the shipping and customs premiums I must pay on the FW model. A $100 GW model will cost me less than $75, whereas a $100 FW model will cost me more than $125 ($10 customs + 15% handling). That's a 40% difference on out of pocket, street price!

I do realize that not all regions have similar discounts, or perhaps discounts at all, and perhaps North America and Europe are fortunate in this sense -- but these are pretty big regions that cover an awful lot of GW players. I also realize that a big chunk of people just pay full MSRP to GW, even though discounts are available. But that's their prerogative.

In my particular case, I cannot get the type of discounts I receive on GW products on many other hobby brands. It's worth mentioning that PP products are generally available at similar discounts, too. Presumably, because they are also quite profitable.

In a similar way, if you're shopping for an airbrush or compressor, you look at the price you can get it for at the cheapest place that sells them, not at the manufacturers' suggested retail price. Otherwise, very few people would ever consider an airbrush like Iwata -- where street prices from accessible vendors like Amazon can be half or less of what MSRP is.

But I can buy my Infinity at 10% off so your argument is invalid.
Discounts are far from unique to GW.


The whole point of MSRP is that it is the base line, the thing to compare to, so we should be comparing it otherwise this is going to devolve into people linking different stores offering different discounts for different products.

Talys there are places that don't do much discounts Like Japan, MSRP is i have to go by.

@jonolikespie - I can buy my Infinity at a discount too (though a much smaller discount than GW). I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, because even at full MSRP, GW models are cheaper per model than Infinity models discounted. Anyways, I'm just saying it's useful to compare street prices. People do it all the time for all sorts of things, and some brands of product are just a lot more discounted than other brands. I think a reasonable shopper comparing alternatives would acknowledge that, for example, iPhones are barely ever discounted, while Android phones are often available at much lower than MSRP.

I'm not sure why we're talking about it in this context. I had originally said that MSRP $85 is a pretty good price for Start Collecting boxes. I never even mentioned discounts. Someone else did. Yes, separately, I conceded that mentally, I factor in a 25% discount, because that's an easy thing to get. Not just for me; for most GW customers in NA/Europe.

I wasn't really comparing it to other product, but if you want to, compare it to Warmachines starter boxes. It would be a fair comparison, either at MSRP, or at 25% discount, since both can be readily purchased at that price. For the record, I think Warmachines starter boxes (yes, at street prices....) are a really attractive price for the models too.

It is perfectly legitimate for people to think that boxes of models with about the number and sort of boxes in Warmachines starter boxes or GW starter boxes, at whatever discount they can buy them for are still way overpriced. I think, however, it would be disingenuous for someone to say, "I'd happily pay $60 for this box, but It's overpriced at $85. But I'm going to call this product overpriced because of the MSRP, even though it's sitting in front of me at $60, and I can buy as many more as I want for that."

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Talys there are places that don't do much discounts Like Japan, MSRP is i have to go by.

Yeah, and I did mention this as well. It's mostly North America and Europe that this is the case, I think. Perhaps in Japan, other brands of models also have a smaller, or no, discount, too?

 infinite_array wrote:
I think you're missing the point of smaller scales. 10mm and downwards, you stop focusing on the individual models and start focusing on what a base or unit looks like.

Oh I understand it, sorry if that wasn't clear, I just don't particularly like it. Sorry I didn't mean to take the thread off topic with my rantings.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Lets be honest here, beyond competition, historical games do not have to design the setting, design the models and are easier to market, have great movies to promote them and many books to reference to.

None of which justifies little plastic people costing approximately 700% more than similar (in tangible terms) kits from other manufacturers. A modest price difference would be justified due to slightly larger scale for instance (although I'm not convinced that would really cost all that much more) but as it stands GW are really taking the piss.

There is more conceptual design work with fantasy/SciFi miniatures and games but on the other hand historicals requires a lot more research so its not quite as easy as that.

 Vermis wrote:

notprop wrote:I find it raisable that anyone would play 28mm WW2 when 20mm (1/72) is so much cheaper and traditionally the preferred scale for the period.

One word: polyvinyl.

Then don't buy the first crap someone of Dakka told you about. Plenty of good product in Resin, plastic and metal.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Lets be honest here, beyond competition, historical games do not have to design the setting, design the models and are easier to market, have great movies to promote them and many books to reference to.

None of which justifies little plastic people costing approximately 700% more than similar (in tangible terms) kits from other manufacturers. A modest price difference would be justified due to slightly larger scale for instance (although I'm not convinced that would really cost all that much more) but as it stands GW are really taking the piss.

There is more conceptual design work with fantasy/SciFi miniatures and games but on the other hand historicals requires a lot more research so its not quite as easy as that.

It's a different market. There isn't any justification, nor is one necessary: Why are Marvel comic books way more expensive per page than Manga titles? Why are are hockey jerseys with a NHL team's name embroidered on it 1000% more expensive than a practice jersey? Why is one doodled with "Wayne Gretzky" worth 10,000% more? They used to just all wear wool sweaters.

The answer is really simple: scifi/fantasy gaming and collectible miniatures are sold for the price that the market will bear. If there weren't enough people willing to pay more than $1 per miniature, the price of the miniatures would either fall to $1, or companies and artists would produce video games and movies instead. But as long as enough people are willing to pay $60 for a Warjack, $150 for a Knight, and $500 for Smaug, that's the price that they'll be sold for.

The world doesn't generally revolve around companies trying to make modest profits; in almost every industry, it revolves around companies trying to maximize their profits. That's as true for lettuce and milk as it is toy soldiers. You may bemoan this and say, "the world shouldn't work like that"... but the people making toy soldiers aren't trying to make the world a better place -- they're trying to make as much money as they can, presumably doing something they enjoy.

The reason that miniature prices don't offend me is because I don't treat GW or PP or Corvus Belli like a bunch of hobbyists doing things for fun; I treat them like a company that produces cell phones or television sets or shows movies on the big screen. If the price is right and I like the product, I'm in; if it's not, I'll pass. I mean, I don't get offended at Sony for making 4k TVs for more than I'm willing to pay, or at Apple for producing a 6S+ that's nearly indistinguishable from its predecessor, or at Miramax for producing a bad movies that are $15 a ticket watch on IMAX. I just shrug and don't give them my money.

As I said in the half that it was not quoted, they are way overpriced (and the market seems to reflect it), but, there are reasons why they can be more expensive than historicals and I would find it acceptable.

And please do not paraphrase me, I do mean I find acceptable fantasy and sci fi miniatures to be more expensive than historicals, I do not find GW's prices acceptable.