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I just priced out my hypothetical 1500 Nids list... $800 retail after tax. This does not include a single pot of paint; not a single rule book; just the models.

GW, are you kidding?! How the hell am i supposed to sell my friends on this?!

Help me out, Dakka. How do you work this into a conversation with a possible new player?

In case you were wondering.. here is the list by SKU:

Tyrant
Tyrant Guard set
Tervigon
Endless Swarm box set
Mawloc
Biovores x3
Zoanthrope
Venomthrope
Carnifex Crusher Brood box set

Yeah, it is expensive and that's a pain. But nor is any business a charity. You're trying to get friends into the game at 1500 points- well there's your problem. 40k doesn't work best at that many points. Start them off at 500 or 600 points. 750 is then a nice easy goal to go on to once the first few hundred points are painted up.

Otherwise... Discount retailers and ebay. Choose an elitist army too which is low on models, like Grey Knights. Although GW does price according to points somewhat, I think an elite army still ends up being cheaper than the equivalent points of a mob army like foot guard.

You don't; that's why GW is losing profit. The startup costs are insane, and keep in mind that you also need $125 just in the rules, and that's not factoring in dice, or templates, or paints.

For a company that "sells toys to kids" they sure have strange ideas about the kind of money kids have.

No one sets out to create an army lower than 1250. An escalation league always finished higher than that. How could you say the 40k doesn't work "at that many points"? I've been in this hobby since second edition... that is about 15 years, and my group's goal was always 2000 points.

I am not bemoaning GW for making a profit but the entry cost is far too high; and Nids are an appealing army since they fit a very common, sci-fi antagonist theme.

I suppose they should release more battle forces, like they used to. Some sort of starter set is absolutely necessary and not just to push sprues of poorly selling models mind you.

What they need to do is sell a complete 1,000 point "starter army" for under $200 and include the Codex for free, and sell the paperback rules for like $25-30 - this starter army should be a balanced army that includes a bit of everything and captures the feel of the army (let's not discuss competitiveness at this point) to entice people. That way you have a solid "Want to start a new army? Start here" jumping off point without investing several hundred dollars. If you're a new player, you spend about $200 and you're ready to start playing real games. If you're a veteran, you start a new army for under $200 that you may or may not expand as you see fit.

That's what they sorely need. They need to man up and eat the profit loss (if there even is one) to encourage people to start playing at reasonable points levels. Below 1000 points is solely the domain of fringe games (Kill Team, Combat Patrol, etc.) and not the "real" game. Hell even 1,000 is towards the low end as most people tend to prefer 2,000 to field all the goodies. 1,000 has almost always been the "minimum" acceptable points level with some exceptions (the original Combat Patrol, then called "Lunchhammer", was 500 points for that reason - so you could play a game during your lunch break so about 30 minutes to 1 hour)

In fact, if you want any proof that GW thinks nickeling and diming people to death, loo no further than their "how to paint" books that they sell. This info used to be included in the codexes, but some beancounter got the bright idea to not include any painting info and have the gall to charge extra for a book detailing how to do it.

That's funny... you know that some people really prefer 750pt games and fine 1200 pt games too long and boring, and a 2K point game to be some tournament-level BS, right?

Agree with post above, chuck the codexes in with starter armies and put a label on along the lines of "free £30 codex included". Even though the prices are extortionate at least they know they are saving a lot of money. Maybe even include the mini rule book and increase the starter set by say £10. That way it prevents people having to splash out £75 just on books.

Scouse-cat wrote:
Agree with post above, chuck the codexes in with starter armies and put a label on along the lines of "free £30 codex included". Even though the prices are extortionate at least they know they are saving a lot of money. Maybe even include the mini rule book and increase the starter set by say £10. That way it prevents people having to splash out £75 just on books.

Awesome ideas actually.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Psienesis wrote:
That's funny... you know that some people really prefer 750pt games and fine 1200 pt games too long and boring, and a 2K point game to be some tournament-level BS, right?

Nope. Never heard of that pansy ish. J/K, but No, actually I've never heard of people playing games that low as standard for 40k, honestly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

WayneTheGame wrote:
What they need to do is sell a complete 1,000 point "starter army" for under $200 and include the Codex for free, and sell the paperback rules for like $25-30 - this starter army should be a balanced army that includes a bit of everything and captures the feel of the army (let's not discuss competitiveness at this point) to entice people. That way you have a solid "Want to start a new army? Start here" jumping off point without investing several hundred dollars. If you're a new player, you spend about $200 and you're ready to start playing real games. If you're a veteran, you start a new army for under $200 that you may or may not expand as you see fit.

That's what they sorely need. They need to man up and eat the profit loss (if there even is one) to encourage people to start playing at reasonable points levels. Below 1000 points is solely the domain of fringe games (Kill Team, Combat Patrol, etc.) and not the "real" game. Hell even 1,000 is towards the low end as most people tend to prefer 2,000 to field all the goodies. 1,000 has almost always been the "minimum" acceptable points level with some exceptions (the original Combat Patrol, then called "Lunchhammer", was 500 points for that reason - so you could play a game during your lunch break so about 30 minutes to 1 hour)

^Yes, this.

Well there is a huge disparaty in prices for different armies. You picked perhaps the 3rd most expensive army (the horde armies and SoB are the most expensive with any army that had a starter set having a price break).

You can easily purchase a 2000 pts FMC CD army or GK paladin army for ~300 usd. If you have any imagination you can purchase metal wraithlords off of ebay for 10 usd a pop and convert them to DP for another 5 usd per. This would give you a FMC army for less than 200 usd.

This is like me saying phones are horribly expensive because I bought an iphone with no contract when I could have gotten a phone from walmart for 20 usd.

I do wish they would sell a basic box set for a price break to get people in the hobby but selling them all for 200 usd at the same pts means either they overcharge for some armies or are taking a huge deficit on others. I have GK, Ravenwing, and horde IG and I can tell you the IG are ~5 times the investment in money alone (forget the massive amount of time invested) than the GK (paladins) or Ravenwing for a similar pts level.

 ansacs wrote:
Well there is a huge disparaty in prices for different armies. You picked perhaps the 3rd most expensive army (the horde armies and SoB are the most expensive with any army that had a starter set having a price break).

You can easily purchase a 2000 pts FMC CD army or GK paladin army for ~300 usd. If you have any imagination you can purchase metal wraithlords off of ebay for 10 usd a pop and convert them to DP for another 5 usd per. This would give you a FMC army for less than 200 usd.

This is like me saying phones are horribly expensive because I bought an iphone with no contract when I could have gotten a phone from walmart for 20 usd.

I do wish they would sell a basic box set for a price break to get people in the hobby but selling them all for 200 usd at the same pts means either they overcharge for some armies or are taking a huge deficit on others. I have GK, Ravenwing, and horde IG and I can tell you the IG are ~5 times the investment in money alone (forget the massive amount of time invested) than the GK (paladins) or Ravenwing for a similar pts level.

Well sure, I can see your angle. I have 2000+ points of DA that probably only cost me around 300 due to many of the models having been eBay purchases from starter sets. But I am talking about getting a new player involved. I know the ins and outs of buying for this hobby. I know how to magnetize to get the best bang out of each sprue. But the new player does not. It took me many years and many many mistakes to learn the most optimal ways to participate in the hobby. Further, when I make lists I have an angle. A new player needs to fall in love/ get addicted to the plastic crack and that is not done through net-listing.

 Deuce11 wrote:
I just priced out my hypothetical 1500 Nids list... $800 retail after tax. This does not include a single pot of paint; not a single rule book; just the models.

GW, are you kidding?! How the hell am i supposed to sell my friends on this?!

Help me out, Dakka. How do you work this into a conversation with a possible new player?

In case you were wondering.. here is the list by SKU:

Tyrant
Tyrant Guard set
Tervigon
Endless Swarm box set
Mawloc
Biovores x3
Zoanthrope
Venomthrope
Carnifex Crusher Brood box set

Well, I'd suggest this...Swarm Box, Hive Tyrant, Box of Gargoyles.... Paint and build, try to magnetise the Carnifex. Play a while, and learn how your play style works. Then buy some stuff to fit...Love Fexes? Buy two more, 90$, But you can find them on "sale" (well discounted anyhow )

Need Synapse and anti-tank (plus Hive Mind Powerz!) Zoeys...me? I'd buy 4. Love big bugs? Tyranofex! and so on...if you want winged death (from above) buy more gargoyles, and or Crones/ Harpys. Buy enough, and run Skyblight.

The best way to handle high start up is ...start small, and make small increases....

All my friends told me I was crazy as well. The only two armies that stood out to me, were Orks and Tyranids. I've dumped about 660$ in one week into an army that I don't know if I'll enjoy. I'm not expecting to consistently play with the army(but I will), but I've loved putting them together. While I know most people don't have that kind of money to just throw into a game, you could slowly invest over multiple pay checks. It'll take that long for you to put them together and paint them. I've been trying to magnetize and customize(even though this is my first army and I may be slow) and it takes a few hours.

As others have been saying, ebay was my friend. There's a guy or two selling at 10-25% the cost of GW. There's also a few complete armies for 60% less if you don't mind them being prepainted and prebuilt.

Roughly my Totals
Codex 52$
Tyrant 45$
Swarm 150$(Some Horms are in the process of being dual purpose)
Tervigon 47$
Mawloc 51$
Crone 65$
Biovore 40$
Zoans(Metal) 50$
Venomthropes 40$
Warriors 40$
Guard 60$(I cheated here I'm trading MTG cards)
Starter kit(Rulebook templates and unneeded dice) 35$
Green stuff and magnets(cheated here too my work has super magnets) 35$
Glue, Knife, Cutters and crafting stuff 17$
Paint was excluded due to too many variables.

 Deuce11 wrote:
Well sure, I can see your angle. I have 2000+ points of DA that probably only cost me around 300 due to many of the models having been eBay purchases from starter sets. But I am talking about getting a new player involved. I know the ins and outs of buying for this hobby. I know how to magnetize to get the best bang out of each sprue. But the new player does not. It took me many years and many many mistakes to learn the most optimal ways to participate in the hobby. Further, when I make lists I have an angle. A new player needs to fall in love/ get addicted to the plastic crack and that is not done through net-listing.

This is exactly why you should start small at 500-750 pts so you;
1) don't over invest into something you may not like. Why buy an alienware PC and 10 games when you don't know if you like video games? Same here.
2) This lets you figure out what is good and what way you like to play/paint. You may think you like hordes but when you paint 30 models and have to move all those models during movement you may realize MC are more your style.
3) This is a "friendlier" level for learning. You only have to remember 3-4 units of rules instead of 5-10 different units and a bunch of synergies.
4) This level precludes most deathstar type builds. These are newbie killers and are some of the worst things you could do to a newbie.
5) The turns are very fast as compared to 1500+ pts. This keeps the player engaged.

Also, price is less about know how and more about some armies require 200+ models and some require ~20 models...the 200 models had better cost more than 20 models or something is very wrong with the pricing.

I agree with what ansacs has just said as well as well as the others above who have said similar things.

1500 points can be a goal over a long turn but start out at 500 points.
Buy something you like, build it, paint it, and play with friends.

This should be satisfactory for the majority of players. If you try to jump headfirst into 1500 to 2000 point games your head is going to explode and you're probably going to get overwhelmed quickly by putting stuff together and not knowing your army like you thought you would.

everyone is different but in my opinion a new player should start out small.

But no one plays 500-750 pts. If your starting then maybe they will let you play 2-3 games at 1k points , if people like you or if your someones sibling .But after two months everyone is going to expect to play someone with a normal 1500 legal army .
I find the arguement about it being easier laughable . at 750 all the deathstars still fit in to the game and work perfectly .

Makumba wrote:
But no one plays 500-750 pts. If your starting then maybe they will let you play 2-3 games at 1k points , if people like you or if your someones sibling .But after two months everyone is going to expect to play someone with a normal 1500 legal army .
I find the arguement about it being easier laughable . at 750 all the deathstars still fit in to the game and work perfectly .

I agree on the first part - people tend to prefer 1,500 or higher outside of specific things (e.g. escalation leagues, Kill Teams). A newbie might be expected to have say 500 points for a beginner game or to learn, but after that... nobody is going to want to always play 500-750 point games because that's all some newb has to field.

although personally I think 1250 is a nice compromise for general play, and then you can have larger games for tournaments and similar.

Start a kill team league with your friends.

You too should start a new kill team so you are all in the same boat.

Have fun playing short, quick skirmish games. (200 points). Encourage every model to be painted and play with fully painted terrain. (To show case the hobby in it's true beauty :p )

Encourage them to buy extra squads to change up their tactics from game to game.

Once they have amassed 500 points move onto the old 'Border Patrol' setup, and have some fun squad based play. Again try and keep the minis all painted.

By then they'll be hooked for life, and you can keep levelling up the points limit every time they buy something new!

eBay is definitely your friend. with a little lucky and patience, you can get stuff relatively cheap.

WayneTheGame wrote:

Makumba wrote:
But no one plays 500-750 pts. If your starting then maybe they will let you play 2-3 games at 1k points , if people like you or if your someones sibling .But after two months everyone is going to expect to play someone with a normal 1500 legal army .
I find the arguement about it being easier laughable . at 750 all the deathstars still fit in to the game and work perfectly .

I agree on the first part - people tend to prefer 1,500 or higher outside of specific things (e.g. escalation leagues, Kill Teams). A newbie might be expected to have say 500 points for a beginner game or to learn, but after that... nobody is going to want to always play 500-750 point games because that's all some newb has to field.

although personally I think 1250 is a nice compromise for general play, and then you can have larger games for tournaments and similar.

Do you guys not play friends at all?

Also this is a established player bringing a newb in. If he really wants to get his friends started he will start them at the realistic pts level of 500 pts and play that level with them as they learn, paint, and grow the army up to higher levels. That or he will have to explain why they should throw down 300-1000 usd on a game they may not stay with.

Also some places the normal pts level is 750 pts games, 1250 pts, 1500 pts, 1750 pts, 1850 pts, 2500 pts, and some even 3000 pts (I actually saw this one when I was in high school and played here regularly, good guys with huge collections). So should every new player have to buy in at 3000 pts as no one will ever play them at less than 3000 pts in random meta X? Make some friends with your game buddies and talk, people can and have compromised.

I'll save you some money.

1850 List: Tyranids of Prey

HQ:

Flyrant, x2 Devs
Flyrant, x2 Devs

Troops:

Termagants x10
Termagants x10

Fast Attack:

Hive Crone
Hive Crone
Hive Crone

Skyblight Swarm:

Flyrant, x2 Devs
Harpy, HVC
Harpy, HVC
Hive Crone
Gargoyles x10
Gargoyles x10
Gargoyles x10

Total cost from ebay + shipping = $650 USD. Enjoy.

That's still $650 for an average sized list, not to mention the cost of the rules...

That's still kinda insane pricing...

Just remember EVERY hobby is a luxury want - not a need - and as such are all expensive.

Cars, gaming, tabletop games, music, model trains... Everyone is expensive

It's not GW specific - it's because you want to do these things rather than needing to do them

 jonolikespie wrote:
That's still $650 for an average sized list, not to mention the cost of the rules...

That's still kinda insane pricing...

nothing is free... look at the avatar you use.. those models they produce cost more than GW ones. how come you want support them and not GW?
Sure might be a few models you think but then you want more and more and woops i went over the GW budget.

 Massaen wrote:
Just remember EVERY hobby is a luxury want - not a need - and as such are all expensive.

Cars, gaming, tabletop games, music, model trains... Everyone is expensive

It's not GW specific - it's because you want to do these things rather than needing to do them

That doesn't change the fact that GW is generally overpriced compared to all of their potential competitors (quality and the like aside). When looking at wargames to start, GW usually falls into the highest category of initial investment, which IMO is not a good thing.

@ansacs:

Every game I've ever played has been a pick-up game at a game store, so you never know who is going to turn up before they actually do, and then you have to agree on points and the like. It was very rare for anything to be preplanned outside of a campaign or tournament game. So if somebody shows up who only wants a 2,000 point battle, and you only have 1,000, then you aren't getting a game in unless they change their mind which, depending on what they want to play, they might not.

I would say model for model, GW is typically cheaper - it's the volume that throws it out

Collecting an army isn't the cheapest hobby. You can throw in an extra $100 for tools, paints, brushes, etc to actually get the army together. If you want to airbrush stuff, throw in another $200 (once you buy the airbrush, the compressor, thinners, cleaning stuff).

But, that 1500pt army should keep you busy for a mighty long time. That list you gave is 107 models, 6 of which are large models, 8 of which are medium to large.

If you say each model will take at least 1.5 hours to assemble and paint, add 10-15 hours for each large model (I think I spent about 30 hours on my Trygon!), add 3 hours for each medium-large model, you're looking at over 250 hours of "fun" before you even get it on to the table to play a game.

Go out and buy 50 model aircraft/tanks/ships and you'll probably have a similar amount of work on your hands but you won't be able to game with them afterwards and really not that much less $$$ out of pocket.

 Massaen wrote:
I would say model for model, GW is typically cheaper - it's the volume that throws it out

I agree. People always say this to discredit the argument that GW is expensive, and while generally it might be true they always ignore that GW's cost skyrockets when you factor in the number you need, or the price of supplementals such as transports. For example, a squad of 10 Marines is $40, not that bad. But a squad of Marines with a Rhino or Razorback is like $80, for a single unit. When you factor in the fact you need several boxes for virtually everything outside of Kill Team (which is an outlier to the "proper" game), the price shoots up. The other problem is artificially inflating the price of some units either for no reason at all or because GW likes to do crazy things like price based on how many you are likely to field - for example Chaos Possessed are $33 for 5, while Chaos Space Marines are $39 for 10, which means you would need to pay $66 for 10 Possessed for no reason at all.

When you compare that to a game like Warmachine, the price per model is the same with few exceptions (e.g. Khador Iron Fang Pikemen are $85 for 10 for some insane reason) roughly but you need much less, so you end up spending less overall and get more for your money due to the way the game works (i.e. spending $300 on Warmachine gives you more variety than spending $300 on Warhammer).

In fact I'd go as far as to say that Warmachine (and Hordes, I'm using Warmachine as a general term) is much closer to the concept of having an actual collection than anything GW has - $300 would give a pretty large Warmachine collection in most cases, and allow you to tailor lists or try different things from your collection, as you typically wouldn't field all of it. 40k or Fantasy instead requires that $300 for basically the core of your army, so it's something that you would always or almost always end up taking, so you get very little variety out of having it.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Massaen wrote:
I would say model for model, GW is typically cheaper - it's the volume that throws it out

I agree. People always say this to discredit the argument that GW is expensive, and while generally it might be true they always ignore that GW's cost skyrockets when you factor in the number you need, or the price of supplementals such as transports.

To me it's not just the volume that makes GW hard to swallow, it's often the quality. There's a few awesome models in each army, but then almost all armies also have several "wtf" models that are hard to pay money for and spend time painting which you might need to construct a decent list.

For the most part I don't mind paying for good models.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


Go out and buy 50 model aircraft/tanks/ships and you'll probably have a similar amount of work on your hands but you won't be able to game with them afterwards and really not that much less $$$ out of pocket.

What you're saying is only true in certain instances. For the most part hobby modeling is much cheaper than comparably sized and quality level GW models. The insanely expensive tanks and such from tamiya and the like are always better quality that GW. Also, if you're into giant robots, look into kotobukiya's frame arm kits for around $30-$50 you get an infinitely customizable 6-8 inch tall robot that has 30 or more points of articulation. Now compare that to the new Titan from GW where you spend $120 on something without knee joints and really no options ( were different heads and one additional gun that you can't swap at will). Something like this:



As for tanks...Israel's main tank looks futuristic and this one's $19 @ megahobby.



Or the Swedish strv...



Much cheaper, close in size and just as detailed if not more so. I mean, there're no skulls or spikes included but.....hey maybe that's why GW tanks are so expensive....

Yes, GW tanks are mostly overpriced. I mostly just meant if you wanted to go out and buy enough tanks/planes/ships to keep you occupied for the same amount of time as it would to put together a 100 model army, it won't really be a lot cheaper. GW's tanks are overpriced, but tanks alone don't make an army which is more what I'm talking about.

Not that GW is cheap, but most similar hobbies that will keep you occupied for 250+ hours will cost you several hundred dollars.