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Exactly, hence the complaints.

Some of us won't pay £120 for the rules and the codexes for two armies we own because it is too much money. Why would we want to pay £220 for the rules and a bunch of other codexes we don't want? It isn't even all of the codexes, which might have been worth considering if you are a keen player who wants to know about all the possible opposing armies even if you don't own them yourself.

The concept is that "collectors" buy GW stuff, so they will buy this because GW have published it. There isn't any idea that it ought to be useful or good value for money.

I wouldn't be surprised if this ended up like the Limited Edition rules, failing conspicuously to sell out.

What might save it is if clubs and groups of friends bought the sets to split up and redistribute, but that is all extra hassle and barriers in the way of consumers buying your product.

Like I bought the Dark Vengeance to get the 6th edition rules, then sold off the Chaos models to bring the cost down, but actually I would have preferred just to be able to buy a small format rulebook at a lower price. By the time GW came out with the £30 small format hardback rules, which was a product I would have liked, I already had the softback rules so I didn't need them.

I don't even play 40K but I gotta admit thats a real nice looking collection, might even be worth picking up just for the fluff and art, depending on final price of course.

 Rolt wrote:
I don't even play 40K but I gotta admit thats a real nice looking collection, might even be worth picking up just for the fluff and art, depending on final price of course.

We know how GW operates so you can make an educated guess I'm sure. It's not like you'll be getting a discount..

Both my armies are not inside. Damn you GW! *shakes fist*

But on the bright side, I won't get duplicate codex buying this.....but....nah.

Kirasu wrote:

 Rolt wrote:
I don't even play 40K but I gotta admit thats a real nice looking collection, might even be worth picking up just for the fluff and art, depending on final price of course.

We know how GW operates so you can make an educated guess I'm sure. It's not like you'll be getting a discount..

You don't need to guess. Its out in 6 days, prices on website (£220 in UK).

 Kirasu wrote:

 Rolt wrote:
I don't even play 40K but I gotta admit thats a real nice looking collection, might even be worth picking up just for the fluff and art, depending on final price of course.

We know how GW operates so you can make an educated guess I'm sure. It's not like you'll be getting a discount..

Ah I see... , so its one of GW's classic one-click bundle type deals? Meh, I pass then. I was hoping these were going to be something new or at least a saving on price,

I guess I'll put the money into the start of a Dark Reaper themed army instead, gotta get round to playing 40k one day.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The concept is that "collectors" buy GW stuff, so they will buy this because GW have published it. There isn't any idea that it ought to be useful or good value for money..

The thing is, here in Oz it's actually a fairly substantial discount over buying the codexes separately. I used to buy every codex (partly because I needed most of them for existing armies, and partly because I liked to know what the other armies could do...) up until the price of the 6th edition codexes put a stop to it. With these working out at about half the price, like I said before, I'd be all over it if I had the cash.

Unfortunately, I don't... But if they chose to release these individually at the equivalent price per book, I certainly might start buying codexes again.

 Rolt wrote:

 Kirasu wrote:

 Rolt wrote:
I don't even play 40K but I gotta admit thats a real nice looking collection, might even be worth picking up just for the fluff and art, depending on final price of course.

We know how GW operates so you can make an educated guess I'm sure. It's not like you'll be getting a discount..

Ah I see... , so its one of GW's classic one-click bundle type deals? Meh, I pass then. I was hoping these were going to be something new or at least a saving on price,

I guess I'll put the money into the start of a Dark Reaper themed army instead, gotta get round to playing 40k one day.

It's not cheap,

but it's substantially cheaper than buying the lot from GW individually

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Like I bought the Dark Vengeance to get the 6th edition rules, then sold off the Chaos models to bring the cost down, but actually I would have preferred just to be able to buy a small format rulebook at a lower price. By the time GW came out with the £30 small format hardback rules, which was a product I would have liked, I already had the softback rules so I didn't need them.

That's entirely why GW release it this way. They know that there are plenty of folks who would rather have the mini rulebook but are impatient. So they release the big book at full cost (which they have also released in two digital formats) then they have the collectors edition for collectors which I think was pitched right at 2000 copies because only a few would want them. Then they try something new bringing out a new version of the rules and codices (updated for 7th I assume) which is something that people have complained about before. Then eventually they do a starter box and a mini book because they know that will fly off the shelves. If they did it the other way around with the mini book first most people would probably buy only that and so sales of the other formats would suffer. Whilst their current method is not convenient it does make good business sense and whilst I know some will argue that it's not good sense because they wont buy the expensive version, GW isn't as interested in the "cheap seats" because those customers are less likely to buy their products regularly if at all.

You know what would probably make better business sense would be to "make things people actually want" rather than use the weird tactics described. I'm going to bet on the guy selling stuff people want over the guy selling things people don't want, but if you buy that you can get the thing you do want with it but you've paid 200% what the thing you want was worth, etc.

Well, it is a tricky one to judge because if you take someone like me; I won't pay more than £30 for the rules and £20 for a codex and I only want two codexes (£70 total revenue), so GW need to release everything separately at those price points and it takes three people like me to equal one person who will buy the entire collection for £220. (I am assuming the other £10 is made up for by not printing the rest of the books that people like me are not going to buy.)

GW do not do market research, though. Their only way to judge the appeal of their products is to see the sales figures and naturally they cannot see sales figures of products they do not release. Consequently, having decided to release this style of collection, GW are unlikely to be able to decide if it is a mistake unless it is a disastrous failure.

Even then, they may take the wrong lesson from a failure. Look at Dread Fleet, which genuinely was a disastrous failure, and the message GW seem to have taken from that is not that people don't buy gakky badly designed games based on unpopular IP, but that people don't want to buy boxed games. Therefore they have not made any more boxed games, and the prophesy is self-fulfilling as no-one buys their boxed games.

Hence my point that GW's business strategy is to issue a product and expect people to buy it because people are "collectors" whose HHHobby is buying GW products.

So, I'm one of the people that actually bought this. And I'll Explain Why. I'm from europe so I'll explain the pricing in euros which may be a bit inconvenient but bear with me.

8 Codexes at 39 euro's a piece
1 Space Marine Codex at 46 Euro's
1 Rulebook at 65 Euro's

This totals up to 423 Euro's. Instead it sells for 270.
I already bought the big rulebook for 65 a few weeks ago and I have enough models to field an army for every faction due to having collected 40k for a long time. In addition all of these are Limited Edition books with the glossy black page edges in A5 format, which as a gamer I am literally dying to have. so not only am I saving money on each book to begin with this set is treated as a limited edition with the better paper quality. I had Eldar, Tau and Chaos bought for this edition but spilled coke on my chaos dex which absolutely ruined it so I needed a new one of these. I needed the knight codex to be able to field my shiny new knight, and I need the AM codex to, I honestly can use every codex in this collection, I just haven't been buying them because of the codex price points. at 10 books the average price of a codex in this set is 27 euros, I can probably sell my used codexes for about 29 a piece and trade those in for the smaller format that i like more. At this point this set was looking better by the minute and I took the plunge to buy it. Maybe I'm crazy or something, but it's limited to a 1000 copies, it looks nicer and it's a gamers format in A5 at half the cost of the normal codexes instead of double like limited editions usually are. I'm surprised people are not more positive about it.

The discounted per book price is quite remarkable given GWs track record for not offering them.
I think that might be part of the lack of enthusiasm for this set. GW haven't exactly engendered a lot of trust with their customer base, so for them to be extending a generous hand, you're kind of looking to see if the other one is swinging a chainsword!

'Wow! We just printed 7th edition Warhammer 40,000, but we still have a mountain of 6th edition codexes! What the heck are we going to do with those?!'
'I know! We stuff them all into a big box, and sell 'em as a bundle!'

They need to get rid of the books, and selling them in a box means not trashing them later.

The Auld Grump

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
'Wow! We just printed 7th edition Warhammer 40,000, but we still have a mountain of 6th edition codexes! What the heck are we going to do with those?!'
'I know! We stuff them all into a big box, and sell 'em as a bundle!'

They need to get rid of the books, and selling them in a box means not trashing them later.

The Auld Grump

Uh, those 6th edion books will continue to be used for most of this edition at the very least. And the particular books in this box are completely new printings...

It's apparently impossible for GW, but I'd love if when they issued a new edition they would update all the codexes at once and put them out in a set. The arms race the staggered release schedule creates benefits GW, and no one else (which I'm sure is why the do it).

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
'Wow! We just printed 7th edition Warhammer 40,000, but we still have a mountain of 6th edition codexes! What the heck are we going to do with those?!'
'I know! We stuff them all into a big box, and sell 'em as a bundle!'

They need to get rid of the books, and selling them in a box means not trashing them later.

The Auld Grump

I believe on page two of this three page thread it was mentioned that these are in a smaller format. So not the same books.

 Talos63 wrote:
The discounted per book price is quite remarkable given GWs track record for not offering them.

Indeed, it's a huge bundle of books at half the size for 63% of the cost. It's just a shame I don't need 8 of the books in the bundle :(

It makes sense as a collectors thing, and as a gamer primarily I'd love the A5 books, but I wish they'd make them available individually or in smaller bundles, since they've already done all of the work with them.

Don't know why people think it's a discount. You're not getting 10 Codices (or 9 and the rulebook) for a discount. You're getting books half the size for less than half the cost. If it were the full sized books this'd be a different story, but right now not a discounted existing product it's a slightly cheaper different product.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Don't know why people think it's a discount. You're not getting 10 Codices (or 9 and the rulebook) for a discount. You're getting books half the size for less than half the cost. If it were the full sized books this'd be a different story, but right now not a discounted existing product it's a slightly cheaper different product.

If you think that the only cost of producing a book is the size of the paper it's printed on then I don't know what to say.

MaxT wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Don't know why people think it's a discount. You're not getting 10 Codices (or 9 and the rulebook) for a discount. You're getting books half the size for less than half the cost. If it were the full sized books this'd be a different story, but right now not a discounted existing product it's a slightly cheaper different product.

If you think that the only cost of producing a book is the size of the paper it's printed on then I don't know what to say.

I think the really obvious point is if you put the big and small books next to each other... no-one would ever expect the small one to be the same price. They are different products.

Just to dispel any lingering doubts about the size of the books from GW's 'What's New Today'.

I'm fairly tempted, but I'd hate to have half the codexi in small format and then not be able to get the rest in that size.

They should have done a Grot edition of the Ork book with the regular & Warboss versions.

I like the size for portability, but should of been a thing to sell in tandem early on...

Might be good for tournament players (to have all the rules) and collectors and if you have the money...


But 40k has only half the armies updated for 6th/7th!

Chaos Space Marines
Dark Angels
Chaos Daemons
Tau Empire
Eldar
Space Marines
Tyranids
Imperial Guard
Orks
Plus the Imperial Knights


Blood Angels
Space Wolves
Dark Eldar
Necrons
Grey Knights
are still stuck in soft-cover black and white.

As opposed to Fantasy where only 3 armies need updated to the hardback full colour.

I'll assume a second wave will hit once they get the final books in place.

I suppose we know for sure which armies aren't getting an update anytime soon?

Or have the rumors already made this clear?

 Ghaz wrote:


Just to dispel any lingering doubts about the size of the books from GW's 'What's New Today'.

My question is: is the text proportionate to the page size, or are there more pages?

 Ghaz wrote:


Just to dispel any lingering doubts about the size of the books from GW's 'What's New Today'.

That's actually really awesome then. Mini-codexes are sweet.

I already have all of those books in the bundle except the Imperial Knights book. Interesting idea, but I have to pass.