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Hey All,

I'm a 40k player and was going to buy a box of witches to use for death cult assassins. Why do they cost 60 bucks when all the other plastic 10 man/woman kits are only 33? Is there some extra sprues or bits I'm not seeing? Thanks. Trying to plan some conversions.

Oh dear. The can has been opened!!

EVERYONE BRACE YOURSELVES!!!!!!


Oh, and on topic, it can make two different units, but is just an expensive box. Basically the bodies are a few pieces, and then you choose the weapons and heads that go with whatever unit you were wanting to create. It would make a pretty sweet death cult assassin box. Just use the Witch heads and the other units (can't think of the name) weapons. Just look at the pics on GW's website to get an idea of what's in the box.

 BladeWalker wrote:
Hey All,

I'm a 40k player and was going to buy a box of witches to use for death cult assassins. Why do they cost 60 bucks when all the other plastic 10 man/woman kits are only 33? Is there some extra sprues or bits I'm not seeing? Thanks. Trying to plan some conversions.

The Sisters of Slaughter(Rare unit choice) option drives up the price.

Seriously. It's the same reason that Shadow Warriors/Sisters of Avelorn are $50.

Because they can. Use dark eldar wyches i have some done up that way and look good.

Because they double comparable prices every 2-3 years, to compensate for the loss of sales and customers.

It's not that the Witches cost twice as much as other DE core. The Sisters of Slaughter, as a rare choice, cost twice as much as a core unit.

That the same box also makes the core Witches is just a happy coincidence, from GW's viewpoint. And an even happier one from their competitor's standpoint, because they can now charge $5 per model instead of $2.50 and still undercut GW.

I suppose It's because no-one has burnt anything in protest against prices yet.

 Kroothawk wrote:
Because they double comparable prices every 2-3 years, to compensate for the loss of sales and customers.

Except Witch Elves are actually cheaper than they were before this release. So, even at $60 for a box, they are cheaper per model than they were 6 months ago.

Funny that you again omit, that prices were raised only June 2012, a bit more than a year before Plastic Witch Elves, when Witches turned Finecast. The metals have been cheaper until the end.
And for 66$ in Finecast, you got 8 or so different sculpts, not 5.

 Kroothawk wrote:
Funny that you again omit, that prices were raised only June 2012, a bit more than a year before Plastic Witch Elves, when Witches turned Finecast. The metals have been cheaper until the end.
And for 66$ in Finecast, you got 8 or so different sculpts, not 5.

Even in 2011, they were $40 for 10. So no 'doubling of comparable prices' every 2-3 years.

GW is more expensive than PP because you have to buy more to play at large point values. With all of the models I have in the trollblood line, I only come to about 1,000$ with a 325 pt army maxed out. So it is all on perspective, spend 50$ on a 15 pt battlebox with maybe 2 models you would use regularly or 110$ GW battlebox that has around 350 pts or so?

 pretre wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:
Funny that you again omit, that prices were raised only June 2012, a bit more than a year before Plastic Witch Elves, when Witches turned Finecast. The metals have been cheaper until the end.
And for 66$ in Finecast, you got 8 or so different sculpts, not 5.

Even in 2011, they were $40 for 10. So no 'doubling of comparable prices' every 2-3 years.

I am not aware of plastic witch elf boxes in 2011.

 Kroothawk wrote:

 pretre wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:
Funny that you again omit, that prices were raised only June 2012, a bit more than a year before Plastic Witch Elves, when Witches turned Finecast. The metals have been cheaper until the end.
And for 66$ in Finecast, you got 8 or so different sculpts, not 5.

Even in 2011, they were $40 for 10. So no 'doubling of comparable prices' every 2-3 years.

I am not aware of plastic witch elf boxes in 2011.

THere were metal ones in 2011. Approx $20 for 5. It is an easy conversion to say $40 for 10.

The last price I remember for metal witches was $22 for 5, or $25 for the command group.

Still a heck of a jump from $47 to $60 when going from metal to plastic.

 Vulcan wrote:
The last price I remember for metal witches was $22 for 5, or $25 for the command group.

Still a heck of a jump from $47 to $60 when going from metal to plastic.

It actually went to 66 last year or so for Finecast. So the plastic is a reduction.

The jump from 47 to 66 was crazy though.

Finecast was introduced because of cost reduction, being cheaper than metal. So making Finecast prices higher than metal prices is just to increase profit marge per unit and compensate for loss of sales. And to make higher prices for plastic products look less ridiculous.

Metal/Finecast and plastic have different cost/profit relations: Metal/resin have low mould costs but higher material costs, making them ideal for low run models. Plastic has high mould costs but even lower material costs, so is ideal for mass runs. That's why I speak of comparable only within those two groups, not between them.

GW tries to discontinue low run miniatures and only keep mass run plastics, for prices higher than those of metal models.
The price hikes I was talking about is within comparable plastic products (looking at sprue size and number per kit). Most obvious in LOTR/Hobbit, when by halving content and raising box prices we got a 100% price hike within about a year, followed by raising the price for 10 man boxes by another 50% for Hobbit, resulting in a 150% price hike for one sprue boxes in less than 2 years. Other prominent examples are Storm Talon / Dark Talon, the ever rising price for 2 sprue kits and the ever rising price for the most expensive new release usable in a regular game (Riptide, Wraithknight, now trying to get all plastic Apocalypse units into regular games).

Also: All Codices and armybooks in the current wave cost more than double the price of the predecessor product at release.

Keep in mind that current GW strategy is to keep prices for old products and overcompensate with raising prices for new products, which usually make the most sales anyway.

 Kroothawk wrote:
The price hikes I was talking about is within comparable plastic products (looking at sprue size and number per kit). .

And yet you brought it up in an unrelated thread for metal to finecast to plastic miniature changes.

 pretre wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:
The price hikes I was talking about is within comparable plastic products (looking at sprue size and number per kit). .

And yet you brought it up in an unrelated thread for metal to finecast to plastic miniature changes.

Yes, we all here are talking about plastic kits, with the exception of you.

 Kroothawk wrote:
Yes, we all here are talking about plastic kits, with the exception of you.

Sure you are.

 BladeWalker wrote:
Hey All,

I'm a 40k player and was going to buy a box of witches to use for death cult assassins. Why do they cost 60 bucks when all the other plastic 10 man/woman kits are only 33? Is there some extra sprues or bits I'm not seeing? Thanks. Trying to plan some conversions.

It's what people will pay for it. No other reason needed really.

 SaintTom wrote:
It's what people will pay for it. No other reason needed really.

Not this DE player, that's for sure. I can convert other stuff much cheaper, so there's no reason to break the bank rewarding GW for their sales practices.