Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 BlueDagger wrote:

 Mad4Minis wrote:
I thought I was out...but a friend and I decided to go ahead and finish our armies and give 6th a go. Looks like GW will get a couple hundred more $$ out of me.

Spoiler:

Till you get a codex update, FAQ changes the rules, a codex release negates one of your units, etc and you need to buy different units. There is no "finish" in 40k.

I consider "finished" to be having enough to field a decent size game, say 1500pts. Right now Im at about 800. Anything after that is add-ons. Since the codex I was using just got its update, I dont have to worry about it for a while.

Back in early 2012 I started a custom SM army based on the DA codex, since it allowed me to use lots of terminators. Nice part is, since its not modeled/painted as a GW fluff chapter, I can also field it as vanilla SM if I so choose. I really wish that the regular SM codex included an option for a 1st company HQ that unlocked termies as troops.

I find the price hikes annoying, but those alone dont really deter me. What does deter me (mostly from buying in NZ) is the price difference. Here terminators are 87NZD. In the US its 50USD. 50usd equates to 59.8NZD so I feel like I'm getting ripped off by $27. Pretty much now all I get, I order new from ebay in america since GW wont ship from their american stores and even with shipping costs, its about 2/3 the price of buying at my FLGS.
So I guess for me, american prices, even british kinda feels like a bargain comparatively. I did lol when I got the email about the Legion of the Damned being released in a box set. 17 models for 335NZD? Sweet... but I think the only people who buy these anyway are in for the painting.

With the way work's been going, and the price hikes at my two local stores, the hobby is all but dead to me. And I'm eighteen almost nineteen, just getting into the hobby, which is as you know, what Games Workshop heavily wants from what I've gathered.

I mean, I just bought the Dark Angels codex for my fourteen year old nephew and it's filled with errors. And the Finecrap Astorath model? All bubbled and whatnot, terrible. GW is sending me a replacement however through support.

I'm seriously glad Dakka has a swapshop and that ebay exists. Just to continue my Knights of Blood army, I've put my beloved Chapterhouse converted Stormraven Gunship up there. It's pretty bad in this rural area to play because there's not that many fellow gamers, and the prices are a bit higher due to demand. Capitalism 101.

I just wish GW had a time line. As I feel that in order to have an army you have to go out and drop a chunk of cash on it before things change. If you buy over time, the next thing you know a new codex is about to drop or a new rule book.

I myself have found many times now that while building an army. GW is working on the next release either codex or rules that changes everything I have. So you can either enjoy the few games you play or pack it up on the shelf..

If anything, I would like to see an update/timeline for there product. If anything it will give you an idea as to what you might want to buy into. If a codex is upcoming you can opt to buy one of the other armies you were looking at...



Price issue is forcing people to buy all at once and or if you buy over time. Said items you bought are now worthless because off updated codex and rules changes...

GW definitely bends you over more than they used to.

Here's another problem I have with GW...


If you're going to charge astronomical prices for your product, at least include all of the unit options in the damn box.

I bought my CCS' on Ebay for $17.50/ea NIB. That's $3.50 per guy, and that's actually pretty cheap when you consider the fact that the prices have undoubtedly increased. At the time, the most competitive way to run these guys usually involved 4 Special Weapons of some type.

If they actually gave you 4 Melta Guns, 4 Plasma Guns, 4 Flamers, one HWT-worth of stuff, etc., then I could see it being worth it because you'd have a ton of bits left over. As it is, you need to buy replacements on bitz sites, buy the parts from GW, convert your own parts, or illegally cast your own. Those are your options.

 Stormsung wrote:
With the way work's been going, and the price hikes at my two local stores, the hobby is all but dead to me. And I'm eighteen almost nineteen, just getting into the hobby, which is as you know, what Games Workshop heavily wants from what I've gathered.

I mean, I just bought the Dark Angels codex for my fourteen year old nephew and it's filled with errors. And the Finecrap Astorath model? All bubbled and whatnot, terrible. GW is sending me a replacement however through support.

I'm seriously glad Dakka has a swapshop and that ebay exists. Just to continue my Knights of Blood army, I've put my beloved Chapterhouse converted Stormraven Gunship up there. It's pretty bad in this rural area to play because there's not that many fellow gamers, and the prices are a bit higher due to demand. Capitalism 101.

What rural area are you in, if you don't mind me asking? I too have lived in rural areas, yet I have taken opportunities to amass several armies so that I can introduce others into the game. Sometimes you have to grow your own. Hold on to your stuff, life may take you past the boundaries of the fields and you will have to spend even more to get back what you had.

If you have a public library see if you can host a games day there every couple of months, be sure to include some board games as well. Set up a table with starter units so that you can help anyone that wants to play.

Tarval wrote:
I just wish GW had a time line. As I feel that in order to have an army you have to go out and drop a chunk of cash on it before things change. If you buy over time, the next thing you know a new codex is about to drop or a new rule book.

I myself have found many times now that while building an army. GW is working on the next release either codex or rules that changes everything I have. So you can either enjoy the few games you play or pack it up on the shelf..

If anything, I would like to see an update/timeline for there product. If anything it will give you an idea as to what you might want to buy into. If a codex is upcoming you can opt to buy one of the other armies you were looking at...



Price issue is forcing people to buy all at once and or if you buy over time. Said items you bought are now worthless because off updated codex and rules changes...

To be fair, if you collect a balanced and diverse army this will be mitigated somewhat.

Those that cry because their x-spam army has be nerfed by the latest codex or rules update will get limited sympathy from me, if you're that keen to win your toy soldiers then suck it up as an inevitable cost of playing things your way.

Of course, it can go the other way. One of our local Necron players started a flying circus before 6th hit, subsequently he's been so soundly barracked for being a cheesemonger he's shelved it in favour of another force!

 progreen10 wrote:
Generally wargaming (not necisserally historical miniatures so much.) can be rather expensive.

The only thing I don't get, is how GW try to sell everything at the price, considering what you pay for.

Plastic kits for example, GW's opinion: "They are all high quality model kits that are are of the best standard around."

Everyone else's opinion: "They are not really of the highest standard, as you can get the same standard elsewhere for much, much cheaper. They are all mass produced in factories, not hand crafted by a man in his back shed in Nottingham."

Also, what' up with these 'Special Edition' Codices? Alter the title, change the colouring, add 40% of the original value onto them.

Not to mention the new WD.

[/rant]

Aye, and FINECAST.

They are claiming it is the best quality models in the world and charging as such but the quality is no better than any other resin models I've seen. And then there is that whole issue of the entirely sub standard casting process they are using...

Not even just not any better. Infinitely worse. Compare finecast to a McVey resin piece (at a similar cost) and GWs product becomes a joke.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 progreen10 wrote:
Generally wargaming (not necisserally historical miniatures so much.) can be rather expensive.

The only thing I don't get, is how GW try to sell everything at the price, considering what you pay for.

Plastic kits for example, GW's opinion: "They are all high quality model kits that are are of the best standard around."

Everyone else's opinion: "They are not really of the highest standard, as you can get the same standard elsewhere for much, much cheaper. They are all mass produced in factories, not hand crafted by a man in his back shed in Nottingham."

Also, what' up with these 'Special Edition' Codices? Alter the title, change the colouring, add 40% of the original value onto them.

Not to mention the new WD.

[/rant]

Aye, and FINECAST.

They are claiming it is the best quality models in the world and charging as such but the quality is no better than any other resin models I've seen. And then there is that whole issue of the entirely sub standard casting process they are using...

I agree totally. It seems that quality control has improved a bit, but it's still not what anyone would call the end all of all resin models.

Well, as it was to be expected of this model, things are starting to "shift" in GW.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2013/01/finance-games-workshop-half-yearly.html

Half year report shows the release of a new edition of their flagship line, a marginal increase in sales and a canned CEO.

 azreal13 wrote:

Those that cry because their x-spam army has be nerfed by the latest codex or rules update will get limited sympathy from me, if you're that keen to win your toy soldiers then suck it up as an inevitable cost of playing things your way.

Wouldn't it be nice if everything had a utility at least close to the points value, where the better player wins, models don't get made redundant, and you never have to worry that your army might get you censured for being "too good"?

xxvaderxx wrote:
Well, as it was to be expected of this model, things are starting to "shift" in GW.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2013/01/finance-games-workshop-half-yearly.html

Half year report shows the release of a new edition of their flagship line, a marginal increase in sales and a canned CEO.

It's a good start. Now if only they could get Tim Kirby to go on an extended vacation (read years) to some small Island off the coast of Spain.......

Waitwaitwaitwait . . .

It peaked at 2005?

What were they doing right then?

Still riding on the LOTR boom in 2005?

 Elemental wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

Those that cry because their x-spam army has be nerfed by the latest codex or rules update will get limited sympathy from me, if you're that keen to win your toy soldiers then suck it up as an inevitable cost of playing things your way.

Wouldn't it be nice if everything had a utility at least close to the points value, where the better player wins, models don't get made redundant, and you never have to worry that your army might get you censured for being "too good"?

Oh, absolutely!

But that's a situation that's hard to achieve if you're trying, and GW blatantly isn't.

It remains though that nearly every pastime gets more expensive the more seriously you take it, whether it's down to investment in higher spec equipment or simply doing it more often.

Players who wish to remain at an optimum level must invest to do so, that's the price of entry. Those who are less concerned with being competitive are less likely to be affected by change unless it's wholesale.

That said, and to try and get a bit more back on topic, continued price rises coupled with cyclic unit effectiveness is going to force even the hardcore players to perhaps seek alternatives, and that's horribly short sighted by GW as I'd rsther have customers who spent 000s over many years than constantly spending energy attracting new blood that spent a few hundred and then moved on.

 Shandara wrote:
Still riding on the LOTR boom in 2005?

But, if they were smart, shouldn't they have been able to capitalise on that success and flog more 40k or Fantasy?

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:

 Shandara wrote:
Still riding on the LOTR boom in 2005?

But, if they were smart, shouldn't they have been able to capitalise on that success and flog more 40k or Fantasy?

GW aren't smart.

 Shandara wrote:
Still riding on the LOTR boom in 2005?

Wouldn't that mean that the LOTR increased them above their "natural" business, then peaked and declined? It doesn't mean their core business is any stronger or weaker.

Dark Angels where my first, and still consider them my main, army. Any time anything DA related is released I must buy it. They are my weakness. However, the prices have forced me to not buy everything at once in a fit of fanodm like I usually do. I got the codex (and not even the collectors, due to not being able to shell out another 40 bucks for the same book), the terminators, and the bikers. Thats it. If the prices had been 5, even 10 bucks cheaper across the board, I can see myself getting it all, but that small difference is enough to make me stop and say "do I really want to spend 75 bucks on something I may never use?"

And now with the LA bunker closing, I am finding even less of a reason to continue.

And now with the LA bunker closing, I am finding even less of a reason to continue.

Unfortunately this trend is going to continue and I doubt there will be a new one man GW store nearby. They will put another store in an area that has not been tapped yet. Sorry for your loss.

 Adam LongWalker wrote:

And now with the LA bunker closing, I am finding even less of a reason to continue.

Unfortunately this trend is going to continue and I doubt there will be a new one man GW store nearby. They will put another store in an area that has not been tapped yet. Sorry for your loss.

Well it all falls in the same basket. If you take the place away that I use your product, why should I spend the high price on said product? Its like buying a game disk for a console that is no longer in production. Sure there are ways I could play the disc, but they are too far out of the way and inconvenient.

Ah well. I guess they pushed this "old" gamer out of the hobby like so many people said they are trying to do.

GW has not quite priced me out but nearly there, I'm a lot more careful about what I buy now (no more impulse buying). What has done far more damage to my hobby has been the recent changes to vets nights, which have almost reduced my gaming to nothing in the past few weeks. I just don't have the space to play at home and with an end to open gaming in store and my local groups on nights I can rarely make it has seriously dented my ability and my will to actually go out and find a game, no gaming no shopping (no point.).


I'm currently severely reducing my GW collection to make space for other (less space intensive) systems such as sedition wars and kingdom death, all as a result of price rises and loss of gaming space. I wont quit completely, but no longer will I be the plastikrack junkie I once was.

Oh, and additionally I feel all the recent releases (bar Festus and Valkia) have been extremely uninspired, last release I was genuinely excited about was the VC which was at least year ago, and the necron tomb spider wave (which was about the same IIRC).

 Adam LongWalker wrote:

And now with the LA bunker closing, I am finding even less of a reason to continue.

Unfortunately this trend is going to continue and I doubt there will be a new one man GW store nearby. They will put another store in an area that has not been tapped yet. Sorry for your loss.

Just a heads up the bunker in LA isnt closing, its being turned into a one man store.

 DiabolicAl wrote:
Not even just not any better. Infinitely worse. Compare finecast to a McVey resin piece (at a similar cost) and GWs product becomes a joke.

Hardly a joke. Its far too expensive, but if you get a good model there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Not that I've bought any yet because I've got loads of McVey miniatures to paint up, and the last big spending spree I went on was right in the middle of the initial FC debacle a year back or whenever, but I havce been sticking my head in GW once every few months and looking in the FC blisters, and the majority seem fine. Saying nonsense like this "oh they are a total joke" just for the "waahhh" factor annoys me.

FC quality control was/is gak, and the price IS ridiculous for some of them, but lets just keep criticism realistic, because if that stops happening I stop listening to peoples (possibly entirely pertinent points) and just right them off as another one of the tiny minority of posters here that are needlessly butt hurt all of the time about Games Workshop.

At the end of the day, there is only marginal difference between the big casters, because there's only so many ways you can make little plastic soldiers. Same goes for anyone else, I own loads of McVey, and I bought a Scibor SF Knight instead of a Finecast Librarian, and the Scibor was super expensive as well, and I didn't think it any better or worse than a GW FC model. I don't think any one company makes plastic/resin models much worse than anybody else if I'm being honest, certainly none of the 5 or 6 different companies I own models from are hugely different in quality than another.

FC had/has quality control issues, and its fething expensive, but to call it a "joke" compared to a company that makes almost identical quality miniatures (Mcvey) is a really ridiculous thing to say.

Hi mattyrm.
I think that DiabolicAL was saying that GW plc's claim that they 'make the best toy soldiers in the world'. was a joke.

As you say GW quality is equaled by companies charging less , for similar products.Or companies charging the same as GW have better quality control.

There is nothing wrong with changing production to plastic resin from metal, IF its is handeled properly.

GW plc botched this transition so badly it has damaged the reputation of the Fine Cast range.

I do not think DiabolicAl was calling the material/product a joke.

Just GW plc corperate managements attitude towards their customers.. (but I could be wrong...)

Well, as far as I can see, FC is fine. It's just the way that it was handled at the beginning. First impressions, it seems, do matter . . .

I would go so far as to say finecast is a joke; compared to any other resin figure I've bought (no McVeys, but Scibor, CMoN, Kabuki, Axe Faction) have all been vastly better than Finecast.

Not just in casting quality, but (IMHO) finecast resin is just far too soft. My first finecast figure was cast fine, but it's the only figure I've ever broken trying to fit into the slotta base, and I worry that it'll get damaged in the foam case. It feels too soft to work with and I'd say I was pretty careful.

I'm sure the price is also a factor, maybe if it was lower priced I'd feel it less ridiculous versus other manufacturers.

I've paid a lot more than finecast prices for resin figures, but finecast is the only resin I've worked with that I don't feel is good value.

 Ravenous D wrote:

 Adam LongWalker wrote:

And now with the LA bunker closing, I am finding even less of a reason to continue.

Unfortunately this trend is going to continue and I doubt there will be a new one man GW store nearby. They will put another store in an area that has not been tapped yet. Sorry for your loss.

Just a heads up the bunker in LA isnt closing, its being turned into a one man store.

Same thing in my book

xraytango wrote:

 Stormsung wrote:
With the way work's been going, and the price hikes at my two local stores, the hobby is all but dead to me. And I'm eighteen almost nineteen, just getting into the hobby, which is as you know, what Games Workshop heavily wants from what I've gathered.

I mean, I just bought the Dark Angels codex for my fourteen year old nephew and it's filled with errors. And the Finecrap Astorath model? All bubbled and whatnot, terrible. GW is sending me a replacement however through support.

I'm seriously glad Dakka has a swapshop and that ebay exists. Just to continue my Knights of Blood army, I've put my beloved Chapterhouse converted Stormraven Gunship up there. It's pretty bad in this rural area to play because there's not that many fellow gamers, and the prices are a bit higher due to demand. Capitalism 101.

What rural area are you in, if you don't mind me asking? I too have lived in rural areas, yet I have taken opportunities to amass several armies so that I can introduce others into the game. Sometimes you have to grow your own. Hold on to your stuff, life may take you past the boundaries of the fields and you will have to spend even more to get back what you had.

If you have a public library see if you can host a games day there every couple of months, be sure to include some board games as well. Set up a table with starter units so that you can help anyone that wants to play.

I live in Carroll County VA, a few miles (Cough, twenty fiveish) in the boonies from a small town called Hillsville. It's actually so insignificant, I'm surprised they are on the map still. The local hobby store is thirty some odd miles away, and the official Games Workshop store is sixty two miles away, halfway across the state. (It's in Winston, VA.)

As for keeping my stuff? The Stormraven is nothing but a headache, I'm looking to just barely break even plus shipping and handling costs. I'm unsure if you can change my mind on that one. I love her, I do. The Stormraven was a poorly made choice by my younger self to buy off ebay, NIB. Same with the Chapterhouse Resin, it's snapped in half.

Now, the Chapterhouse Resin is good, don't let my bad experience ruin it for you. I've seen thousands of good conversions and I just got a weak resin piece. Same with my Rear door from Forgeworld, where it was see-through...

Anyways, I've no one to convert to the hobby. My best friends do not have the money for this, I mean, either everyone's unemployed, selling drugs, or going into the Military (like I am), and as such the only local people who do play it live miles away and... are the largest examples of the Nerd-Trophe I've ever seen. No offense, they are great guys. It's not that they are ugly per say, it's the smell.

Anyways, if it sells I'm definitely upgrading my army with more Space Marines, to which effect I am greatly lacking, and using some of the money for gym equipment.

 progreen10 wrote:
Generally wargaming (not necisserally historical miniatures so much.) can be rather expensive.

The only thing I don't get, is how GW try to sell everything at the price, considering what you pay for.

Plastic kits for example, GW's opinion: "They are all high quality model kits that are are of the best standard around."

Everyone else's opinion: "They are not really of the highest standard, as you can get the same standard elsewhere for much, much cheaper. They are all mass produced in factories, not hand crafted by a man in his back shed in Nottingham."

Also, what' up with these 'Special Edition' Codices? Alter the title, change the colouring, add 40% of the original value onto them.

Not to mention the new WD.

[/rant]

Totally agree. Have you seen Anvil industries resin and their prices? Or Dreamforge? Makes Finecrap live up to it's nickname.

Games Workshop prices are simply not worth it. Pound for pound (See whut I did thar?) other companies would produce their products with higher quality, and less errors.