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I wouldn't say it is a matter of one wanting to 'clutch at stars for their desperate arguments.'

It's more a case of, "Hey, 70 quid for Escape from Goblin Town is insane, but it could have been even more insane..."

In any case, I did end up getting the hobbit set but it was more on a whim, with me potentially painting up the models in between other projects. I have no real intention of actually playing the game any time soon...

Zoned wrote:
What, he gets to make a pedantic remark about my post and I don't get to make one back?

Somebody else brought up the lego comparison, and I was simply showing how their price comparison was faulty when you examined the contents.

I'm sorry, are you agreeing with Insaniak that it's a silly comparison or not? I'm getting one thing from one post and another from this.

Zoned wrote:
What, he gets to make a pedantic remark about my post and I don't get to make one back?

I don't think that word means what you think it means...

From my understanding pedantic means overly concerned with details, which I felt Insaniak's post was. I was trying to argue that the price of one thing was lower than another because there were less contents, to which Insaniak's sarcastic reply was "of course a singular ferrari should be cheaper than multiple bananas," a jab at my argument.

I'm sure the dakka community is smart enough to understand that in this context we were talking about comparable items, and didn't need it spelled out for them.

I also didn't really take any serious offense to Insaniaks post, this is the internet, after all, and you're always going to get people making smart aleck comments. I think we should get back on topic, personally, but I do feel compelled to defend my posts.

Stay on topic please

(yeah I can't believe I said that either)

Zoned wrote:
Right, because comparing lego miniatures to GW miniatures is as reasonable as comparing bananas to Ferraris.

Exactly.

There is no basis for comparison between lego and GW miniatures.

And, as others pointed out, the price is not just down to the number of 'miniatures' in the box.

With the higher cost of overall GW products, I think it is hurting their secondary ventures like Hobbit. Most people have a limit at some point.

That could be it, too... finally reaching an end to the elasticity of their current market.

And drawing in less "fresh blood" with a higher entry point for The Hobbit than they had with LOTR.

Insaniak, can you read Kid Kyoto's posts?

So anyway, I ordered the box from a US mail order discounter as a Christmas gift to my wife, since she loves all things Tolkien since LotR came out. With luck, it'll arrive soon.

Had to get the non-LE version, since they're saying that only GW has those boxes - which isn't the case here in Australia, but whatever when it's less than half the local price even after postage. I may or may not pick up some of the other stuff such as Hunters/Warg Hunters, as the US discounted price is comparable to the old LOTR - well, the Warg Riders are, the Hunters are about double the old AU RRP. Won't be springing $66 for those trolls though - unless I get very specific orders..

 scipio.au wrote:
Had to get the non-LE version, since they're saying that only GW has those boxes - which isn't the case here in Australia, but whatever when it's less than half the local price even after postage.

I'm sure you'll be able to find Radagast on ebay for less than $100au and still come out on top

GW made an error in judgement. To make this game successful, they needed to release much, much more than what they did. The problem is that they did two big releases - 6th Edition and The Hobbit - in the same year. By pushing 6th ed a few months back at least would have done a whole lot of good. They could have released the Grimhammer Dwarves, Rivendell Cavalry, more hero figures etc.

But equally, a lot of the responses are from players living in the States. I'd like to see how Ireland, France, Italy, Scandinavia and other European countries are receiving it.

 blood reaper wrote:

 Rainbow Dash wrote:
yes, oh how did it
but I gave it a chance before they got rid of it, and I liked it

I imagine GW may regret the Hobbit, like the Lord of the Rings in general.

Well . . . no. LOTR was a massive success for the company. A lot of the company's revenue in the early 2000s probably came from LOTR players or people who played LOTR and then moved on to Fantasy or 40k (like me). I've heard stories of the games outselling 40k and WFB in some areas . . . combined! Anyway, at GW HQ I bet there are loads of Tolkien fans who would have loved to do this much earlier.

One issue with the Hobbit though is that it's less army based and more individual based - it would suit an RPG a lot more than a wargame. A company of 13 dwarves in a dungeon with a boss creature? Sounds very much like a good setting for an RPG (though 13 PCs is a bit much). Also, the hype for the movie is a lot less than the hype for LOTR.

lotr was always like that, they tried to make a bigger lotr game but that flopped, hard
I never played it, because I couldn't (hobbits aren't a core army, i had about 100 pts at most, and had no interest in any of the other core armies)
lotr was cheap, easy to learn and easy to get into, now its just as expensive and hard to start as the others, killing its real appeal, to me anyways

 Grimtuff wrote:

You really cannot compare the two to the same extent. The Lego kit has more than just the figures as it is a kit of hundreds of pieces that are integral to the kit. Everything you need is in this box. This is not true for the Hobbit box from GW as you need a whole host of peripheral items if you wish to use it as the manufacturer intends. I have no idea why people keep bringing up the Lego set as it has nothing to do with GW's release. Then again, if people want to clutch at straws for their desperate arguments I'll just go let them.

It's true though, that particularly licensed Lego kits are very expensive for the contents. Position of the Lego is in fact quite similar to GW: biggest & most expensive brand in their respective industry and licensed stuff (Star Wars etc) is even more expensive. I mean, small Orc building with 4 Lego figures costs 65 euros! Good thing I don't have kids.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kroothawk wrote:

Well, in this case Tolkien is to blame for writing 1500 pages of Fantasy with almost no female character. PJ did everything to expand female presence beyond original texts, even inventing the Elven chick as seen above. Arwen, Galadriel and Eowyn also have a much larger and more active presence in the movie than in the book, because the audience is not acustomed anymore to the strictly passive role Tolkien intended for women.

Hollywood obsession of adding run-of-the-mill action chick heroes to their stories has become so cookie-cutter that Tolkien's approach is actually very refreshing.

Tolkien did have active female characters (Luthien, most notably), they just weren't very much present in LotR, other than Eowyn. Galadriel was Middle-Earth's most powerful non-deity being, though in book itself her role was minor.

I'm mildly interested in getting the hobbit set. I like the look of the dwarfs, I like a lot of the GW LOTR models, they were some of the best plastics around at the time they came out and I prefer the realistic scale more than the hero scale GW mostly put out.

My problem with the Hobbit set is that Goblin town doesn't interest me. It doesn't seem bad value (by GW standards) if you actually want Goblin town, but I don't.

To people saying it's bad value, well, it is, like all GW things, but it's not worse value than any other GW stuff as far as I can see. The Hobbit is $125 for 56 models, including 1 large model (Goblin King), a reasonably large diorama and Gandalf and the dwarfs (and we know GW love to charge slightly more for well sculpted character models compared to rank and file models). Seems about on par with regular GW value (or lack there of). I remember Mines of Moria seemed good value back in the day compared to other GW models of the time, The Hobbit seems like the same value as all the other GW junk.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
GW made an error in judgement. To make this game successful, they needed to release much, much more than what they did. The problem is that they did two big releases - 6th Edition and The Hobbit - in the same year. By pushing 6th ed a few months back at least would have done a whole lot of good. They could have released the Grimhammer Dwarves, Rivendell Cavalry, more hero figures etc.

Wowowowowowowowowow! Slow down here, boy!

Pushing a, very much needed, new edition of their #1 game back for the release of a niche system sounds like a really stupid idea to me here.

 Rainbow Dash wrote:
lotr was always like that, they tried to make a bigger lotr game but that flopped, hard

I think you missed the point of my . . . point?

The Lord of the Rings features massive armies, huge sweeping narratives and outcomes that change the world. The Hobbit, on the other hand, is on a much smaller scale. The book's great, but it doesn't have the kind of impact that LOTR has. There's only one major battle in it (The Battle of Five Armies) whilst in LOTR there are several. This makes the Hobbit an ideal candidate for an RPG (a rather large one, but an RPG) and LOTR a candidate for a wargame. Even in the movies this is apparent. In the Fellowship, you had Moria and Amon Hen. In the hobbit, you only have the Goblin King attack, which I think would be suitable for a game of D&D should a group play 2 or 3 characters each.

I never played it, because I couldn't (hobbits aren't a core army, i had about 100 pts at most, and had no interest in any of the other core armies)

Fair enough.

lotr was cheap, easy to learn and easy to get into, now its just as expensive and hard to start as the others, killing its real appeal, to me anyways

It's still easy to get into and relatively cheap.

Buy Escape from Goblin Town, the BRB, a box of warriors plus the finecast Captain and you actually have about 400 points of Goblins. For 155 pounds, that's not actually that bad. Plus you have more than 1000 points of Dwarven Heroes who can do fun stuff. The equivalent 40k size of the game would be something like 1300 points. The list isn't exactly competitive and it lacks a good killy thing, but even so, you can get a good amount of play out of it before upgrading because the game is very tactical - apart from Rohan, all the armies are quite balanced.

Now suppose I wanted to start Space Marines with DV. If I bought the set, plus a battleforce, plus the codex, it would cost me 166.50 pounds for a 1300 point army using every Dark Angel/Space Marine model. That's quite a lot of cash. This list is probably totally uncompetitive.

For 11.50 pounds more, what exactly do you get? Chaos Space Marines. With the Goblin Town purchase list, you get all the profiles for all the new models that are coming out in the BRB, the small scale rulebook and 15 good guy models - you get another army that is 1.3333x the size of a big game!


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 Sigvatr wrote:

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
GW made an error in judgement. To make this game successful, they needed to release much, much more than what they did. The problem is that they did two big releases - 6th Edition and The Hobbit - in the same year. By pushing 6th ed a few months back at least would have done a whole lot of good. They could have released the Grimhammer Dwarves, Rivendell Cavalry, more hero figures etc.

Wowowowowowowowowow! Slow down here, boy!

Pushing a, very much needed, new edition of their #1 game back for the release of a niche system sounds like a really stupid idea to me here.

It is a stupid idea. But if the company wanted The Hobbit to sell well and maybe it not make it as niche-y as it could have been, I listed some of the steps that the company could have taken.

Anyway, I read somewhere (don't quote me for this) that the 6th Edition had been ready for 6 months. What were the company doing for those months?

 Sigvatr wrote:
Pushing a, very much needed, new edition of their #1 game back for the release of a niche system sounds like a really stupid idea to me here.

It's not a niche system, they're just turning it that way through pricing and support. It's one of their main three and which according to several people was flying off the shelves when first released. It was a big seller. A mass, reasonably priced release just before christmas could have done a lot better than letting overpriced stuff dribble out over time. A Hobbit game should appeal to the wider public more than Warhammer however needed it is. After all, Warhammer can be released any time, the Hobbit has a release window attached to the popularity of the films. But GW don't seem to have huge enthusiasm for the Hobbit, not like when LotR came out anyway. Maybe they just don't think the franchise will be widely popular this time so are making a smaller amount of very highly priced stuff.

 scipio.au wrote:
Had to get the non-LE version, since they're saying that only GW has those boxes - which isn't the case here in Australia, but whatever when it's less than half the local price even after postage.

Guess, you are the first person on earth to have a non-limited Hobbit-box then. Or the store sold hoping that there will be a non-limited box within a few months.

Compared to the number of people in the Bluewater GW the last couple of years when I have walked past it at this kind of time of the year, it was almost completely empty when I walked past a couple of days ago (interestingly enough after just coming out of the cinema following seeing the Hobbit ).

I remember going in there 2 years ago and literally having to squeeze round people stood shoulder to shoulder. There could only have been about 4-5 kids in there (children less than 15) when I went past this year.

 Kroothawk wrote:
Almost no Hobbit sales in my local store, just 2 starter boxes, 1 rulebook and 3 Ork boxes.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

 blood reaper wrote:
Didn't Dreadfleet have to be destroyed because it failed to sell as well as GW hoped.

No - GW created the molds and stated that they were stopping production after a set number were made (and sold) though no one really knows what that number was or how fast it sold (I have seen it still on the shelves in three stores in the past month).

Actually blood reaper is correct: GW actively recalled and destroyed Dreadfleet boxes.

Seriously? In an attempt to keep the price up or protect the image by avoiding people selling them off or having them discolor in windows?

 Compel wrote:
The really scary thing?

It's still cheaper than the lego equivalent.

I'd much rather have the lego; there's more to it (nearly 1000 pieces?), it'd amuse me for longer, and won't become obsolete in a few years But then I like building up lego.

Part of GW's premium brand image these days is not to do sales on almost anything. They'd rather destroy old stock than allow it to be discounted.

When Battle for Macragge was replaced I've read that they destroyed a lot of remaining stock. Compare to years previously when GW replaced 2nd ed 40K and 5th ed Fantasy, where they simply discounted remaining game sets and army books to get rid of them. They also used to do new year's sales and the like to shift old stock, I remember bins full of Chaos Dwarves and Sisters of Battle (slightly ironic considering how costly they are to collect now).

Herzlos wrote:

Seriously? In an attempt to keep the price up or protect the image by avoiding people selling them off or having them discolor in windows?

I can't find the thread discussing it but it was reported a while ago - an email went out to retailers asking them to send unsold copies back to GW head office IIRC. Reasons they did it:

1) GW have repeatedly stated that they don't do sales or discounts as it 'devalues the perceived worth of the brand'. Or something.

2) As you say, having a 'Limited Edition' sitting on shelves for ever and ever is not a good thing.

3) They can write off the unsold copies as a tax deduction and so recoup a small amount of money; more so than they would get for taking up valuable shelf space.

I don't know how they destroyed them - whether it was an ET video game style burial or Phil Kelly dancing naked round a bonfire.

 filbert wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

Seriously? In an attempt to keep the price up or protect the image by avoiding people selling them off or having them discolor in windows?

I can't find the thread discussing it but it was reported a while ago - an email went out to retailers asking them to send unsold copies back to GW head office IIRC. Reasons they did it:

1) GW have repeatedly stated that they don't do sales or discounts as it 'devalues the perceived worth of the brand'. Or something.

GW does not, obviously, want to teach the playerbase to "I'll buy it when it's in discount bin"...

Backfire wrote:


GW does not, obviously, want to teach the playerbase to "I'll buy it when it's in discount bin"...

Meh - it works for other companies and in other sectors. Sales are not in and of themselves a bad thing; you can use them to clear old stock, to generate sales and revenue during a lean spell etc etc - 'sale' is not a dirty word.

 filbert wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

Seriously? In an attempt to keep the price up or protect the image by avoiding people selling them off or having them discolor in windows?

I can't find the thread discussing it but it was reported a while ago - an email went out to retailers asking them to send unsold copies back to GW head office IIRC. Reasons they did it:

1) GW have repeatedly stated that they don't do sales or discounts as it 'devalues the perceived worth of the brand'. Or something.

2) As you say, having a 'Limited Edition' sitting on shelves for ever and ever is not a good thing.

3) They can write off the unsold copies as a tax deduction and so recoup a small amount of money; more so than they would get for taking up valuable shelf space.

I don't know how they destroyed them - whether it was an ET video game style burial or Phil Kelly dancing naked round a bonfire.

So GW are modelling themselves after Louis Vuitton now. Who burn all their unsold handbags at the end of the year. I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere.

 filbert wrote:
I don't know how they destroyed them - whether it was an ET video game style burial or Phil Kelly dancing naked round a bonfire.

Also, with all this talk of the lego set, I finally clicked on one of the links people posted and checked it out. It's actually not bad but I agree that it's not at all comparable to GW's box. They're just completely different products, albiet based off the same source material.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:

One issue with the Hobbit though is that it's less army based and more individual based - it would suit an RPG a lot more than a wargame. A company of 13 dwarves in a dungeon with a boss creature? Sounds very much like a good setting for an RPG (though 13 PCs is a bit much). Also, the hype for the movie is a lot less than the hype for LOTR.

Funny you should say that, after watching the film a friend of mine decided to run a 13PC AD&D game based around the Hobbit in a single 24 hour session. I have dibs on Kili

Sorry for offtopicness!

Also, I just watched part of the extended Fellowship of the Ring last night, after being inspired by The Hobbit...

Makes one appreciate how GOOD the Hobbit is . Avoided some of the cliche scenes that LOTR was getting heavy on, almost becoming a parody of itself.

That said, only having the extended version to watch probably didn't help matters . Some of the added scenes are fantastic, but it makes the whole thing incredibly long...

 RiTides wrote:
Agreed... I bought Dreadfleet, although ended up selling it.

Although I did just find out that apparently the "flashback dwarfs" may be coming soon... but it's just odd how few offerings they have out of the gate.

It's not that odd when you think about it. With "Fellowship of the Ring", the first batch of releases was stuff which would not really spoil anything for people who have not seen the movie/read the book.

As time wore on they released a lot more. The Elf Lord, Radagast on sled, etc might be coming within the next few months.