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 Grey Templar wrote:
Since GW doesn't sponsor any tournaments, they have no way of enforcing you use their models in games that arn't in a GW store. And every tournament I have been to allows alternate models. They just have to be WYSIWYG.

doesn't have to be tournament. I got the stink eye from a snot-faced red shirt when he insisted that my ancient CSM were produced by a third party. Fed up, i ripped the model out of its base and made him read the stamp on the back of the metal tab.....

 poda_t wrote:
There is nothing requiring you to buy the official GW kit, other than a dandified GW employee that insists 100% of the plastic and paint used in your army needs to have come off GW's production line in the past 12 months.....

i exaggerate, of course, but while you have to be sneaky about getting say, weapons from third parties, you can do what GW now is turning into a taboo, which is use your creativity. Given the right plasticard and an hour, you could probably knock out about 5 plasma guns in the space of an hour (measuring, drawing, cutting, filing and gluing)... in fact probably 5 of any special or heavy weapon in the space of an hour (except, perhaps, if it is eldar, in which case you may be hooped, as sculpting is quite a bit harder....) Heck. If you are really good and sneaky, you can buy a squad of tactical marines and, assuming you have enough torso-components left over from other kits (like say the tank gunners...) and mixing and matching with bionics, you could come out with 16? marines from one tactical squad.

Really, it just comes down to an individual philosophy, do you like having stock or do you like getting mileage out of your purchase? I waffle between both, usually because I buy most of my stuff second hand and need to salvage it into usable condition. I've had to fill many gaps in my arsenal by building the gear out of parts, or creating a counts-as analogue in the case of the horrendously damaged space marine bikes i bought...

I'd love to see how you're getting 16 marines out of a tac squad box even with extra torsos.

 poda_t wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Since GW doesn't sponsor any tournaments, they have no way of enforcing you use their models in games that arn't in a GW store. And every tournament I have been to allows alternate models. They just have to be WYSIWYG.

doesn't have to be tournament. I got the stink eye from a snot-faced red shirt when he insisted that my ancient CSM were produced by a third party. Fed up, i ripped the model out of its base and made him read the stamp on the back of the metal tab.....

thats why most people don't play at GW stores. the staff know diddly squat 99% of the time.

 cincydooley wrote:

 poda_t wrote:
There is nothing requiring you to buy the official GW kit, other than a dandified GW employee that insists 100% of the plastic and paint used in your army needs to have come off GW's production line in the past 12 months.....

i exaggerate, of course, but while you have to be sneaky about getting say, weapons from third parties, you can do what GW now is turning into a taboo, which is use your creativity. Given the right plasticard and an hour, you could probably knock out about 5 plasma guns in the space of an hour (measuring, drawing, cutting, filing and gluing)... in fact probably 5 of any special or heavy weapon in the space of an hour (except, perhaps, if it is eldar, in which case you may be hooped, as sculpting is quite a bit harder....) Heck. If you are really good and sneaky, you can buy a squad of tactical marines and, assuming you have enough torso-components left over from other kits (like say the tank gunners...) and mixing and matching with bionics, you could come out with 16? marines from one tactical squad.

Really, it just comes down to an individual philosophy, do you like having stock or do you like getting mileage out of your purchase? I waffle between both, usually because I buy most of my stuff second hand and need to salvage it into usable condition. I've had to fill many gaps in my arsenal by building the gear out of parts, or creating a counts-as analogue in the case of the horrendously damaged space marine bikes i bought...

I'd love to see how you're getting 16 marines out of a tac squad box even with extra torsos.

I'd love to see how you'd knock out 5 half decent looking plasma guns from plasticard in an hour, hell if you include the time taken to actually plan out the design and all that jazz, I'd be surprised if I could do 5 decent looking plasma guns in a day.

if you can, you could sell that stuff on E-bay.

 cincydooley wrote:

 poda_t wrote:
There is nothing requiring you to buy the official GW kit, other than a dandified GW employee that insists 100% of the plastic and paint used in your army needs to have come off GW's production line in the past 12 months.....

i exaggerate, of course, but while you have to be sneaky about getting say, weapons from third parties, you can do what GW now is turning into a taboo, which is use your creativity. Given the right plasticard and an hour, you could probably knock out about 5 plasma guns in the space of an hour (measuring, drawing, cutting, filing and gluing)... in fact probably 5 of any special or heavy weapon in the space of an hour (except, perhaps, if it is eldar, in which case you may be hooped, as sculpting is quite a bit harder....) Heck. If you are really good and sneaky, you can buy a squad of tactical marines and, assuming you have enough torso-components left over from other kits (like say the tank gunners...) and mixing and matching with bionics, you could come out with 16? marines from one tactical squad.

Really, it just comes down to an individual philosophy, do you like having stock or do you like getting mileage out of your purchase? I waffle between both, usually because I buy most of my stuff second hand and need to salvage it into usable condition. I've had to fill many gaps in my arsenal by building the gear out of parts, or creating a counts-as analogue in the case of the horrendously damaged space marine bikes i bought...

I'd love to see how you're getting 16 marines out of a tac squad box even with extra torsos.

bionics.

 poda_t wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 poda_t wrote:
There is nothing requiring you to buy the official GW kit, other than a dandified GW employee that insists 100% of the plastic and paint used in your army needs to have come off GW's production line in the past 12 months.....

i exaggerate, of course, but while you have to be sneaky about getting say, weapons from third parties, you can do what GW now is turning into a taboo, which is use your creativity. Given the right plasticard and an hour, you could probably knock out about 5 plasma guns in the space of an hour (measuring, drawing, cutting, filing and gluing)... in fact probably 5 of any special or heavy weapon in the space of an hour (except, perhaps, if it is eldar, in which case you may be hooped, as sculpting is quite a bit harder....) Heck. If you are really good and sneaky, you can buy a squad of tactical marines and, assuming you have enough torso-components left over from other kits (like say the tank gunners...) and mixing and matching with bionics, you could come out with 16? marines from one tactical squad.

Really, it just comes down to an individual philosophy, do you like having stock or do you like getting mileage out of your purchase? I waffle between both, usually because I buy most of my stuff second hand and need to salvage it into usable condition. I've had to fill many gaps in my arsenal by building the gear out of parts, or creating a counts-as analogue in the case of the horrendously damaged space marine bikes i bought...

I'd love to see how you're getting 16 marines out of a tac squad box even with extra torsos.

bionics.

Bionics? So you mean creating legs from plasticard and sculpture? If so, that's quite a bit more involved than simply kit bashing a bunch of bitz you may have left over together. And that certainly isn't a skill everyone has, so using it as an example here is a bit disingenuous.

 cincydooley wrote:


Bionics? So you mean creating legs from plasticard and sculpture? If so, that's quite a bit more involved than simply kit bashing a bunch of bitz you may have left over together. And that certainly isn't a skill everyone has, so using it as an example here is a bit disingenuous.

everyone starts somewhere... not everyone is masterful, but I'm convinced that enough people can pick up the habit to do a decent job of it for this to be a legitimate suggestion

 poda_t wrote:
everyone starts somewhere... not everyone is masterful, but I'm convinced that enough people can pick up the habit to do a decent job of it for this to be a legitimate suggestion

It's a suggestion, but it has nothing to do with the topic of this thread. Once you start talking about scratchbuilding entire models (and let's be honest, most people aren't going to scratchbuild things as nice as the real ones) in 40k then you have to do the same for every other game and allow proxying/scratchbuilding. This isn't an advantage for 40k, or even a reduction in the higher costs compared to other games, it's just a statement that you can play pretty much any game for free if you don't want to play the real game.

 Peregrine wrote:

 poda_t wrote:
everyone starts somewhere... not everyone is masterful, but I'm convinced that enough people can pick up the habit to do a decent job of it for this to be a legitimate suggestion

It's a suggestion, but it has nothing to do with the topic of this thread. Once you start talking about scratchbuilding entire models (and let's be honest, most people aren't going to scratchbuild things as nice as the real ones) in 40k then you have to do the same for every other game and allow proxying/scratchbuilding. This isn't an advantage for 40k, or even a reduction in the higher costs compared to other games, it's just a statement that you can play pretty much any game for free if you don't want to play the real game.

touché, but I'm not talking about scratch-building an entire model. I guess if we want to run down the scratch building side with any degree of honesty, there's the time investment which could rack up pretty quick and compete against just outright buying the kit to begin with, or you could purchase from third parties. The suggestion isn't irrelevant at all I might add. If we are taking OP beyond the letter, and towing the line of official models to represent the unit only, then fine i guess you have to go and buy every single unit from one faction's line in order to "play the real game". I however find it ridiculous to cough up $50 if all I need is one heavy bolter, and I don't find $5 for parts and shipping for a bits dealer to be reasonable. I don't see 40K as offering me any added value for paying more just to get a few parts I need to achieve wisywig and a giant pile of scrap that's inevitably going to find its way to the recycling bin.

 poda_t wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 poda_t wrote:
everyone starts somewhere... not everyone is masterful, but I'm convinced that enough people can pick up the habit to do a decent job of it for this to be a legitimate suggestion

It's a suggestion, but it has nothing to do with the topic of this thread. Once you start talking about scratchbuilding entire models (and let's be honest, most people aren't going to scratchbuild things as nice as the real ones) in 40k then you have to do the same for every other game and allow proxying/scratchbuilding. This isn't an advantage for 40k, or even a reduction in the higher costs compared to other games, it's just a statement that you can play pretty much any game for free if you don't want to play the real game.

touché, but I'm not talking about scratch-building an entire model. I guess if we want to run down the scratch building side with any degree of honesty, there's the time investment which could rack up pretty quick and compete against just outright buying the kit to begin with, or you could purchase from third parties. The suggestion isn't irrelevant at all I might add. If we are taking OP beyond the letter, and towing the line of official models to represent the unit only, then fine i guess you have to go and buy every single unit from one faction's line in order to "play the real game". I however find it ridiculous to cough up $50 if all I need is one heavy bolter, and I don't find $5 for parts and shipping for a bits dealer to be reasonable. I don't see 40K as offering me any added value for paying more just to get a few parts I need to achieve wisywig and a giant pile of scrap that's inevitably going to find its way to the recycling bin.

It's a balance and depends on the individual. You mentioned scratch building 5 plasma guns in an hour, realistically I think the minimum would be several hours and to get any where near GW quality...



...you'd be looking at a couple of hours to make just one and then several hours to make a mould and recast it or several hours to make 5 of them.

Personally I'd sooner spend the $10 to just buy them from GW. If it's going to cost me a couple of days of my time to turn a box of 10 marines in to a box of 16 marines, saving $22.35 and probably not looking anywhere near as good as the originals (or if they did, they probably will take significantly longer than a "couple of days"), that's not worth my time. But everyone values their time differently, personally I already struggle to get together armies for lack of time, so I am prepared to pay more to save time. As a kid I used to buy model aircraft and miniatures with money earned from chores, so a day or two modelling to save me $20 was worth while. These days, a day or two to save me $20 isn't worth it because I already can't get my armies finished in time and would rather spend the time painting/playing/drinking with friends and $20 is less than I make in an hour at work. That's not to say I'm going to burn money, I'm just not going to spend a lot of time trying to save a buck.

So everything needs to be kept in perspective.

 Nucflash wrote:


To be honest here there is a simple solution to all problems with balance and other stuff that plagues Games Workshop games. They should do what Privateer press do.. update all the armies at the same time.. So instead of getting a new codex, everyone gets a few new models to play around with each year. This means all armies stay UP TO DATE, and NOBODY gets left BEHIND.. and the game stays competetive for ALL YOUR friends not just for them that have a CODEX that works well with the latest rules...

This will never happen however because GW makes it's living trying to force people to build/buy completely new armies ALL the time. They charge more for popular armies. They screw the balance in Favor of the latest models they want to sell etc.. Its a SCAM.. sad thing is that not more people have cought on yet, and continue to buy stuff from them :(

Update all armies at the same time?

Privateer Press, when they release a new book, update rules for a handful of factions - either the Warmachine or the Hordes factions.

GW would have to do it for 15 armies for 40k and Fantasy.

Drop armies? Remember Squats?

GW don't try to force people to build/buy completely new armies all the time. Case in point: Lord of the Rings, where the forces are incredibly balanced. In fact, I'd say more balanced than WM/H. I haven't played Infinity, but from what I hear about the game, it's about on par with it. Also, all the armies were updated at the same time. They can do this because it's easy to lump armies together - Kingdoms of Men, Mordor, Fallen Realms etc.

If GW really were trying to skew balance to sell more models, then why not skew the balance towards Tyranids, Orks or foot-slogging IG instead of Grey Knights? It'd probably cost me nearly as much, if not more, to buy all my Gaunts than to buy a whole army of Grey Knights. And I think a lot more people like the look of Grey Knights than Tyranids, as far as I know.

Cost of a tactical squad: 23 pounds. Cost of Tau Fire Warriors: 22 pounds. Wow, one pound extra! Sooooo much money! Hey guys, GW charge one pound more for a Tactical Squad! They're ripping us Space Marine players off big time! Please.

From what I hear, the new Codi are actually quite balanced and not very overpowered. They're moving in the right direction.

Yeah, GW are expensive for what you get. I don't want to have to drill holes through the hands of my Easterlings so I can give them more spears. But I enjoy the game, so I don't care what I spend. You don't like the game? Fine, you don't have to like it. But don't make these sweeping assumptions that:
a) Everyone's a tournament player
b) GW make unbalanced rules and there are rule flaws (which, by the way, would naturally happen anyway, I've had issues with the rules not being clear in WM/H)
c) Because of this, everyone should move on.

What will be telling is the release of the Convergence faction.

Dude, don't waste your time... he's just trolling.

I'd love it if he secretly bought Rogue Trader and has 2000 point armies for five different factions.

One thing to keep in mind when comparing MtG to 40k is that WotC does not dictate the pricing of each individual cards. Third party sellers do. Sure, they can make the cards more awesome and a must-have than any other card (I'm looking at you, Thragtusk), but ultimately they don't control how much the price of the cards will fluctuate: what they think would sell would sometimes turn out to be crappy while weird cards they don't think would work suddenly become must-haves. WotC gets money on how many boosters and boxes were sold, not for the pricing of individual cards made by resellers.

GW dictates the prices of the models.

 heartserenade wrote:
One thing to keep in mind when comparing MtG to 40k is that WotC does not dictate the pricing of each individual cards. Third party sellers do. Sure, they can make the cards more awesome and a must-have than any other card (I'm looking at you, Thragtusk), but ultimately they don't control how much the price of the cards will fluctuate: what they think would sell would sometimes turn out to be crappy while weird cards they don't think would work suddenly become must-haves. WotC gets money on how many boosters and boxes were sold, not for the pricing of individual cards made by resellers.

GW dictates the prices of the models.

This is a good point, but you also have to remember that they also make a limited number of cards based on rarity, so in a way they are controlling the price. A card that everyone loves and wants to use is going to be harder to get if it's a rare or legendary rare, rather than a common or uncommon. So while third party sellers control the pricing of the cards, WoTC still controls number of x card going out into the public.

I never got how people in 5th accused GW of fudging the rules to sell models, when *the* over-powered army was Grey Knights, who had a Draigo deathstar as the cheapest army in the game, and who were very cheap money wise to collect. Compare this to how weak foot guard and swarm tyranids were. Obviously I decided to collect foot guard even so

It's not really a stretch of imagination when there have been several ex-GW staff who have come out and said that is the case? We've heard from Rick Priestly most recently that everything that is created goes through the sales department for tweaking before it goes on sale. Hell even Matt Ward made a comment relating to it, and he still works for the company - it's not like any secret is made of the fact.

Now there may well be exceptions to that rule, as you have pointed out (or it might just be that the sales guys got it wrong) but that doesn't break the overwhelming trend of how the company tries to beef up sales of its product. Personally I can completely understand it from a business point of view - it's an effective way of making new miniatures sell. And it's not something that is unique to GW - Infinity have done it with their latest campaign book, increasing the importance of baggage bots, engineers and hackers, which no doubt prompted a surge of sale of those items.

My sig is the Rick Priestley quote

 Alfndrate wrote:

 heartserenade wrote:
One thing to keep in mind when comparing MtG to 40k is that WotC does not dictate the pricing of each individual cards. Third party sellers do. Sure, they can make the cards more awesome and a must-have than any other card (I'm looking at you, Thragtusk), but ultimately they don't control how much the price of the cards will fluctuate: what they think would sell would sometimes turn out to be crappy while weird cards they don't think would work suddenly become must-haves. WotC gets money on how many boosters and boxes were sold, not for the pricing of individual cards made by resellers.

GW dictates the prices of the models.

This is a good point, but you also have to remember that they also make a limited number of cards based on rarity, so in a way they are controlling the price. A card that everyone loves and wants to use is going to be harder to get if it's a rare or legendary rare, rather than a common or uncommon. So while third party sellers control the pricing of the cards, WoTC still controls number of x card going out into the public.

They control the rarity of the card, true. Even so, a crappy rare is just as rare as a must-have rare. They also couldn't predict how the meta shifts, and usually what happens is that they create a rare card that they thought would be bomb but the public does not want it, and create cards that they wouldn't have predicted will shift the meta dramatically (i.e. Tarmogoyf). I remember buying a Tarmogoyf for Php 5.00 (12 cents in $). Now one Tarmogoyf can fetch $50. That's a heavy price fluctuation.

Again, even if they create an ultimate rare card that will cost $500 on the third party market, they wouldn't see any of the $500 spent by the players. Just the money on the $3 booster pack. Sure, it might boost their sales (more players buy the boosters), but ultimately how the card is priced does not affect WotC directly.

Saldiven wrote:
Well, it isn't a miniatures game, but Magic: the Gathering will eat up your money if you're wanting to stay competitive. It's even worse if you decide you want to get into the Modern or Legacy formats, or if you're the "flavor of the month" type player.

Here's an example of a hypothetical deck that would cost over $7,000 to build with average condition cards:

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=732125

An average magic player playing competitive standard spends roughly $400 every 3 months.
(without going into all the other formats)

An average warhammer player playing competitive warhammer spends roughly $600 every year.
(just 40k)

I could tell you all the differences, but they are pretty noticeable.
Warhmachine and other game products don't nearly have the same price tag, but those two games are the most widely played out of all collectible hobbies other than yu gi oh.
I'm working on opening a store and its amazing how the sales break up.

Profit:
50% Magic
20% Yugioh
20% Miniatures
5% dice and other accessories (like paint)
2.5% books
1.5% third party games
0.5% drinks
0.5% anything not hobby related like posters

 Pacific wrote:
It's not really a stretch of imagination when there have been several ex-GW staff who have come out and said that is the case? We've heard from Rick Priestly most recently that everything that is created goes through the sales department for tweaking before it goes on sale. Hell even Matt Ward made a comment relating to it, and he still works for the company - it's not like any secret is made of the fact.

So you mean there's a business behind all of these too? Nooooooo..

Maybe someone should have told Priestly that before they launched the Beyond the Gates kickstarter.....

 Pacific wrote:
It's not really a stretch of imagination when there have been several ex-GW staff who have come out and said that is the case? We've heard from Rick Priestly most recently that everything that is created goes through the sales department for tweaking before it goes on sale. Hell even Matt Ward made a comment relating to it, and he still works for the company - it's not like any secret is made of the fact.

Now there may well be exceptions to that rule, as you have pointed out (or it might just be that the sales guys got it wrong) but that doesn't break the overwhelming trend of how the company tries to beef up sales of its product. Personally I can completely understand it from a business point of view - it's an effective way of making new miniatures sell. And it's not something that is unique to GW - Infinity have done it with their latest campaign book, increasing the importance of baggage bots, engineers and hackers, which no doubt prompted a surge of sale of those items.

Then why are all the powerful armies fairly cheap? I don't doubt that certain models - certainly all flyers - have been buffed in order to sell what are presumably high margin products (also buildings which are clearly OP in order to sell them to every single army). But I don't think the entire ruleset of 40k revolves around making people spend as much as possible.

Only thing I can think of is false choices. the strongest armies may be cheaper so more people buy it when compared to other armies. but im pretty sure gee dubs don't think that deep into it.

Yeah, but that would be counter productive for GW.

They would be better off making the high model count armies better than the low count.

I don't know about made awesome to sell models. You guys have seen the rules for the Dark Angels flyers and new speeders right? Or the new Tzeentch chariot? And the Khorne chariot feels less a must than a Soul Grinder that's been out for years. As for Chaos's new kits only the dragon stands out. The rest of the new kits were mediocre game wise at best.

That said quite a few of the models I just named are rather pretty.

Personally I don't think GW(read 40k) really reward dollars spent. If only because of it's loose rules for WYSIWYG. Wehn you can convert, scratch build, and piece together bits to get what you want for cheaper than retail then it's not really about the cash spent.

Now I play in several large events (5+ games, 2+ Days) in various states and generally play in tournament a month (3-game, 1 day). If I didn't have a focus issue I'd probably never spend more than $100-$200 (less if not at retail) a year to stay current. and honestly I'd eventually not have to do that as I'd have the entire array of my range within a few years.

That's not including codexes but you don't need any codex but your codex so you can't say it's a required expense.

Granted I get bored easily so I spend more but it's certainly not a pay to win like the OP suggests.

I agree with Hulksmash. I don't think GW's designers are competent enough to overpower or underpower things on demand. There's enough evidence of new models that are crap on the table to dismiss the idea that new = good.

No, some stuff is good and some stuff is bad because GW's designers are inept.

 BryllCream wrote:

Then why are all the powerful armies fairly cheap? I don't doubt that certain models - certainly all flyers - have been buffed in order to sell what are presumably high margin products (also buildings which are clearly OP in order to sell them to every single army). But I don't think the entire ruleset of 40k revolves around making people spend as much as possible.

that requires getting into GW's psyche, and given that GW seem to be insisting they are a miniatures manufacturing company and not a game manufacturing company, it seems reasonable to suggest that they are tailoring new editions of rules to favor the sale of their product. Historically, GW has not manufactured all of the available models, and it's only recently that GW's aimed to feature a product line consistent with their rulebooks... Of course i get highly suspicious of GW's claims if all of the models it produces are used in one of a few games that it produces...

Consider the allies system just implemented by GW. One could argue it's intended to change the dynamic of the game and help cover weaknesses of one army by permitting the use of assets from another army, and that it helps tailor gameplay to player needs, but a more legitimate view might be that GW is trying to whittle into one-army-only players on the assumption that they haven't started another army because of the expense or their favour with the one army, or the lack of sufficient pointage of the smaller army to bring it to bear.... whatever. There are many reasons, but what's clear is that it opens up new play options that encourages people to open their wallets. Perhaps I'd like to redact my earlier remark, as having considered this, I feel that there is a benefit to spending more. I think Warmachine has it better developed with the mercenaries...

But I don't think the entire ruleset of 40k revolves around making people spend as much as possible.

Well yes right obviously nothing that extreme, but there are shades of grey in-between. Contrast with many other games, which aren't quite so veracious with their updates, with making the 'hot new item', and where the gaming experience is much more balanced as a result.

I think a fair way of looking at it would be to make two points on a graph. At one extreme you have sales directives at the expense of all else (production quality, balance of rules etc) and at the other end the completely opposite prerogative - the GW of the mid 90's, that was a games designer's and a games players dream, but when the accountant was quite possibly locked in a cupboard and told to shut up. I don't think it's at all unreasonable to stipulate that GW are much further along that graph, swinging towards the former example, than they were 10-15 years ago, or compared to many of their competitors today.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
It's not really a stretch of imagination when there have been several ex-GW staff who have come out and said that is the case? We've heard from Rick Priestly most recently that everything that is created goes through the sales department for tweaking before it goes on sale. Hell even Matt Ward made a comment relating to it, and he still works for the company - it's not like any secret is made of the fact.

So you mean there's a business behind all of these too? Nooooooo..

Maybe someone should have told Priestly that before they launched the Beyond the Gates kickstarter.....

Regarding the first thing you have said there, If you had read the rest of my post before making that comic interlude you would have seen I was agreeing with you

And Oi! Sonny! Mind yer manners.. (said in a cockney accent) Rick deserves a bit more respect than that!

I think WM/H has them all beat in this category, which isn't a bad thing. With 40k and WHFB there's usually an army for all armies which is at the top of a bell curve, any more and you get diminished returns. Along with the fact that every army has a slew of bad models for the table under any circumstances.
WM/H awards the guy who comes in with all the models for his faction on game day. You can then run every possible combo with every possible caster, and in almost any case it pays to have multiple of every model. Thus every new model is an award to player.