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 mad robot wrote:
From my store, under the Caipari Shocktroops, 3 squads, command squad and 6 HW teams come out to roughly US$192. Add $10 for a commissar kit as well. With my offerings, you get to choose your heads, weapons, and special weapons for each squad, from the entire catalog. That package would also ship free.

Just worked it out in AUD. It'd cost me $350 + plus whatever shipping to Australia would cost for the Mad Robot equivalent. So a bit over a 3rd of the price for the same amount of minis.


I gotta get in touch with GW's pricing department and see if they can hook me up with their crack dealer. Coz the gak they're smoking is poooooowerful stuff.

Yeah, the pricing for these is insane beyond belief. I don't have a dog in this fight as I had no interest in picking up a Steel Legion army or even a couple of squads, but Good God Almighty I'm sure glad I don't need these. Even by GW standards this is crazy. Unfortunately, when these inevitably don't sell well GW will probably interpret it as a lack of interest in Steel Legion rather than their insane price points being the problem (as others mentioned earlier in the thread).

Funny how most of their recent Middle-Earth MTOs haven't been too bad (for GW anyways), but then they go and do this. I wonder, what's the difference?

Are they making each damn one by hand? WTF?!

Ragweek wrote:

 stonehorse wrote:

Ragweek wrote:

beast_gts wrote:
Armageddon Steel Legion – Made to Order coming up!

Sunday Preview – Commander Farsight Takes His Shot at the Arks of Omen

Commissar Yarrick may have gone to join the Emperor’s side, but the loyal Guardsmen of Armageddon are still alive and kicking. For a limited time, you can get your hands on a huge array of classic Steel Legion units on a Made to Order basis, from sword-swinging officers to ranks of disciplined Guardsmen.

If you feel like packing out your platoon with an effective firing line of iconic Imperial firepower, the Steel Legion Platoon is especially apt for the task. A gas-masked Officer leads three lascannon-toting Heavy Weapons Teams and 20 Steel Legion Guardsmen – you’ll want plenty of them to kick Ghazghkull off-world the next time he shows his ugly mug.

Spoiler:

Wow this was a surprise! I am so going to be all over this! Like a tramp on chips!

Any idea on costs. I belive the steel legion infantry squad used to be £20. I'm guess somthing like £26 with inflation.

£26, no chance... my guess would be £40.

If i was a gambling man I would take you on that I'm closer. However, knowing gw I could easily get burnt.

Called it, or GW saw my post and thought it sounded like a reasonable price.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 kodos wrote:
Did anyone really expect them to be cheaper than the plastic models?

They did the exact same Steel Legion Squad as an MTO last year for $35 USDD. It's $65 US this year. People were expecting maybe $10-15 more not near double.Glad I grabbed the one squad I needed then.

How much plastic cadians costed then?

Yes it sucks but no chance in hell it was going to outprice plastics.

Yes the prices suck but you got to be drinking lots of hopium if you think gw cuts prices. Western economy works by inflation so best you can hope is small price increase. Decrease not a chance.

Amusing how outraged people are over expected price level
:f you expected cheaper you were set up for dissapointment.

Care to try to justify the HWS pricing like that, tneva? We're looking at £30 for the new plastic Cadian kits, compared to an eye-watering £67.50 for the Steel Legion ones - and that's fething ridiculous.

You are allowed to take the boot out of your mouth from time to time, you know.

He he he, wow those prices. I was expecting to see a 10$ hike, but man, the squad went from 35$ when they discontinued them a year ago to 65$. I'm glad I have more than enough thanks to ebay years ago plus grabbing a handful of squads before they discontinued them, but man it sucks for anybody who desperately wants the official GW models.

With those prices, maybe I'll sell a couple of figures and take your first born, before GW does.

The worst about it is that these are old figures. you can get them off of FeeBay for a song and a dance for a quarter the price.

Nm

Please do not post like this again.

I'm sure there's a management trainee somewhere saying that if they don't charge ebay prices they're leaving money on the table.

Ouch, those prices are eye watering...

I wanted to pick up a few of these, but I'll probably only get the bare minimum to meet my needs (a single lascannon team). I have enough from when they were going OOP to keep me busy for awhile anyway.

 alphaecho wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:


I really could ask for some sniper rifles, and some additional weapons for them though.

It was always bizarre that the Steel Legion sniper model was a Necromunda release...

Wasn't that a release before sniper rifles in an IG squad were a thing?

Ratlings or nothing for sharpshooters at the time?

Technically, the hardened veterans unit could take a sniper rifle and the Last Chancers fixed unit had one, but they were the only guardsmen carrying snipers until the various Chapter Approved forces and Codex: Catachans. The second Imperial Guard codex of 3rd edition a few years later allowed special weapons squads to take snipers, and infantry squads upgraded with the light infantry doctrine could take a sniper rifle instead of a heavy weapons team (the mechanised and light infantry doctrines were mutually exclusive, so a Steel Legion force was likely to only be able to take snipers in special weapons squads).

Then the 5th edition codex added snipers as a standard special weapon for every unit except rough riders, storm troopers, and ogryn.

So I just went and bought some 3D files instead and will be printing the small army I wanted to do with this re-release. Instead of the 550$ or-so I would have to spent on GW stuff (for barely 500pts of guards), I spent about 45$ on two files and will have the exact same thing GW offer, but with more options (like plasma pistols, all type of special and heavy weapons, medic, comm, etc) and all the model I could need.

GW dropped the ball on this one for me, I don't want to pay those prices and looks like many here were turned off too.

Well, I laughed when I saw the prices but on a second thought they make sense given GW priorities.

Against what some seem to think GW prices things according to how much people are ready to pay, not how much they cost them. The arguments have been rehashed many times before and their very healthy profits show that their prices are clearly above costs.

Then, they need to know how much are people ready to pay and that isn’t trivial. Now, these miniatures are for collectors mainly, as someone that is mostly a player will probably be best served by the normal cadian squads, and they will be available only this week, so they are a good chance to see how far they can get.

Yes, they are a rip-off but if you really want one miniature you may pay it, there is after all a not innocent lapse between the announcement of a MTO and the announcement of the prices which gives time enough for a “need” to develop once you’ve decided that you’re going to buy something. It’s not sensible behavior, but after spending some time in Dakka you can’t tell me that you expect everyone or mostly everyone to be sensible.

In my case I wasn’t interested strongly in any of the miniatures of the range, that is I knew that they would be to expensive for the interest I have in them, but I have paid 20€ a few years ago for the Noise Marine and I know that I would have paid more if I had needed to. And if they make a MTO run of the Green Knight or some others miniatures that have caught my fancy and are OOP I would be very tempted to order them even at prices like this. They would be a rip-off and at the same time they would be worth it to me if I could afford them. You shouldn’t overestimate how cheap or big are the secondary markets outside the UK or USA and some people want new miniatures only.

And even if only the whales and those obsessed with some of the miniatures offered buy them it’s all profits. It’s reasonable to suppose that MTO are made in between normal production runs, so if few people buy something in this MTO they can just make a new MTO before they would have if this was a success. And of course they have gotten valuable information from how people have voted with their wallets after seeing these prices.

And no, they don’t care if MTO are cheaper than the normal squads, they are willing to offer lower prices if they are only available temporarily, much lower in the case of the partworks and lower in the case of bundles, after all the bundles have an implicit “buy now or pay more later”. And given that everything that they sell directly has probably double profits than usual they could have sell this at half or less of what they are asking for it.

GW is so big that they can afford to be inefficient, and they are many many times, but I don’t think that they have bungled anything with this MTO. It’s not nice, but GW isn’t your friend, it’s a predatory firm that squeezes as much money as they can from their first mover advantage.

Oh, I think that 3d prints are going to limit their behavior pretty soon.

I don't have a 3d printer but seeing the models available and the quality of the prints it has already changed what I have bought in the last year. Now, I know that unless I want a miniature that is exactly like the one that GW sells I will have something at least similar that will give me WYSIWYG and I will be able to print it just before painting it. That sounds much better that buying something because it might become OOP suddenly and adding it to the backlog. So I keep buying the miniatures I really like that don't have an insane price, but I certainly buy less than before. I doubt I'm the only one with this attitude.

And to those who think that many will never deal with 3d prints, you only need to have someone close that can print it for you or a resonable priced printing service. I expect 3d printing to have an effect in the hobby far beyond those that actually print themselves.

 Dysartes wrote:
Care to try to justify the HWS pricing like that, tneva? We're looking at £30 for the new plastic Cadian kits, compared to an eye-watering £67.50 for the Steel Legion ones - and that's fething ridiculous.

You are allowed to take the boot out of your mouth from time to time, you know.

Who says i agree with prices? I wasn't just silly enough to drink hopium to expect less when this was always going to be price level at bare minimum

Prices were exactly as expected. Which is why i find people who first say interested and then complain prices hilarious. If prices were turn off they never had reason to be interested as this was floor of prices...

I just put it 1+1=2, knew prices in advance and was always whatever regarding mto because knew price level wasn't one i was interested.

I just didn't go through pretense of claiming to be interested because with known price level i wasn't.

Do find this thread good entertaiment though. Time for pop corn.

Ultimately it comes down to profits. If you haven't realized it yet here's newsflash: gw's priority is profits. Doesn't care about whether some random nobody in forum complains about prices. And unless you run more profitable company odds are they know better than you how to make profit than you or are you one of those who like to claim they could do better but just don't want to

That's certainly a take...

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I'm sure there's a management trainee somewhere saying that if they don't charge ebay prices they're leaving money on the table.

Don't they? (Some) People are obviously willing to pay these prices...

I mean considering the limited number of sculpts, this has to be pushing some kind of line where you can buy a resin printer and STLs for less than the platoon.

If resin printers can sell for £100+, and STLs for £10s of pounds, this is easily possible.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
I mean considering the limited number of sculpts, this has to be pushing some kind of line where you can buy a resin printer and STLs for less than the platoon.

Especially when you consider that 3D scans of Steel Legion minis exist now.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I'm sure there's a management trainee somewhere saying that if they don't charge ebay prices they're leaving money on the table.

GW does not care about ebay

it is very simple, taking the cost of current plastic, take the cost from the last MTO, combine them and you get a decent "FOMO" price, just that this time it is not the fear of missing out, but the fear that the models are even more expensive if you don't buy them now

as most people who want them complain that they did not bought more with the last MTO, so buy now because otherwise you will pay even more with ebay and double the price if they ever come up for MTO again
just think of all the value you get and money you save if they double again

dyndraig wrote:

The_Real_Chris wrote:
I mean considering the limited number of sculpts, this has to be pushing some kind of line where you can buy a resin printer and STLs for less than the platoon.

Especially when you consider that 3D scans of Steel Legion minis exist now.

I went 15mm myself, but the sculpts are aguably better than the "real" ones

 Skywave wrote:
Instead of the 550$ or-so I would have to spent on GW stuff (for barely 500pts of guards)...

If that's $550 USD, then that's approaching Elegoo Saturn 2 money - an 8K mono printer with a print bed big enough for a squad and a half or a small tank all in one run. Just saying...

Albertorius wrote:

dyndraig wrote:

The_Real_Chris wrote:
I mean considering the limited number of sculpts, this has to be pushing some kind of line where you can buy a resin printer and STLs for less than the platoon.

Especially when you consider that 3D scans of Steel Legion minis exist now.

I went 15mm myself, but the sculpts are aguably better than the "real" ones

Spoiler:

That looks really good. Once I have space, I think I need to invest in a 3d printer.

Off topic but the 3D printer Armageddon for model companies does seem to be increasingly near. Around a 3rd of the chaps at the local club now have printers.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
Off topic but the 3D printer Armageddon for model companies does seem to be increasingly near. Around a 3rd of the chaps at the local club now have printers.

Won't be an Armageddon for the companies if they approach it as a way of cutting down their own costs. They could do a subscription service for models and sell the STL files before the physical release. People who do not want to spend the time on printing their own can still buy the models directly from them, but for those that wish to print them and enjoy that aspect it would be available for personal use. They could even embrace having authorized printers of the models in certain geographic areas for a fee. That would again reduce costs of manufacturing, shipping and storage. It might affect the FOMO, but it would mean that there would be less backlash for not having models available months later. There is a ton of money being left on the table if you look at it as a way for GW to cut back against the "Designers" that copy their models with minor changes.

Join ussssssssss!!1!111

 Theophony wrote:
They could do a subscription service for models and sell the STL files before the physical release. People who do not want to spend the time on printing their own can still buy the models directly from them, but for those that wish to print them and enjoy that aspect it would be available for personal use.

For lead/resin, yes. For plastic the economies of scale are needed for moulds. There has been a bit of a reckoning in the 3D market with people having less post covid time, but also too much on offer. Creators finding diminishing returns in a niche market. I can well imagine machine learning being applied to both make STLs but also pose them in say 10 different ways for a squad.

Wargames Atlantic is doing what you describe, selling STLs and plastics at the same time. They also prove that plastics can still be profitable even when the STLs are available, so long as the plastics are accessible and reasonably priced.


GW’s biggest issue is with its pricing putting more and more pressure on the market to come up with solutions. Companies that don’t force their customers into the hands of 3D printers have a lot less to fear.