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 G. Whitenbeard wrote:
Hobbies are an expense. We spend the money because we enjoy them.

Warhammer, in the grand scheme of hobbies, is really not that expensive. Not that the plastic itself is cheap (it's not), but the upkeep cost and use cost is extraordinarily minimal. Ask a paintballer how much it costs him to play for a weekend. Ask a car rebuilder how much it costs to fix a brake. Ask a duck hunter how much a camo jacket or a box of Hevi-shot costs.

With personal responsibility and a plan, it is easy to save up and build up an army. Once you buy the models, you never need to buy them again. Limit yourself to a new kit once you have painted the previous kit. You can spend time painting them, posing them, and using them. There is no entry fee to play on a dining room table or at a game club.

I find that the people who complain about the cost of Warhammer the most are the ones who rapidly change from army to army without building or painting most of their models.

It involves strategy, creativity, artistry, and socialization. Not many other hobbies can say that.

If you enjoy it, then it is worth it.

Been saying this on here for the better part of a year...

I think the key with anything, and that applies to miniatures as well, is to budget. If you can afford only to only spend $40/month on miniatures, then save up for a few months and buy a bunch at a time, or set yourself goals of X unit purchased and painted in January, Z unit done in March, etc. Buying one unit at a time also allows you to paint everything before moving on to other units.
There's always a lot of talk about $500 armies. If you break that down by $50/month, you're looking at a 10 month time span to collect and paint those $500 worth of army. Yes, it will take some time, and yes, you won't be able to play immediately(barring proxies), but you're also not dropping a month's rent on miniatures in one single chunk.

 ph34r wrote:
Have you seen the latest GW intro set? Best ever to be sure.

It might be the "best ever", but it's still garbage. You don't get all the rules, you have to throw away money on an army you don't want (unless you get into 40k with a friend and split the box), the armies aren't legal for use outside of the starter box scenarios, and the points aren't even close to balanced between the two armies so it's even more garbage if you don't want to play marines. Oh, and forget about it if you want to play any other army, since they don't get a starter box.

 Peregrine wrote:
It might be the "best ever", but it's still garbage. You don't get all the rules

You get all the rules to play all the scenarios in the box with the forces provided, and you get the full rulebook sans fluff. You don't get full codices, but that's not needed for the set to work.

 Peregrine wrote:
you have to throw away money on an army you don't want (unless you get into 40k with a friend and split the box)

Starter sets are usually like this. Even Privateer Press and Battlefront Games have jumped on the 2 opposing forces starter sets. Hardly a fault.

 Peregrine wrote:
the armies aren't legal for use outside of the starter box scenarios

Only the Dark Angles are illegal outside of the started, needing Belial to make the Terminators troops. The Chaos force is perfectly legal (1 HQ, 2 troops, 2 elites). So no, both forces being illegal is false.

 Peregrine wrote:
and the points aren't even close to balanced between the two armies so it's even more garbage if you don't want to play marines.

This is pretty much the only fault with the set, and is only noticeable in 2 of the scenarios.

 Peregrine wrote:
Oh, and forget about it if you want to play any other army, since they don't get a starter box.

Irrelevant. You know what's in it when you buy it. What's in it is fantastic. Yes, it's only fantastic if you want Chaos or Dark Angels. That doesn't stop the fantasticness.

I had no idea this thread would take off the way it did! I personally have been war-gaming since the late 80's and took a loooong break from it when I joined the Army. What got me concerned about costs was researching Blood Bowl for another thread... I thought I'd look at some sites and compare pricing, as well as what I paid for my stuff when I got the bulk of my minis and was Gung-Ho war-gaming (the late 90's)... I couldn't believe how much the prices have escalated. When I was wounded and released from service I was seriously considering getting back in to the hobby with the minis and armies I already had... So I limped to the local gaming store and saw that my stuff was pretty well dated but I could still field what I had. I knew heads would turn and there would probably be some jokes and jeers at my expense, but I could rest assured that my stuff was assembled and painted... and already paid for! The down side was that all the "specialty games" had absolutely no one playing them, i.e. Mordheim, Necromunda, Blood Bowl... It was either Warmachine or GW's 40k and fantasy (at my local store anyways)... My other concern was having a fixed income and trying to keep up with the hobby... It was mentioned that you could buy a set, paint it, and pretty much piece-meal your force together over time... The plus to that is that it is a great way to work with a fixed income and build up your force within a year or so... but the minus is you'd have to wait 10 months plus before you could field a legit, legal force...

I, currently working on my PhD in Psychology, have found that when it comes to the all mighty $$ that people are very fickle with what they put their money in... I know I am. Nobody wants to put their money into a dying horse. The thing is, you never know when they are going to make changes, and things become obsolete.

I guess what I am trying to get feedback on is a new-comer's ability to purchase what they need to play and successfully participate within a reasonable amount of time.

Thanks to everyone for their input!

 tdjarvis302 wrote:

I guess what I am trying to get feedback on is a new-comer's ability to purchase what they need to play and successfully participate within a reasonable amount of time.

Thanks to everyone for their input!

It depends on your situation, the game you want to play and how much you're willing/able to spend - and what you're willing to go without to get that bit of extra money to buy models with - there's a lot of non-essential garbage that adults buy that adds up to quite a bit - that happen to have cheaper and more healthy substitutes - Starbucks/take out coffee, booze, cigarettes, chocolate bars, potato chips.

Then there's something like this:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/472004.page

Comes with the core of - or effectively two starter armies for a reasonable price (even cheaper if you split it - or two solid armies if you split two of them) it just depends on if you're interested in playing with WW2 rules, or have others to play it with.

It doesn't matter how much other hobbies cost. There are a lot of people who look at 40k and say "that looks kind of neat." Then they see the prices and say "That's not worth it! They are just plastic men!"

To those of us who are more into the hobby, game, and setting we see more intrinsic value in the miniatures. A new prospective player does not necessarily see it the same way. They don't have any experience playing tabletop games, they don't care about the fluff/setting (at least not any more than mere curiosity), and they don't know the joy of painting and building an army since they have never done it.

Comparing costs of different hobbies is completely irrelevant. Knitting is cheaper (usually) than wargaming, but that doesn't mean that I want to do it or feel that it is worth the money to do it.

I could have a hobby restoring WWII aircraft but still be of the opinion 40K is over priced for what you are getting.

My wife and I were talking a bit about the costs yesterday.

A few minutes into it she broke it down this way: she likes sushi. A night out to a good sushi restaurant easily hits $80. For.one.meal. Do that twice a month plus eating out at a few other places and those "entertainment" costs easily eclipse my hobby budget.

Heck, just going to a movie ( 2 people ) is $50 to $60 dollars.

So, in my opinion: $20 for one little guy is a lot of money. But I will certainly enjoy that model for years whereas a dinner is gone pretty quick and most movies are utter trash anyway.

clively wrote:
So, in my opinion: $20 for one little guy is a lot of money. But I will certainly enjoy that model for years whereas a dinner is gone pretty quick and most movies are utter trash anyway.

This is the key difference to other hobbies. That $20 miniature? Forever useful. Even if the game collapses, there's other ways and games you can use them in. New model comes out? Doesn't invalidate your current model at all.

 -Loki- wrote:
You get all the rules to play all the scenarios in the box with the forces provided, and you get the full rulebook sans fluff. You don't get full codices, but that's not needed for the set to work.

Yes, the codex IS needed for the set to work, because unless you are lucky enough to start 40k at the same time as a friend and split the box you're going to be playing against armies outside the starter set, and that means you need a codex.

Only the Dark Angles are illegal outside of the started, needing Belial to make the Terminators troops. The Chaos force is perfectly legal (1 HQ, 2 troops, 2 elites). So no, both forces being illegal is false.

Ok, let's be reasonable here, the chaos force might technically be legal, but it's not even remotely close to anything you'd ever use in a real game. So you have one illegal army, and one army that might as well be illegal. And of course past starter sets and battleforces haven't been any better.

This is pretty much the only fault with the set, and is only noticeable in 2 of the scenarios.

Or if you ever decide to try playing the main rulebook scenarios with the models you got.

Irrelevant. You know what's in it when you buy it. What's in it is fantastic. Yes, it's only fantastic if you want Chaos or Dark Angels. That doesn't stop the fantasticness.

Except the whole point of a starter set is to get new people into the game. A starter set that excludes most new players (because they don't want to play one of the starter set armies) is a garbage starter set, especially when GW's battleforce options are even worse.

Be smart with your money is all...ebay, kijiji, trade shops...all affordable ways to be in the hobby.
I mainly just despise how crappy warhammer 40k has become as a game so will stick with Warmahordes now...there are other games I want to try too like dreadball, and firestorm armada...but with FA I have no one to play with really...and we'll see about dreadball.

I bought a used half painted SM Army with all the essentials used through the dakka swapshop for $250 bucks. It amount to 2k plus worth of points. Plan to soak them, brush them, re-primer them, then paint them to my liking. Remodeling as I go along with upgrade and weapon sprews etc.

Total cost will be less than $400 US for a fully customized, painted, playable SM army. Screw GW and paying full price.

Some kits are hugely overpriced, simple as.

I was looking to buy 21 space marine bikes to make a biker army, £8 per bike! £168 for 21 bikes, £168!!! These models only warrent a cost of £5 maximum, it's just injection moulded plastic for feths sake, I know the molds cost a fortune initially but they've been selling the same god damned bike kit since before I started collecting well over 10 years ago.

£8 for a bike, then £16.50 for an attack bike, that's just fething insulting.

I think games workshop belive their models are made of 24 carrat gold, Namibian blood diamonds and 95% pure columbian cocaine rater than plastic and crappy imitation resin.

I'm hardly adverse to expensive hobies either I collect limited edition premium format star wars statues from sideshow, attakus and gentle giant which can go for £100s but they feel great value compared to a 28mm scale unasembled, unpainted chunk of injection moulded plastic on a sprue for 8 fething quid!

 -Loki- wrote:

clively wrote:
So, in my opinion: $20 for one little guy is a lot of money. But I will certainly enjoy that model for years whereas a dinner is gone pretty quick and most movies are utter trash anyway.

This is the key difference to other hobbies. That $20 miniature? Forever useful. Even if the game collapses, there's other ways and games you can use them in. New model comes out? Doesn't invalidate your current model at all.

I have a vast amount of miniatures that are sitting in boxes or on shelves, and will be forever unloved (I apologise to them for any Toy Story scenario where they are coming awake during the night and reading this post! )

Sorry I'm being facetious! Although I think reading people's comments above the point is that the perceived value of something is the most important issue. People will hand over money for something if they deem it to be worth it - yes even Sushi for $80, airsoft for $500, to quote some examples above. No doubt many would still purchase a miniature wargaming starter box for $200, should that situation ever occur in the future - many arguments for it providing relative worth would still apply, even in that case.

The problem comes to GW that there are less and less people for whom this perceived value applies - yes there are still many, as this thread testifies (although on a GW-centric forum, they would be in deep trouble if that were not the case!), but I think the number of people for whom that relative value is 'worth it' is reducing. This problem is exacerbated by:
- Price increases above the rate of inflation, as well as re-boxing that further increase the cost/per mini.
- The relative amount of miniatures needed to play the core game. Alterations of rules that favour higher model count, introduction of new 'must have' units that prompt further expenditure.
- The cost of playing GW games relative to other gaming systems made by different manufacturers. *
- The QC issues with Finecast which I think really damaged the company's reputation for quality (well, at least it did in my case).
- The lightweight resin used means that blister packs feel like they are carrying nothing but air; they 'feel' less valuable than the metal minis used to, which ties into a psychological factor of us associating value with the tactile responses associated with holding something (I think so, really! )
- A lot of the new kits, especially the larger ones, look more like toys than 'serious' modelling kits intended for adults. A more 'mature' design necessarily has more value associated with it than something that looks like it was made for children (with its associations of being cheaply made and mass produced in the Far East, designed to be used for one christmas and then thrown into a box).
(((- The company's reputation for greed. Perhaps it is just a personal thing, but I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable handing money over to GW considering their business practices over the past 3-4 years. Not one thing in particular, and I don't want to go into it here, but just an insidious feeling that has grown on me with each policy change that comes to pass - like a gradual poking and wearing down of my resistance to it. I've put this one in brackets though as I think it won't apply to most people, only those who have followed the wargaming hobby for enough years to see the changes, and the most nerdy who spend far too much time hanging around on forums! )))

*I highlighted this one as I think it's possibly the most important, considering some of the comments in this thread. Especially for those of us who have been around for longer, it is far easier to compare to other company's prices, and far less easy to reconcile the perennial price rise (go back each year and read the 50 page threads each time, usually around June).
A lot of people who defend GW's current prices I think probably aren't aware of that, or else have a limited experience of the hobby as a whole outside of GW's games.

Of course many also say, "well I can afford it, so what?" but then that is not important regarding the discussion at hand. As Scipio.au pointed out at the end of his post above, I'm talking about buy-in cost here (either new players, or someone starting a new army) rather than someone who perhaps only has to buy a box or two a year - of course the price increases for those people will be far less important.

 Pacific wrote:

The problem comes to GW that there are less and less people for whom this perceived value applies - yes there are still many, as this thread testifies (although on a GW-centric forum, they would be in deep trouble if that were not the case!), but I think the number of people for whom that relative value is 'worth it' is reducing. This problem is exacerbated by:
- The QC issues with Finecast which I think really damaged the company's reputation for quality (well, at least it did in my case).
- The lightweight resin used means that blister packs feel like they are carrying nothing but air; they 'feel' less valuable than the metal minis used to, which ties into a psychological factor of us associating value with the tactile responses associated with holding something (I think so, really!

These are both really valid points - I've bought a couple of Finecast items off resellers, and they've almost all been faulty. Even replacements from GW were faulty - though less so. I think the tactile point is a good one as well.

Tactile point is a very good one.

I don't mind my minis feeling like air when I've paid £1 each for them... less so when it's £12/model.

And to make matters worse, the material *bends* which further increases the overall impression of it being shoddy/ cheap PVC Chinese mcdonald's toy that won't last.

Oh, and then there's the small fact that the stupid things warp in any kind of heat. Buy finecast carnosaur on 2 legs, and it is 100% guaranteed that 6 months later you will have a finecast carnosaur on 4 legs.

And on the whole, the pricing for this material has gone up compared to metal.

I really don't understand why anyone expresses a like a finecast at any point. I can understand still buying it since "Official Citadel GW-legal Product" stills matters to a lot of people, but actually liking it just confuses me.

The material is flat-out the only reason why I'm not going to get a new eldar army when they re-launch... I'm quite attached to the army and its background after playing it for over a decade, to the point where it could be considered an exception. Not with finecast though, no way in hell, GW really is dead to me at this point.

UNCLEBADTOUCH wrote:

 plastictrees wrote:

UNCLEBADTOUCH wrote:
I know the GW white knights will hate me for pointing this out.

You are not saying anything new or insightful.
Thanks for pre-emptively dismissing anyone that disagrees with you, we wouldn't want anyone to forget that we're on the internet.

There was nothing dismissive in that post. Merely an acceptance of the sort of responses my post would engender. Guess you lived up to my assumption, congrats your a GW white knight!

The thing is I want to play a war game, not a skirmish game with a handful of crappy figures.
Infinity just does not do the job for me, I don't know where to buy it, nor do I know anyone that plays it because it's not as popular as GW.

^ Kings of War, dude!

Loads of players (you won't have any trouble finding a game in the UK), massive armies, extremely low prices, free rules.

If you want *really* affordable, Mantic + online resellers offering 30-40% discount is the way to go. Have a look for ebay traders, here's trolltrader offering the starter set (95 minis + dice + rules) new-in-box for £30 shipped:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mantic-Games-Kings-War-BNIB-Kings-War-Two-Player-Battle-Set-/280929557844?pt=UK_Toys_Wargames_RL&hash=item4168b4dd54

There are also 1-player starter sets for each army for even cheaper similar to the warmachine starter boxes, for both KoW and Warpath.

And of course, if you think both KoW and Warpath are steaming piles of horrible game design, the minis are all usable in games of Fantasy and 40k, so you can keep playing warhammer, only without the eye-blistering cost.

You can complain about GW until the cows come home, it's not going to make any difference. Voting with your wallet is the only thing that will.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Tactile point is a very good one.

I don't mind my minis feeling like air when I've paid £1 each for them... less so when it's £12/model.

And to make matters worse, the material *bends* which further increases the overall impression of it being shoddy/ cheap PVC Chinese mcdonald's toy that won't last.

Oh, and then there's the small fact that the stupid things warp in any kind of heat. Buy finecast carnosaur on 2 legs, and it is 100% guaranteed that 6 months later you will have a finecast carnosaur on 4 legs.

And on the whole, the pricing for this material has gone up compared to metal.

I really don't understand why anyone expresses a like a finecast at any point. I can understand still buying it since "Official Citadel GW-legal Product" stills matters to a lot of people, but actually liking it just confuses me.

The material is flat-out the only reason why I'm not going to get a new eldar army when they re-launch... I'm quite attached to the army and its background after playing it for over a decade, to the point where it could be considered an exception. Not with finecast though, no way in hell, GW really is dead to me at this point.

I prefer finecast to metal, i have not had a miscast model for about 12 months now, i think its better than metal in every way.

blingman wrote:
Infinity just does not do the job for me, I don't know where to buy it, nor do I know anyone that plays it because it's not as popular as GW.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_shopping

Wargames expensive?

Try my gas, electricity & petrol bills!

It's all perspective. It depends what you want out of your hobby. I constantly hear people suggesting Warmachine as a cheaper alternative. What about 7TV? or just pick up an old wargame book off eBay. If you're playing with friends then surely you can use any models for any game. Go get a pack of plastic toy soldiers from a thrift store.

My car is also a hobby to me. But I cannot afford the £25,000 asking price for a new Land Rover, so I bought a 35 year old one for £1000 instead and get just as much enjoyment out of it.

A hobby is what you make of it.

Lack of disposebal income? Not in my case at least, anyhow as several people have already pointed out is that Wargamming has always been a costly hobby.

In my opinion, it has become very cost-prohibitive.

While I was at uni, I could afford to indulge in the hobby by purchasing something maybe once a month (as in a single kit/parts for conversion).

Since I have left uni, and especially recently, my average monthly disposable income is bordering on none to a pittance, so no more new minis for me...

The main thrust of this prohibition of wargaming has been increased two-fold by the fact that while my disposable income has decreased, hobby prices across the board have remained stagnant and/or dramatically increased, thus pushing me out even further.

 scarletsquig wrote:
I really don't understand why anyone expresses a like a finecast at any point. I can understand still buying it since "Official Citadel GW-legal Product" stills matters to a lot of people, but actually liking it just confuses me.

Spoken like a man who's never had to have a weekend of 'fun' with either a Thunderfire cannon or one of those horrid, wretched, despicable dwarven gyrocopter things (I had to pin EVERY joint on that last one, and still I'm afraid of looking at it too harshly...) - things which work **much** better in resin.

sure, I'd rather have had FWesque 'brittle' resin rather than the bendy stuff they put out now, and I'm still a bit miffed at the amount of bubbles many models come with, and sure, the prices are even more outrageous than they used to be but I prefer the material over resin for certain models at least, TBH...
oh, it also doesn't chip half as easily as metal does. that's a very good point in it's favour

Another thing that I forgot to mention (GW Specific) was the removal of bits/individual sprues from their store, something that I fondly remember from my days in the hobby before my long break from it.

Now making a squad setup that is not sold in any of their lines can cost a small fortune.

I'm making 2 squads of 5 sternguard with combi melta's in drop pods.

Because I can't buy an individual combi melta and the cheapest you can get from GW is £8 for 1 in the sternguard vets weapon pack, they cost about £8 each on ebay and are of course sold out in all the bits stores, I'm having to buy a deathwatch killteam upgrade pack for £15(to represent special ammo bolters also nice deathwatch shoulder pads to ensure the sternguard made with a tactical squads stand from my normal marines) and kitbash them with 10 meltaguns from for £12 from GW.

Add that to £18.40 for the basic TAC squad to convert and £36 for their drop pods from wayland games.

£81 for just two, five man sternguard squads with transports, and I've shopped about this is literally the cheapest way I've found of doing it while keeping it up to my standards.

It's just dumb.

Any hobby can be prohibitively expensive.

I dread to think how much money I've spent on snowboard equipment in the past couple of years.

 Eiríkr wrote:
Any hobby can be prohibitively expensive.

I dread to think how much money I've spent on snowboard equipment in the past couple of years.

I'm sure you're getting allot more value from that though, as long as the snow is good!

Mike712 wrote:

 Eiríkr wrote:
Any hobby can be prohibitively expensive.

I dread to think how much money I've spent on snowboard equipment in the past couple of years.

I'm sure you're getting allot more value from that though, as long as the snow is good!

I dunno, I think I get a lot better value for money from GW than I do from skiing. The pass costs alone are pretty brutal in a cost-per-hour level of enjoyment.

 Rayvon wrote:

I prefer finecast to metal, i have not had a miscast model for about 12 months now, i think its better than metal in every way.

When did you last encounter a miscast metal?

I'll admit that finecast has some advantages over metal; it's lighter so big figures are less top-heavy and easier to assemble, and it's easier to modify. But it's much more fragile (I'm worried I'll break my finecast minis but I've got metal figures that have been through 15 years of abuse already and are fine), prone to warping and is more likely to come with a casting defect.


On the pricing, wargaming in general has become much cheaper with the advent of plastics, and there's now more sci-fi in smaller scales than ever (dropzone commander, dystopian wars). Games workshop is pretty expensive, made worse by the company tie in for rules and figures.

For example, I was considering starting a fantasy Dwarf army, and as a minimum to start I need: Rules (£45 BRB or £65 Starter box), Codex (£20), Battalion Box (£60). That's £125-145 before even touching accessories, with 64 figs. For less then half that price (£50) I can get a Dwarf Army set with more 22 more figures and rules, but then need to find people to play KoW or don't mind proxies.

It's all fair and well saying that you can buy a unit a month to split the cost, but the reality of it is that you need a big enough army in one go to actually play games, which means matching the standard pick-up size (1000+pts), joining an escalation league, or starting at the same time with friends. I'd be pretty miffed if I had to wait a year to get a game because I didn't have enough figures, and would have dropped out by that point.

Herzlos wrote:

 Rayvon wrote:

I prefer finecast to metal, i have not had a miscast model for about 12 months now, i think its better than metal in every way.

When did you last encounter a miscast metal?

all the Time. Don't pretend metal had no miscasts as it did frequently. It was just easier to replace metal for a company because the pieces were each on their own mold opposed to a single sprue, and faulty parts could go back into the smelter for literally no loss.

Metals had miscasts, but they also lend themselves to better QC.

I also have not had fine cast miscasts in over a year. And the rate of miscasts was about the same as when I bought metals and the level of miscasts of PP and other resin casters.