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 Ishagu wrote:
Golf costs more than 40k

No kidding! A nice set of clubs and weekly green fees... you could set yourself up with a couple of very nice 40K armies and a couple of very nice AoS armies... plus Necromunda and all gangs and books, Warcry with all Warbands and books, Underworlds with all warbands and all cards, Apocalypse with as many movement trays as you’d like plus all cards for all factions, and more! Photography is right up there as well.

SG

Rob Lee wrote:
Price immune?

Nope.

Being disabled and out of work in an ever shrinking jobs market in the UK I'm on a fixed income. Been that way most of the last 20 years. Best I ever get is minimum wage temp work for a year or so.

Over the past 20 years GW in particular have been steadily and increasingly pricing myself and others like me out of the tabletop hobby. I can't get a game of anything tabletop wargaming, let alone GW, in my area, despite living between 2 GW stores, 11 miles away in one direction and 16 miles the other - which, of an evening, i.e. games night, are inaccessible by public transport to/from where I live! Getting to/from anywhere for a job is difficult/expensive enough on public transport - forget about travel for leisure!!

It's all well and good to sit there and say "I'm rich I don't care about price hikes", however the more prices go up, the more people like me walk away from the hobby and the more people don't even pick up the hobby...

£200 minimum for a decent sized 40k army to start properly with, similar cost for AoS, £20 a pop minimum for the codices/battletomes, with over 20 now for 40k, and you generally need to buy them all yourself to understand/know what you're up against - Sun Tzu, Art of War, know your opponent...

£600 minimum initial outlay for starting in 40k if you don't want to do a half assed/piecemeal job of it!! And I haven't even factored in paint...

Think on that before you say the hobby is cheap...

I don't own my enemies codecies. And I don't think I know anybody who really does. I can know my enemy just fine for free by reading Battlescribe.

More importantly, it's about $300-$500 to build a 40k army. That isn't actually a lot of money. It's a plane ticket 1-way to HI, a pair of skis, a semester of eating out as a college student, a week of skiing [though, to be fair, you might want to consider buying a pass at that point], a gaming console, or like 3 fancy dinners.

You may value travel to big name destinations more than miniatures. I know quite a few people who do. But it really comes down to what do you want? If you can afford any hobby at all, you can probably afford wargaming. It's pretty cheap on the scale of adult hobbies.

 ServiceGames wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
Golf costs more than 40k

No kidding! A nice set of clubs and weekly green fees... you could set yourself up with a couple of very nice 40K armies and a couple of very nice AoS armies... plus Necromunda and all gangs and books, Warcry with all Warbands and books, Underworlds with all warbands and all cards, Apocalypse with as many movement trays as you’d like plus all cards for all factions, and more! Photography is right up there as well.

SG

I ski, and my whole collection costs less than a season of ski trips. 40k isn't that expensive as a hobby, and as far as things go, it's something I'd happily buy for hypothetical future kids, since it gets them out of the house to be social, makes real friends, uses their minds and hands, and gets them off of video games.

$300 USD is currently, according to xe.com, £239. So right about the figure I quoted for a half decent starter army.

Many people here in the UK, those of us on fixed and low incomes, regardless of employment situation or outlook (which in fact for many are currently bleak), those of us with families to pay for with the cost of living rising massively each year, if not each quarter, simply cannot justify, even if we could afford it, that sort of layout on hobbies, especially in one go so as not to make a half assed piecemeal attempt at putting an army together, let alone a 1 way ticket to HI (I assume you mean Hawaii?), a pair of skis, a semester eating out, a week of skiing, a games console, or 3 fancy dinners.

To say that's actually not a lot of money shows how little financial perspective people like yourself seem to have.

The cost of living in the US is vastly different to that here in the UK. Massively so. So you simply cannot say what you perceive to be "not a lot of money" is in fact the same for someone else.

And sitting there telling people, especially those in my situation, where I've been enjoying a hobby for 25+ years and am increasingly being pushed out of it, that it's only this, it's only that, it's not a lot of money, is at least condescending, if not insulting.

 Ishagu wrote:
This hobby is definitely not cheap. You have to accept that and chose to be involved or not.

Going out for drinks regularly costs more than 40k
Golf costs more than 40k
Hobbies are generally expensive as they are non essential persuits.

Video gaming costs less than 40k
P&P costs less than 40k
LARP costs less than 40k
MtG costs less than 40k (if you argue that you need a new competitive paper deck every 3 month, compare that o needing competitive army two or three times a year).

How much golfing costs also heavily depends on where you are. When I was living in the US, golfing was definitely cheaper than 40k, in Germany where prices for that hobby are artificially inflated, it's more.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
This hobby is definitely not cheap. You have to accept that and chose to be involved or not.

Going out for drinks regularly costs more than 40k
Golf costs more than 40k
Hobbies are generally expensive as they are non essential persuits.

Video gaming costs less than 40k
P&P costs less than 40k
LARP costs less than 40k
MtG costs less than 40k (if you argue that you need a new competitive paper deck every 3 month, compare that o needing competitive army two or three times a year).

How much golfing costs also heavily depends on where you are. When I was living in the US, golfing was definitely cheaper than 40k, in Germany where prices for that hobby are artificially inflated, it's more.

I'm a pc gamer and it costs me more than 40k.

I never said 40 is the cheapest hobby. I said hobbies are generally expensive and there are many that cost far more.

 Jidmah wrote:

MtG costs less than 40k (if you argue that you need a new competitive paper deck every 3 month, compare that o needing competitive army two or three times a year).

Sounds like the Power Nine have really come down in price....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Rob Lee wrote:


To say that's actually not a lot of money shows how little financial perspective people like yourself seem to have.

The cost of living in the US is vastly different to that here in the UK. Massively so. So you simply cannot say what you perceive to be "not a lot of money" is in fact the same for someone else.

And sitting there telling people, especially those in my situation, where I've been enjoying a hobby for 25+ years and am increasingly being pushed out of it, that it's only this, it's only that, it's not a lot of money, is at least condescending, if not insulting.

Is telling people it IS a lot of money showing how little financial perspective people like yourself seem to have? Is sitting there telling people, especially people in their situation, where they've been buying new minis and increasingly investing in it they're spending a lot of money at least condescending, if not judgy? Their opinion, such as it is their perspective. Yours, such as it is, is yours. Yours is no more right and accurate than theirs.

The BBC wrote: For the same rent or less, you could also get a three-bedroom property in Leeds (LS8) with money to spare. Or, if Leeds isn't for you, around 50% of all British postcode areas have an average price of £767 or lower for a three-bed.

£767 pounds is about $960. Where I live, you're looking at $1500+ (£1200+) for a 3 Bedroom. If you can even find one.

Breton wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

MtG costs less than 40k (if you argue that you need a new competitive paper deck every 3 month, compare that o needing competitive army two or three times a year).

Sounds like the Power Nine have really come down in price....

I have been playing MtG regularly for over twenty years and I have seen power nine being played exactly once. There is zero reason to buy cards that are banned in almost every game you will ever play. That's pretty much the same as buying a full 40k titan legion off FW.

MtG casual formats like drafts, commander, MTGA are all vastly cheaper than 40k casual formats. Even playing standard tournaments will be cheaper than chasing 40k tournament wins with constantly changing armies.

 Jidmah wrote:


I have been playing MtG regularly for over twenty years and I have seen power nine being played exactly once. There is zero reason to buy cards that are banned in almost every game you will ever play. That's pretty much the same as buying a full 40k titan legion off FW.

MtG casual formats like drafts, commander, MTGA are all vastly cheaper than 40k casual formats. Even playing standard tournaments will be cheaper than chasing 40k tournament wins with constantly changing armies.

I was playing when the Power Nine were just cards. They were far from banned in my gaming group, (we played to screw with the rules, not necessarily to win - based on the 60/30 Berserk Tramping Black Lotus deck, the 5 color every card players love to hate Annoyance Deck, among others) or the Vintage/Type I tournaments like the NYSE tournament giving away about $20,000 as their top four prizes. Regardless, it appears some people can justify M:tG and it can be more expensive.

Some people can also justify buying multiple titans from forgeworld.

A black lotus is about the same price as a warlord titan.

When the top-end spending is the same, and the low-end spending less, MtG is still cheaper than 40k.

 Jidmah wrote:
Some people can also justify buying multiple titans from forgeworld.

A black lotus is about the same price as a warlord titan.

When the top-end spending is the same, and the low-end spending less, MtG is still cheaper than 40k.

Low End Spending on 40K is nothing. You don't have to buy 32 new Guardsmen when you make a new army list. You have to buy a new box or more when one expansion ages out of current.

40k "Nothing" = existing army worth about $300, no matter how competitive

Magic "Nothing" = free starter deck from your FLGS or an event/download MTGA for free

 Jidmah wrote:
40k "Nothing" = existing army worth about $300, no matter how competitive

Magic "Nothing" = free starter deck from your FLGS or an event/download MTGA for free

The Free Starter Deck is competitive deck building now... Has anyone seen those goal posts?

I've just finished making a modern i would say semi competitive MTG deck (UW control) and with the money i spent on that i could have a 40k army easily. Could i make a cheaper deck, can i pay less using Arena?? probably yes to both of them but its got some of the same issue as warhammer, why would i buy a budget pauper deck if people only play modern and legacy?? Now MTG Arena is free, but is only good if you like standard, which to me is a money trap with constantly rotating cards, you could spend £200-£300 every rotation for a decent deck plus its all online which i just dont like as much as playing face to face.

Both these hobbies CAN be expensive but for the most part all i need to do is not go out for a meal, or out drinking for a couple of weekends and then i can spend that money on the equivalent in warhammer. For me I'm Price immune to price rises because i can plan on what things to chop and change if i wanted to buy something, be it warhammer, MTG or just a nice slap up meal with the misses.

Breton wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
40k "Nothing" = existing army worth about $300, no matter how competitive

Magic "Nothing" = free starter deck from your FLGS or an event/download MTGA for free

The Free Starter Deck is competitive deck building now... Has anyone seen those goal posts?

The ones you are moving?
From MtG being a hobby that is more expensive for the vast majority to one that *can* be more expensive if you ignore the rules and really want to?
Or the one where you claim that you can actually play power nine but still have cards rotating out?

The cost for playing your first game of magic is free compared to a solid hundred spent on getting your first small army.
The cost for playing casual magic is vastly lower than any kind of WH40k. The equivalent of a single box of miniatures is enough to keep a dozen casual decks up to date with current editions, starting a casual deck can be done for 20-40€.
The cost for playing competitive magic is lower or equal to playing competitive WH40k. Even buying a playset of the top mythic planeswalkers during hype season is just a bit more expensive than building and painting a unit of lootas and slightly cheaper than a chaos knight. Buying just the shooting units form Nick Sutherland's top-placing ork list clock in at 650€, assuming you already have all the characters, boyz and gretchin needed. Even the most ridiculous pile of expensive standard-legal cards is less than that, your average GT winning deck is half that.

So, no matter how you play, MtG is cheaper than playing WH40k in the same way.
Oh, and $20,000 is quite low for a MtG tournament. Mythic League Players get $75,000 for just showing up, with a pize pool of $1,000,000. Also, good luck finding legacy or vintage players in most areas.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

aldo1234 wrote:
I've just finished making a modern i would say semi competitive MTG deck (UW control) and with the money i spent on that i could have a 40k army easily. Could i make a cheaper deck, can i pay less using Arena?? probably yes to both of them but its got some of the same issue as warhammer, why would i buy a budget pauper deck if people only play modern and legacy?? Now MTG Arena is free, but is only good if you like standard, which to me is a money trap with constantly rotating cards, you could spend £200-£300 every rotation for a decent deck plus its all online which i just dont like as much as playing face to face.

There also is the option of just drafting or playing commander. Both are readily available everywhere.

If you follow some of the WH40k top players, some have gone through Gulliman Marines, Chaos, Ynnari, Knights and GSC just in the last two years. That's plenty of standard decks you could buy for that kind of money. even if you need to buy new lands each time (you usually don't).

There also is the option of just drafting or playing commander. Both are readily available everywhere.

I think thats a bit of a disingenuous, you cant complain about warhammer prices then bring up a format where you are required to pay roughly £10 in packs before you even start and can only use them in that event, and commander is a completely different ballpark sure you can build a £10 commander deck but for every one of them theres also a full foiled atraxa decks with all masterpieces, and again what if you dont like those formats what do i then do?? (i actually really like commander but my two main decks probably cost about the same as my warhammer collections)

All 3 of these:

- Not that rich but GWs increases arent significant enough to you
I commission paint on the side and my hobby budget is the money I make from painting. The spouse doesnt know about these spendings so that fact that a Baneblade went from 90 to 140 doesnt matter. Can you believe a razorback is 45? If I need 3 I wont pay that.... but I would try and hunt the weapons and then strip down the 7-8 or so rhinos I have.

- Have very large collections already so only ever need 1-2 units to complete armies / update armies
I have multiple armies unpainted and don't need anything but duplicate units for the factions I play

- Dont buy from GW (ebay, 3rd party, swaps etc)
I'm a big fan of eBay and buying OOP metal models. I also take trades of armies as pay for painting commissions


MTG isnt cheaper than Warhammer for me personally. IT IS FOR SOME PEOPLE THAT ENJOY CASUAL PLAY. I played standard and flavor of the month. Maybe $200/mo on MTG but I only played 3-4 days a month and half of that draft. With Warhammer I'm painting nearly every day and playing only 3-4 days a week but the $100-200 I spend a month. I'm making money back painting or it's more hours of enjoyment I can have later in that year. D&D is fairly expensive time-wise for me as a DM

So, I've spent $1,147 (CAD), inc. H.S.T., on 3,878pts and have played a lot of games with them over the 21 months I've been working on them.

I paid $2.64, inc. H.S.T., for Fallout: New Vegas on Steam and I've probably spent comparable time playing that as playing 40K. Not building and painting, just playing.

An annual pass for the yoga studio I go to costs me $1,200, excluding H.S.T... I spend over $3,000 a year on cigarettes.

'Expense' is inextricably liked with value and value is necessarily subjective. Mother Dear's boyfriend thinks nothing of dropping £2k on a Gretsch, but won't shell out £400 for a new sofa.

So...

aldo1234 wrote:
I think thats a bit of a disingenuous, you cant complain about warhammer prices then bring up a format where you are required to pay roughly £10 in packs before you even start and can only use them in that event,

If you play draft three times a month for two months, that's still less than a single unit of boyz, paint not included. And that's before you consider that you can just sell the cards you drafted to play more drafts.
If you want to pay little to nothing for MtG and still play competitively, this is by far the best method.

and commander is a completely different ballpark sure you can build a £10 commander deck but for every one of them theres also a full foiled atraxa decks with all masterpieces,

Both foil and master pieces have zero game value and are just for burning money. Claiming either are necessary for any kind of game is wrong.
I might as well claim that WH40k is at least £480 to play, because you need to buy a Realm of Battle board to play on first.

and again what if you dont like those formats what do i then do?? (i actually really like commander but my two main decks probably cost about the same as my warhammer collections)

The same you do when all your friends want to play Kill Team instead of 40k. Either play the format available or don't play.

Some people claiming that 40k is very expensive and nothing else are pretty wrong.

You can play perfectly good games of kill team after buying one infantry box and a rulebook. It's as expensive as you're ultimately prepared to make it.

There's a variety of games that cater to different tastes and budgets.

The SO and I would probably primarily be #2 but #3 and #4 are also relevant.

Not that rich but Gws increases arent significant enough to you

We both have decent jobs, and we rent a room in our house for added income because we don't have any other use for the space. We buy full-price to support our FLGS and for the added customer service benefits.

Have very large collections already so only ever need 1-2 units to complete armies / update armies

I started off the hobby with the ideal to collect 1 full-size squad of every unit from my army - Asuryani - and having accomplished that some time ago, it only takes a squad here or there to finish most of my lists. The SO only grabs what they want to finish a list and crash-builds it, since they work best on deadlines.

Dont buy from GW (ebay, 3rd party, swaps etc)

This is much less of a thing, but I will spend hours digging through bins at swap-meets and finding bits to kit-bash or complete models that are not quite but really close to being complete. And old metal models are fun just for the sheer joy of having the entire development line of a model from metal to current.

So yeah, the price increases are annoying but ultimately not that big a deal for us.

Too rich too care
I suppose I should fall into this category based on my circumstances (single, 20s, well-paid job in the city) but I just can't shake the feeling of getting stiffed with certain products.

Have very large collections already so only ever need 1-2 units to complete armies / update armies
Dont buy from GW (ebay, 3rd party, swaps etc)
Far more these two: I think most of us reach a point when we are idly perusing ebay for deals to fill in the odd gaps, and not really actively pursuing huge armies any more. That being said I have bought a fair number of big ticket items from GW on impulse/through my favoured third party

If you're going to try to argue that you can play MTG with a free starter deck (that loses 95% of the time or worse against anyone not using the free starter deck) then you need to compare it to playing 40k with paper tokens and a pirated pdf of the rules.

 Peregrine wrote:
If you're going to try to argue that you can play MTG with a free starter deck (that loses 95% of the time or worse against anyone not using the free starter deck) then you need to compare it to playing 40k with paper tokens and a pirated pdf of the rules.

Internet Guy wrote:But my friend gave me 40 commons and the FLGS gave me 20 lands.
I'm playing Magic for FRREEEEE.
I have a Craw Wurm in my deck and once I draw it you're dead!

It's a really weird argument because... like... yeah it is true, you can play Magic for "Free".
You can be an artist with a free pencil and paper scraps you find on the ground but is that the typical scenario?
At this point you can almost get an old marine army for free via old mono-pose marines that people are almost giving away.
Combine with conversions and scratch-builds and you could have a "solid" army... well an army...
Let us not forget the tournament-winning dollar store bug army.

 Peregrine wrote:
If you're going to try to argue that you can play MTG with a free starter deck (that loses 95% of the time or worse against anyone not using the free starter deck) then you need to compare it to playing 40k with paper tokens and a pirated pdf of the rules.

Ok. Playing 40k with paper tokens and pirated pdfs and unpainted minis is still $125 for Dark Imperium to get an army that will lose 95% of its games.

I guess MtG is still cheaper.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Cryptek of Awesome wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
If you're going to try to argue that you can play MTG with a free starter deck (that loses 95% of the time or worse against anyone not using the free starter deck) then you need to compare it to playing 40k with paper tokens and a pirated pdf of the rules.

Internet Guy wrote:But my friend gave me 40 commons and the FLGS gave me 20 lands.
I'm playing Magic for FRREEEEE.
I have a Craw Wurm in my deck and once I draw it you're dead!

It's a really weird argument because... like... yeah it is true, you can play Magic for "Free".
You can be an artist with a free pencil and paper scraps you find on the ground but is that the typical scenario?
At this point you can almost get an old marine army for free via old mono-pose marines that people are almost giving away.
Combine with conversions and scratch-builds and you could have a "solid" army... well an army...
Let us not forget the tournament-winning dollar store bug army.

I guess any logical fallacy and flat lies are ok to defend this urban myth of MtG being more expensive than WH40k, right?

Those armies that people are "almost giving away" are still $200+ on ebay. Scratch-builds still cost money and time, plus they require skill. And if consider proxies to be an ok way to play, MtG proxies can be printed anywhere.

On MTGA I have two decks which match what current tournament winning players are running, and I have not spend a single cent on them. Playing competitive magic is literally free online, not just "free".
And even if you start spending money on paper MtG to regularly play games, it will be less than the money required to regularly play WH40k when you play both games on the same level.

The only time 40k appears to be cheaper when you compare competitive magic gaming to casual "I haven't updated my army in years" 40k.

You're not addressing the fact that 40k can be extremely cheap and you can play kill team for a tiny investment.

I'm bored of the magic discussion. Magic is a card game and not a direct comparison to 40k - there's no painting of miniatures involved. You may as well be comparing 40k to gaming.

No one is saying that 40k doesn't have a cost attached to it. I'm saying that if you're finding the cost to be upsetting or offensive you should re-think your investment in the hobby. There is no illusion at any given point being projected that you can collect a dream army from multiple factions without an investment.

In the grand scheme of things I find the hobby to have a notable cost but not one that is unreasonable compared to other popular hobbies. Some are cheaper, others cost more. All hobbies vary - gaming can be very cheap, alternatively it could be incredibly expensive if you're a HTC VR gamer on a top computer. Same applies to 40k. No one is forcing anyone to play at 2k points, you can literally get started in the hobby by investing in a single plastic kit and enjoy games of kill team as you slowly build up a force.

 Jidmah wrote:
Ok. Playing 40k with paper tokens and pirated pdfs and unpainted minis is still $125 for Dark Imperium to get an army that will lose 95% of its games.

I guess MtG is still cheaper.

No, playing with paper tokens instead of models. Cost = free, and about as relevant to real 40k as the free MTG demo deck is to real MTG.

 Peregrine wrote:
If you're going to try to argue that you can play MTG with a free starter deck (that loses 95% of the time or worse against anyone not using the free starter deck) then you need to compare it to playing 40k with paper tokens and a pirated pdf of the rules.

A much more accurate analogy would be comparing it to one of the 40k starter sets. Both provide the bare minimum required to play but don't really offer enough to actually compete meaningfully with more established players. For that you'll need more cards/models. Your 40k analogy extended to MtG would mean playing MtG with printed cards rather than official ones, which is almost free. So MtG is still cheaper but they're both in the same ballpark.

So... paper tokens and pirated .pdfs but you're paying for Dark Imperium?

Except to deliberately skew the numbers, why?

 Excommunicatus wrote:
So... paper tokens and pirated .pdfs but you're paying for Dark Imperium?

Except to deliberately skew the numbers, why?

I'm specifically saying the opposite of that. I'm saying the nearest 40k analog for a free starter deck in Magic is something like Dark Imperium. If you are going to claim you can play 40k for cheap using paper tokens then the same applies to Magic using photocopied cards.

Yes, no other company comes close for what I personally like about GW's product so I'd buy regardless, price just effects volume.

I do mitigate where possible e.g. Buying new stuff at launch to get the biggest discount, splitting large boxes and reselling bits I don't want, buying where the discount is best, reselling old models I no longer want.

Only thing be cut out this year is GW non black Library events, it's pointless as all the news goes up online and I live local so can visit when it's quieter if I want to go to bugmans or the exhibition.