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I haven't in a while, but only because I've had other projects. I'll be picking up some new marine stuff, mainly the new chaplain as the model is stunning

I stopped buying GW product about 4 years ago.(I stopped buying from GW plc directly about a 15 years ago!)
Like many I have the money to spend on my TTMG hobby.
But there is so little value for gamers in GW product now, I prefer to buy from other companies.

Why pay over the top for rules books and codex books , when there are much better rules free to down load on the internet?
And why pay the same price for a single plastic minature , as a limited edition finely crafted piece of art in high quality resin?

IF the rules were written focused on the game play, and the codex books had better internal and external balance.
And all publications were professionally proof read and edited.They might add enough value to the GW product range to make them worth considering.

Recently started playing X-Wing and it's utterly amazing. Occasionally buy GW models, but all recast.

I've been putting together a whole load of GW models recently, IG Scions and Bullgryns specifically, and have found them excellent sculpts that were really cleverly designed and easy to put together and to customise. In fact, from 3 boxes of 5 Scions I've got individual heads for each mini (with such fine facial hair!) and still had a spare head left over!
As for value for money, yeah. It is expensive. But then so is, say, Magic the Gathering and at least once you buy a model that's it - It's in your army and it's pretty likely that it's never going to become obsolete in a years time. Touch wood.

Also, is it fair to say that everyone saying they no longer buy GW stuff any more is probably what drove the prices up in the first place?

After many years of not buying anything from GW, I recently picked up the Eldar Codex and Wraithknight. I'll probably pick up a box of Jetbikes and a Vyper to round out the Eldar army.

I still buy both WFB and 40k. Some minis are just irresistible!

SOme prices are quite high and thats why I only select a few must haves rather than all of them like I used to.

I don't buy much GW proper stuff, but I spend quite a lot of money at FW strangely haha. Personally I feel the value is better even if I'm paying more.

Every now and then I consider buying some more GW.

Then I look at the price tag involved with modernizing my (Salamanders) army and balk...especially with rumors of a new $50 codex around the corner

 ImAGeek wrote:
I don't buy much GW proper stuff, but I spend quite a lot of money at FW strangely haha. Personally I feel the value is better even if I'm paying more.

I know, I buy a few FW minis only for those extra special projects, some really good designs there.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 winterwind85 wrote:
Ok, for comparison

Starter pack ariadna(Infinitiy) 48,73€ 6 monopose miniatures
Space Marine tactical squad 35€ 10 miniatures, posable and everything
Dreamforge eisenkern stormtrooper 20 miniatures 50€
20 cadians 46 €

Any questions so far?

A sandwich is 3$, be prepared for my army of sandwiches!

i could use my dolls as Imperial Knights, they cost the same, or more... often more
But they have tiny pants and knives and stuff.

 winterwind85 wrote:
There Are still People around with such low income they Cant afford gw Minis?
Spend your Time gettin a better job rather than whining in the Internet.
Sorry but so Done with mimimi i have no Money... Gw should give away Minis for free mimimi

 PrehistoricUFO wrote:
Hell yeah. Not all of us are flipping burgers in life or are bogged down with children and 150 bills to pay each month. Circumstances vary.

I buy what I feel is worth the money, and get plenty of enjoyment out of the kits. Lots of stuff these days with the dual builds offered, many bits left over for bashing and whatnot.

Yeah, I wish they'd just cut to the chase and make a squad of Space Marines cost £1000, so as to be good and sure that poor people can't afford to play. Why prolong the torture for these poor losers. £1000 for five Space Marines would still be great value when you think of all the hours of enjoyment you can get from painting them. Even though drawing and painting is something you can probably do for free without ever giving a penny to GW... but I personally would be willing to pay £1000 just for the privilege of painting on worthless polystyrene that has been shaped by Games Workshop. It would still be cheaper than my other hobbies: yachting, collecting super cars, and throwing wild cocaine + hooker parties. So it must be good value, and that totally makes sense. I don't know what everyone is complaining about. So what if a box of marines costs £50? It's not like money has any actual value, right? I only use fifties for wiping my ass, and lining bin bags. GW are practically giving stuff away at that price.

Im being good and not going all Ad mech crazy.

Il try to be good with SM. will probably pick up the codex and like 1 box of something cool to add to my already built 2 companies.

Here's an interesting thought then. For the people who are happy with prices/aren't bothered by them, is there a price point (using a Tac squad as a basis) where you'd stop buying them? Roughly anyways, assuming the kit remains mostly unchanged/slightly updated, like the new assault marine pack. Where's the line?

Yup! Just ordered a few skitarii, discounted of course, but gw none the less.

 winterwind85 wrote:
Ok, for comparison

Starter pack ariadna(Infinitiy) 48,73€ 6 monopose miniatures
Space Marine tactical squad 35€ 10 miniatures, posable and everything
Dreamforge eisenkern stormtrooper 20 miniatures 50€
20 cadians 46 €

Any questions so far?

Infinity and you can play and win the game with this, only a few models more.maybe.
One squad you need more to even field a legal army.
Dreamforge eisenkern stormtrooper 20 miniatures 50€, posable and everything (and cheaper)
20 cadians 46 € cheaper than marines.

Anything constructive to add?

 Blacksails wrote:
Here's an interesting thought then. For the people who are happy with prices/aren't bothered by them, is there a price point (using a Tac squad as a basis) where you'd stop buying them? Roughly anyways, assuming the kit remains mostly unchanged/slightly updated, like the new assault marine pack. Where's the line?

Obviously, there is no line: a million dollars, ten million dollars, the lives of a small African nation... You can't put a price on quality. Anyone who doesn't agree that $10,000,000 is good value for a tac squad is obviously just poor and flipping burgers, and should spend more time looking for a better job instead of complaining on the internet.

Amiright?

I blew around $700 over the last month on FB before it is gone for good, that includes 2 army books ( and also bits ordering some killer sales on 100 zombies since I had many extra arms and heads laying around ) and filling out units for 3 different armies that were around 1500-1800 each, things like demigryphs, coven thrones and so on all add up when you are talking 60-80 a kit. This might sound like a lot but I had already invested about 1k into my fb armies over the last 6 years, this is because I LOVE 8th FB and have decided to play it for years to come, so has my gaming group and I now have enough "extra" options for all 3 armies years down the road if I wish to swap out units for others. Normally I would not do something like this as I would in fact have the time to continue buying at a much slower pace, with what GW is doing I have no reason to get into 9th and most of what I love about FB is now dead and will soon be removed.

Long term 9th I'm sure will end up costing far more than what FB has in the some 10 years I got heavily into collecting for my armies, much of those back then I used to bulk order at 30% off before GW finally got around the rules for these sales, so it's really only been this final order for FB that has ended up costing a fair bit but really only the price of about a full army of 2500. I may end up buying some of the new modular FB buildings if they are done in such a way that they can be easily used with FB setting ( ie not too much steampunk ) but 9th will be totally passed I have no desire to delve into that.

I do not regret any of this at all, for years and to this day NOTHING has ever impressed me or given me that satisfaction in minis like a fully painted and displayed FB army, and with 8th I believe they finally got it right and it will last as a solid playable edition for many years, in fact many of the oldhammer guys are starting to embrace it and I believe there will be many more who wish to stick with oldhammer vs bubblehammer. Yes 8th was expensive and in no way friendly to new players, but it finally felt that we had "real armies" to play with or construct and to me this is what FB was about, big armies with epic heroes and the end times options of making chaos all unified again was the icing on the cake, sure there is some cheese there but only if people choose to abuse those list, I on the other hand simply always wanted a 100% fully mono slaanesh fb army in 8th and hated when GW made chaos mortals and daemons 2 armies, since they always were together and that is finally happening now with the daemonkin books and how it should always be before that monstrosity gavdex came out that killed 3rd dex which was great cause I'm still wiping my arse with the emo space pirate fiasco.

On 40k end, I skipped 5th and 6th and glad I did too, just picked up DV and the ork codex, getting DA codex on release and will be finishing off my ork army which is already at around 1500 points which I bought slowly over the last 5 years and glad I did with the outstanding newer plastics they got. Whats left is a Stompa, a few more units of boyz and maybe some of those plastic new big guns and mega nobs so about $200 there, for DA I've gotten so many of them dirt cheap on ebay $10 for tac squads and a few bucks more for termies and ravenwing, picked up a metal azrael the other week nib cheap too, so a few more units there maybe a box of knights and a flyer, so about $200 there too. Other than that I will be getting nurgle daemonkin when it comes out or chaos daemons since I already have 2x boxes of nurglings and 50 plaguebearers and a unit of deathguard with 40 cultists from DV and the marines and hellbrute s that army will mostly be done other than tanks.

I would say not much left to buy..I am slowly replacing my citadel paints though ( and I have some from the 90s still ) with the new range and I gotta say the new range is worth it, having almost 3 shades for every color helps loads when painting an entire army, and most of my bolter shell tops have dried out.

 Smacks wrote:
Obviously, there is no line: a million dollars, ten million dollars, the lives of a small African nation... You can't put a price on quality. Anyone who doesn't agree that $10,000,000 is good value for a tac squad is obviously just poor and flipping burgers, and should spend more time looking for a better job instead of complaining on the internet.

Amiright?

I was definitely piggy-backing on your earlier comment, and while I chuckled, I wouldn't mind a serious answer from the people who think the prices are still fair, or don't bother them.

Would $100 be too much for a 5-man marine squad? $150? $200? At what point will people who don't mind now finally throw their hands up and admit defeat. I'm genuinely curious.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
Obviously, there is no line: a million dollars, ten million dollars, the lives of a small African nation... You can't put a price on quality. Anyone who doesn't agree that $10,000,000 is good value for a tac squad is obviously just poor and flipping burgers, and should spend more time looking for a better job instead of complaining on the internet.

Amiright?

I was definitely piggy-backing on your earlier comment, and while I chuckled, I wouldn't mind a serious answer from the people who think the prices are still fair, or don't bother them.

Would $100 be too much for a 5-man marine squad? $150? $200? At what point will people who don't mind now finally throw their hands up and admit defeat. I'm genuinely curious.

There is def a line, I would not pay 100 for 10 marines even, at the very most I would pay 70 for a 10 man box and that would have to be sooooooo much better than the 10 man tac which is still new, there would have to be some serious dynamics with that kit also and I have doubts that there will really be a huge jump in detail in 10 years, I believe we are slowly hitting that point where there will soon be diminishing returns in the detail of the minis, it's quite clear they are getting better with how dynamic and good looking the plastic kits are, but they are also at a point now I can honestly say they are hands down as good ( if not better in some areas ) than metal. So for those of us who are already into GW games it would be best to buy within the next year or two before those kinds of price rises come in.

GW is still affordable for anyone who has play money, they are not cheap but they are affordable enough that you can still buy armies over a year or two in the 2k or under range. With the starter boxes ( only if someone wants to play those armies ) GW can in fact be VERY cheap if you go ebay bits route, I mean where else can you get a full 6 man tac company filled out for 60 bucks ? yes they are mono but I would rather have all my icons sculpted on and a fluffy army anyway so I aint complaining. A box of new tacs are 50 here...

Revenant78 wrote:


There is def a line, I would not pay 100 for 10 marines even, at the very most I would pay 70 for a 10 man box and that would have to be sooooooo much better than the 10 man tac which is still new, there would have to be some serious dynamics with that kit also and I have doubts that there will really be a huge jump in detail in 10 years, I believe we are slowly hitting that point where there will soon be diminishing returns in the detail of the minis, it's quite clear they are getting better with how dynamic and good looking the plastic kits are, but they are also at a point now I can honestly say they are hands down as good ( if not better in some areas ) than metal. So for those of us who are already into GW games it would be best to buy within the next year or two before those kinds of price rises come in.

I currently pay ~$5 a model from a boutique resin store, so I suppose that'd be my limit. I can't stomach much more than that. That said, I get the exact weapon loadout I need, whereas GW kits still don't have the bits to field many of the legal configurations for gaming (multiple of the same special weapon is a huge turnoff), and I can't stand the lumpy potato faces of their plastic guardsmen.

If they produced hard plastic Mordians with all the trimmings for a legal Vet squad, and it was $50, I might have to reconsider where my money goes, but that's about as likely as plastic sisters, so...

GW is still affordable for anyone who has play money, they are not cheap but they are affordable enough that you can still buy armies over a year or two in the 2k or under range. With the starter boxes ( only if someone wants to play those armies ) GW can in fact be VERY cheap if you go ebay bits route, I mean where else can you get a full 6 man tac company filled out for 60 bucks ? yes they are mono but I would rather have all my icons sculpted on and a fluffy army anyway so I aint complaining. A box of new tacs are 50 here...

GW is only affordable in the sense that other hobbies are more expensive. My luxury yacht and private helo are way more expensive, but it doesn't make the comparative cost of GW vs. other model companies any less important for many, many people.

Oh, and ebay works for other companies and hobbies too, so its never really a fair comparison to state that GW is cheap when bought second hand, because well, everything is cheaper when bought second hand.

One of my other hobbies is guns and I still consider GW not a good value.
My wife literally gasped when I showed her the 40k prices at our FLGS. She said she's sticking to Malifaux.

 winterwind85 wrote:
Ok, for comparison

Starter pack ariadna(Infinitiy) 48,73€ 6 monopose miniatures
Space Marine tactical squad 35€ 10 miniatures, posable and everything
Dreamforge eisenkern stormtrooper 20 miniatures 50€
20 cadians 46 €

Any questions so far?

Yes.

Why do you still not see the concept of value for money?

That Infinity starter pack might be more expensive per model, but it's also 1/3 of a full list. Another box or few blisters and you've got a fully functioning list.

That Space Marine tactical squad is probably 1/10 of a full army. Those Cadians are even less of a Guard army. Can't speak much for Dreamforge, as I don't know much about their product.

An example in Australian dollars. A starter costs me on average $45au, and on average 6 miniatures. An Infinity starter costs on average $50au, for 6 miniatures. A Space Marine tactical squad costs $65au, for 10 miniatures.

For that one box, the Tactical squad is more value for money. More miniatures, customiseability. For that one box.

Now, with the Space Marines,. to play an average 1500pt army, I'll be spending about 10 times that amount, conservatively. Depending on my choices, I could be spending more (if I want things like vehicles, it's going to balloon quite quickly).

With the Infinity starter, to play an average 300pt game, I'll need to buy maybe another box, maybe a couple of blisters. That will bring it to roughly $100au.

With the Malifaux starter, I'll need to buy a few solo boxes, maybe a multimodel expansion box. That will probably bring it to $120au.

Another good example is, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, Warhammer Fantasy. I need to pay 250 dollars for a single core unit that makes up only one third of my required core, which makes up only one quarter of the whole army.

Value for money doesn't stop at what you get in one box. It's how much it costs to play an average game.

 Blacksails wrote:
I was definitely piggy-backing on your earlier comment, and while I chuckled, I wouldn't mind a serious answer from the people who think the prices are still fair, or don't bother them.

Heh, I like to think my answer was quite serious, at least in its intent. If it sounded absurd, that's probably because the arguments I quoted were themselves absurd. But given how heavily the water had already been poisoned for anyone who tried to disagree, I opted to agree wholeheartedly and follow the position to its logical conclusion, where I think it probably just undermines itself by being stupid. I doubt any of the people arguing "Hey, it is good value, you're just not rich enough" will be willing to admit that there is a point where they themselves "aren't rich enough", it would be self defeating as it proves a disconnect between value and wealth. Aside from the fact that wealthy people can afford to get terrible value for money, and still have enough money not to care, there isn't much to remark on. Someone being wealthy doesn't somehow magically make GW better value. GW are almost guaranteed to be poor value by virtue of being a monopoly, but even monopolies have their limits. There is actually a formula for figuring out what the optimum price/profit point for a tac squad would be based on price elasticity. http://www.economicshelp.org/university/inverse-elasticity-pricing/

If we could find some decent information on the volume of sales over time then we might be able to work out what it is.

 MWHistorian wrote:
One of my other hobbies is guns and I still consider GW not a good value.

My wife literally gasped when I showed her the prices at our FLGS. She said she's sticking to Malifaux.

Guns are a great value - they basically don't depreciate. OTOH, if you had given golf as your other hobby, that's about the only thing that makes GW look really price reasonable.

I'm simply trying to stop buying, and generally succeeding.

Damn right I am, got a small skitarii and mechanicus force, definitely gonna get two boxes of the new devastators. If they come out with one of those sprues for deathwatch gonna buy at least 8 of them to kit out my army. Switching everything over to 32mm because it looks way better for marines than the 25mm. Also makes it easier to get scenic with my bases.

My dad and I share the codexs so we get all of them.

I like their paints so I mainly use them however I will quickly supplement them with other lines to fill the holes. Most of my other hobby supplies come from elsewhere however (need a lot of practice with my airbrush....)

So are the costs per model of GW high compared to other lines yes. Does it change the fact that I get more value per dollar from GW models than I would the other lines? Not a smidgen.

Yeah I still do, but just got over my supporting the local retailers though, can't afford the wealth of price rises that are expected.

I just found a cheaper option than the local scene.

Nope

I've been meaning to pick up some LOTR stuff for SBH and Shield Breaker and the like, but I just haven't gotten around to it. A bunch of stuff have been discontinued, made into Finecast and/or gone direct only, so I just don't.

 winterwind85 wrote:
Ok, for comparison

Starter pack ariadna(Infinitiy) 48,73€ 6 monopose miniatures
Space Marine tactical squad 35€ 10 miniatures, posable and everything
Dreamforge eisenkern stormtrooper 20 miniatures 50€
20 cadians 46 €

Any questions so far?

For a start the Cadians are dreadful models though not quite as bad as the catachans which GW still sell. The space marines aren't all that either. They're multipose and stuff but alongside other plastic model companies the detailing is rudimentary and not nearly as sharp and crisp in appearance.

Working out value for money is an interesting one if you buy models to game with rather than just paint. Some of my GW models I've owned since 2nd edition, granted they were much cheaper then but I've played many, many games with them so the pence per game cost is tiny. Some of my friends have followed the local fads of Infinity or Deadzone or Dust or PP, brought into the game, then when the fad is over they are left with a bunch of models they are no longer using. Yet they always come back to their 40k or fantasy armies, that larger, more consistent player base that GW has historically enjoyed has paid off. £50 on models you only use for 12 months is expensive, £50 on models you use for 12 years is not.

Now GW have been hissing the player base for a while with reduced support, interaction, frequent changes I know some player bases at some FLGS have moved completely away from GW product, it is this reduction in long term player base that would slowly grind away the lasting value of the models.

A squad of 10 tacticals with weapons from FW is £61 with no further discounts possible, compared to £18.75 for the GW plastics from Dark Sphere with more options. I'd say with the availability of opponents I've had who have fielded multiple FW tactical squads I'd say £61 is viable for a good proportion of the player base of 30k.

By the definition given here Bolt Action miniatures are still a better value for money. My 25 man box set is only £24, and contains a good portion of my army. And I can use it in multiple games too.

Even less of a reason to buy craphammer.