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Resin from the Orient has usually either a yellowish or a darker grey tone, it varies from one recaster to another.

That looks like the real deal, although it should be said that at this stage the difference in quality between genuine FW products and what the best recasters are able to produce is virtually nonexistant. Some of said recasters have even managed to improve upon the original moulds.

I think it's not. The pics bring some evidence.

Talys' assumptions also just include whole kits and leave out sourcing grav weapons from bits suppliers or DIY such as http://www.spikeybits.com/2013/10/diy-gravity-gun-conversions-for-under-1.html

But in Talys' world collectors don't play and players don't model.

I bought bac guns and arms, for my thousand sons. Fits nicely with my aftermarket torso's.

 nullBolt wrote:

 Talys wrote:

Spoiler:

Are you sure the resin is... Genuine?

Of course it's genuine. It is from an outrider kit from Forge World, directly, previously one of their best selling kits. Ive bought two kits (six bikes) and they're all like that, some slightly worse. When it's finished, you'll never know. I will post the pictures, and you'll never know there were imperfections in the resin. But the prep job is like 20 hurts for 3 bikes.

Incidentally, you can't use regular bike parts for the eider because the base is the plastic scout bike kit.

It's also one of the kits I paid 24% tax on (12% at purchase 12% at delivery), and FW never refunded me half of that back, after 10+ emails and s promise to.

More proof it's authentic? Here's one of the pics that I took for the "proof" shot for the January painting contest in P&M forum. See how some of the parts are still on the resin blocks & posts, forge world style, and the FW sticker with the actual part number? And how the plastic parts, are well, plastic?




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 agnosto wrote:
Talys' assumptions also just include whole kits and leave out sourcing grav weapons from bits suppliers or DIY such as http://www.spikeybits.com/2013/10/diy-gravity-gun-conversions-for-under-1.html

1. You don't need to play genuine space marine minis at all. My first games of 40k were with paper counters. By GW!
2. The point is, you're not spending more money AND you're getting more relevant parts if you spend your $150 elsewhere.
3. Sure, you can buy third party bits. If you go the other route and get 40k parts, you wont spend more and you wont need to.

If you think Calth is a great way to get into a 40k starter for a quasi or fully competitive army, please tell me how you arrive at that. It's not terrible, but this isn't some super spectacular gaming piece deal for 40k. You get 3 tactical squads, 1 chaplain, 1 termie captain, 1 terminator squad 1 dreadnought for $150. That is NOT a screaming deal, because the last 3 items are not really that helpful.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 agnosto wrote:

But in Talys' world collectors don't play and players don't model.

When did I ever say this, agnosto?

I've consistently said that I believe that most collectors have played at least a little, or at least aspire to, and I believe that most gamers value their models as something more than a counter. I would challenge you to find even one post where I've ever said that collectors don't play, and players don't model.

That doesn't preclude the obvious fact that there are lots of people who buy SOME models just to model, and that there are a minority hobbyists who don't play any game and never intend to.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Plus, depending on distribution terms, they may have had to have the boxed translated games destroyed, rather than returned. Which means the boxes and models as well as the rulebooks.

(Fairly typical in the toy industry, I'm afraid - most unsold toys are not returned to the manufacturer, but are crushed on site.)

Why???

Because toys have a limited shelf life, and the cost of returning, repackaging, and warehousing them is more than the cost of getting new stock. (The frowny is not at you - this practice annoys the heck out of me. When the local BaM! was getting rid of the boxed 4e D&D Essentials sets... they didn't even let folks scavenge the dice. )

Automatically Appended Next Post:
From that TSR article.

In all my research into TSR's business, across all the ledgers, notebooks, computer files, and other sources of data, there was one thing I never found - one gaping hole in the mass of data we had available.

No customer profiling information. No feedback. No surveys. No "voice of the customer". TSR, it seems, knew nothing about the people who kept it alive. The management of the company made decisions based on instinct and gut feelings; not data. They didn't know how to listen - as an institution, listening to customers was considered something that other companies had to do - TSR lead, everyone else followed.

I know its been pointed out countless times, but...wow.

Spoiler:

In all my research into GW's business, across all the ledgers, notebooks, computer files, and other sources of data, there was one thing I never found - one gaping hole in the mass of data we had available.

No customer profiling information. No feedback. No surveys. No "voice of the customer". GW, it seems, knew nothing about the people who kept it alive. The management of the company made decisions based on instinct and gut feelings; not data. They didn't know how to listen - as an institution, listening to customers was considered something that other companies had to do - GW lead, everyone else followed.

"Market research is otiose in a niche market".

Yeah... though it was the Dragon Dice Debacle that really came to my mind - and is closest to the translated overstock dilemma. (I am working on a pulp game... it may have had an effect on my phrasing....)

The term that always rises in my mind when reading of the end of TSR, and while looking at the problems of GW is 'Hubris'. Hubris and overweening vanity.

By comparison, take a look at what Domino's did. (They went 'Oh my God! We're losing marketshare! We gotta fix this! Quick, to the Surveymobile!' and started trying to fix the problems that being the leader in the industry had led them into.)

Or even WotC - 4e has similarities as well, but after the #1 best selling RPG fell to being the #2 best selling RPG (and kept dropping) they were at least willing to admit that maybe, just maybe, they should have been listening, eh? (They pretty much ignored their playtesters during the lead up to 4e... and then had to do an enormous errata fixing problems that had cropped up in an early draft, and never fixed.)

That D&D has, by most accounts, returned to being #1 speaks to the effort expended trying to get out of the hole that WotC had dug for itself. (Only most accounts - the local BaM! is still selling more Pathfinder - but that is mostly because the hardcover 5e adventures just don't sell.)

The Auld Grump

Auld, that shows a humility that the D&D brand has twice shown they're capable of (pre 3rd edition and pre 5th edition). I don't believe GW has ever shown that willingness during the same timeframe. Even WOTC, mindful of the mistakes of TSR's past, seemingly forgot that lesson under Hasbro after the success of 3/3.5.

 warboss wrote:
Auld, that shows a humility that the D&D brand has twice shown they're capable of (pre 3rd edition and pre 5th edition). I don't believe GW has ever shown that willingness during the same timeframe. Even WOTC, mindful of the mistakes of TSR's past, seemingly forgot that lesson under Hasbro after the success of 3/3.5.

WotC had almost entirely ousted the folks that had been in charge of the success of 3.X - and the new lead designer had their own vision of what they wanted 4e to be.

And then, they too got ousted - and the lead designer of 4e was put in charge of board games instead.

Fun fact - the wording of the OGL was specifically used because the designers of 3e were convinced that sooner or later upper management would move to kill the license... and, sure enough... they came up with the GSL for 4e, and were amazed at the number of third party publishers not flocking to the new system... and that Pathfinder, using the old license, supplanted D&D as the top dog in the industry.

Which... brings up the importance of third party support - another major failing of GW is that they want to be the only ones supporting their games.

The Auld Grump - you used the letter G! We're gonna sue!

I went to the local GW for the 40th Anniversary thing-a-ma-bob. Other than open gaming and the staff flogging the new "actual discount" box sets, there was nothing different than usual.

No event swag for sale, no hobby events, no special anniversary gaming events, no models of yesteryear to showcase the history of GW. NOT EVEN A SIGN ON THE DOOR. Apparently there would be some sort of event freebies at some undefined time in the afternoon... The outlet was pretty full of regulars, and pretty devoid of walk-in traffic. It seemed less organized than the normal Games Workshop "grand opening celebrations" and the regular "birthday celebrations", which have at least defined support. It looked like headquarters just threw it out there at the last minute and the local staffers were left to figure it out on their own.

There is one enormous difference between the 4e and AoS situation. 4e, for all its flaws, was mechanically and design-wise the best game that ever bore the D&D name. Considering that, it's no miracle that the designers thought it would catch on.
They completely underestimated the fact that most D&D players are uninterested in playing a game that is good, but different than 3.5. However, they absolutely recognized that after the fact and so 5e, or "3.75" as it's called affectionately by the D&D enthusiasts around here, was born.

In a similar way, GW completely failed to acknowledge that many people playing WHFB want to play WHFB and not something completely different.

 Korraz wrote:
There is one enormous difference between the 4e and AoS situation. 4e, for all its flaws, was mechanically and design-wise the best game that ever bore the D&D name. Considering that, it's no miracle that the designers thought it would catch on.
They completely underestimated the fact that most D&D players are uninterested in playing a game that is good, but different than 3.5. However, they absolutely recognized that after the fact and so 5e, or "3.75" as it's called affectionately by the D&D enthusiasts around here, was born.

In a similar way, GW completely failed to acknowledge that many people playing WHFB want to play WHFB and not something completely different.

I'd disagree. I'd say that it wasn't the fact that 4th wasn't 3rd, it was the fact most D&D players didn't feel like playing "Warcraft Pen&Paper".

RPGs are a different type of game to a tactical wargame.

 Korraz wrote:
There is one enormous difference between the 4e and AoS situation. 4e, for all its flaws, was mechanically and design-wise the best game that ever bore the D&D name. Considering that, it's no miracle that the designers thought it would catch on.
They completely underestimated the fact that most D&D players are uninterested in playing a game that is good, but different than 3.5. However, they absolutely recognized that after the fact and so 5e, or "3.75" as it's called affectionately by the D&D enthusiasts around here, was born.

In a similar way, GW completely failed to acknowledge that many people playing WHFB want to play WHFB and not something completely different.

I believe both WotC and GW fell into the same trap you just jumped in: A simplified, streamlined system isn't "better".

Battletech is a highly complicated tabletop.
X-Wing is a highly accessible tabletop.

Both have sci-fi small-scale encounters as their theme and game style with a focus on tactical maneuvering with alternating activations (or a variation thereof - initiative values).

Neither is - to me - objectively better. Both have quirks and rules I dislike (LB20 cluster shots are a nightmare to roll; "normal" hits being unevadeable is frustrating, so is automatic regen of shields), but both have unique advantages over the other which are simply opposites at times: BT features a highly detailed damage system while X-Wing is fast-paced action where you also have to read your opponent at times.

Are simulation video games better than action video games , or are they simply DIFFERENT?

Most people who were into Battletech despised MechWarriorark Age since it was too simplistic and simply an entirely different game, set in the same universe. And that's were Wizkids back then, WotC with 4E and GW with AoS made their big mistakes: Telling people "hey, this stuff here is now gonna replace the game you like. It's vastly different and does away most of the stuff you guys liked, but its still the same IP and basic type of game so you folks will LOVE it! And in case you don't we'll cancel your old, crappy favourite game now so we don't cannibalize our own sales".

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:

 Korraz wrote:
There is one enormous difference between the 4e and AoS situation. 4e, for all its flaws, was mechanically and design-wise the best game that ever bore the D&D name. Considering that, it's no miracle that the designers thought it would catch on.
They completely underestimated the fact that most D&D players are uninterested in playing a game that is good, but different than 3.5. However, they absolutely recognized that after the fact and so 5e, or "3.75" as it's called affectionately by the D&D enthusiasts around here, was born.

In a similar way, GW completely failed to acknowledge that many people playing WHFB want to play WHFB and not something completely different.

I'd disagree. I'd say that it wasn't the fact that 4th wasn't 3rd, it was the fact most D&D players didn't feel like playing "Warcraft Pen&Paper".

More of a tactical board game than a computer game - though I believe that the monthly subscription model for the online tools was part of what drove the design.

The rules actually work pretty well for the 4e derived board games - where variables can be limited.

But I do feel that 4e and AoS would both have done better had they been run in tandem with the systems that they instead replaced.

That said... Fantasy had been failing for a while - but amputation is not the recommended treatment for a scalp wound.

GW knew that Fantasy had done better in previous editions than in the few most recent iterations.

They should have expended effort in finding out why it was failing, and fix those problems that had been introduced.

Instead, they pulled out the bone saw, and amputated at the neck.

The Auld Grump

Korraz wrote:
They completely underestimated the fact that most D&D players are uninterested in playing a game that is good, but different than 3.5.

I

Hear

That.

nekooni wrote:I believe both WotC and GW fell into the same trap you just jumped in: A simplified, streamlined system isn't "better".

TheAuldGrump wrote:
That said... Fantasy had been failing for a while - but amputation is not the recommended treatment for a scalp wound.

That too.

People say in the other thread that AoS was a good idea, badly implemented. Well, no, that just makes it a bad idea. Some of the 'bad implementations' weren't unavoidable necessities of a 'good idea'; they all started as smaller 'bad idea' components of an overall bad idea.

AoS, as a 'different' game, did draw in some players, but I'd say Korraz' point still stands when a portion of those were 40K players attracted by the big-skirmish, no-structure, special-rules, fantasy-marine-saturated nature of the game. Not that different, from some POVs. And as Nekooni says, all that and the simplification doesn't mean it's better, or even good - a good game, or a good idea.

There are ways in which a smaller, streamlined game would have been a good idea - after all, people were wishlisting for it - but a good idea is not as simple as that. The fact that some jumped on AoS rather than check what else there was ("uninterested in playing a game that is good, but different") as disgruntled WFB players did with KoW, doesn't necessarily make it a bold new direction and the saviour of GW. Strip out the Poochie background and the fact you can start with fewer minis (hello guts-of-a-grand mini bundles), and as I say, it looks pretty familiar, and business as usual for GW.

Battle of Calth and actually discounted bundles seem, to me, to be far more radical departures from GW's otherwise moribund way of doing things. As simple as they are.

The discounts of some of the bundles are pretty neat, to the point of making the GW models inside more or less reasonably priced (=/= cheap).

Until very, very recently GW has lived up to the dogma that discounts are a bad thing because they somehow devaluate the product. If they're willing to suddenly offer such discounts... well, two options here: a) the half-year report is not going to look pretty, b) they have a lot of plastic they want to get rid of.

 Korinov wrote:
The discounts of some of the bundles are pretty neat, to the point of making the GW models inside more or less reasonably priced (=/= cheap).

Until very, very recently GW has lived up to the dogma that discounts are a bad thing because they somehow devaluate the product. If they're willing to suddenly offer such discounts... well, two options here: a) the half-year report is not going to look pretty, b) they have a lot of plastic they want to get rid of.

The thing is that nothing has a lower value than an unsold product.

They broke the law of financial elasticity, and now they are paying the fine.

The Auld Grump

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 Korinov wrote:
The discounts of some of the bundles are pretty neat, to the point of making the GW models inside more or less reasonably priced (=/= cheap).

Until very, very recently GW has lived up to the dogma that discounts are a bad thing because they somehow devaluate the product. If they're willing to suddenly offer such discounts... well, two options here: a) the half-year report is not going to look pretty, b) they have a lot of plastic they want to get rid of.

The thing is that nothing has a lower value than an unsold product.

They broke the law of financial elasticity, and now they are paying the fine.

The Auld Grump

There's something with even worse value: unsold products gathering dust in a shelf, becoming the undeniable statement that nobody is actually interested in them.

Happening to several boxes of Sigmarines at my FLGS, right now.

I've just bought two Lizard Men starter sets, the new one that has £85 worth of contents but costs only £50.

Even by the standards of historical players, £50 for a set containing 12 infantry, 8 cavalry and a big feth-off monster is not bad. Whereas £50 for the monster by itself is a joke.

Now I'm planning a number of other Lizard Man purchases, and I probably will end up spending £300 overall. Without the initial value of the starter set, I would have left the whole army on the shelf and GW would have got NOTHING.

That is the promotional value of discount bundles.

To be clear, I'm not buying any AoS or WHFB books. I will build the army as a generic fantasy army for use with KoW and HoTT. But GW are a model company anyway so they won't mind.

This is the first GW product I have bought in five years.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I've just bought two Lizard Men starter sets, the new one that has £85 worth of contents but costs only £50.

Even by the standards of historical players, £50 for a set containing 12 infantry, 8 cavalry and a big feth-off monster is not bad. Whereas £50 for the monster by itself is a joke.

Now I'm planning a number of other Lizard Man purchases, and I probably will end up spending £300 overall. Without the initial value of the starter set, I would have left the whole army on the shelf and GW would have got NOTHING.

That is the promotional value of discount bundles.

To be clear, I'm not buying any AoS or WHFB books. I will build the army as a generic fantasy army for use with KoW and HoTT. But GW are a model company anyway so they won't mind.

This is the first GW product I have bought in five years.

The first GW purchase that I've made in the better part of a year to eighteen months is the new Skitarii bundle. I agree with you completely; hopefully this makes someone at GW wake up a bit.

Oh yes, and I forgot to mention that I used to buy GW stuff off their website so they knew my birthday, where I lived, where I worked and the armies I played and the kind of add-on products I liked. They threw away all that knowledge when they moved to the new "web store" without bothering to migrate their customer database (because apparently £4 million isn't enough money to design a website and migrate your data.)

But now I have ordered from the new web store that have got some of that info back. They can send me a promotion voucher for my birthday, or news about clubs and events in my local area and so on.

I would have been tempted by a decent Tyranid bundle, but they hamstrung it by making the included monster a Hive Tyrant which means they can't put a different big beast in there, but that's been an issue with Tyranids since second edition. Also, since they're going with a formation to avoid the FoC, they didn't really need a Tyrant.

I would have jumped on a Tyranid set if they had a different big bug and Termagants or Hormagaunts. Termagant/Hormagaunt box, Warrior box and Exocrine/Haruspex kit or something along those lines would have been pretty great.

Going with Gargoyles and Warriors feels more like a stock clearance attempt than a good value box.

nekooni wrote:

 Korraz wrote:
There is one enormous difference between the 4e and AoS situation. 4e, for all its flaws, was mechanically and design-wise the best game that ever bore the D&D name. Considering that, it's no miracle that the designers thought it would catch on.
They completely underestimated the fact that most D&D players are uninterested in playing a game that is good, but different than 3.5. However, they absolutely recognized that after the fact and so 5e, or "3.75" as it's called affectionately by the D&D enthusiasts around here, was born.

In a similar way, GW completely failed to acknowledge that many people playing WHFB want to play WHFB and not something completely different.

I believe both WotC and GW fell into the same trap you just jumped in: A simplified, streamlined system isn't "better".

Battletech is a highly complicated tabletop.
X-Wing is a highly accessible tabletop.

But which one of those two is objectively more successful? Accessibility combined with marketing and a popular IP has done amazing things for X-wing.

To try and decide which of Battletech or X-Wing has been 'objectively more successful' you need to define the criteria to be judged.

If it's longevity, for instance, Battletech wins easily. The game is still in print about 35 years after its creation, and new models are being produced. Even WHFB can't claim that.

If it's sales, X-Wing probably has done better, but we don't know. Battletech has a good lead built up.

If it's profitability, X-Wing depends on a very expensive licence. It's possible the profits are relatively low.

The point is we don't know the true state of these factors and they don't depend on game complexity anyway.

It's also worth pointing out that the stability of BTech is such that its rules have not changed significantly across its entire lifespan, and that supplements printed 15+ years ago are still compatible with the game today (let alone the minis).

Hell, I was putting together some BTech minis today, some of which are 23 year old sculpts.

It is the tortoise of the gaming world.

I think, from comments from various media, that the Starwars licence is not that expensive.

The treasure of Battletech is its its own IP and can bring further money by licensing itself and or it can be branched to other games, more importantly new things can be developed for it a problem Xwing faces.

A games success is dependent on a wide factor of points and how widely its played or how much it sells is not always an indicator of success.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
To try and decide which of Battletech or X-Wing has been 'objectively more successful' you need to define the criteria to be judged.

It really comes down to this. Take movies for example.

If a movie is largely panned, but it makes hundreds of millions and isn't going to have a sequel, is it a success? Hobbit 3 has a lousy 59% metacritic, but really, do the stakeholders care? There's not going to be another LoTR movie and whatever fans think about the Hobbit trilogy, it made a brick ton of money. Even most of the people who knew it wouldn't be their thing shelled out money to see it.

Or is success defined by something that becomes a fan/cult favorite? By that measure, The Highlander was highly successful. It got a whole bunch of crappy sequels, too. But the movie didn't make anyone much money, nor the sequels. And Christopher Lambert went from one second-tier movie to another.

Or is it defined by critical acclaim? There are lots of movies that have near-universal critical acclaim. You see them in the Oscars every year. But I can't stay awake through some of them even if you paid me, and I think some of them are the most boring or depressing movies with zero entertainment value ever written. And it's not just me, evidenced by the fact that nobody is actually willing to pay $12 a ticket and $7 for popcorn and a drink to watch them in the theatre.

It's really no different in games. A well-written game isn't necessarily the most entertaining, or longest lasting, or most profitable, or has the largest fanbase, and so forth. At the end of the day, it will be some mix of those factors, but it will be a different mix depending on the reviewer's personal bias.

For instance, I would rate "success" in terms of number of fans, profitability, and longevity, weighted in that order. But other people might have a totally different method of prioritization.

That's just your longwinded way of saying that AoS needn't be balanced, right Talys?

 Talys wrote:
For instance, I would rate "success" in terms of number of fans, profitability, and longevity, weighted in that order. But other people might have a totally different method of prioritization.

GW has spent the Kirby Years at war with its fandom, and overall profitability during the post LOTR boom has been decreasing, despite raised margins on kits and aggressive cost cutting. By your metrics, GW hasn't really been a "success" in the last few years. But then again... we can't see all the data can we. GW has longevity, so they must be doing everything right.

Looks like Rowntree is starting his stint in the right direction. I actually took a second, third and FOURTH look at those $100 bundles. NOTE: Still didn't buy though, as during the Age of Strife (the Kirby Years), I built up an impressive backlog of Heretical Miniatures from the Eye of Chaos.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
That's just your longwinded way of saying that AoS needn't be balanced, right Talys?

Since GW is a miniature making company in the first place, balancing is something that could be done by the gaming community. There are a few approaches like http://www.scrollbuilder.com/