Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Maybe we SHOULD start showing up to Games Days tournaments using nothing but cheaper models from other companies until GW starts pricing them according to the model itself rather than for it's relative power in the game that goes with them.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
It's been said a million times but there are Tamiya models and robot models with more detail, higher complexity and just all around better looking for half the price.

But they would need allowence in tournaments, maybe not in friendly games.

Since GW doesn't support tournaments anymore, you might find this less of an issue than you might think. I know that in my area if I show up with a comparably sized model that has comparable weapons, I'd probably not be turned away but then people around here aren't generally raging GW fans and just want to have some fun rolling dice.

I use Mantic undead for my VC army and the only comments I've heard are "those zombies look great!"

This one's only 6" tall but has 30 points of articulation and comes in at a whopping $35....all weapons and extra armor bitz included.

Considering it cost GW plc less than £30 to design, manufacture , package and deliver the kit to the retail outlet/customer.

£60 would have been a fair price IMO.

Lanrak wrote:
Considering it cost GW plc less than £30 to design, manufacture , package and deliver the kit to the retail outlet/customer.

£60 would have been a fair price IMO.

How fantastic you have access to their internal costings, knowledge of their overheads, and distribution cost! What print run are you assuming, as you have stated a fixed cost?

Please do a full breakdown for us, I'd love to see it.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

Lanrak wrote:
Considering it cost GW plc less than £30 to design, manufacture , package and deliver the kit to the retail outlet/customer.

£60 would have been a fair price IMO.

How fantastic you have access to their internal costings, knowledge of their overheads, and distribution cost! What print run are you assuming, as you have stated a fixed cost?

Please do a full breakdown for us, I'd love to see it.

If you think GW isn't making a great deal of money off of these kits then you must really think that Tamiya, Bandai, Kotobikiya and all the other companies making larger, more complex, highly articulated kits are absolutely dead broke.

Not to mention Dreamforge Games' Leviathan at nearly half the price must be losing money on each sale.

Wraithknight is £70, until I see both together I reserve final judgement, if they're about the same size or the wraith is bigger (accounting for the wraith being taller but the imperial knight being wider), then 85 is too much, if not then maybe it's ok, I guess we won't really know until we see them together.

 Mythra wrote:
I was going to order an extra transfer when I saw it but 20 dollars for 1 transfer sheet WTHeck. Now that is crazy. That is silly almost.

They're not the little tiny transfer sheets that you get in a box of infantry or a tank kit.

These transfer sheets are labeled as "A4" sized, meaning they are 33.1 inches by 46.8 inches. The price from GW is on par with what Forge World charges for their A4 transfer sheets...and what some of the 1:48 scale, third party created armor/aircraft transfer sheets that I can readily find on Squadron Shop are priced at as well.

when there seems to be only 2 options for weapons that seem permanent compared to dreamforge that can be swapped at will for basically the same price I know which one im buying

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Mythra wrote:
I was going to order an extra transfer when I saw it but 20 dollars for 1 transfer sheet WTHeck. Now that is crazy. That is silly almost.

They're not the little tiny transfer sheets that you get in a box of infantry or a tank kit.

These transfer sheets are labeled as "A4" sized, meaning they are 33.1 inches by 46.8 inches. The price from GW is on par with what Forge World charges for their A4 transfer sheets...and what some of the 1:48 scale, third party created armor/aircraft transfer sheets that I can readily find on Squadron Shop are priced at as well.

I hope you mean centimetres, otherwise that transfer sheet is 3 foot by 4 foot.

While the model is very awesome, there is absolutely no reason that Imperial Knights have to be so expensive. Dreamforge can make a larger kit for less money, and they are an absolute podunk operation when compared to a company with the size and money of GW.

There is absolutely no reason that the model has to cost more than $100 US, and even that is very expensive for an 8 inch tall model. What justifies a price being $35 higher than a Wraithknight?

The whole wargame industry is massively over priced. If you ignore that though and just look at it within the industry its priced pretty ok a little expensive but not a million miles away.

While it obviously has parts that are more intricately detailed, the Imperial Knight stands one inch taller than a Land Raider is long. How much is a Land raider? Not $150.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

Lanrak wrote:
Considering it cost GW plc less than £30 to design, manufacture , package and deliver the kit to the retail outlet/customer.

£60 would have been a fair price IMO.

How fantastic you have access to their internal costings, knowledge of their overheads, and distribution cost! What print run are you assuming, as you have stated a fixed cost?

Please do a full breakdown for us, I'd love to see it.

GW's normal margin on Cost of Goods is about 75% as stated by Tom Kirby on annual company financial statements.

Deduct the VAT and the base price of the kit would be ~ £70, indicating a production cost of ~ £17.

By Lanrak's pricing formula, ~ £35 would be a fair price.

I'm going to stick my neck out and say it's fair based on the wargames industry as a whole. Dreamforge's stuff for me, as a UK consumer, is comparable in price, and dagnabit I like the GW aesthetic. I have looked into WM - heck, used to play competitively - and I think it's fair to use the Colossals as a comparison to this. Would I have preferred £75? Definitely. But I'll pony up (or at least, in this case, I rather suspect the wife will). I have a storm eagle, and that was a pig to assemble; give me a large plastic kit that I don't have to use G-Clamps on any day (I appreciate that's not an entirely fair comparison).
I also don't know that it's entirely appropriate to compare it to Tamiya/Bandai et al, though by all means use their mecha if you wish But the target market is different: there is both a different, and arguably more immediate (as a cost ratio) audience for them. And thinking about overpriced plastics, think about masterpiece transformers - same ballpark, really.
I'm not flag waving for GW. I use all kinds of manufacturers in my builds, I kitbash and scratchbuild (including a mars-pattern baneblade). But, on this one, I think they've got it right.

The price is based on the fact that GW has to charge a high price for model kits to maintain profit, and can get away with it because players like the aesthetic and/or need the official kit to play in tournaments that don't allow substitutes.

It's nothing to do with the IP, design and manufacturing costs. Bandai make larger, more complex Gundam kits for lower prices.

If you like this kit and think the price is fair, then buy it and enjoy it.

Also, don't forget that my claim that a Knight stands one inch taller than a Land Raider is long is highly debatable. GW says they are 8" tall, but many comparison pics online would seem to argue that point.

I think the only way that this kit can be seen as attractively priced is if the viewer either has disposable income, or is far, far too used to GW prices.

While the visual aesthetics are obviously dependent on the viewer, the 28mm Leviathan from Dreamforge is very comparable to an Imperial Knight when trying to decide what a model kit should be priced at versus the development, tooling, and injection molding processes for such a kit. And going by GW's prices, it would infer that Dreamforge is loosing an absolute friggin' fortune by selling 28mm Leviathans for what they do, and that seems unlikely.

The price is OK. Its nice model, big and certainly worth the money. And from game points cost, its actually cheaper than some "standard" army pieces But I never recount it that way. IK is really nice and a hours and hours of fun even in building and painting it

Price is fine so I bought two.

Price depends on your disposable income and the value you put on it.

I was at Warhammer World today and looking at other peoples armies price is certainly not an issue for many people. My FLGS has taken a dozen pre-orders already and my mate pre-ordered one while we were at Warhammer World. So from that evidence no, the price is not too much.

When it comes to value, pretty much nothing is.

I personally have no interest in spending £85 for such a model, but i'd happily lay down big bucks for some headphones. Bmx stuff these days is a joke too. But i avoid expensive technology like phones...

40k, looking at it from the Knights perspective kinda reminds me of how boy racers work. Who ever has the most money wins the race.

If GW actually put out decent rules and shops then £85 imo would be fine. You do get allot of hours out of the product, and they are good quality kits probably. But as it stands, i think £85 is a no go area, just like SM Centurions pricing. I bought two Hive Crones at £80 delivered, i think that was my limit. But bought some Venoms from overseas for a quarter of the cost, because Finecast is worthless crap.

If you can afford a J Class yacht for weekend racing, you could just buy GW and change the whole thing for the lulz.

That's what I call A HHHobby.

A Knight Titan is cheap in comparison.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

Lanrak wrote:
Considering it cost GW plc less than £30 to design, manufacture , package and deliver the kit to the retail outlet/customer.

£60 would have been a fair price IMO.

How fantastic you have access to their internal costings, knowledge of their overheads, and distribution cost! What print run are you assuming, as you have stated a fixed cost?

Please do a full breakdown for us, I'd love to see it.

We know that GW list their cost of sales in their accounts, we also know that they include all associated costs from conception to logistics, essentially all costs that can be directly attributed to getting a new model on the shelf.

We know that this figure is approx 1/4 of their revenue, so it is entirely fair to gauge that their RRP before tax is 4x what it costs them to produce it.

2013 Revenue 134.6
2013 Cost Of Sales 36.2

Cost of sales as % of revenue 27%

Some elements will deviate, of course, but it is more likely the stuff like paint and tools which aren't made in house which would be lower margin, rather than the stuff they have much tighter control over the costings for, but it is a bloody good average to work from.

Ex vat price of Knight £70.83
So, approximate cost of producing one Knight model actually equals a little over £19

Remember, this is calculated using GW's own figures so argue all you like, but Lanrak was being overly generous with his estimates.

i'd love to pay 85£ for it... here's it's 94£ Now zogg of with whining or does the australlian people come with their even higher price.. England get the cheapest when it comes to GW stuff now zogg of and happy wargaming! Don't like the price? Simple then don't buy it.

£60ish is my upper limit that online retailers will provide for.

For me these models are just rule of cool. I want them because they look cool, I'll probably never play a game with them, but owning them and converting them is my main goal. Playing a game with them would be sweet though.

The GW Knight blows PP, Dreamforge, and Tamiya out of the water in my opinion. Very subjective obviously, but the GW is a far superior kit to everything else that is out there, and for a comparable price. I'll buy at least one, from a discounter, S0 yes £85 is too much for me, but why would anyone buy direct from GW?

 tyrannosaurus wrote:
The GW Knight blows PP, Dreamforge, and Tamiya out of the water in my opinion. Very subjective obviously, but the GW is a far superior kit to everything else that is out there, and for a comparable price. I'll buy at least one, from a discounter, S0 yes £85 is too much for me, but why would anyone buy direct from GW?

I'm really not trying to be rude when I say this but you're showing your complete lack of experience in model building outside of GW when you say things like this. In the hobby-building world, GW models are mid-range, low-complexity level sometimes garbage. Yes, most GW kits will beat the pants off of PP but Tamiya?, really? I own a DFG Leviathan and the kit came with a small screwdriver and actual screws because it's that articulated, as in you can arrange the feet, knees, legs, etc however you like. The knights can't even bend their knees. Kotobukiya models have around 30 points of articulation and are mostly modular so they have a line of accessories (weapons and the like) that you can swap out between the models. Tamiya has a high-end and a low-end so it depends on what you're comparing. But when you can get this for $42 (USD), you realize how silly the comparison is:





It has a diecast metal frame, the turret pivots and acts like a real turret should, realistically detailed crew compartment that models actually fit into.... etc.

This one is from Bandai and rumbles in at about the size of a baneblade:





Cost? About $70.

I like the Bandai one [thanks for that, may well buy one!], but the Tamiya one looks a bit crap to me, and doesn't fit with the 40 aesthetic.

As this post is about the Knight, back OT - I also think the Dreamforge Leviathan is way off the mark with the 40k aesthetic [and, again imo, fugly], and, I believe, priced roughly the same? So, for me, the Knight is a no-brainer when held up against comparable kits, especially at a discounted price.

 tyrannosaurus wrote:
I like the Bandai one [thanks for that, may well buy one!], but the Tamiya one looks a bit crap to me, and doesn't fit with the 40 aesthetic.

As this post is about the Knight, back OT - I also think the Dreamforge Leviathan is way off the mark with the 40k aesthetic [and, again imo, fugly], and, I believe, priced roughly the same? So, for me, the Knight is a no-brainer when held up against comparable kits, especially at a discounted price.

No argument about the overall 40k aesthetic, though the tamiya model might be made to fit in quite well with a DKOK army. The leviathan fits in with my grey knights quite well and a 15mm mortis could be converted into an awesome daemon prince. I know it all boils down to personal likes and dislikes but there's a whole big world of hobby-modelling out there outside of GW with some truly fantastic models.

 agnosto wrote:
It's been said a million times but there are Tamiya models and robot models with more detail, higher complexity and just all around better looking for half the price.

Here's a good knight... $40 and comes pre-painted (a bonus for me since I don't like painting so much) 7" tall.

well, he's not entirely pre-painted. You'll meed to do a little work there. You are totally right though. While in Japan, I picked up a plastic Five Star Stories mecha kit (you can see it in my plog) that is made by Volks. They're a much smaller company than GW and yet the thing will probably be about the same size as the Knight, will be molded almost entirely in color, feature full articulation, and has a FAR more intricate sculpt. And yet I only paid $50 for it. The Knight is far too expensive for what you get.

Nice looking mecha, looks nothing remotely like something belonging in 40K though.