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so with the release of age of sigmar white dwarf has flown of the shelves and is now sold out on the webstore, this is more than likely due to the free liberator included, which got me thinking that in order to increase sales GW should do this with every new release. ie once every month or so when an update for an army comes out. this would not only boost sales of white dwarf (as has been demonstrated) but also boost sales of the new products as the more than half of the people who bought white dwarf for the free mini will probably go on to buy more stormcast eternal related products.
I am curious as to what everone elses thoughts are.

It's a good idea and I'm betting the sales went up a bit maybe with questions new edition or game they should .

It matters not a jot to me, because I've no interest in WD, free minis for otherwise.

Never really found the value in 1 free mini anyway, unless you use it to test out a paint scheme.

TBH, economists have answered this question many times over - if you give literally ANYTHING away "FREEE!!!!!" then generally people will buy it when they ordinarily wouldn't - even for example bags of horse poo.

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 Bottle wrote:
This WD was value enough for being the Age Of Sigmar Rulebook essentially.

The added mini was a nice bonus. Thinking of making a true scale Spacemarine for Necromunda with it.

You should totally post what you make

I will admit, I wouldn't have bought this week's White Dwarf if it weren't for the free mini. I've never played WFB (although the miniatures are pretty cool), and it looks like the AoS rules are mostly garbage (no points system, WTF?! ). I will probably just save the mini for later, like when I get tired of painting spess muhreens.

To get back on topic, I would certainly buy more WD if they start including free minis (even if its more fantasy stuff). I already buy some, but I might just subscribe if they started doing this regularly.

Anecdotal, but I haven't seen as many stores as I had this weekend sold out of WD so quickly since the Skull Pass issue with the Dorf and Gobbo.

Course, in the 90's and early early 2000's, free stuff(terrain, models, an entire mini-codex) with WD was pretty common.

It amazes me that not only did we get a copy of the rules in WD but we got a $10 mini as well and still some continue to bitch.

You can't please some of the people none of the time.

Back to the OP. I get my weekly WD regardless, an additional mini here and there would be a nice touch.

If you think about it buy 5 White Dwarves and you'd have a full unit of Retributors and 4 magazines you could sell or trade for $20.

Getting free mini's (and other freebies) used to be a thing from the WD of old. My first Necron and GK miniatures were the WD-exclusive pewters (yes, the Necron with the ray-gun looking gauss rifle), before Necrons and GK became actual armies.

In some senses, freebie miniatures can act like a sort of market research for them, and I believe the feedback on the Necron Warrior aesthetic was what was later used to drive the Necron army aesthetic - general consensus in my community was people liked the metal skeletal look, but not the ray-gun gauss rifle.

Someone voted.... undecided? O.O How hard can it be to decide on this? hehehe

Personally, I think it's a great way to sell expensive magazines where half of the content is an advertisement for next week's release. The FLGS would love it too, they'd sell a lot more WD.

Free minis = Good gateway drugs!


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 Achaylus72 wrote:
It amazes me that not only did we get a copy of the rules in WD but we got a $10 mini as well and still some continue to bitch.

You can't please some of the people none of the time.

Back to the OP. I get my weekly WD regardless, an additional mini here and there would be a nice touch.

Is it just me, or was this also a thicker WD, even minus the 4 pages in the center? It seemed like it. There was more content too, as they took out a lot of the regular articles like Model of the Week to make space for the Sigmar stuff.

It's only free if I want it.

Otherwise, its cost is that of the magazine.

Neither of which are things I will spend money on these days.

I haven't bought a WD in a couple of years.
This issue had zero content that interested me, and the "free" mini was also not a sculpt I wanted in my collection. Too cartoony for me.

There was a free mini, literally IN White Dwarf???!!!

Is this miniature inflatable? Or some sort of advanced origami?
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Sorry, I could not resist.

That is one way to boost sales, but it is something that is hard to plan for given the deadlines involved.

MB

No. A WhiteDwarf-exclusive miniature would be a terrible idea. Rather than GW spending their awkwardly-allocated resources on producing exclusive White Dwarf minis, they should just release the miniature normally.

If someone wants to buy a miniature, they should be able to purchase it normally rather it being available for a limited time ad part of an inflated-price bundle with a catalog.

Relapse wrote:
If you think about it buy 5 White Dwarves and you'd have a full unit of Retributors and 4 magazines you could sell or trade for $20.

That's what I did. Took the rules out of one, gave three copies away to friends who aren't buying the box so they have the rules. Unit and rules for £12.

@platuan4th we didn't get that much in the 90's, off the top of my head I recall a khorne berzerker, one of four empire wizards, an orlock, the metal necron, and an assassin codex that was useable for a week. I don't count games or posters, as to me that is normally content.

 Absolutionis wrote:
No. A WhiteDwarf-exclusive miniature would be a terrible idea. Rather than GW spending their awkwardly-allocated resources on producing exclusive White Dwarf minis, they should just release the miniature normally.

Limited run minis are sometimes cheaper than a full production run of it, especially if its just to test the market, and especially if there aren't special rules to it. It's not like the WD necron or berzerker had 2++ armour saves with an Str D AP1 weapon. This is no different from the FW event-only minis, except even more broadly available to the world.

I use miniatures for pen&paper-rpgs a lot to mark enemies and the player characters during combat for better visualization. The more different miniatures I have for this, the better, so I would definitely get every single WD if it would come with a free miniature.

While I missed out on the free Eternal (everywhere here sold out in hours) I would certainly try to buy almost any WD with a free mini. As a painter I'm finding more and more that I prefer 1-off minis to building whole armies, so if I was getting something different each week I'd likely even subscribe! GW hardly make a bad mini these days, so there's not even much of a risk.

Not sure how viable doing new sprues for such short runs would be, though.

Free stuff is always nice enough.

I prefer other forms of freebies though : The cityfight tactical cards they did are fun to use , one couldn't but help think it was something of a shame that the recent alternate warlord traits/mission objectives etc etc for some of the marine chapters weren't released in the same format.

I kind off like the idea. Say you get a mini taht has something to do with the release, say if a new codex comes you get a mini from that, etc.

Yea more free minis !!!
As long as its one I actually want next time too ty pls

Free stuff is good

(especially where these is such a lack of variety in the contents)

 Paradigm wrote:
While I missed out on the free Eternal (everywhere here sold out in hours) I would certainly try to buy almost any WD with a free mini. As a painter I'm finding more and more that I prefer 1-off minis to building whole armies, so if I was getting something different each week I'd likely even subscribe! GW hardly make a bad mini these days, so there's not even much of a risk.

Not sure how viable doing new sprues for such short runs would be, though.

Sounds like someone out there should just start upa "mini of the week/month" thing.

Probably wouldnt be that hard charge a few bucks go buy boxsets split it up and mail them to everyone involved. Vary the model types from different systems/companies. Not one off original models but for the people getting it it would most likely be a model they never would have had the chance to paint up anyway.

 Flashman wrote:
It matters not a jot to me, because I've no interest in WD, free minis for otherwise.

Never really found the value in 1 free mini anyway, unless you use it to test out a paint scheme.

I play role playing games - I can always find a use for one free miniature.

That said... I don't buy White Dwarf - so I would effectively be paying the cover price for that one miniature... which means that the White Dwarf would be free, while the miniature is overpriced.

The Auld Grump

Honestly, I'm not sure how ANYBODY could think this would be a bad idea. It's a magazine that many less people buy than the amount who bought it in the past. Throw in a free mini once in a while, and people will flock to it. I have no intent to build a sigmarite army. But I enjoyed the hell out of painting that one lone sigmarite. For people like me who got into the hobby (of miniatures) due to the painting, this is a HUGE step for GW in the forward direction.*

*basically, if I look at poll results and find that somebody said it's a bad idea, I want to hit that person with a salmon soaked in rice vinegar. Right upside the head.


Edit. I looked at the poll. Currently, I want to slap four of you upside the head with a vinegar soaked salmon. You four are terrible people and you should feel bad. Opinions are like donkey-caves. We all have one. But the thing is, we all want to see Natalie Portman's. We don't want to see yours.

It was a mini attached to a crappy magazine republishing content you can get for free. So you're paying for the mini, not the extra sheets of toilet paper. Hardly laudable. If they bother to make WD readable then you may be on to something.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
It was a mini attached to a crappy magazine republishing content you can get for free. So you're paying for the mini, not the extra sheets of toilet paper. Hardly laudable. If they bother to make WD readable then you may be on to something.

^^ What this man said, right here.

It's a good idea in principle, but won't work on me unless I actually want (or have a use for) both products.

Hm... Matter of fact, when I thumbed through the WD I found some painting tutorials in it and some rules. Add the free miniature and that would be definitely a magazine I would buy almost every time if they'd keep that up.

What more do you want?