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 Sean_OBrien wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
We keep forgetting one big thing : what can we easily find games for in our local meta.

What ever you like...

Never really understood that position, it is like people know no one who is willing to play a new game with them. From when I was a kid, through my time in the service, as a computer contractor and now in my somewhat more settled older age...I have never had a problem getting people to try new games and even starting new armies if we find we like those rule sets. Buy a copy of the rules, read through them. If they seem like they would be fun - hand them off to a gamer friend and see if they want to play. Set aside an afternoon or night to play a quick short game or two using miniatures you already have. Very little that might be lost. If you like them - you can look at getting the specific miniatures (if they exist) or putting together purpose built armies.
/

But to convince someone else to play a new game requires them to buy in, or you have to buy enough for two armies....

 cincydooley wrote:

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
We keep forgetting one big thing : what can we easily find games for in our local meta.

What ever you like...

Never really understood that position, it is like people know no one who is willing to play a new game with them. From when I was a kid, through my time in the service, as a computer contractor and now in my somewhat more settled older age...I have never had a problem getting people to try new games and even starting new armies if we find we like those rule sets. Buy a copy of the rules, read through them. If they seem like they would be fun - hand them off to a gamer friend and see if they want to play. Set aside an afternoon or night to play a quick short game or two using miniatures you already have. Very little that might be lost. If you like them - you can look at getting the specific miniatures (if they exist) or putting together purpose built armies.
/

But to convince someone else to play a new game requires them to buy in, or you have to buy enough for two armies....

Or you can just proxy with something like print-out standees on bases before anyone buys in to see if the other players like it (or if you really do even).

You don't nescessarily need to make a concerted effort to get to one game - rather just an effort to game in an organized manner.

We don't have a club per se here - just a bunch of guys who game. We generally figure out what we are going to do a few days ahead of time (unless it is a new system, in which case we like to have a good month or so to go over rules and make any specific arrangements needed to acomodate those rules).

If you are talking about just showing up at a store/club and expecting to play - then that is something more difficult (though I have never cared for that sort of thing anyway). Even then though, you should be able to work something out with reasonable people.

I suppose compared to some other hobbies of the kind that the 40k demographic will be into, it's still pretty standard as far as outlay costs go. At the local 40k store they also do magic, and that's so unbelievably popular. I never got into Magic, but i know people spend a s**t ton on that, and it's just bits of card. Maybe GW just figure that people into 40k are people who have that amount of disposable income and aren't disposing it on booze or cars.

Hey being a total noob, what's a meta? Lol sorry. You can tell i'm passionate about 40k cos this is the only forum I've ever joined.

Chongara wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
We keep forgetting one big thing : what can we easily find games for in our local meta.

What ever you like...

Never really understood that position, it is like people know no one who is willing to play a new game with them. From when I was a kid, through my time in the service, as a computer contractor and now in my somewhat more settled older age...I have never had a problem getting people to try new games and even starting new armies if we find we like those rule sets. Buy a copy of the rules, read through them. If they seem like they would be fun - hand them off to a gamer friend and see if they want to play. Set aside an afternoon or night to play a quick short game or two using miniatures you already have. Very little that might be lost. If you like them - you can look at getting the specific miniatures (if they exist) or putting together purpose built armies.
/

But to convince someone else to play a new game requires them to buy in, or you have to buy enough for two armies....

Or you can just proxy with something like print-out standees on bases before anyone buys in to see if the other players like it (or if you really do even).

What he said...and in fact I said too...though you might have missed that. I went ahead and bolded it this time.

Here is the thing though - the vast majority of games use common tropes to get things done. Whether it is fantasy, sci-fi, steam punk or other genres...chances are pretty good, it isn't new or unique. You don't nescessarily need to buy new figures to play a new system. Worst case - you might need a few special things for a set of rules...though in most cases, you can throw something like a shot-glass or other object in as a temporary stand in to try things out. Even if the rules are out of scale - you can fudge things with what you have. Either multiply up/down measurements...or leave them the same. It can cause a few minor problems, but nothing that is too substantial.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

pax_imperialis wrote:
I suppose compared to some other hobbies of the kind that the 40k demographic will be into, it's still pretty standard as far as outlay costs go. At the local 40k store they also do magic, and that's so unbelievably popular. I never got into Magic, but i know people spend a s**t ton on that, and it's just bits of card. Maybe GW just figure that people into 40k are people who have that amount of disposable income and aren't disposing it on booze or cars.

Hey being a total noob, what's a meta? Lol sorry. You can tell i'm passionate about 40k cos this is the only forum I've ever joined.

meta is what people use to refer to "stuff" when they are too lazy to type out what they actually mean. In this case, it refers to the local gaming community - though it won't always be used in that manner.

BTW - MtG is only expensive if you choose it to be expensive. The actual costs are dirt cheap to get started - and there is no reason that you would need to spend large sums of money on single cards. Some people do - but the vast majority of people who play the game do not. Even if you were to pick up a sealed box of boosters everytime they released a new set (which would give you a metric crap load of cards) it would take you a few years to spend as much as you would on an average 40K army.

cool, thanks!

Oh and yeah I was just it sounded expensive for some because two of my friends sold their decks for about 400-500 each. They had heaps though. Like boxes and boxes.

I do not have time to read 60 pages of it, and it seems the last messages were about learning a new game or something, but those flyers specials are a lie.

2 Valkyries and 2-10 man Karskin Squad for 258$!! Buy them separately and it comes to..258$!

It is like they are not even trying to make special bundles to save money.

Inquisitor Jex wrote:
I do not have time to read 60 pages of it, and it seems the last messages were about learning a new game or something, but those flyers specials are a lie.

2 Valkyries and 2-10 man Karskin Squad for 258$!! Buy them separately and it comes to..258$!

It is like they are not even trying to make special bundles to save money.

That's because they aren't an actual special...rather it is for people who are too lazy to click the "Add to Cart" button more than once...

Inquisitor Jex wrote:
I do not have time to read 60 pages of it, and it seems the last messages were about learning a new game or something, but those flyers specials are a lie.

2 Valkyries and 2-10 man Karskin Squad for 258$!! Buy them separately and it comes to..258$!

It is like they are not even trying to make special bundles to save money.

That's because they're not. They're trying to encourage impulse purchasing.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

Inquisitor Jex wrote:
I do not have time to read 60 pages of it, and it seems the last messages were about learning a new game or something, but those flyers specials are a lie.

2 Valkyries and 2-10 man Karskin Squad for 258$!! Buy them separately and it comes to..258$!

It is like they are not even trying to make special bundles to save money.

That's because they aren't an actual special...rather it is for people who are too lazy to click the "Add to Cart" button more than once...

I actually find it rather insulting. It's either telling your customer "Hey, you're too stupid to figure out what you want, so here's a bundle!", or "Hey! You're too stupid to assemble an online shopping cart, let us do that for you!". I mean, come on, half the flier bundles are just 2 or 3 of the same flier, do GW really think their customers are too stupid to input the number "2" or "3" before clicking "add to cart".

There are a bunch if best practices associated with the number of clicks a person has to make on a website; the more they have to clock, the less they're likely to stay on the website.

I don't know why you are insulted.... :(

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

Inquisitor Jex wrote:
I do not have time to read 60 pages of it, and it seems the last messages were about learning a new game or something, but those flyers specials are a lie.

2 Valkyries and 2-10 man Karskin Squad for 258$!! Buy them separately and it comes to..258$!

It is like they are not even trying to make special bundles to save money.

That's because they aren't an actual special...rather it is for people who are too lazy to click the "Add to Cart" button more than once...

I actually find it rather insulting. It's either telling your customer "Hey, you're too stupid to figure out what you want, so here's a bundle!", or "Hey! You're too stupid to assemble an online shopping cart, let us do that for you!". I mean, come on, half the flier bundles are just 2 or 3 of the same flier, do GW really think their customers are too stupid to input the number "2" or "3" before clicking "add to cart".

Yes, as a matter of fact, I do think GW feels that way.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
We keep forgetting one big thing : what can we easily find games for in our local meta.

...Never really understood that position, it is like people know no one who is willing to play a new game with them. From when I was a kid, through my time in the service, as a computer contractor and now in my somewhat more settled older age...I have never had a problem getting people to try new games and even starting new armies if we find we like those rule sets....

And that's the rub. Glad you've had successes but they're far from universal and if virtually nobody will even try the new games, it's hard to get them to see if they like new rules.

I've tried for 4 months to get Flames of War and Kings of War started at the LGS.
I've run demos, providing both sides AND even gave models away from both games to try to entice interest.
I post polite demo opportunites on our community's well-travelled local internet forum.

Result? I've had about 3 people take me up on demos. They say they like the game and then go back to playing GW or WarmaHordes.
Overcoming that intertia in a well entrenched community sometimes just isn't workable or worth the flipping bother.

My choices then become (other than stopping gaming altogether):
-Continue to demo week after week like some sad sack selling something on a street corner
-Convert to a GW game or WarmaHordes player
-Drive an hour to a place that at least plays FoW---(Kings of War apparently being a non-starter even in a store that carries the stuff)

When you try to convert someone to a different system you are looking at way more than just the price barrier.
There is also the time investment into learning a new rule set, time to build and paint the army, finding new players, etc.

Whereas to add to their existing armies from other game systems (40k for this example) they just spend a couple bucks when the new codex/rules come out and it is cheaper in the long run because they already had the initial core investment.
It is way easier to keep playing 40k spending this 100-500 a year to update your army versus starting a whole new game system and starting from scratch again.
I can see new players to the entire hobby being open to any system, but asking someone to switch systems who has been a long time GW player isnt easy.

KalashnikovMarine wrote:I'd have bought one of those DW knights boxes as well, albeit enough bitz to turn it into roughly 13 termies as I've been told you can pull off with that.

That was my plan too. I really only wanted about 3 termies to be able to finish of my DW Space Hulk team, but when I looked at buying that many bits separately it just wasn't economical compared to the box. I tried to justify it to myself that I was really getting 10 termies... but even for 10 full terminators it seems steep. And really it isn't 10. It is more like 5, and conversion bits for models I already own. That would add another 70% onto the true cost. I even tried to tell myself: "Hell with it! you can afford it. Just buy it, It's done. Write it off as an indulgence". But I'm fed up of doing that with GW. Why does every purchase have to be a wrestle with my conscience? "Hmmm I could buy this box set.. Or I could feed an entire village in Africa for the next 6 months... Or just flush money down the toilet". I think judging by the new DA prices, I've definitely been priced out now. When I think of the other things I could buy with the money, it's just no contest anymore.

cincydooley wrote:I would not have paid what you did for those models. I think they look awful and would pay more for stuff I like than less to have a bunch of garbage clutter up my home. But that's just me.

Personally I wouldn't pay anything to have an actual bunch of garbage clutter up my home (I pay to have that taken away). But if we could pull back the hyperbole for a moment. I expect what you don't like about those models is largely related to the sculpts. That probably has little bearing on the cost. For example GW have some sculpts I like far less than Space Rangers, yet obviously cost far more. I will concede however than GW do better quality sculpts, and I would be willing to pay more for that. It is not just you, I think we would all be willing to pay more for stuff we like. That's fairly universal. But how much more is obviously dependant on how much we like it, how much we can afford, and how it compares to other stuff we like. No one was suggesting that GW lower their quality. My argument was that lowering their prices would increase sales and profits. This could probably be expressed quite well as a bell curve...

So I made one:


I think this shape is going to be pretty accurate no matter what the business (give or take some skewing). As prices go up profits will go up too. Up to a point where the price is too high and starts to drive down sales. Thus profits go back down. On the left side sales are limited mainly by market saturation; on the right sales are limited mainly by price. Obviously the further right you go, the larger your profits are in proportion to your sales. However the total profits are less. I think most people would agree that GW is somewhere on the right. Exactly how far along is speculation (and somewhat dependant on location).

pax_imperialis wrote:
Hey being a total noob, what's a meta? Lol sorry. You can tell i'm passionate about 40k cos this is the only forum I've ever joined.

Meta is short for metagame, which sort of describes the environment a game is played in, which in turn effects how the game is played. People from different areas will often experience games differently because different armies, or game sizes are more popular where they live. This has a big effect on how they think about the game, and how they judge certain strategies etc...

Oh hell, we're busting out the graphs!

Smacks, that is a pretty good diagram.

I only have two minor quibbles with it. First is your statement that "left side sales are limited mainly by market saturation". That's not entirely true. I believe the left side is driven more by perceived value. To the point that if it's too cheap, then sales stay low because no one thinks it's worth anything. Once the price starts rising then people take notice and think they need to get on board which helps drive sales up. However, that's a small thing to discuss and certainly I agree that GW has moved well beyond the "should be here" spot and has entered territory where perceived value is less than the price paid. Now that perceived value is different depending on an individuals situation. For example, a new person is more likely to compare the initial investment in 40k/WFB to the initial of warmahordes or Infinity (depending on what's available). If the other game systems have a large enough following in the area and are cheaper then the perceived value is lower. However, a person already in 40k will place a higher perceived value on the models and are likely to continue. So the right hand X is really two different X's: new comers and old timers.

The second item is that the "curve" really isn't a bell curve. The right hand side should have a point where it ceases to be a curved downward trend and instead has two drops. The first occurs when new people stop buying in, which then heads into a short flat line leading to the second. The second occurs when the old timers quit.

The interesting thing is, once a company hits that first barrier they have to react immediately to pull back. If not, then the second drop will occur regardless of continued increases. That pull back has to be coupled with some good PR in order to let the old timers know they are not dying; otherwise it becomes too little to late.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

pax_imperialis wrote:
Hey being a total noob, what's a meta? Lol sorry.

Simply put, it's the game environment in your area. It involves things such as the most common armies and their makeup at your local FLGS. Some areas haven't bothered with the new fliers, others went in on them heavily. Some areas only play IG and Marines; others might have heavy Xenos presence. It also encompasses things like whether you commonly see fortifications, gun lines, assault based armies etc. Another thing that impacts meta is the general feelings towards certain builds or even rule issues. Some areas are dominated by heavy power gamers where RAW is king, others just want to kick back and roll some dice for a couple hours with more of a HWPI feel, and still others are somewhere in between.

Depending on what you see and run into the games you play may have a different feel (or meta) than the games I do. Ultimately it will impact how you construct your army and generally impact your enjoyment of it.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
You don't nescessarily need to make a concerted effort to get to one game - rather just an effort to game in an organized manner.

We don't have a club per se here - just a bunch of guys who game. We generally figure out what we are going to do a few days ahead of time (unless it is a new system, in which case we like to have a good month or so to go over rules and make any specific arrangements needed to acomodate those rules).

If you are talking about just showing up at a store/club and expecting to play - then that is something more difficult (though I have never cared for that sort of thing anyway). Even then though, you should be able to work something out with reasonable people.

The method that I used to hook players for Kings of War at the late and lamented FLGS was to put up a poster telling folks to bring their Warhammer armies to try a different game.

I had plenty of players for the three sessions we managed before the game store closed.

We never even got to play the new and shiny hardcover rules that came out the last week that the store was open.

The Auld Grump

privateer4hire wrote:

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
We keep forgetting one big thing : what can we easily find games for in our local meta.

...Never really understood that position, it is like people know no one who is willing to play a new game with them. From when I was a kid, through my time in the service, as a computer contractor and now in my somewhat more settled older age...I have never had a problem getting people to try new games and even starting new armies if we find we like those rule sets....

And that's the rub. Glad you've had successes but they're far from universal and if virtually nobody will even try the new games, it's hard to get them to see if they like new rules.

I've tried for 4 months to get Flames of War and Kings of War started at the LGS.
I've run demos, providing both sides AND even gave models away from both games to try to entice interest.
I post polite demo opportunites on our community's well-travelled local internet forum.

Result? I've had about 3 people take me up on demos. They say they like the game and then go back to playing GW or WarmaHordes.
Overcoming that intertia in a well entrenched community sometimes just isn't workable or worth the flipping bother.

My choices then become (other than stopping gaming altogether):
-Continue to demo week after week like some sad sack selling something on a street corner
-Convert to a GW game or WarmaHordes player
-Drive an hour to a place that at least plays FoW---(Kings of War apparently being a non-starter even in a store that carries the stuff)

 VanHammer wrote:
When you try to convert someone to a different system you are looking at way more than just the price barrier.
There is also the time investment into learning a new rule set, time to build and paint the army, finding new players, etc.

Whereas to add to their existing armies from other game systems (40k for this example) they just spend a couple bucks when the new codex/rules come out and it is cheaper in the long run because they already had the initial core investment.
It is way easier to keep playing 40k spending this 100-500 a year to update your army versus starting a whole new game system and starting from scratch again.
I can see new players to the entire hobby being open to any system, but asking someone to switch systems who has been a long time GW player isnt easy.

Since they are both on the same train of thought...

A few years back (few for an old guy like me), Wizards of the Coast went through and did what was the largest (and likely only) general population survey of what they collectively referred to as "adventure games". They found that 4% play or have played miniature wargames, with 2% playing at least once a month. Roughly a third of that population is over the age of 25. Roughly 20% are female. If you look around at what you percieve your local game community is (either a club, or the people who show up at a local store on any given game night) and you see something that doesn't quite match that...you are missing a part of the local game community. Seek them out.

The reason that I say this, is that when I look at the people who show up at most stores and game clubs - they are much younger than 25 (a majority being under 18 it seems) and you very rarely see a female. It also is never 2%, let alone even a fraction of a percent of the local population. The ones who don't hang out in the stores tend to be much more laid back and willing to try new things. They may already be playing many of the rules which you are collecting miniatures for and would like to game with.

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/WotCMarketResearchSummary.html

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
Since they are both on the same train of thought...

A few years back (few for an old guy like me), Wizards of the Coast went through and did what was the largest (and likely only) general population survey of what they collectively referred to as "adventure games". They found that 4% play or have played miniature wargames, with 2% playing at least once a month. Roughly a third of that population is over the age of 25. Roughly 20% are female. If you look around at what you percieve your local game community is (either a club, or the people who show up at a local store on any given game night) and you see something that doesn't quite match that...you are missing a part of the local game community. Seek them out.

The reason that I say this, is that when I look at the people who show up at most stores and game clubs - they are much younger than 25 (a majority being under 18 it seems) and you very rarely see a female. It also is never 2%, let alone even a fraction of a percent of the local population. The ones who don't hang out in the stores tend to be much more laid back and willing to try new things. They may already be playing many of the rules which you are collecting miniatures for and would like to game with.

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/WotCMarketResearchSummary.html

If that's the percentages they hide themselves pretty damned well :p Between clubs/stores/forums I've not seen that percentage of females, ever. Even when I've actively sought out players, I've only ever found a handful of females in among hundreds of males. A third being over 25 I could believe. Some of the clubs I've been to are almost exclusively over 25, others are almost exclusive under 25. But these females of which you speak, I've not seen them, tis a sausage fest everywhere I've been in the miniature wargames hobby. I'd like to know what the definition of "miniature wargames" was to see if that skewed the number.

As for willingness to try new things, among my friends I've never had problems convincing them to try new games with proxy models, but at the end of the day actually starting a new game I've had little to no luck. Personally it takes me months to paint even a small force, my Tyranids which are only about 2000pts took me over a year, I tend to not be inclined to actually start a new system and I find my friends are all much the same. "Try" a new system, sure, "start" a new system, not unless there's already an established community to play with.

It would be great to see how things have changed in the past 10+ years. A survey like that would benefit all of the companies currently putting out kickstarters....

clively wrote:
Smacks, that is a pretty good diagram.

I only have two minor quibbles with it. First is your statement that "left side sales are limited mainly by market saturation". That's not entirely true. I believe the left side is driven more by perceived value. To the point that if it's too cheap, then sales stay low because no one thinks it's worth anything. Once the price starts rising then people take notice and think they need to get on board which helps drive sales up.

Thanks. Actually I was a bit perplexed by the left hand side of the graph. For example (hypothetically) if GW slashed prices tomorrow 99% off everything, I imagine sales would sky rocket over the next few weeks. But in 2 years time it is less clear what sales would look like. Obviously there is a risk that the company would just fold, which means sales drop to zero. So sales might actually be a bell curve too if you thought about it that way. The way I decided to look at it was as a simple stable business model, that was not new or expanding/contracting.

This did actually get me thinking about GW, because their business model (charging a lot) does actually date back to when they were a growing business, trying to sell Warhammer to people who were primarily D&D fans. The prices were lower back then but they were still on the right hand side of the chart. Probably just ahead of saturation, which is where they wanted to be. The thing is, over the last 30 years GW have been steadily moving further and further to the right. But I also think the market itself has moved further to the left. They aren't just selling to D&D fans now. They are a market leader selling to their own fanbase. People now aren't saturated as easily as 30 years ago. they don't just want 2 land raiders, they want 10, and maybe a couple more to use as scenery. But at the current prices, very few people are willing to pay for that.

clively wrote:
The right hand side should have a point where it ceases to be a curved downward trend and instead has two drops. The first occurs when new people stop buying in, which then heads into a short flat line leading to the second. The second occurs when the old timers quit.

The interesting thing is, once a company hits that first barrier they have to react immediately to pull back. If not, then the second drop will occur regardless of continued increases.

I think different people will quit at different times, so I don't know if there will be distinct cliffs as such. Just a smooth trend down until there is only 1 guy left; willing to pay £1,000,000 for a tac squad, and prop up the company for another year.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
If that's the percentages they hide themselves pretty damned well :p Between clubs/stores/forums I've not seen that percentage of females, ever. Even when I've actively sought out players, I've only ever found a handful of females in among hundreds of males. A third being over 25 I could believe. Some of the clubs I've been to are almost exclusively over 25, others are almost exclusive under 25. But these females of which you speak, I've not seen them, tis a sausage fest everywhere I've been in the miniature wargames hobby. I'd like to know what the definition of "miniature wargames" was to see if that skewed the number.

As for willingness to try new things, among my friends I've never had problems convincing them to try new games with proxy models, but at the end of the day actually starting a new game I've had little to no luck. Personally it takes me months to paint even a small force, my Tyranids which are only about 2000pts took me over a year, I tend to not be inclined to actually start a new system and I find my friends are all much the same. "Try" a new system, sure, "start" a new system, not unless there's already an established community to play with.

Most the time, people are left to define things themselves in surveys, though in the intro to the survey the examples given for miniature wargames were Warhammer, Battletech and Historical wargames...so there really doesn't look to be much there to skew the numbers. Right now we have about 30% who are females depending on how many people are actively playing at any given time (4 girls and between 6 and 10 guys - the girls tend to show up all the time). Two of them are spouses of two of the guys, one is single and one is married to a non-gamer. I've been in groups with none, and I have been in groups where women outnumbered the guys 3 to 1.

Painting up new armies can be a bit of an issue. We have one who is very, very slow painting (but each one is painted extremely well). I think he has only one fully painted army out of a half dozen or so. Another ships his stuff off to Sri Lanka to have them painted up by slave labor or something. Quite often we swap stuff around and trade things back and forth for that sort of thing though. I can paint a descent sized army (50 figures and a half dozen vehicles or so) in a months time, and there are a couple who paint faster than me. They buy the beer, or throw in a bit extra when we are building the next army set that we are producing and we put in some brush time. I've also got enough completed armies to go around that no one really has to feel obligated to start their own unless they feel like it. Between historicals, sci-fi and fantasy...we have them all covered (hard to say exactly how many armies it would break down in in the traditional sense...but it is around 80 square feet of shelves packed pretty tight).

That said though, if you look at something like Urban Mammoth, you can use their figures as a "Counts-as" IG regiment...maybe as allies under the new rules, and justify it that way if you prefer. Pick up things which allow you to build a workable army under the other rule set, and in short order you are good to go for both games.

Mmmm, putting off posting in this thread but as someone new to the "miniature" gaming shenanigans price is a issue I face.

After prodding from from pen and paper RPG friends I decided to start a 40k army, I picked Sisters of battle (STOP LAUGHING!) I had thought about starting it before the white dwarf codex but there was talks of plastic sisters and I waited for that (I SAID STOP!), well it never came to be so I have been buying here and there, my most recent purchase included a exorcist tank! I opened the box with joy and then felt a tad cheated.... I got a brown box with a metal blister and immolator sprue with no instructions..... all for like 50 or 60 dollars! The lack of instructions was less of a problem since I have built a immolator and repressor from forgeworld so that plus the dakka article it was easy goings, but anyway I mention the exorcist because from what I can tell a strong list would include a few and I have to say 60 bucks for 1-3 each is alot for me not a lot a lot but when im buying a tank for my plastic soldiers its a lot.

But as this all stands I have a "small" force maybe a few hundred points and I look at it and think how much I have spent and...its pricey and I still have to buy more plus a codex thats the size of a bible, if I recall three sisters of battle from GW is like 20$ plus special weapons going from 9-14$ and seraphims about 10ish, I recall looking at all this and going "uhhghhh I have to buy more" with a sinking feeling in my chest and it just struck me as...not fun? Maybe its because I come from pen and paper stuff that this all seems to be so expensive after I get over the buy-in for all of this I wont have to look at this the same way but it doesn't make it suck any less, and this is all before paint, brushes, and other hobby things(I have most of that but just saying).

So as from someone who's getting into this I have to say I have asked myself "when does this become fun?" I enjoy the painting (trying to paint ) and the fact that this is another thing I can do with my friends but I can honestly say I dont think I will start another army and I dont think I will be buying anything else from GW save for any future SOB things to add to my army IE plastics,new units ect... but not in large numbers its really fething expensive...

I hope this was somewhat readable and stuffs.

/me stares at forge worlds avenger strike fighter

Plus one to this guy for sticking with sob, the only still all metal army in 40k. Yeah it used to be if you wrre looking for a "fun" army you went orks but even their stuff is pricey as. Their battlesquad was 16 models when i played 3rd, now its ten for like 20mpercent more money. Im sure gw think theyre doing a good job keeping jobs in britain and stuff but whoever was nice enough to make that graph proved that they could be roping a lot more people into getting th 40k addiction if they took a small short term profit hit. Hedk, even if they made the battleforces heaps cheaper or made "infantry only" deals, you know where you get enough to play for not much, then people woild be encouraged to indulge later on the fancy stuff. I for one really want a minotaur tank, and fw prices are actually getting pretty reasonable when you look at gw now. Remember whent the thunderhawk all metal fw kit was 900 dollars lol.

Forgive my shockjng spelling, still learning to type on a tablet lol

 vir6 wrote:
Mmmm, putting off posting in this thread but as someone new to the "miniature" gaming shenanigans price is a issue I face.

After prodding from from pen and paper RPG friends I decided to start a 40k army, I picked Sisters of battle (STOP LAUGHING!) I had thought about starting it before the white dwarf codex but there was talks of plastic sisters and I waited for that (I SAID STOP!), well it never came to be so I have been buying here and there, my most recent purchase included a exorcist tank! I opened the box with joy and then felt a tad cheated.... I got a brown box with a metal blister and immolator sprue with no instructions..... all for like 50 or 60 dollars! The lack of instructions was less of a problem since I have built a immolator and repressor from forgeworld so that plus the dakka article it was easy goings, but anyway I mention the exorcist because from what I can tell a strong list would include a few and I have to say 60 bucks for 1-3 each is alot for me not a lot a lot but when im buying a tank for my plastic soldiers its a lot.

But as this all stands I have a "small" force maybe a few hundred points and I look at it and think how much I have spent and...its pricey and I still have to buy more plus a codex thats the size of a bible, if I recall three sisters of battle from GW is like 20$ plus special weapons going from 9-14$ and seraphims about 10ish, I recall looking at all this and going "uhhghhh I have to buy more" with a sinking feeling in my chest and it just struck me as...not fun? Maybe its because I come from pen and paper stuff that this all seems to be so expensive after I get over the buy-in for all of this I wont have to look at this the same way but it doesn't make it suck any less, and this is all before paint, brushes, and other hobby things(I have most of that but just saying).

So as from someone who's getting into this I have to say I have asked myself "when does this become fun?" I enjoy the painting (trying to paint ) and the fact that this is another thing I can do with my friends but I can honestly say I dont think I will start another army and I dont think I will be buying anything else from GW save for any future SOB things to add to my army IE plastics,new units ect... but not in large numbers its really fething expensive...

I hope this was somewhat readable and stuffs.

/me stares at forge worlds avenger strike fighter

Ebay is your friend. Since SoB are all metal they are painless to strip and re-use. I only bought vehicles and some special weapons from GW itself, mostly because I hate dismantling vehicles, stripping and cleaning the plastic.

+1 to the graph, however most relationships don't break down to a bell curve (not that it isn't accurate, it's just overly simplified) but rather a predator-prey model based on differential equations.

Unfortunately I'm on a phone or I'd paint one up, but basically you have the same axis definitions (price on the X, population on the Y). What you will discover is a cyclical, rounded square pattern.

This method is very accurate in depicting a large range of dual variable interactions, such as foxes and rabbits. Rabbit population along the Y and fox population along the X.
Step 1 (1,1): few foxes, few rabbits=rabbits grow. Go to step 2
Step 2 (1,2): few foxes, peak rabbits= foxes grow. Go to step 3
Step 3 (2,2): peak foxes, peak rabbits= rabbits decline. Go to step 4
Step 4 (2,1): peak foxes, few rabbits= foxes decline. Go to step 1.
The same path can be found replacing foxes with prices, and rabbits with customers.


If the price is lower than the optimal (in this case the lower left of the bell curve, for the fellow maths freaks out there lets arbitrarily name it (1,1)) then you will see the system move vertically as the conditions are ripe for population growth.

At some point you reach peak saturation, for simplicity (1,2). This would be relative to the left slope of the bell curve on the previous graph, and the upper left corner of the pred-prey model, this is where the population levels off because no new customers are interested.

This influx of population leads to an increase in prices, as there is no other way to 'grow' the overall profits now that the population pool has leveled off. This moves the p-p model right eventually passing the peak of the previous graph, aka the optimal area where population is still high and prices are acceptable, to the population threshold (2,2).

Once the prices increase past the equallibrium point the population begins to decline, eventually dropping to (1,2). This is where GW is currently IMHO. Once the population declines, prices must be dropped or risk waste/loss... Which brings the cycle back to (1,1) and it begins again.

The difficult part becomes an artificial nudge off the self correcting track (for instance if the rabbits were to be taken below their ability to procreate the next generation)... Their growth would never occur, and eventually the foxes would starve/displace for lack of a food source, and a new set of prey-predator would eventually muscle into the territory. I see this correlating to the ever increasing prices from GW, it's like they expect larger and larger fox populations to feed off smaller and smaller rabbit populations for indefinite growth... And that mentality is flawed to the rotten core. Despite the overall profit margins the company might temporarily see, they are trying to milk every last cent out of the upper limits instead of doing the healthy choice and nurturing their rabbit population back from the brink.

 cincydooley wrote:
Of course they do. Their shareholders are concerned about profits. If they're growing, they're happy.

Just because there are other options doesn't mean those options are hurting GWs bottom line. Once they do, well see change. Until them, no, they don't really have any competitors that are stealing any real market share, at least not that we can prove.

I mean, everyone's anecdotal evidence is great, but it proves absolutely nothing.

It aint hard to infer from the available data that GW's unit sales have been declining. I'm not a business genius, but the growth of competitors and declining unit sales seems to me to be declining market share.

Even if the size of GW's piece of the pie isn't changing, if the size of the pie is increasing, i.e. the market is expanding, GW would be losing market share, right?


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 Sean_OBrien wrote:
You don't nescessarily need to make a concerted effort to get to one game - rather just an effort to game in an organized manner.

We don't have a club per se here - just a bunch of guys who game. We generally figure out what we are going to do a few days ahead of time (unless it is a new system, in which case we like to have a good month or so to go over rules and make any specific arrangements needed to acomodate those rules).

If you are talking about just showing up at a store/club and expecting to play - then that is something more difficult (though I have never cared for that sort of thing anyway). Even then though, you should be able to work something out with reasonable people.

My gaming habits have steadily moved into independently organized play over the last several years. It probably has something to do with buying a home, having kids, and increasing work responsibilities, i.e. life.

I vastly prefer to plan out which game or games I will be playing ahead of time, and the type of people I typically play with nowadays have pretty similar opinions. As a result we usually run a lot of campaigns. The campaign goes as long as interest holds out. It has its life cycle, and we have 2 or 3 other campaigns on deck ready to rock. These fold into the league cycle of the FLGS to create a pretty healthy rotation of games and manageable expectations.

If I do want to head down the the FLGS with no specific plan, I pack up a gaming bag with miniatures for 3, 4, or even 5 different skirmish games. I also leave rules and materials to play various games at the shop, which the FLGS does not mind (and I don't see why it would). There's always someone around willing to play a different game. The only bottleneck is honestly table-space. If I wanted to play Warmahordes, for example, I could quite easily sneak a Warmahordes tray into my skirmish bag.

40K requires so many darn models. Most of the time I just don't want to deal with it. To play 40K I've got to lug down a dedicated bag of models and 1/3 of the play time involves unpacking, setting up, and repacking the models. Every little guardsman individually inserted into a foam cell...it can drive me mad. GW killed my business with predatory practices that are unethical and bad for the hobby. GW killed any possibility of ever getting my business back by raising prices to unreasonable levels. The final nail in the coffin was realizing that I could personally carry materials for 5 times as many games with half of the effort.

Riquende wrote:
It's funny, because that's exactly how GW corporate sees it too!

How can you claim 'no competition'? If I walk into a store now, I not only see GW kits, but Mantic's or Warlord's box sets. I see racks of blisters for Warmachine, or Infinity. All of these products are competing for my money, and to be honest, GW isn't trying very hard.

The whole "well there are no companies anywhere near them in terms of revenue, so therefore no competition" is a complete sham.

To be fair, if your store doesn't stock other games, you're not going to be aware of them, are you? One of my stores used to stock GW and only GW for wargaming, so it was a bit difficult to get into anything else. And I was about 12 at the time so I didn't join any forums, and if I saw a forum post I'd go straight into looking for what I wanted.

Kiwidru wrote:
I see this correlating to the ever increasing prices from GW, it's like they expect larger and larger fox populations to feed off smaller and smaller rabbit populations for indefinite growth... And that mentality is flawed to the rotten core. Despite the overall profit margins the company might temporarily see, they are trying to milk every last cent out of the upper limits instead of doing the healthy choice and nurturing their rabbit population back from the brink.

According to GW's defenders, GW can magically feed the entire population of foxes with one rabbit, because that one rabbit is infinitely fat.