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JWhex wrote:

People compare warmahordes to 40k and fantasy a lot. That is another fairly useless comparison of apples and bananas.

Funny, WM/H reminds me fairly strongly of second edition 40K, at least in terms of scale, approximate model count and rules-detail-per-mini level.

JWhex wrote:
Another amusing thing about all these comparisons is some underlying assumption that people have the same amount of disposable income. If one person has ten times the amount of money as another it is a rather futile comparison to make.

Maybe so, but I was answering a specific question about if you could get a viable 40K force on a £100 budget. The conclusion seems to be yes you could, but only a very bare-bones one (esp, after including the rulebook & codex cost). It seems that you could get an army at or close to in the "standard" point range that most people actually play games at for some or most other systems, with that money.

Lets drop Dropzone Commander into the £100 mix too!

Ok, so it plays differently to 40k, but it's still a miniatures based tabletop Wargame.

A smidge over £100 will not only garner you the rulebook and a starter army designed to be playable from the get go, but you can also buy enough terrain to outfit a 6'x4' table with enough cover to be fully playable.

 azreal13 wrote:
Lets drop Dropzone Commander into the £100 mix too!

Ok, so it plays differently to 40k, but it's still a miniatures based tabletop Wargame.

A smidge over £100 will not only garner you the rulebook and a starter army designed to be playable from the get go, but you can also buy enough terrain to outfit a 6'x4' table with enough cover to be fully playable.

I completely forgot DZC existed until you've brought it up. That's yet another game I've always wanted to get into.


Also, whilst we're here. Brylly; we're all still waiting on that answer to the "decent and legal army for £100 is possible" boast. Don't be shy.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
Lets drop Dropzone Commander into the £100 mix too!

Ok, so it plays differently to 40k, but it's still a miniatures based tabletop Wargame.

A smidge over £100 will not only garner you the rulebook and a starter army designed to be playable from the get go, but you can also buy enough terrain to outfit a 6'x4' table with enough cover to be fully playable.

I completely forgot DZC existed until you've brought it up. That's yet another game I've always wanted to get into.


Also, whilst we're here. Brylly; we're all still waiting on that answer to the "decent and legal army for £100 is possible" boast. Don't be shy.

I've picked up the rulebook (£13.50 from troll trader) and it looks to play somewhat like certain iterations of Epic, but the movement, as is its intention, allows for fast redeployment. Plus you can blow buildings up, which adds an interesting dimension.

I'm going to have a quick look on GW site and try and undertake the Bryllcreem challenge, will post again when I've got an idea.

Edit, ok, surprisingly, it CAN be done, but not well.

1x Draigo £15
1 x Castellan Crowe £11
1 x Box GK Terminators £28
1 x box PA GKs £20.50
1 x Razorback £25

Not sure on the points as I don't have a GK book anymore, and I certainly won't comment on the quality of the list, but that is a legal list which allows both squads to wear two hats (can be regular or paladins/purifiers) and can transport themselves across the board.

Just under £100.

If we're factoring in cost of codex and rulebook, its really not feasible.

You can put this thread to rest, Dire Avengers, same price as last week, 50% of the product = 100% markup. Have fun.

 BryllCream wrote:
If we're being facetious then add the cost of a gaming table and terrain, heating too. And the rent for your apartment. Etc.

Or you could be a grown up and recognise that you can get a decent, legal army for under £100.

Troll harder.
To play you at least need the rulesets and those alone cost you 70... its not rocket science.

 sourclams wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:

Or you could be a grown up and recognise that you can get a decent, legal army for under £100.

Legal army. So we're counting at the very least the relevant codex. Well there's £20-£30 of your budget gone already....

It simply cannot be done. Even if you buy a copy of Dark Vengeance (and maybe swap the contents with a friend who wants the other ones), you've only got £8.50 left to spend on your army. You can hardly even get a single blister for that these days.

This was my first thought as well. unless scraping the paint off of discarded crap marines found in bulk on ebay is supposed to count...

Codex - £25
Librarian - £9.50
Tactical Squad - £23

That would give you a legal army, iirc tactical squads can be bought in 5s. But if they're not, and to flesh out our £100 anyway, let's add
Tactical squad - £23
Sterguard Squad - £25.50

Comes to £101. Sure it's not apocolypse, but it's enough to mess around with a friend who's on the same scale. Say..

Imperial Guard Codex - £25
Company Command Squad - £15.50
Infantry Squad - £18
Infantry Squad - £18
Pack of plasma guns - £6
Stormtroopers - £12.30
Stormtrooper special weapons - £8.70
Marbo - £8.20

Total - £103

No idea how the points values would work out, but you can build a perfectly fun small army at that level, with enough tactical scope to actually make the game interesting, if not uber-long.

edit - Ogryns are stupid expensive.

And the BRB, like the other counts have included. And under 100. So take 45 quid off each of those.

Codex - £25
Librarian - £9.50
Tactical Squad - £23

Comes to £57.50 (out of 55 pounds left, so overbudget anyway)

Imperial Guard Codex - £25
Company Command Squad - £15.50
Infantry Squad - £18

Total - £58.50 (out of 55 pounds left, so overbudget anyway)

So the Marine one is technically legal, and the IG one isn't. Neither are large enough to play any kind of game with. Say you split with your mate, so you only spend 22.50 each on the rulebook

Codex - £25
Librarian - £9.50
Tactical Squad - £23
Combat Squad/Scout Squad - £15.50
Plasma Guns - £6.00

Comes to £79.00 (out of 77.50 pounds left, without the Plasma Guns its legal)

Imperial Guard Codex - £25
Company Command Squad - £15.50
Infantry Squad - £18
Infantry Squad - £18

Total - £76.50 (out of 77.50 pounds left)

Now they are both legal. Except you don't own a rulebook, you are sharing it.

The SM army (going a bit over budget) is worth, with maximum upgrades, 460. I'm not sure which weapon upgrades are available to the sergeant on the sprue so I didn't include those, but if it's PPs then give it another 30 points. Leaving you at 490. That is with the other combat squad playing the role of a third tac squad to maximise points cost.

For the IG, 570 with Veterans getting all the doctrine upgrades (which aren't really presented on those models, but giving you some proxying leeway which the other games don't need), assuming 3 flamers/gl on the sprue (can't quite remember), and a meltagun on the command squad sprue (again, can't quite remember). You get a horrific army that won't really be any fun to play, tactically or otherwise.

I said "You can make a decent legal army for under £100". I didn't say you could get the rulebook into that. I think you may well just be wishing to pick a fight with someone who's "defending" GW in some way.

I'm not, but I think a lot of the reaction to prices are hysteria. Most core troops are still reasonably priced. For the IG, Russes are maybe £5 too expensive, and Vendettas (with lascannons) are about £30 too expensive. Not to mention the stupidity of not getting plasma or melta in infantry kits.

Well if you aren't counting the things you need to play the game then yeah you can get an army for 100 pounds, you are right. 155 AU though (the rough equivalent, rounding up)? Not as easy. And it's hardly hysteria in that case.

Not to mention the stupidity of not getting plasma or melta in infantry kits.

Good god yes. As an IG player this is just maddening.

 BryllCream wrote:
I said "You can make a decent legal army for under £100". I didn't say you could get the rulebook into that.

Oh right. It's just that all of the other examples did. Not to mention in all the other examples, the rulebook itself costs a heck of a lot less than the 40K brick. Though to be fair, we could value a resold softback DV book at £20 in this experiment, which seems to be the going rate on Ebay. It's not like most players haven't read the fluff in earlier editions, and can't just look up the 100 pages of glossy photos online. Or would want to physically carry the hardback to and from the club.

Incidentally, because the thread's about GW prices rather than 40K prices, how does Warhammer Fantasy measure up here?

The big issue is accessability. What do I mean by this?

I get more enjoyment x1000 per £ or $ in comparison to a can of beer. I spend way more on a weekly basis for the beer to go with my Warhammer habit than I do on the Warhammer itself.

But its a bit of a wrench laying out the money sometimes. I wish with squads I could buy models individually occasionally. So I could go and buy two strike squad members or a Paladin. But it would not be efficient at all.

Overall I'm not that unhappy at all. Occasionally my wallet wishes I really didn't like 40k but meh I like it.

 BryllCream wrote:
I said "You can make a decent legal army for under £100". I didn't say you could get the rulebook into that. I think you may well just be wishing to pick a fight with someone who's "defending" GW in some way.

Why not just stop moving the goal posts? If you can't play the game because you don't have the rules, you don't have a decent legal army.

Just going to point out a few things here...

First. GW is one of tbe few systems that requires two books to play. Rulebook and codex are more or less mandatory. The other systems require between one and zero books. That by itself is a big money sink.

Second. The lists proposed for other systems are very close to being normal game sized. A 500 point list for 40k is so far from normal games that you will have trouble finding games. That ought to be an obvious criterion for deciding whether an 'army' is 'decent'.

 sourclams wrote:
Just going to point out a few things here...

First. GW is one of tbe few systems that requires two books to play. Rulebook and codex are more or less mandatory. The other systems require between one and zero books. That by itself is a big money sink.

Second. The lists proposed for other systems are very close to being normal game sized. A 500 point list for 40k is so far from normal games that you will have trouble finding games. That ought to be an obvious criterion for deciding whether an 'army' is 'decent'.

I will agree on this point. I recently dropped the eldar half of my ork/eldar alliance as it was fairly cack, and so only had 850pts of models, so I removed a warboss leaving 748pts.

Only two people were willing to have a 750pt battle with me out of the 15 or so that were at the club.

Now, admittedly I play orks, so getting all of the big stuff is slightly easier as I can just throw some plasticard together if I don't want to shell out £32 for a battlewagon (and that's with a 20% discount), but even then getting a reasonably sized army that I would enjoy using is going to take a very long time, especially since Orks are somewhat of a Horde army.

Anyone who got into the Robotech Kickstarter with the "Battlecry" package works out to about $1.40 per model including shipping. I just got to see the models in person "casting of the 3d printer models" and they are scary detail at this stage for a larger model. It really is they can charge less but why should they? If the market can bear it they are good.

The lack of money when I switch to Robotech from me alone may create layoffs.

xxvaderxx wrote:
You can put this thread to rest, Dire Avengers, same price as last week, 50% of the product = 100% markup. Have fun.

Now prices are twice as reasonable
BTW, always wondered, why from June onward, almost no 10man Xeno Box is required for GW stockists

 Elemental wrote:
Incidentally, because the thread's about GW prices rather than 40K prices, how does Warhammer Fantasy measure up here?

1 BRB $74.25

1 Ogre Kingdoms Army Book $45.50

1 Ogre Kingdoms Battalion Box $110.00
- 6 Ogres ($40 by the box)
- 6 Ogre Ironguts ($40.00 by the box)
- 4 Ogre Leadbelchers ($40 by the box)

1 Ogre Slaughtermaster $40

Total Points: 946
Total Cost: $269.75 (Roughly 180 quid)

And that's with an army that has a high points to model ratio in fantasy. So you're looking at around another 75-100 quid to get to the standard(current? don't play it anymore due to low interest in my area) 2000 points army.

You think 40k is bad, fantasy is a nightmare nowadays.

Coldhatred wrote:So you're looking at around another 75-100 quid to get to the standard(current? don't play it anymore due to low interest in my area) 2000 points army.

You think 40k is bad, fantasy is a nightmare nowadays.

2000 is practically the minimum these days, most tourneys seem to be 2400/2500 so yeah, you're looking at a good $500 US/$750 or so au before you buy glue/paint/tools/etc for fantasy.

Fantasy is very expensive, locally the standard game is 2500 points. It can vary quite a bit with Ogre Kingdoms, as described above being very costly in points per model, so relatively cheap to buy. You could probably have a nice low model count WoC army as well.

Skaven, even with the IoB models is expensive due to the sheer amount of models you need. Dark Elves have many metal and finecast models so that army is just insanely expensive to buy new.

Many armies benefit from a unit in the "special" category that GW prices at 50$ for 10 models and you often need 4 to 5 boxes to make the unit, grave guard, bestigors, greatswords etc.

Bottom line is that it is very difficult to recruit new players, not only for the cost but just the modelling and painting effort required.

An increasing number of local players are using Mantic models in their WFB armies. Don't blame them at all (just wish they'd give KoW a go while they're at it!)

GW are very high quality but nothing will deter from the ridiculously high prices, i have resorted to buying everything second hand and thats worked well for me though

 Suicidal Grot wrote:
GW are very high quality but nothing will deter from the ridiculously high prices, i have resorted to buying everything second hand and thats worked well for me though

There was a high quality a few years ago, but finecast saw to that and to GW's reputation as high level casters.

GW's newest stuff is by and large excellent in technical execution, but the snap-together-ness of big models combined with their shifting further into the 'cartooney' end of the spectrum has resulted in many notable new models becoming silly self-parodies.

They really are becoming expensive toys that you have to paint yourself.

Suicidal Grot wrote:GW are very high quality but nothing will deter from the ridiculously high prices, i have resorted to buying everything second hand and thats worked well for me though

With GW not really caring about retaining customers, there are probably lots of people looking to sell used stuff. It's probably the perfect time to switch to buying used only.

Not to mention the perfect time to switch to a company who DO want to retain customers.
As they tend to offer much better value for money.

Baby steps, Lanrak. They'll get there.

MDR, I read this pointless topic and all I can do is laughing. Over price or not? Quality or not? Who care at the end. When you like something you buy it at the end.

hellpato wrote:
MDR, I read this pointless topic and all I can do is laughing. Over price or not? Quality or not? Who care at the end. When you like something you buy it at the end.

Well, I'm laughing at the fact you've wasted however long it took you to read 7 pages of this thread and still have somewhat missed the point.

 azreal13 wrote:

hellpato wrote:
MDR, I read this pointless topic and all I can do is laughing. Over price or not? Quality or not? Who care at the end. When you like something you buy it at the end.

Well, I'm laughing at the fact you've wasted however long it took you to read 7 pages of this thread and still have somewhat missed the point.

You mean the point of 'I don't like it enough to pay that much'?

Yeah... it was hidden out in the open, folks miss things like that....

And the price on the Dire Avengers.... Oy! It's not even as though there that good.

The Auld Grump