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Actually now that I think about it, I was adding on bitz through war store orders every time I or a friend would place an order. Just getting stuff to paint. It was like back when everything was in blisters. If I felt like painting one tyranid warrior, I could just add the bitz to the order.

After that stopped then I did the same thing on eBay but with prices and postage climbing so much in the last few years, that dried up as well. Those with trade discounts would be breaking their agreement with GW, so a lot of prices have gone up as the suppliers are getting what discount they can. I used to be able to get tyranid warriors or whatever big 40mm base miniature I wanted for $10-15 for one. Now they are $20+ I think I paid $9 for a rat ogre, not they're $15 or so. I think GW's policy has definitely increased the supplier's costs for eBay bitz sales and they've had no choice but to pass it along to us.

I'm finding I grab an awful lot of Reaper Bones blisters just to paint up each time I'm in a local shop. That used to all go to GW, first when they actually sold a decent amount of stuff by blister and then through bitz sellers.

I do love rummaging through the Reaper blisters at a store. I always find something I just absolutely must paint.

 melkorthetonedeaf wrote:
I do love rummaging through the Reaper blisters at a store. I always find something I just absolutely must paint.

I got curious went looking through my email for paypal receipts and emails to friends about adding bits to their orders. I was spending about $50 a month on bits. I don't quite spend the same on Reaper's stuff though-- maybe $20-30, but none of that $600 a year is going to GW now. At the moment it looks to be a pretty even split between Reaper and historicals with the occasional metal Privateer Press blister. $600 a year is probably pretty small compared to what a lot of other people spend, but this inability to impulse buy GW's products has pretty much ended my purchasing of their stuff. I used to say things like "I get the occasional GW miniature off of eBay" but now I realize I haven't in over a year.

Hrmmm....my purchases from GW over the last year have been exclusively made of miniatures off of Ebay from 2nd edition 40K and Epic 40K. The least modern kit I bought was a box of plastic Scourges when they were newly released, which actually are being used as "Corsair"-themed Swooping hawks.

I actually have a 2000+pt Kroot Merc army for 3rd/4th edition, which other than Carnivore kits and Kroot Hounds, was made solely with large purchases from the GW online bitz service. Back when you could do it direct, I bought bitz from every single GW line of products that was available at the time.

 melkorthetonedeaf wrote:
I still don't understand how a company not selling EXTRA means they lose money. Profit is funny..

So I buy a box of Scourges and they cannot be WYSIWG with the purchase I made if I equip them with HWB. If I buy another box, then I have 5 more bodies. There are lots of bits already in the box, but I can't create the loadout that is possible in the codex. Since I can't buy the extra bits from GW, I have to do one of the following:

1) not worry about it, cuz i can just be all "those shardcarbines are HWB. can you tell the difference?"
2) buy extra bits against the company's wishes
3) make them myself
4) buy more and more and more and then throw out all the extra Scourge bodies

It's safe to say I'll never do #4, so bits sellers aren't "cutting into profit" as far as I see it.

It has to do with logistics.

How much does the space, time, and labor of the bits consume vs the income their sales generate.

Differential Equations enter into play for these dynamics.

MB

 Red Corsair wrote:
Yea this will end up hurting them.

Also, to all the people crying ebay has what you need. Maybe you should actually go check it out. I bought out all the stock I though I would need for my DE from Hord-o-bitz and bitz-world because their stock is vanishing rapidly and there are not replacements for much of it.

Any replacements you do find usually don't offer the quantity you need and are auctions with ridiculous prices.

Sorry but if I need 5 combi meltas, I am not going to pursue 5 separate auctions all with separate shipping for my sternguard.

GW could get a clue and offer single sprues from direct but their idiots who hate money.

You can get FW combi weapons

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
This is a great discussion, but as a reminder... once again...

Dakka is not the place to discuss piracy, in this case recasting someone else's copyrighted work.

It's a long-standing site policy based on the simple facts that this is an international site, so many different laws are in play, and we have neither the resources nor the desire to pick a fight with any of the manufacturers.

Recasting a GW bit that you have legally acquired is duplicating copyrighted work without expressly stated permission. The right to do so is however covered under various exceptions to copyright allowing to make copies of your property for personal use (and these exceptions exist in basically every legal system) thus, doing so isn't "piracy".

That discussion is OT anyway so I won't derail the thread further. I just wanted to clarify, since people stated that recasting your own bits are illegal, while it in fact isn't.

Zywus wrote:
The right to do so is however covered under various exceptions to copyright allowing stated copies of your property for personal use (and these exceptions exist in basically every legal system) ...

That's somewhat of an overstatement. The UK, for example, has no ' personal use ' clause in their copyright law, just an exception for educational purposes. Australia allows limited copying of printed material for personal use, and 'format shifting' of printed works and media, but nothing that would make it legal to copy miniatures.

Some legal systems won't bother prosecuting unless the infringing work is being sold, but those infringing works are still actually illegal.

That's the problem with these sorts of discussions... There are just too many variations in the law from place to place.

BeAfraid wrote:

It has to do with logistics.

How much does the space, time, and labor of the bits consume vs the income their sales generate.

Differential Equations enter into play for these dynamics.

As for their policies for their independent trade accounts, I've heard from ex trade sales people that they basically view the typical owner of an independent store as an idiot who doesn't know anything about the business. They see the availability of bits from people breaking down and selling kits as detrimental to sales and feel the need to protect the poor dears from their own ignorance. Selling someone a part they want? Why would you do that when you can sell them an entire 10 miniature unit box for that one part? Silly independent traders, identifying a desire in the market and fulfilling it.

 insaniak wrote:

Zywus wrote:
The right to do so is however covered under various exceptions to copyright allowing stated copies of your property for personal use (and these exceptions exist in basically every legal system) ...

That's somewhat of an overstatement. The UK, for example, has no ' personal use ' clause in their copyright law, just an exception for educational purposes. Australia allows limited copying of printed material for personal use, and 'format shifting' of printed works and media, but nothing that would make it legal to copy miniatures.

Some legal systems won't bother prosecuting unless the infringing work is being sold, but those infringing works are still actually illegal.

That's the problem with these sorts of discussions... There are just too many variations in the law from place to place.

True, It seems was overstating the extent of permission of personal copying.

I was under the impression that International IP-conventions or at least EU-law meant similar exceptions in all member states but after looking into it most exceptions are optional and so there can be quite some variations even within the EU.

 Paradigm wrote:

tgjensen wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

REMINDER, DAKKA DOES NOT CONDONE PIRACY. RECASTING YOUR OWN BITZ IS FINE, RECASTING SOMEONE ELSE'S IS NOT.

Just a word to the wise.

Wait, recasting your own bitz is fine?

All these years, I thought I was a criminal!

To clarify, if you made those bits yourself (sculpted, scratch-built ect) then it's fine, you 'own' those bits. If, on the other hand, you're casting a flamer or SM head from GW then it's not technically allowed.

To answer the question in the OP, Ebay seems to have bits sellers still (probably individuals rather than companies), but nothing like it used to.

I always thought this was silly, as GW has been known to recast their own bits to make new models and charge full+new price when its obviously not all original work.