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Terrain, Xenos terrain. Let GW keep producing all the Gothic stuff they want but add some stuff for Tau, Eldar that doesn't involve a RoB.

Perhaps even design some Chaos stuff more original than adding spikes and more skulls to the Gothic version... impossible I know but one can dream.

M.

Sinful Hero wrote:

Eldercaveman wrote:

 Sinful Hero wrote:
Update the hierodules for Tyranids. Also more dark Eldar stuff, such as haemonculi.

Didn't the nids get done in the FW apoc book?

I meant update the sculpts. IMHO they seem very dated.

Thedragisal wrote:Capillary Towers

I would rather they did this ^^^^

 filbert wrote:
I would be inclined to order the new Heresy book and a Fulgrim were it not for the stupid 10% shipping they decide to lump on an order. I mean, I'm paying £100+ for a book and a damn plastic figure, you'd think they could eat a couple of quid to post the sodding thing to me. In these days of Amazon and free shipping, it seems incredibly old fashioned and penny pinching to charge a shipping fee, especially when it is a not inconsiderable size of the order. It strikes me as just a way to fleece more money out of people. I feel for those overseas who have to either club together as a gang or spend even more money just to get the free shipping band.

What's happening is you're subsidizing the shipping costs for those of us who live outside the UK. International shipping is expensive, your excessive shipping charges allow FW to only charge me 15% (or even 0% sometimes).

Some arms and legs for the hostile environment troopers so I can make them look more like kasrkin. Maybe a small leman russ tank that does not look like the leman russ because man what an ugly tank.

 Peregrine wrote:

 filbert wrote:
I would be inclined to order the new Heresy book and a Fulgrim were it not for the stupid 10% shipping they decide to lump on an order. I mean, I'm paying £100+ for a book and a damn plastic figure, you'd think they could eat a couple of quid to post the sodding thing to me. In these days of Amazon and free shipping, it seems incredibly old fashioned and penny pinching to charge a shipping fee, especially when it is a not inconsiderable size of the order. It strikes me as just a way to fleece more money out of people. I feel for those overseas who have to either club together as a gang or spend even more money just to get the free shipping band.

What's happening is you're subsidizing the shipping costs for those of us who live outside the UK. International shipping is expensive, your excessive shipping charges allow FW to only charge me 15% (or even 0% sometimes).

It doesn't cost that much, especially for a relatively large company that FW that can benefit from cheap postage deals and bulk discounts. Maelstrom Games had free worldwide shipping on all orders and practically every online webstore I have ever used has free shipping. There is no excuse in this day and age to not do it. Adding 10% or 15% on top of what is already very expensive stuff just strikes me as profiteering.

 Mecha_buddha wrote:
To be honest I would like to see Forge World restructure, possibly as a test to see if GW main would do the same.

Model design split into 3 teams, Space Marine / All other Imperial / Xenos (lets be honest Marines will always be their bread and butter and most likely the largest design team)

Writing split into 2 teams, fluff and rules, both teams reporting to a line editor. (one person writing a codex is asinine, especially when he doesn't read or talk to other codices)

Books, I like the IA books, but they could make a campaign book or mission book rather than saying "hey newest campaign rules are in the newest IA book. What you dont want to drop 80 dollars on a book for 20 pages of rules because the rest of the book are faction you dont play?

Modernize the store (paypal, free shipping in line with GW main, better pictures with something to show scale)

That is pretty much how they work anyway, one guy specializes in imperial tanks, etc. Some of the designers are paid per model they do and the rest are full time employees.

The problem is that they do not have a large enough budget to employ enough staff to work at the pace were they can design SM, Ork, Eldar,etc. stuff all at the same time as they cannot afford enough staff on that budget.

The question is if FW has enough demand to increase the number of models that they can release each month and this comes down to what percentage the regular FW buyers (those who buy every month or every other month, I am one of these) make up of their total buyer base for a year. If you are a regular buyer you will have a set budget each month that you have to stick to.

If too many models come out in excess of that budget models FW spent money developing and casting the initial batch aren't going to sell in enough volume to make back their upfront costs. If that happens too often then FW will start to lose money and have to downsize.

The alternate view is that if they diversify their range more casual buyers could spend more on a regular basis and overall sales increase. Only FW know the numbers that would back which theory is correct on this.

Obviously there is the tin foil hat version that would suggest GW doesn't want FW becoming too successful as it makes GW look bad if FW starts making more profit than them.

I'd like them to start doing Epic again, they can shut down all other departments to fund it.

 filbert wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 filbert wrote:
I would be inclined to order the new Heresy book and a Fulgrim were it not for the stupid 10% shipping they decide to lump on an order. I mean, I'm paying £100+ for a book and a damn plastic figure, you'd think they could eat a couple of quid to post the sodding thing to me. In these days of Amazon and free shipping, it seems incredibly old fashioned and penny pinching to charge a shipping fee, especially when it is a not inconsiderable size of the order. It strikes me as just a way to fleece more money out of people. I feel for those overseas who have to either club together as a gang or spend even more money just to get the free shipping band.

What's happening is you're subsidizing the shipping costs for those of us who live outside the UK. International shipping is expensive, your excessive shipping charges allow FW to only charge me 15% (or even 0% sometimes).

It doesn't cost that much, especially for a relatively large company that FW that can benefit from cheap postage deals and bulk discounts. Maelstrom Games had free worldwide shipping on all orders and practically every online webstore I have ever used has free shipping. There is no excuse in this day and age to not do it. Adding 10% or 15% on top of what is already very expensive stuff just strikes me as profiteering.

I second this, as any business with a Franking Account /facility from Royal mail pays significantly less like 40% less than what the public pays.

Equally I believe you can write it off against your Tax Bill as a Business Expense if you offer free Shipping as it's an incurred business cost. So I have no idea why FW charges what it does for shipping. Especially as it could offer Free shipping and write this off against it's tax bill thereby reducing it's tax burden and retaining more of it's profits.

Actually, their prices are better than GW US in many areas. Pricing isn't something they need to focus on IMO. If the dollar was on par to the pound, there wouldn't be as much biching. That is not their fault.

Those talking about FW's postage and that they should be offering free shipping like Amazon, well apparently Amazon lost $2.4 billion last year offering free shipping: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/02/21/prime-and-punishment/ I know they ship far far more than FW but if a company the size of Amazon can't make free shipping break even then how can a small company like FW do it? Only way for FW to offer free shipping is that FW put up prices to cover the shipping cost.

Now I don't disagree that FW could reduce the cost of shipping as it does get really expensive compared to actual cost especially as you get over the £200 mark. I always make sure that I get over the £250 mark or stick at around £50.

Looky Likey wrote:
Those talking about FW's postage and that they should be offering free shipping like Amazon, well apparently Amazon lost $2.4 billion last year offering free shipping: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/02/21/prime-and-punishment/ I know they ship far far more than FW but if a company the size of Amazon can't make free shipping break even then how can a small company like FW do it? Only way for FW to offer free shipping is that FW put up prices to cover the shipping cost.

Now I don't disagree that FW could reduce the cost of shipping as it does get really expensive compared to actual cost especially as you get over the £200 mark. I always make sure that I get over the £250 mark or stick at around £50.

The Amazon quote is Meaningless because of its business structure - it makes far more money by being tax efficient - So for example why pay the $2.4billion and then write it off against Tax (in the UK which is 21% of profits) when you can absorb the hit and move your money offshore and pay 1% or less tax. This is called Tax efficiency . So Yes it is a cost, but it's not comparable because you are literally paying negligible tax. Unlike FW / GW unless of course they do transfer pricing (Something I will have to look at!)

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/apr/04/amazon-british-operation-corporation-tax

So why write off the $2.4 Billion on say a $7 Billion Tax bill e.g resulting in $4.6 Tax bill - When you can move it through a secrecy jurisdiction and pay $1Billion Tax and net $6Billion saving even if you absorb the cost of the $2.4Billion shipping you are still $3.6Billion up on the game.

This is how it is done.. http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Documents/Secrecyjurisdiction.pdf using a mechanism call transfer pricing - Google and pretty much all of the Fortune 500 do this.

 mwnciboo wrote:

Looky Likey wrote:
Those talking about FW's postage and that they should be offering free shipping like Amazon, well apparently Amazon lost $2.4 billion last year offering free shipping: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/02/21/prime-and-punishment/ I know they ship far far more than FW but if a company the size of Amazon can't make free shipping break even then how can a small company like FW do it? Only way for FW to offer free shipping is that FW put up prices to cover the shipping cost.

Now I don't disagree that FW could reduce the cost of shipping as it does get really expensive compared to actual cost especially as you get over the £200 mark. I always make sure that I get over the £250 mark or stick at around £50.

The Amazon quote is Meaningless because of its business structure - it makes far more money by being tax efficient - So for example why pay the $2.4billion and then write it off against Tax (in the UK which is 21% of profits) when you can absorb the hit and move your money offshore and pay 1% or less tax. This is called Tax efficiency . So Yes it is a cost, but it's not comparable because you are literally paying negligible tax.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/apr/04/amazon-british-operation-corporation-tax

So why write off the $2.4 Billion on say a $7 Billion Tax bill e.g resulting in $4.6 Tax bill - When you can move it through a secrecy jurisdiction and pay $1Billion Tax and net $6Billion saving even if you absorb the cost of the $2.4Billion shipping you are still $3.6Billion up on the game.

That link doesn't seem to contain anything that I could see showing that they wrote off their shipping cost because of their tax structure? Being tax efficient and offering free shipping aren't linked, being able to offer free shipping because you are using loop holes with the tax regulations and/or you have massive cash reserves like Amazon doesn't help a small firm like GW/FW offer free shipping.

So how did Maelstrom do it then? Even websites that do charge for shipping charge substantially less than FW do...

@Lookylikey - You compared a Global Mulitnational with Huge profits, and vast tax efficiency to a small Enterprise which is floated on the stock market.

Different rules apply - FW can easily write the cost off against their Tax Bill. Amazon can write off a huge cost with Tax efficiency and still make enormous profits because effectively they don't pay (or pay negligable tax). So to say Amazon suffered a huge expense is a gross mis-representation because it's not a level playing field. They are effectively moaning about something that is actually making them richer - If they declared it via a Tax regime like the US @35% tax they would lose out massively despite being able to offset / write off the $2.4Billion of the cost of the Shipping.

Same result different mechanisms. Some of the lines from big corporations are obfuscating the core issues, by coming up with valid though mis-construed statistics. Yes it did cost them X, but it's meaningless without the bigeer picture.

filbert wrote:So how did Maelstrom do it then? Even websites that do charge for shipping charge substantially less than FW do...

First thing, how are Maelstrom doing these days? Picture of health? They ate into their profit margins offering free shipping and large discounts, ran up large debits then asset stripped the company before it went bust. They are not the model of a successful, sustainable business that anybody should be following.

mwnciboo wrote:@Lookylikey - You compared a Global Mulitnational with Huge profits, and vast tax efficiency to a small Enterprise which is floated on the stock market.

Different rules apply - FW can easily write the cost off against their Tax Bill. Amazon can write off a huge loss with Tax efficiency.

Same result different mechanisms.

So your link doesn't actually contain anything about being able to write off the shipping cost then?

Er no GW/FW can't otherwise ALL UK tax paying businesses would be offering free shipping if it was as simple as writing off costs against their tax bill as it gives you a huge advantage selling online.

Amazon can only afford free shipping due to avoiding paying tax and huge cash reserves. As well Bezos is given huge leeway by the stock market to throw away billions on free shipping as it has helped grow Amazon into a huge multi national. Even with their tax efficiency and cash reserves if the stock market didn't give Bezos the leeway he'd be pushed to drop it or be pushed out as $2.4 billion is a huge number to spend on something you could actually be making money on, how many large multi nationals could turn down $2.4 billion in profit?

At some point Amazon will stop offering free shipping, they have already starting cutting back for super saver and Prime has a number of small items you can no longer get free shipping for.

Also I wasn't the first to bring Amazon into this, other people were stating "if amazon can do it then why not FW".

Looky Likey wrote:
First thing, how are Maelstrom doing these days? Picture of health? They ate into their profit margins offering free shipping and large discounts, ran up large debits then asset stripped the company before it went bust. They are not the model of a successful, sustainable business that anybody should be following.

So you are of the opinion that Maelstrom offering free shipping was the reason behind their demise? Right....

The reasons behind their collapse aside, they operated for many, many years offering free shipping. Other UK webstores operate with free shipping, or at least offer free shipping from time to time. Are you suggesting they are all running at a loss because of that?

Let's flip it on it's head - GW offer free shipping from their own webstore (or given that the threshold is £10, as near as damn it). Are they operating at a loss? Do you not think that if the free shipping cost a substantial amount of revenue, GW would not be the very first people to start charging for shipping given how much they charge for everything else?

 filbert wrote:

Looky Likey wrote:
First thing, how are Maelstrom doing these days? Picture of health? They ate into their profit margins offering free shipping and large discounts, ran up large debits then asset stripped the company before it went bust. They are not the model of a successful, sustainable business that anybody should be following.

So you are of the opinion that Maelstrom offering free shipping was the reason behind their demise? Right....

The reasons behind their collapse aside, they operated for many, many years offering free shipping. Other UK webstores operate with free shipping, or at least offer free shipping from time to time. Are you suggesting they are all running at a loss because of that?

Let's flip it on it's head - GW offer free shipping from their own webstore (or given that the threshold is £10, as near as damn it). Are they operating at a loss? Do you not think that if the free shipping cost a substantial amount of revenue, GW would not be the very first people to start charging for shipping given how much they charge for everything else?

I've bolded the bit in my statement for you in case you've missed it by accident.

You can't operate at low margins and low volume without increased risk. Maelstrom discounted heavily and then compounded that by offering free shipping eating into the margins even more. As soon as they got into trouble (some of it their own making some of it not) they didn't have the cash reserves to draw on (living hand to mouth, buying last month's orders from this month's income) and from there it was a downward spiral.

Again, you can't compare GW to FW without comparing their margins on the goods. GW is selling at RRP via their webstore, most of the "GW friendly" stores (i.e., those on good terms still and not fallen foul of the trade agreements with GW) will be getting about 50% off that. So GW automatically has a 50% margin for selling online plus their normal profit that they'd make selling to stores and minus the shipping cost to the store, that's a huge percentage margin. FW on the other hand have only sold direct in recent memory and operate on a lower margin than GW (as GW have to make a profit even selling to third party stores). FW are also far lower volume than GW, don't have national distribution centers in the US/Europe so their costs per unit are higher as well.

Well, when I can get a new dishwasher delivered the next day and with the old machine being taken away for less than it costs for FW to put a book and a miniature in a box and post it to me, then that says something is deeply wrong to me. You can spin it whichever way you want but I have never found or indeed used, a website or webstore that charges me anything remotely approaching the cost that FW apply for shipping and handling.

Eldercaveman wrote:

Sinful Hero wrote:

Eldercaveman wrote:

 Sinful Hero wrote:
Update the hierodules for Tyranids. Also more dark Eldar stuff, such as haemonculi.

Didn't the nids get done in the FW apoc book?

I meant update the sculpts. IMHO they seem very dated.

Thedragisal wrote:Capillary Towers

I would rather they did this ^^^^

Why not both?

 filbert wrote:
Well, when I can get a new dishwasher delivered the next day and with the old machine being taken away for less than it costs for FW to put a book and a miniature in a box and post it to me, then that says something is deeply wrong to me. You can spin it whichever way you want but I have never found or indeed used, a website or webstore that charges me anything remotely approaching the cost that FW apply for shipping and handling.

I'm not spinning it any which way. BTW your dishwasher delivery would be subsidized by the margin on the sale price for the dishwasher. Also if you read my earlier posts I've clearly stated that I think past a certain point FW gets far to expensive for delivery.

 Sinful Hero wrote:

Eldercaveman wrote:

Sinful Hero wrote:

Eldercaveman wrote:

 Sinful Hero wrote:
Update the hierodules for Tyranids. Also more dark Eldar stuff, such as haemonculi.

Didn't the nids get done in the FW apoc book?

I meant update the sculpts. IMHO they seem very dated.

Thedragisal wrote:Capillary Towers

I would rather they did this ^^^^

Why not both?

Don't be greedy

 filbert wrote:

 sing your life wrote:


Ah, I see.

The difficulty of getting the product is more of a sale-stopper than prices mind.

I would be inclined to order the new Heresy book and a Fulgrim were it not for the stupid 10% shipping they decide to lump on an order. I mean, I'm paying £100+ for a book and a damn plastic figure, you'd think they could eat a couple of quid to post the sodding thing to me. In these days of Amazon and free shipping, it seems incredibly old fashioned and penny pinching to charge a shipping fee, especially when it is a not inconsiderable size of the order. It strikes me as just a way to fleece more money out of people. I feel for those overseas who have to either club together as a gang or spend even more money just to get the free shipping band.

£15 isn't too bad when they're shipping you a heavy book and model.

Besides Fulgrim is in resin not plastic, there is a differance.

 sing your life wrote:
£15 isn't too bad when they're shipping you a heavy book and model.

Besides Fulgrim is in resin not plastic, there is a differance.

1) 15GBP shipping is ridiculous when you consider they're shipping it from Nottingham to wherever filbert lives. I shipped IA12 to Sasori from Ohio to Texas and paid 8 dollars for that shipping, I could have paid 4 dollars for the 'book rate' but I needed it to get to him as fast as possible
2) Resin is a type of plastic

Wikipedia wrote:Resin casting is a method of plastic casting where a mold is filled with a liquid synthetic resin, which then hardens. It is primarily used for small-scale production like industrial prototypes and dentistry. It can be done by amateur hobbyists with little initial investment, and is used in the production of collectible toys, models and figures, as well as small-scale jewelry production.

Time of Legends models. Sigmar, Aenarion, a non farcical Nagash. Etc.

What would I like Forge World to do?

Hm... Maybe more Stuff for Warhammer Forge??

Yeah that would be cool. And Lion El Johnson

1st/2nd age LOTR miniatures?(I wish.My wallet dosn't though..)But then again 40k fans would cry because there terminator with different helmet would be delayed.

Im not sure about small orders, but when I order £100 + of stuff, it always comes via UPS, and the price UPS normally charge your average joe, is more than the 10% i pay FW for a lot of it, especially the heavy stuff.
Its also actually cheaper to mail some size parcels abroad than it is within the UK sometimes too, beacuse of the strange sizing system Royal mail uses.

MOAR IMPERIAL GUARD REGIMENTS BLAH BLEE BLOO!!! STEAMPUNK IMPERIAL GUARD WITH KETTLEHATS! AND UPDATE THE FLOOPIN L&TD!

I would love to see what they could do with Deathwatch

 Peregrine wrote:

Let's be honest, FW's rules suck.

Yeah, well so does your Mum.

[This is supposed to be a joke incase you were concerned]