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.

The new GW paint pots are terrible, by my reckoning at least. Flip lips do not stay open when requested*, paint spews out of the hinge when closing and paint flicks out of the front when opening.

Whenever I need a new colour I always purchase Vallejo now. Superior paint at a cheaper cost, in a better container for more of the same colour. Job done.

* The only paints I will repeatedly buy from GW are the foundation paints, washes and metallics - if only to maintain integrity across my army.

The only annoyance i have with them is the lips being missing. I have to try and get my brush through a little hole just to get a bit of paint.

AG wrote:I'm sort of stunned that people are so paranoid. I cannot comprehend.

Well when you are ready to put on your big boy pants tue real world is out there waiting...to take all your money in unobtrusive ways.

AesSedai wrote:
If the articulate MBA holder whose post is above mine hasn't convinced you, well, you frankly need to educate yourself in regards to business practices. Here's another example to get you started:
Ajinomoto, the world's top ranked MSG producer (HQ here in Tokyo) wanted to stimulate sales which had stagnated. Long story short---they widened the holes in their little shaker bottles slightly and increased their revenue by a huge figure.

Yes, this is a well-known concept. Want to sell more toothpaste? Make the hole in the tube slightly bigger!

Recently here in Australia, one of the biggest cordial manufacturers halved the size of their bottles while maintaining the same retail price. To counter the massive amounts of WTF, on the bottles they now make a big deal about it being twice as concentrated, so use half as much to make the same amount of drink. Being realistic, people would be using the same amount and getting a drink twice as sweet, or at best slightly more than half of what they used to use, since you make cordial by eyeballing it. The smaller bottles halves their shipping and distribution costs, and their sales volume has gone up.

I don't personally care who uses what paint, and I use a palette sometimes - I do agree that when using smaller amounts of paint, or just wanting to touch something up, or paint eyes, etc, I prefer to paint from the pot. Even when doing certain basecoats, there's no need to thin the paint, and so forth, and again in those cases I paint from the pot. When using a small amount, you do get more waste from Vallejo, unless you can get a tiny bit of paint to poke up at the top of the nozzle from shaking it up. Really though, when my "bolter shell" paints started to dry up and I didn't have an old GW paint pot handy to cover the colour, I'd buy Vallejo a couple at a time to replace them. If you're young, a student, unemployed, or a combination of those things, this is the way to do it. I've been all of those things and that's what I did.

Now that I'm older and have a decent job with a bit more disposable income, I tend to buy larger amounts, and I've rediscovered Coat D'Arms (the original Citadel paints). These guys also make Privateer's P3 range, so I've started going back to them as my first choices of paint. I just order a few or a lot of them and Vallejo - depending on my needs when I periodically do a mail order from the UK - but I do it without making any grand sweeping statements of "I threw all my GW paints in the bin and bought the Vallejo mega paint set" (a friend did that, I thought he was mad).

I switched to Vallejo within a few weeks of getting back into painting, they are cheaper and and have more paint in them, Plus the dropper is a godsend.
I do not have a problem with the GW pots themselves except they are too small.

Johnscott10 wrote:

Pretty much I just see them as a business just like any other.

No, it's clear you don't. You took a rational post from a person who is obviously business-minded and blathered on about hate and paranoia. Nowhere in the post from Sc077y does he come off as being a hater or paranoid. Really, that you can dismiss his post and then claim that he is biased while not providing any convincing argument of your own...maybe you need to take the blinders off. It is precisely the fact that GW is a business like any other that supports the claim that a redesign of their products has increasing profits-- directly and indirectly--as its root cause. Sheesh, good thing for me that GW has consumers that lap up whatever they put out there without question.

Gavin Thorne wrote:I dunno what all the mess about painting the top of the bottles or having clear tops is about, but maybe I'm a little OCD with my paint box. Every color is in it's place and I can grab pots without looking and know what I've pulled.

Recently I've begun transferring my GW paints into dropper bottles I bought in bulk on ebay. I'm able to dilute and add flow aid/drying retardant when they get switched over so I don't need to mess with them after they get on the palette. Also, screw tops keep them sealed much better and have significantly less mess.

The only problem I have with the 25mL bottles I bought is a paint pot barely fills them halfway.

I did this a month or so ago, and I've been really happy with it. There's a bit of waste when you transfer, but I suspect most of what's left in the pot is semi-dried sludge. Even though the 25 ml bottles are only half full, I've noticed absolutely no drying in the new bottles.

I don't really mind the design of the new pots.
But the nubby bit behind the lid must be there. I simply need my pot held open for me. Whenever I go to a GW and the nub on the pot is broken, I get the urge to break something with my bare hands.

AG. wrote:
I'm sort of stunned that people are so paranoid. I cannot comprehend.

johnscott10 wrote:
Its because GW are the "almighty evil" that plagues us. Similar to EA. Pretty much I just see them as a business just like any other. They recieve alot of hate purely because they are the "big boys". Paranoia usually comes with hate.

I would definitely hesitate to say they are the all mighty evil. After all, i do still play their games

Look, whether or not you want to admit it, the sad reality is that companies do things that are sometimes underhanded, or can be construed as such, to sell more product. Ever wonder why movies make blatant product advertisement during the movie? every wonder why the coca-cola sign is just a little brighter red than the red background or jacket its sitting next to....its so it triggers you to go into the movie house and buy a ridiculous over sized coke, and spend 5.00 for it, where it costs the movie house about .36 cents to produce.

Someone said it earlier, if you want to sell more toothpaste, make the nozzle wider. Same with soda pop cans. does anyone remember when a can of soda didn't have a wide "mouth" on the can? I do. By opening the can, users would drink more than they realized because you could physically displace more soda with a single drink. A result, is that you sell more soda.

Lets understand something very clearly about sales and companies. companies don't change products unless they have a reason to. Changing over from one bottle to another is EXPENSIVE for a company to do. There are all kinds of non-mitigated and translucent costs that are placed into the conversion cost. When you buy a bottle of GW paint, you AREN'T just buying the paint: you are paying for the development of a new bottle, the machinery to adapt their existing infrastructure to the new pots, the cost of the physical new pots, the cost of the person working in the factory, the lights and maintenance in the factory, the cost of shipping, labeling, and "finishing" the product (this process is normally called market distribution) the cost of the warehouse to store it, the cost of the people to manage the infrastructure, and lastly, if you buy from a GW store, you are paying the cost of their sales person to stand behind the counter and ring up your brand new pot of 4.00 (circa) paint.

All of these costs are extrapolated over the expected TMS% of the product. (TMS% is broken down as this: Targeted Market Saturation: how many people will buy your product at the current price point. So if your product has a target market of say 100 people, target market saturation is the percentage of people who posess what is known as "propensity" which is those people that have the means and WANT to buy your product. once you take away the propensity from the target market, and compare that to the total amount you did sell, you will end up with your TMS%, the total number of people who did to buy your product, vs the number who didn't.)

Now, why is this all important?

BECAUSE GW DOESN'T SELL PAINT TO EVERY PLAYER.

Knowing that, ask yourself this question: did GW change their pots to benefit us so we would buy less with their new super awesome pot? Why would they voluntarily reduce their customer base with propensity to buy? Are you going to buy more blood red knowing you already have a more than half full bottle at home? how about two bottles? If companies create products that are too good, they experience a loss in customers that shift from "target audience" or "target market" to "propensity" base to come back and buy more from them. instead, what those companies end up doing is creating something called "diminishing marginal utility" which is a process where two is not as useful as one.

let me explain this.

Using the blood red analogy from earlier, lets take a look at a few principals. One bottle of blood red is very useful. If you don't already have a red color, or if you want that specific color, then buying one immediately satisfies that need. What about two? if you posses no blood red, and you instead bought two bottles of it, is the second bottle really as useful to you right now as the first? the answer is no, as you can really only use, or there is really only a need to use one at a time. so the second bottle is pretty much pointless, until you run out, in which case, you become a customer with propensity who will probably go buy the product, but until that happens, the second bottle just isn't that important to you.

now, its worth arguing that you are purchasing consumable products - that is products with a finite life span- however, even then, you can still experience diminishing marginal utility based on the product selection and your use of it and how long it takes to go through a bottle of blood red. if it takes you 11 months to finally need to break out that extra bottle of blood red, than for the lst 11 months, you have had diminishing marginal utility in your consumable good.

SO, GW is a company, like any other, and have an obligation to their shareholders: to remain profitable. now let me introduce another concept to any who are STILL actually reading this:

Sales is an honorable position, and profit is not a curse word. Moreover, customers vote with their wallets. If GW sells less paint because of their new designs, and feedback and cr tanks and CA% goes through the roof (CR is customer reception - what people think of your product, CA is customer availability percentage, the number of product you have vs the number of people who buy it) they know they need to change their product line, because people aren't buying their product. If CR goes up and CA goes down, then GW knows they got it right.

How all of this ties together is this:

when you have a set amount of consumables, and companies like GW don't really have much of an opportunity to expand their paint sales without drastically expanding other product line sales, they have to do SOMETHING to remain profitable. Companies have a few choices:
you can sell more of it by reducing the price, but really, were just getting back into diminishing marginal utility here: why would i buy three bottles of blood red when all i need is one for the next few months -
-or-
you can reduce benefits and features in your product, thus creating a greater need to replace, and increasing demand.

now, this is where people normally try to argue the laws of supply and demand. This is also where i laugh at you and tell you that the laws of supply and demand have very little to do with sales, until supply reaches critical low, and even then, normally doesn't impact the selling price much.

point is, if anyone is still awake, is that GW doesn't make a change in their product line, like ANY OTHER COMPANY in the world, if there is nothing to gain from it. They change their product line because there is an increased potential for earnings in doing so.

look at the standard pair of needle nose self locking pliers.

you call them vice grips.

the basic design of an actual pair of "Vice Grips" (vice grips is actually a sad tale, they have lost all brand recognition, meaning people dont recognize the name any more, like kleenex for "bathroom tissue") hasn't changed much in 70+ years. It hasn't had to. other than being bigger or smaller. Vice Grips haven't changed because to change them would be unnecessarily wasteful. it would require re-design and development from the ground up to accommodating a new product range, and there is no guarantee it would sell as well as the old one, so WHY CHANGE? they a making a great profit now as a company, and changing would just cost them money, and there aren't enough customers with "propensity" in their "Target Market" to make changing their product useful or profitable.

they wont change. GW on the other hand, saw a great way to contribute to their bottom line by making some minor product adjustments. It has obviously worked, and they will, continually over their product life span continue to make changes until their product is no longer held at the same value as other similar products and sales drop off.

Customers vote with their wallets.

my last note is this: i love GW games and play them. I give credit where credit is due and that is seen throughout all my posts, specifically speaking about their price hikes, but when they need to be called out, i am not scared nor would i hesitate to do so. I am not a "Fan boy" nor am i a "Hater"

Excellent post. So nice to see something as intelligently written as this in one of these threads.

Only a few of my pots have decided to collect around the lip, and yeah I do notice they like to stay closed, but I've bent the back of all my pots so much they just mostly stand up when I'm using them. Another thing I have been noticing a couple of my frequently used colors drying up... Even still the paints I do use frequently, chainmail, chaos black, and skull white last me a good 2 months at least of daily use before I have to pick up new ones.

AG. wrote:

Sc077y wrote:

AG. wrote:
Do you really think a bunch of designers sat around a table and said:

"Right, we have a master plan - we're gonna change the pot shape on our range of paints so that they waste 2% more paint than they used to. That means that all of our customers will have to buy more paint - which will make us MILLLLLLIONSSSSSSS!"

Yes, Yes i do.

Heres why:

GW paint pots are designed to create maximum waste. There is a reason there is no dropper, and they have a drying accelerant in the paint. GW knows that if just 2% of their purchasing population has to purchase just three more pots of paint a year, because of these steps, then that can equate out to hundreds of thousands of dollars towards their bottom line. GW also know that paint is a destination item - meaning people will come into the store with the specific intent to buying it. Once you are in the store, they can attempt to sell add on products, either by active or passive selling. There is an amazing amount of psychology in sales, and GW is a big company, they hire people to plan this stuff out, the same way Hasbro hires people to come up with mythic rarity to increase Wizards of the Coasts magic the gathering sales.

Every wonder why a GW pot or paint dries faster, doesn't mix well with other manufacturers, never have a dropper, and typically come watered down, and don't pour well? its because water is cheap, droppers save users money and cost GW money, dry faster because their formulated to do so, and the ridges and tapered lip on the GW pots dont let them pour evenly and smoothly, creating massive waste. to top it all off, everyone in the industry normally puts out their paint in 17.5ML bottles, but GW does so in 11.5ML bottles, which they say is mitigated because GW paints can be painted from the pot, so to speak, but when you read articles, the painting articles are recommending you use a palette to better mix colors.

so yes, i do think that GW does plan that out. its a grab for money. Yes there are people that sit around and figure this out. The trick to it is to reduce efficiencies to make more money, but not so much that people abandon their product line. thats why its small and incremental. there is also a process to this, i was taught as gradual exposure selling - slow changes to a product line to change the product line, but not so abruptly that they loose sales. The cost savings on this ranks up there in the millions after its extrapolated over the course of several years. (10)

I'm sort of stunned that people are so paranoid. I cannot comprehend.

Ok, then go and buy ANY other companys acrylic paint. Put that companys and GW's paint side by side on a pallette see the difference in drying times. Now use a bottle of acrylic with a dropper you will see it able to be measured out more accurately and leads to less waste.
The drying accelerant in '98 with screw top lids led to paints drying up within a week which with the amount of returns had then decide it was TOO fast. The paint seeped into the thread of the lids and prevented the pots sealing properly and the air in to react with the accelerant.
I assume you also think that the free peanuts in bars are just because the bar is nice and not to get people to drink more...
That or just plain trolling which even my non gamer girl friend is thinking.

Yes i to have found new pots to be a pain

I had a chance to speak to the design team and eavy metal team this weekend at games day.
We are all wrong, the problems we find with this product are all in our heads.

Apparently.

"no our paints are awesome, other companies paints suck, go back to sleep consumer, GW is in control. Here is a finecast release, here are many fainecast releases, no there are no flaws at all in finecast. go back to sleep consumers, your only wargaming company is in control" sounding responses to any well worded and reasoned arguments I assume CrimsonHammer?

Ah. Forgot that they don't stack. I'm forced to horizontally lay them out on my table. It's killing me. I used to just stack all my colors and shift them off to some other corner of the table, and leave the foundations sort of spread out, which is what I have to do for everything now :/

I am in the process of switching to Vallejo but will most likely stick with GW for Foundations and Washes.

I hate the new ones, the paint pot never stays open so i keep having to open it ever few seconds

I'm sticking with GW/Citadel for my current SM DA army because changes in tint drive me crazy (stupid art degree). That said, the lids do bug me to a point, where some do stay open but others won't - I haven't found a difference much between Foundations, main colours and Washes, but Chaos Black does seem to dry up pretty quickly for whatever reason, though I've never seen any of my 50ish colors dry up in a period under a month.

For my next project (either 40k or Warmachine) I'm going to try either Vellejo or Reaper, though I don't like working with the Vellejo squeeze bottles very much.

The new GW pots infuriate me. My main problem with them is the fact that they tend not to stay open; the lid constantly droops, making it difficult for me to continue painting a large surface area.

I haven't painted anything for about a year, but I think when I star back up up I'm going to begin the changeover to another brand. So far I haven't had to endure any of these new bottles, I'm still living with the hard black plastic fliptops.

Anybody care to make a comparison between Vallejo/Coat D'Arms/Reaper? I like the sound of the Vallejo dropper bottles, but Coat D'Arms also intrigues me. Or should I simply feel free to mix and match, depending on the specific shades I need?

I would go with mix and match after looking at what colours different ranges have, after all why mix some up when another company has just the right shade .

Altruizine wrote:I haven't painted anything for about a year, but I think when I star back up up I'm going to begin the changeover to another brand. So far I haven't had to endure any of these new bottles, I'm still living with the hard black plastic fliptops.

Anybody care to make a comparison between Vallejo/Coat D'Arms/Reaper? I like the sound of the Vallejo dropper bottles, but Coat D'Arms also intrigues me. Or should I simply feel free to mix and match, depending on the specific shades I need?

To be honest i hate reaver paints. Theyre very oily, as well as way too dry. The final product just doesnt come out as well as it should.

Short answer: yes, I use P3 and Vallejo now, they are much better in basically every way, esp since they don't dry to crud after a few weeks.

I hear Reaper has great paints too, good bottles to boot.

More Dakka wrote:Short answer: yes, I use P3 and Vallejo now, they are much better in basically every way, esp since they don't dry to crud after a few weeks.

I hear Reaper has great paints too, good bottles to boot.

Second the P3 paints, they do require a lot of thinning in my experience though. Except the gold which I got in the sets which came solidified... I assume the sets were just plain old? Pity they didn't have P3 golds to replace them with ended up with some GW gold instead at the LGS

Ok, I'll probably need to watch my back for the reminding time beeing on dakka for this but...

I prefer the GW colours above all others I've tried. True, I've not tried tamiya (I think atleast).
My problem with the Vallejo range is that I find that the colour tend to get shiny after a couple of times handling the model, and I've tried everything. A friend tried to help me with that problem and failed. He had the same problem on his, solved it, but the same way didn't work on my models.
To be fair, it might be the chosen colour. He doesn't paint much green.

And the GW colours... Well, they're cheaper at home (about 2 $ a can) and lasts for a good while when I'm painting.

And my only problem is that the lids won't stay open. Easy fix: I use a knife to make the bonds thinner, so they stay open.

No other problems for me!