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rigeld2 wrote:
Wait - people need to earn money to be able to spend it?
I wasn't aware.

It isn't a reasonable thing to require because it apparently applies to credit cards and debit cards. An income requirement is reasonable for a credit card because the bank is loaning you money to buy stuff and you need to demonstrate that you can plausibly pay them back. But it isn't reasonable to demand for a debit card because a debit card only allows you to spend the money you've already deposited into your bank account. It's nothing more than cash in a more convenient package. If I have $100 in the bank account my debit card accesses it doesn't matter if I have $0 salary per year and will never put more money in or $100,000,000 a year salary and could treat that $100 as a rounding error in my budget. I can only spend the $100 that I already have, and nobody has to trust me.

Makumba wrote:

t's not that hard to order stuff online. I doubt Poland is that far behind the rest of the world with using debit and credit cards.

You need work to get one and an account at a bank. Even if your parents put more then enough money for a buy on your account, your still not going to get a card unless you bring an official paper from work that you earn a minimum wage , that or you have some sort of social or pension.

Surely you can open a savings account with a debit mastercard/visa/whatever without having to have a wage? I can understand them not giving you a credit card, but surely a debit card... if not then Poland is further behind the rest of the world than I thought

Don't bet on it, a few years back, I was trying to open a business account, I was refused on the grounds that the business was "too high risk" despite having no need for credit of any kind.

Banks are stupid, greedy, short sighted and inflexible institutions.

Remind you of any corporations you might know?

Ok I back off until I get back home to my PC, I was close to throwing my phone at the wall while editing posts and this is all too much to answer..l

But have to say that most of you have no idea what quality is in a proffesional sense. I'll start with definitions next time.

I absolutely hate Taurox design but it is, or rather might be top notch quality kit. I just lack data to decide. Also looks are only part of what makes it quality kit and are only relevant with target audience.

If sturdines is not important, try taking your dust tactics mechs to the shop for a game on weekly basis. Or play with non gaming models.

Peregrine read again because there's a lot that you seem to get wrong. Might be my way of explaining, can't say.

Oh and GW makes best plastic kits in the world. Look at coven throne. And no the fact that you don't like busy design or the overall look of it doesn't change the fact that it's a super quality plastic kit.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Don't bet on it, a few years back, I was trying to open a business account, I was refused on the grounds that the business was "too high risk" despite having no need for credit of any kind.

Banks are stupid, greedy, short sighted and inflexible institutions.

Remind you of any corporations you might know?

Wow that's impressive. Surely it's easy for personal accounts though? When I went to the USA I just walked up to a bank, "hi, I'd like to open an online checking account", "sure, you're not American? Can I see your passport and some proof of residency... thanks, here's your account details and temporary visa debit card"

Plumbumbarum wrote:


Oh and GW makes best plastic kits in the world.

Bold claim, Cotton, let's see how it pays off for him.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Ok I back off until I get back home to my PC, I was close to throwing my phone at the wall while editing posts and this is all too much to answer..l

But have to say that most of you have no idea what quality is in a proffesional sense. I'll start with definitions next time.

I absolutely hate Taurox design but it is, or rather might be top notch quality kit. I just lack data to decide. Also looks are only part of what makes it quality kit and are only relevant with target audience.

If sturdines is not important, try taking your dust tactics mechs to the shop for a game on weekly basis. Or play with non gaming models.

Peregrine read again because there's a lot that you seem to get wrong. Might be my way of explaining, can't say.

Oh and GW makes best plastic kits in the world. Look at coven throne. And no the fact that you don't like busy design or the overall look of it doesn't change the fact that it's a super quality plastic kit.

Whether I or anyone else has a deep understanding of quality in a professional sense is utterly irrelevant in this context. Quality to a consumer is subjective, what one may consider high quality will be largely based on their own frame of reference. I may think McDonalds is the best quality food I've ever eaten, however I am unlikely to hold that opinion unless I have eaten at very few restaurants (or fast food shops in all honesty)

Stating "GW makes the best kits in the world" is ridiculous. Do you mean in wargaming? Maybe. But you've just discounted the likes of Tamiya, Bandai and all who turn out much more sophisticated kits, often at a lower price. You see? Subjective!

I also don't get the thing about sturdiness. So what if kit A is sturdier than kit B? So long as kit B is sturdy enough to play with, any increase in sturdiness (measured in units of Sturd) is effectively lost. No one hucking their models against walls...well maybe Tauroxes after someone realizes how feth ugly they are.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Don't bet on it, a few years back, I was trying to open a business account, I was refused on the grounds that the business was "too high risk" despite having no need for credit of any kind.

Banks are stupid, greedy, short sighted and inflexible institutions.

Remind you of any corporations you might know?

Wow that's impressive. Surely it's easy for personal accounts though? When I went to the USA I just walked up to a bank, "hi, I'd like to open an online checking account", "sure, you're not American? Can I see your passport and some proof of residency... thanks, here's your account details and temporary visa debit card"

If you're a grown up, yes, but I'm getting the impression Makumba is not (at least according to relevant banking criteria)

That said, I can remember banks coming to our school when I was younger to try and recruit us, because they knew that people are not inclined to change banks frequently they tried to recruit as young as they could.

 Azreal13 wrote:


That said, I can remember banks coming to our school when I was younger to try and recruit us, because they knew that people are not inclined to change banks frequently they tried to recruit as young as they could.

That's...odd. Almost creepy. You Brits are weird.

*Edit* Flags confuse me.

 Blacksails wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:


Oh and GW makes best plastic kits in the world.

Bold claim, Cotton, let's see how it pays off for him.

Show me something close to necrosphinx, latest wood elf guys, or Imperial Knights or Hive Tyrant made from hard plastic.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Oh and GW makes best plastic kits in the world. Look at coven throne. And no the fact that you don't like busy design or the overall look of it doesn't change the fact that it's a super quality plastic kit.

Actually, disliking busy design does change the perceived quality. I mean, how could it not?

Because, if you don't like a lot of crap on your models, and GW puts a lot of crap on your models, you're not going to see that as good quality.

There are also other issues - like the problem of models not coming with enough equipment. Sorry, but if you're going to claim to make "the best models in the world", then your models shouldn't be deliberately missing pieces. Because, to me, that demonstrates a complete lack of quality.

Likewise, it is equally hard to accept their prices when their models don't look nice. Human faces shouldn't look like they were sculpted out of a potato - yet that's exactly what we see in GW's guardsmen. So, why am I expected to pay almost £2 per model for something that resembles a half-melted waxwork? Now, possibly these are old models, but that just raises even more questions. Namely, if GW is charging similar prices for old models (that look awful) as they do for new ones, what exactly are you paying for? Obviously it's not quality, otherwise the older ones (with worse quality) would be cheaper.

Plumbumbarum wrote:


Show me something close to necrosphinx, latest wood elf guys, or Imperial Knights or Hive Tyrant made from hard plastic.

Well off the top of my head, this guy is a strong contender over the Knight. Better poseability are the biggest plus, combined with a better price for a large hard plastic kit with options and solid detail.

I think you'd be hard pressed to argue the Knight is somehow completely superior.

Man a lot of people are slinging gak at the turox in this thread. Have you not seen Victoria minis have the wheel convertion kit up now?

It almost kinda looks ok if you squint at it and focus on the wheels now.

 Blacksails wrote:
I also don't get the thing about sturdiness. So what if kit A is sturdier than kit B? So long as kit B is sturdy enough to play with, any increase in sturdiness (measured in units of Sturd) is effectively lost. No one hucking their models against walls...well maybe Tauroxes after someone realizes how feth ugly they are.

Actually, sturdiness is VERY important to me. I almost lost a majority of my first Necron army because of a family mishap involving tripping and bookshelves. When I got back into the game, I was actually able to repair some of them because of the models being durable (granted, some of them weren't worth fixing really; damn you Destroyers!), which helped save me money.
You can't plan for someone not throwing a model at a wall, but you don't think it's reassuring to know that they might be able to stand up to some abuse?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
1. A large amount of the cost of producing a model (especially plastic) seems to be the start up cost, paying the creative team who came up with the idea, paying the sculptor to sculpt it, paying to get a mould made. The actual individual casting seems like a relatively small cost and all those other costs are diminishing the more models you sell. Thus if you intend to sell a lot of models, you should be able to afford to make them cheaper. The difference between including 4 identical sprues I would not expect to be significantly higher than including 2 identical sprues.

Yes and no. The development cost is indeed the significant bit (particularly with plastics) but having a kit that is going to sell in large quantities doesn't automatically equate to lower prices. What often happens is simply that the better selling kits that pay off their development costs faster wind up subsidising the creation of other kits that might not sell as well. So with the 40K example, the ever-popular Space Marine Tactical Squad box would have paid for its development costs reasonably quickly, and then profits from that kit would have gone into developing plastic scouts, or tank variants, or Tankbustas, or whatever else GW wanted to create in plastic that wouldn't necessarily actually pay for itself as quickly.

2. You aren't just selling individual models, you're selling armies. When I think of Revell, Tamiya, Dragon, they are companies selling individual models. They have to consider the costs and revenue of individual models. When you're selling armies, you need to consider the typical average costs of an entire army against the revenue per customer buying that army. It doesn't really matter if it costs you 10 cents to produce a single guardsman, because no one buys a single guardsman. It doesn't really even matter what the costs of entire box of guardsmen cost, because you can't make an army from 1 box of guardsmen.

It's not like this concept is unheard of... almost everything if you buy it in bulk you can get it cheaper But even within wargaming, you can often find examples of people selling large swaths of high quality models for low prices vs skirmish games of only a few models that sell much cheaper. GW are just trying to sell their models at skirmish level prices but you have to buy large swaths of them

I'm not saying a game that requires 200 models should cost the same as a game that requires 5 models... but the price per model should sure as hell be cheaper.

But the price per model can only be less if there is actually a reason for it to be less.

If the two models have the same production cost, and the same level of quality, there is absolutely no valid reason for one to cost less than the other.

It's complicated even further if you consider that a single company might sell both a skirmish game and a larger game. If the models for their larger game are priced lower purely because you're supposed to buy more of them, how are they supposed to sell the skirmish miniatures?

 Blacksails wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:


That said, I can remember banks coming to our school when I was younger to try and recruit us, because they knew that people are not inclined to change banks frequently they tried to recruit as young as they could.

That's...odd. Almost creepy. You Brits are weird.

*Edit* Flags confuse me.

Hey, there was free calculators!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:


Oh and GW makes best plastic kits in the world.

Bold claim, Cotton, let's see how it pays off for him.

Show me something close to necrosphinx, latest wood elf guys, or Imperial Knights or Hive Tyrant made from hard plastic.

I'm sorry, based on what criteria?

Plumbumbarum wrote:
But have to say that most of you have no idea what quality is in a proffesional sense. I'll start with definitions next time.

Yes, please start with definitions, and try to come up with some better ones. Because so far your definitions have been way too narrow. There's a lot more to quality than "skulls per square inch" and "low miscast rate", and you're completely ignoring all of those factors.

I absolutely hate Taurox design but it is, or rather might be top notch quality kit.

Only because you have a very narrow set of requirements for "quality" that have very little to do with "am I, as a potential customer, satisfied with this product".

Also looks are only part of what makes it quality kit and are only relevant with target audience.

Yes, it's only part, but it's a very important part. If a kit is shamefully ugly it doesn't matter if it has a 0.0000001% miscast rate, it's still a bad product that I'm not going to buy.

If sturdines is not important, try taking your dust tactics mechs to the shop for a game on weekly basis. Or play with non gaming models.

I play a FW DKOK army with plenty of fragile parts. And somehow I manage to take care of my models and have very rarely broken anything. An occasional arm has come unglued (requiring 30 seconds to fix), but other than that the only damage I've done to my models has come from knocking over aircraft on 12" rods. And even that damage was limited to a single cracked part that was easily fixed with no visible marks.

I think the conclusion here seems to be that you just need to take better care of your models.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
I also don't get the thing about sturdiness. So what if kit A is sturdier than kit B? So long as kit B is sturdy enough to play with, any increase in sturdiness (measured in units of Sturd) is effectively lost. No one hucking their models against walls...well maybe Tauroxes after someone realizes how feth ugly they are.

Actually, sturdiness is VERY important to me. I almost lost a majority of my first Necron army because of a family mishap involving tripping and bookshelves. When I got back into the game, I was actually able to repair some of them because of the models being durable (granted, some of them weren't worth fixing really; damn you Destroyers!), which helped save me money.
You can't plan for someone not throwing a model at a wall, but you don't think it's reassuring to know that they might be able to stand up to some abuse?

Sure, but you can say that about any hard plastic model, really. Really, your ability to glue things properly is going to have as much an impact on sturdiness as the innate quality of how the model is put together.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Show me something close to necrosphinx, latest wood elf guys, or Imperial Knights or Hive Tyrant made from hard plastic.

http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Gal11/10301-10400/gal10326-F-104-Oslizlo/00.shtm

WayneTheGame wrote:

And GW loses on this front too because Perry and Victrix sell three or more times the figures for half the price as GW, for comparable quality (albeit a different design aesthetic as you cannot really compare quality between a Space Marine and a French Grenadier as they are two totally different visuals). There is nothing about GW's quality that warrants the kind of prices that they charge, for anything because other companies that don't have their own facilities (i.e. it costs them more to produce) can offer 60 models for less than what GW asks for 5 models.

Victrix, like nearly all other manufacturers other than GW, outsource their production to China, which is major factor why they are substantially cheaper. Looking at pictures, whilst those Romans are real good looking for the price, I'd also flat out say that they're not up to Sternguard level sculpt nor detail wise. No idea of size comparisons, but I'd bet that Sternguard models are signifantly beefier even if nominally same scale. Now I definitely agree that Sternguard price is quite insane (and not even the worst offenders - look at what plastic SM characters cost!), but the comparison isn't as clear-cut as you make it.

Why does beefiness matter?

I'd rather have more accurately scaled models than beef-chunks mcbeeferson.

Worth mentioning that those Hasegawa kits are also very competitively priced compared to GW kits. In some cases half what a medium-large a GW kit (Land Raider or similar)

 Blacksails wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:


Show me something close to necrosphinx, latest wood elf guys, or Imperial Knights or Hive Tyrant made from hard plastic.

Well off the top of my head, this guy is a strong contender over the Knight. Better poseability are the biggest plus, combined with a better price for a large hard plastic kit with options and solid detail.

I think you'd be hard pressed to argue the Knight is somehow completely superior.

Exactly. The only thing that can make the GW Knight superior is its aesthetic. On every other level, the DFG Leviathan wins. The Leviathan is fully poseable, is actually designed to hotswap its weapons, and is even cheaper.

For other examples of superior plastics, look at the Kingdom Death models (some are NSFW, so be careful when searching) that are on the way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Backfire wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

And GW loses on this front too because Perry and Victrix sell three or more times the figures for half the price as GW, for comparable quality (albeit a different design aesthetic as you cannot really compare quality between a Space Marine and a French Grenadier as they are two totally different visuals). There is nothing about GW's quality that warrants the kind of prices that they charge, for anything because other companies that don't have their own facilities (i.e. it costs them more to produce) can offer 60 models for less than what GW asks for 5 models.

Victrix, like nearly all other manufacturers other than GW, outsource their production to China, which is major factor why they are substantially cheaper. Looking at pictures, whilst those Romans are real good looking for the price, I'd also flat out say that they're not up to Sternguard level sculpt nor detail wise. No idea of size comparisons, but I'd bet that Sternguard models are signifantly beefier even if nominally same scale. Now I definitely agree that Sternguard price is quite insane (and not even the worst offenders - look at what plastic SM characters cost!), but the comparison isn't as clear-cut as you make it.

I would argue that GW should be the one that is cheaper. They essentially have a near-vertical monopoly on the production of their own models. The concepts are done inhouse. The sculpts are done inhouse. The tooling is done inhouse. The plastic production is done inhouse. All of that should actually help to lower costs when compared to other companies that have to pay for outside talent and production.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

Backfire wrote:

Victrix, like nearly all other manufacturers other than GW, outsource their production to China, which is major factor why they are substantially cheaper. Looking at pictures, whilst those Romans are real good looking for the price, I'd also flat out say that they're not up to Sternguard level sculpt nor detail wise. No idea of size comparisons, but I'd bet that Sternguard models are signifantly beefier even if nominally same scale. Now I definitely agree that Sternguard price is quite insane (and not even the worst offenders - look at what plastic SM characters cost!), but the comparison isn't as clear-cut as you make it.

I would argue that GW should be the one that is cheaper. They essentially have a near-vertical monopoly on the production of their own models. The concepts are done inhouse. The sculpts are done inhouse. The tooling is done inhouse. The plastic production is done inhouse. All of that should actually help to lower costs when compared to other companies that have to pay for outside talent and production.

No, the opposite is true. There is a reason why outsourcing is popular. Vertical integration brings other benefits, but it's not really cheap, which is why relatively few companies practice it nowadays.

Backfire wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

Backfire wrote:

Victrix, like nearly all other manufacturers other than GW, outsource their production to China, which is major factor why they are substantially cheaper. Looking at pictures, whilst those Romans are real good looking for the price, I'd also flat out say that they're not up to Sternguard level sculpt nor detail wise. No idea of size comparisons, but I'd bet that Sternguard models are signifantly beefier even if nominally same scale. Now I definitely agree that Sternguard price is quite insane (and not even the worst offenders - look at what plastic SM characters cost!), but the comparison isn't as clear-cut as you make it.

I would argue that GW should be the one that is cheaper. They essentially have a near-vertical monopoly on the production of their own models. The concepts are done inhouse. The sculpts are done inhouse. The tooling is done inhouse. The plastic production is done inhouse. All of that should actually help to lower costs when compared to other companies that have to pay for outside talent and production.

No, the opposite is true. There is a reason why outsourcing is popular. Vertical integration brings other benefits, but it's not really cheap, which is why relatively few companies practice it nowadays.

Because I doubt you'd take my word for it..

Literally the first result on Google wrote:
Vertical integration also typically offers significantly ability to control costs throughout the distribution process. In the traditional distribution process, every step in product movement involves mark-ups so the reseller can earn profit. By selling directly to end buyers, manufacturers can "eliminate the middle man," removing one or more steps of mark-ups along the way. A single entity managing the distribution process also has more ability to optimize resource utilization and avoid wasted costs. Lower transportation costs are common.

I still fail to see how that justifies GW costing twice as much as someone casting out of their garage.

Economy of scale matters too, not just where something is produced.

More importantly, why do I as a customer care about justifying GW's prices? I don't care if the prices are high because of a bad production system or just because GW wants more profit, I care about how much I have to pay for the final product. A $50 tactical squad that costs $50 because of inefficient manufacturing is no better than a $50 tactical squad that costs $50 because GW wants an extra $10 profit from selling it, I'm still paying $50 for a tactical squad.

Not to mention that GW used to use companies in China for production, IIRC, and still charged a premium when compared to other companies.

 Azreal13 wrote:

Backfire wrote:

No, the opposite is true. There is a reason why outsourcing is popular. Vertical integration brings other benefits, but it's not really cheap, which is why relatively few companies practice it nowadays.

Because I doubt you'd take my word for it..

Literally the first result on Google wrote:
Vertical integration also typically offers significantly ability to control costs throughout the distribution process. In the traditional distribution process, every step in product movement involves mark-ups so the reseller can earn profit. By selling directly to end buyers, manufacturers can "eliminate the middle man," removing one or more steps of mark-ups along the way. A single entity managing the distribution process also has more ability to optimize resource utilization and avoid wasted costs. Lower transportation costs are common.

Again, if it was true, then more companies would practice it. Note how in the past, big manufacturing companies had very deep level of vertical integration. For example, Ford used to own its own cotton fields so it could manufacture all necessary textiles for the cars it produced. By contrast, these days a company like Apple doesn't manufacture anything. They have never manufactured a single iPhone - it's all outsourced to dedicated manufacturing companies like Foxconn, who in turn have their own subcontractors etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:
More importantly, why do I as a customer care about justifying GW's prices? I don't care if the prices are high because of a bad production system or just because GW wants more profit, I care about how much I have to pay for the final product. A $50 tactical squad that costs $50 because of inefficient manufacturing is no better than a $50 tactical squad that costs $50 because GW wants an extra $10 profit from selling it, I'm still paying $50 for a tactical squad.

Well, common complaint nowadays is that manufacturing is moved to 3rd World countries where exploited workers do 12 hour shifts with crappy salaries and non-existent worker care...whatever other faults GW has, they don't do that. Well, they did have some production in China (ForgeWorld IIRC) and the accessories are mostly outsourced, but main production is still in the home country, a rarity these days.