Darklands and Godslayer - Expensive?

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**Enkmar**

Hi folks! I was browsing around looking for my next miniatures fix when I found Darklands. These miniatures look amazing. I dig the gritty look and the big and bad beasties. The prices were just too steep for me. Everything seemed to feel like double what I would normally pay for a miniature. 15 bucks (USD) for single miniatures when I'm more used to a single being around 7. Then those big beasties that drew me in initially, they're really quite costly. So I yelled at the gods for having not handed me a winning lottery ticket in my life, and went about my business.

Still, I wanted to find something akin to the level of detail and gritty nature of the Darklands miniatures I found, and I found Godslayer. This time the price snuck up on me - I had read all the fluff I could find on the factions, picked a few I liked, looked over all their miniatures and then checked eBay and the going rate for their faction starter boxes is 60 bucks, when they come with about 5-7 miniatures. Normally I'm used to paying around 30 for a starter set like that, ala Malifaux of Warmachine. This time I was pretty bummed because I was starting to get excited about these miniatures.

So I should say now that I'm not bashing these games or companies, or their prices even. I'm just curious if anyone knows why they're priced like this? Just because? Or is it like.. their models are top notch so they would like you to pay a little extra for the quality?

Share your knowledge with me!

**Azreal13**

Well, Mierce use the best sculptors, we've been told that a single, unique, 30mm scale infantry man can cost approaching $3000 to sculpt, so, considering that, while well regarded, the exposure Darklands gets right now is of the nature of a niche within a niche, means that each model has to work hard to just recover it's development costs, let alone make money.

Then, on top of that, resin casting is relatively expensive vs metal, and possibly even plastic depending on volumes, and I can't imagine that sculpts of the complexity on offer are simple or straightforward to cast, and must take a lot of time to produce in numbers, further increasing the cost.

I agree that, even accounting for all that, the prices can still feel a bit sharp (especially for the infantry squads if you're used to buying GW plastics, which aren't too bad for troops as a rule) but I am at least content when I buy from Mierce that I can see why some of it is so expensive.

**zedmeister**

Add to that fact that they're casting resin in house in the uk. They're more akin to forgeworld than gw if you want to look at it that way.

Though the miniatures are real painters miniatures and will stand out against regular mass market stuff. So, if you don't mind the high entry price they are worth it for the amazing detail. Check out the latest and previous kickstarters. They show the miniatures sculpting progress and the final miniature almost always matches the concept art.

**kb305**

darklands stuff is really nice. their prices seem fair for how nice most of the models are.

**Saphos**

Godslayer isn´t expensive in Euro prices imho. You don´t need a heaps of models and it is still is a very small company. Also the need to export it to the states might be a factor as it is produced in Europe. A Halodyne starter + a box of Hillogres gives you an excellent force that gave us a pretty exciting game just recently. For about 150 Euros including the rulebook you can play brilliantly for ages. The game also is excellent beyond doubt imho. So all in all the start might not be as cheap as with some games (and Warmachine is not exactly cheap after the starters, you need to spend far more money to play peroperly as for Godslayer), but expensive still is something completely different.

Can´t really comment on Mierce but the quality seems so good that the price seems justified.

**Vertrucio**

So the question now is, which is the better game, rules-wise?

**OrlandotheTechnicoloured**

**Zond**

Both are expensive. I think the quality of Darklands justifies it. Godslayer is distinctly lacking in model quality, however the rulebook is quite nice.

**Dysartes**

Zond wrote:
Both are expensive. I think the quality of Darklands justifies it. Godslayer is distinctly lacking in model quality, however the rulebook is quite nice.

Really? I haven't handled any of their figures myself, but the ones I've seen in person looked good.