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 insaniak wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Tamiya kits blow GW clean away and torpedo their already sinking ship.
I have two Tamiya 1/35 Panzer II's that I use as Leman Russ Exterminators. They are the right size, they look a lot better and they are far superior in detailing and design.
And they cost £10 each
GW really cannot compete.

They're not trying to.

Tamiya make scale models. GW make gaming miniatures.

True, two clearly different markets, but they are producing a superior product and selling it at a cheaper price. That makes GW look like bad value if someone does make the comparison.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Tamiya kits blow GW clean away and torpedo their already sinking ship.
I have two Tamiya 1/35 Panzer II's that I use as Leman Russ Exterminators. They are the right size, they look a lot better and they are far superior in detailing and design.
And they cost £10 each
GW really cannot compete.

They're not trying to.

Tamiya make scale models. GW make gaming miniatures.

True, two clearly different markets, but they are producing a superior product and selling it at a cheaper price. That makes GW look like bad value if someone does make the comparison.

And, tbf, we already compared them to WM/H and they still came out looking worse. From a model PoV, from a deal/bundle PoV, and from a list building PoV.

GW is the most expensive mini game on the market. For...reasons that nobody is able to define outside of it's the most popular (which I think is no longer true), it's the oldest, it's the best looking (subjective)...and that's it. Model quality or it being secretly cheaper has been pretty debunked once you compare it to other games or minis.

 jonolikespie wrote:

True, two clearly different markets, but they are producing a superior product and selling it at a cheaper price. That makes GW look like bad value if someone does make the comparison.

Tamiya's product is only superior if you're comparing GW's product as the same thing.


Tamiya tanks are certainly better than GW's as scale models. As gaming miniatures, they're not as good - too fiddly (anf so time consuming) to build, and made from a harder and more brittle plastic with lots of little parts which makes them unsuitable for frequent handling and lugging about the countryside.

You can't really directly compare the two, because they're two very different products, in different genres, intended for different purposes. It's like trying to compare a sword and a cricket bat... They might look superficially similar, but which of them is better depends entirely on what you're trying to do with them.




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Akiasura wrote:

GW is the most expensive mini game on the market. For...reasons that nobody is able to define outside of it's the most popular (which I think is no longer true), it's the oldest, it's the best looking (subjective)...and that's it. Model quality or it being secretly cheaper has been pretty debunked once you compare it to other games or minis.

I already gave the reason: GW set their prices high because they can.

 insaniak wrote:


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Akiasura wrote:

GW is the most expensive mini game on the market. For...reasons that nobody is able to define outside of it's the most popular (which I think is no longer true), it's the oldest, it's the best looking (subjective)...and that's it. Model quality or it being secretly cheaper has been pretty debunked once you compare it to other games or minis.

I already gave the reason: GW set their prices high because they can.

I think the point that is being made is that although we all know they can set the prices that high and people will pay them, it does price people out. And as a result it prevents new players from joining the game.

As a quick counterpoint to that, however, I know that at some point you can do the math on a product and determine how many customers will be priced out if you sell at X+1 vs. how much extra revenue you will bring in with increased prices. It's very possible that GW have set the prices at a point where they are still making more money without those customers who got priced out. The company I work for has done this with our product several times. Each time we lose customers because they can't afford the product. But the company is healthier overall because we bring in more revenue despite that. In the short term, anyway...

Akiasura wrote:

So, basically Scott, you are wrong. PP is on average the same or much much cheaper than GW in nearly every way. Basic troops are the biggest exception, and for most armies, those are really bad. I imagine if I looked at the horde armies, the prices per model would be better (I stayed with marines mostly, being the most popular army and would most likely be the cheapest) but the dollars per point would be much worse.

Try pricing up some actual armies and look at the $$/model.

Warmachine can be close depending on army composition but nearly always higher.

X-Wing, Mercs, Malifaux, Infinity are all way more per model. I've started Imperial Assault recently and the price per model is horrible for what are thoroughly mediocre miniatures.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

X-Wing, Mercs, Malifaux, Infinity are all way more per model.

In X-wing case instead of saying price per mini, it's price per box since a lot of times people don't buy the box or blister for the mini but for the cards.

I've started Imperial Assault recently and the price per model is horrible for what are thoroughly mediocre miniatures.

Now that comes to value, not price. You still see value in it, even though the price is high.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

So, basically Scott, you are wrong. PP is on average the same or much much cheaper than GW in nearly every way. Basic troops are the biggest exception, and for most armies, those are really bad. I imagine if I looked at the horde armies, the prices per model would be better (I stayed with marines mostly, being the most popular army and would most likely be the cheapest) but the dollars per point would be much worse.

Try pricing up some actual armies and look at the $$/model.

Warmachine can be close depending on army composition but nearly always higher.

X-Wing, Mercs, Malifaux, Infinity are all way more per model. I've started Imperial Assault recently and the price per model is horrible for what are thoroughly mediocre miniatures.

Did you miss the post where I did just that for WM/H? I compared cygnar to marines, looking at infantry, elite infantry, cavalry/bike models, leader models/characters, tanks and jacks, and larger models.

I'm not as familiar with the other games, so I can't comment, but the only place GW beat PP was on basic infantry on a per model basis. And basic troops in 40k are pretty awful. Everywhere else it was a tie or in PP's favor. Even the basic infantry is a relatively small difference.
Trust me, I own 3 WM/H armies and I own the majority of 40k armies. 40k is so much more expensive.

That isn't even taking into account how much bigger a 40k army is compared to anything else, cost wise, to play. I didn't even include the mandatory rulebooks and codex.


I didn't price up a list, but this shouldn't make any difference on a per model basis. Honestly, I think the list would make it worse for GW, I could probably get a deal in there for PP since they have a decent amount of bundles. And the rules are free. If you can use the starter box or all in one bundle, it shifts in PP's favor heavily. And MKIII saw a reduction in size of games.

The difference is X-wing does not need as many minatures, or as much time or effort to play the game as 40k.

And lots of other systems actually add to the value of their minatures because they have good rules that generate enjoyable game play and good enough balance for pick up games.

Oh god, I love the PP vs GW price argument. Or rather I love watching Americans and Brits having it while I sit here and compare a $15 metal character to a $50 plastic character because of GW's *Australian pricing*.

Lanrak wrote:
The difference is X-wing does not need as many minatures, or as much time or effort to play the game as 40k.

And lots of other systems actually add to the value of their minatures because they have good rules that generate enjoyable game play and good enough balance for pick up games.

This I find totally false X-wing can be played as big as you want, just like how 40K can be played as small as you like. So saying X-wing doesn't need as many miniatures is totally false. If anything you keep hearing a lot of times how "you are forced to buy minis just for the cards" so you are not even using the minis you are buying. So in fact you are buying more minis than you really want to. So this argument on needing less is really not true.

As for effort, yes X-wing is so much better than 40K to play. So much flipping through the rule book and multiple books to find out how a rule works. Lot less effort is needed for X-wing.

Davor wrote:

Lanrak wrote:
The difference is X-wing does not need as many minatures, or as much time or effort to play the game as 40k.

And lots of other systems actually add to the value of their minatures because they have good rules that generate enjoyable game play and good enough balance for pick up games.

This I find totally false X-wing can be played as big as you want, just like how 40K can be played as small as you like. So saying X-wing doesn't need as many miniatures is totally false. If anything you keep hearing a lot of times how "you are forced to buy minis just for the cards" so you are not even using the minis you are buying. So in fact you are buying more minis than you really want to. So this argument on needing less is really not true.

It really is.

Firstly, the imbalance in X Wing is very small, so with maybe two exceptions (which most anyone who plays regularly is expecting to get a fix release in the future) anything you buy has in game value. Sure, a player may have his or favourites, but anything they choose to buy will have value. People who make this complaint have typically been hard wired into the factionism that 40K (and others) operate under, so they decide they're going to be "an Imperial player" and resent buying other non faction ships to get upgrade cards. X Wing doesn't work like that, changing a list just requires changing cards and swapping out a few components, not hours of painting and modeling and hundreds of pounds of expense, and one can buy a whole wave of releases for the cost of one mid-price GW kit, give or take.

Secondly, the game's popularity is now high enough for there to be a pretty healthy market in singles, so while ~£15 for Emperor Palapatine (the most expensive single card usually) may seem a lot for a very small piece of card, it still represents a significant saving over buying the ship he comes with, and you'll only ever need one.

Also, while it is technically possible to play big games, nearly everyone plays 100 point dogfights most of the time, and because the expansions are generally so affordable, regular players can just field their collection if they want a big battle now and again.

Davor wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

X-Wing, Mercs, Malifaux, Infinity are all way more per model.

In X-wing case instead of saying price per mini, it's price per box since a lot of times people don't buy the box or blister for the mini but for the cards.

Indeed, this is actually something that needs to be considered when establishing the cost of a game. Even ignoring the first of the core rules (where 40k is significantly more expensive than most other miniature games) when working out how much your force is going to cost you need to add on the (rather ridiculous) cost of the codex and /or supplement books that contain the rules for actually using that force.

X-wing may be more expensive per miniature (I'm taking everyone's word for that, as I haven't bothered to check), but those miniatures come with their rules. Same thing for Warmachine... While there are faction books to buy of you want them, you don't actually need them as the miniatures come with their rules on cards.

In the context of value I think it's worth considering if the size of the games in 40k are really improving your experiences of playing the game itself. Looking at 7th versus earlier editions (let's say 3rd), the standard game size has swelled in models per army dramatically. Everyone was always excited when their army's models got a little bit cheaper, but that came at the cost of armies growing over many editions. And while beneficial to GW in the short term, this expansion of costs will slowly eat away at the player base.


The question is whether or not the extra chaff is improving the game experience, and I'd argue that it has not. It may not necessarily diminish the experience, but I sincerely doubt it improved it. And without improving it, then you're just paying more money for the same experience as before.

EDIT: I agree with what insaniak is saying. The only place where GW has been mitigating rules cost has been with AOS, something I don't seeing them doing with 40k.

 Accolade wrote:
In the context of value I think it's worth considering if the size of the games in 40k are really improving your experiences of playing the game itsel

As someone who was regularly playing 5000-10000point games back in 2nd edition, for me that would be a big 'yes'. The ability to play more than small skirmishes is a big part of the draw of 40k for me, and that's something that got much easier from 3rd ed onwards.

I love Necromunda, but beyond that I'm not much interested in skirmish games... And that, sadly, is all that anyone else seems to be interested in producing.

Well, other than Mantic, and so far they've not quite managed to get there.

 insaniak wrote:

 Accolade wrote:
In the context of value I think it's worth considering if the size of the games in 40k are really improving your experiences of playing the game itsel

As someone who was regularly playing 5000-10000point games back in 2nd edition, for me that would be a big 'yes'. The ability to play more than small skirmishes is a big part of the draw of 40k for me, and that's something that got much easier from 3rd ed onwards.

I love Necromunda, but beyond that I'm not much interested in skirmish games... And that, sadly, is all that anyone else seems to be interested in producing.

Well, other than Mantic, and so far they've not quite managed to get there.

I guess I should say that I'm not thinking about 2nd edition as much (like you said, it's much more a skirmish), but 3rd edition with the advent of small-medium size armies. From 3rd to 7th, an army might be able to tack on a couple of extra tanks and squads of troops and in this case, I'm wondering how much the experience is enhanced between those two editions.

I feel at least they went past the happy spot of army size...maybe that's a better way to put it. That, and army composition is a mess, such that the old standards of the game (ie troops) have become largely costly fodder to purchase, place, and remove.

Davor wrote:
This I find totally false X-wing can be played as big as you want, just like how 40K can be played as small as you like. So saying X-wing doesn't need as many miniatures is totally false.

Are you joking, or just trolling?

You can buy 3 ships and be done, ready to play X wing at the average size point levels quite comfortably, even able to swap around the upgrades on them to make multiple different lists with those 3 models.

That's it. 3 models. You're done, you have a fully playable force.

Being able to upend your entire collection on the table changes nothing, you can do that for any game in existence.


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 insaniak wrote:
X-wing may be more expensive per miniature (I'm taking everyone's word for that, as I haven't bothered to check)

They are like $20 Aud a ship locally for X wing/TIE fighter sized stuff. So less expensive than a GW character down here and laughably cheaper than some of those newer $50-$60 plastic characters.

 insaniak wrote:

As someone who was regularly playing 5000-10000point games back in 2nd edition, for me that would be a big 'yes'. The ability to play more than small skirmishes is a big part of the draw of 40k for me, and that's something that got much easier from 3rd ed onwards.

I love Necromunda, but beyond that I'm not much interested in skirmish games... And that, sadly, is all that anyone else seems to be interested in producing.

Well, other than Mantic, and so far they've not quite managed to get there.

At 28mm scale small skirmish games are all that is practical. Anyone making a game suitable for large battles would be doing on a smaller scale: Flames of War, Dropzone Commander...

Oh, did you think you saw that particular equine still twitching, so figured an extra stroke wouldn't hurt?

 Azreal13 wrote:
Oh, did you think you saw that particular equine still twitching, so figured an extra stroke wouldn't hurt?

Better a dead donkey than living in denial.


wow what a huge army! 10 Apcs and 50 infantry! My what a big battle! Defo not a small skirmish! Now how can I move anything without falling off the table?

Ok.

So.... yes.

 SolarCross wrote:

At 28mm scale small skirmish games are all that is practical....

20 years or so of playing large point level games at 28mm says otherwise.

Seriously, you've made your point. You don't think 28mm is suitable for large games. You're welcome to that opinion, and welcome to play other games that you feel better scratch your particular itch. Some of us think that larger games work just fine art 28mm, and will carry on playing as we've been doing for decades now regardless of how many times you repeat the same points.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Ok.

So.... yes.

Oh yes!

 jonolikespie wrote:
Are you joking, or just trolling?

You can buy 3 ships and be done, ready to play X wing at the average size point levels quite comfortably, even able to swap around the upgrades on them to make multiple different lists with those 3 models.

That's it. 3 models. You're done, you have a fully playable force.

Being able to upend your entire collection on the table changes nothing, you can do that for any game in existence.

This is kind of a dishonest way of looking at it. Can you play a standard 100 point game of X-Wing with three ships? Yes, if you choose the right ships. Are you going to win? No. You aren't going to have the necessary upgrades to make your three ships work, and if you want to buy the ships that have the upgrades you need you're going to have to spend a lot more money. And you're never going to be able to change you list, while all the people you're playing with get to enjoy the fun of doing new stuff. Talking about three-ship X-Wing makes about as much sense as talking about playing 40k with a single 5-man tactical squad. It's possible to do it but it doesn't give an accurate representation of the real costs to play the game.


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 SolarCross wrote:
wow what a huge army! 10 Apcs and 50 infantry! My what a big battle! Defo not a small skirmish! Now how can I move anything without falling off the table?

Yeah, because an army on a tiny display board is definitely the same amount of movement space as a real game on a 6x4 table...


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 SolarCross wrote:
{pictures of huge armies}

Ok, and that's fine if you like games where individual models are just faceless dots in giant blocks of hundreds of soldiers and you could play the game with cardboard tokens without losing any detail. That isn't a universal preference, nor is it the game 40k is trying to be.

Just correcting an inaccuracy. It was punted that 40k was a big battle game and that no one else was doing anything of comparable scope. At 28mm 40k is a small skirmish game that is trying at enormous expense to be a medium skirmish game and failing, hard.

 SolarCross wrote:
Just correcting an inaccuracy. It was punted that 40k was a big battle game and that no one else was doing anything of comparable scope. .

And so far as 28mm games are concerned, that is correct.

Whether or not the 40k rules are perfect for that application doesn't actually change the fact that they scale up better than other 28mm game rules, and that nobody else is making games on a similar scale.

 Peregrine wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
Are you joking, or just trolling?

You can buy 3 ships and be done, ready to play X wing at the average size point levels quite comfortably, even able to swap around the upgrades on them to make multiple different lists with those 3 models.

That's it. 3 models. You're done, you have a fully playable force.

Being able to upend your entire collection on the table changes nothing, you can do that for any game in existence.

This is kind of a dishonest way of looking at it. Can you play a standard 100 point game of X-Wing with three ships? Yes, if you choose the right ships. Are you going to win? No. You aren't going to have the necessary upgrades to make your three ships work, and if you want to buy the ships that have the upgrades you need you're going to have to spend a lot more money. And you're never going to be able to change you list, while all the people you're playing with get to enjoy the fun of doing new stuff. Talking about three-ship X-Wing makes about as much sense as talking about playing 40k with a single 5-man tactical squad. It's possible to do it but it doesn't give an accurate representation of the real costs to play the game.

Playing X wing with 3 ships is not like playing 40k with a 5 man tac squad, it is like owning a 1500 point 40k army and not a single other model in your collection. Your list will always be very similar, but it's a full sized game.

And if you're just playing casually there is no reason you can't use an online listbuilder, you probably don't *need* to physically own all the cards.

Ultimately this is a thread about GW pricing people out of the game isn't it? Even if you want to say you need 5 or, hell, 10 ships for a solid X wing collection, plus a starter set, that is a load easier to sell to a new player than a full sized 40k army, a rulebook, a codex, and teaching someone to build and paint models.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Playing X wing with 3 ships is not like playing 40k with a 5 man tac squad, it is like owning a 1500 point 40k army and not a single other model in your collection. Your list will always be very similar, but it's a full sized game.

But game size isn't really the point. A 1500 point collection is on the small side, but it's a significant percentage of an average collection. Some people do in fact have just 1500 points, and a lot of people have 2-3000 points. So that 1500 points is around 50-75% of a "full" collection. In X-Wing, on the other hand, a 3-ship collection is nowhere near average. An average player is going to have 30+ ships (the "buy one of each" approach that is common), and many players will have a lot more. So, being generous, that 3-ship collection is maybe 10-15% of a "full" collection. IOW, it's not even close to the full amount of money an average player is going to spend.

And if you're just playing casually there is no reason you can't use an online listbuilder, you probably don't *need* to physically own all the cards.

If you're going to say this about X-Wing then you need to be consistent and make the same argument about 40k. You can always use proxies, non-GW models, etc, as long as you're just playing "casually".

Ultimately this is a thread about GW pricing people out of the game isn't it? Even if you want to say you need 5 or, hell, 10 ships for a solid X wing collection, plus a starter set, that is a load easier to sell to a new player than a full sized 40k army, a rulebook, a codex, and teaching someone to build and paint models.

Yes, of course X-Wing is cheaper, primarily because it requires fewer models. But you're not helping anyone by presenting a really misleading version of the total cost to play. Someone who thinks "ooh, I can play this for only $50 or so" is going to be really disappointed when they find out that the true cost of playing is hundreds of dollars.

Just going to say, these photos of napoleonics, flames of war etc...

Don't do much for me. They don't inspire. They show me the same stand of 5 guys stood around on an abstract field.

While 40k may not create that scale for some of you...it certainly has a different aesthetic. I mean, you may really like that same stand of 5 guys standing around en masse and looking remarkably bored, even as you roll dice to imitate their FIERCE COMBAT with another stand of 5 guys who look equally as bored.

But the 40k aesthetic is more dynamic.

And there's the difference. Scale and dynamics. A 40k army, even Sisters of Battle if you really hate yourself, can be made to look like an army of individuals. You can play larger scale games with these models (hence the Apocalypse ruleset) or smaller scale games (Inquisimunda) and you can put as little or much effort in as you want.

End of the day we're arguing prices over a luxury.

Why don't all you Aussies, New Zealanders and Americans just let the pound burn so you can savour your tasty Forge World crack while those of us stuck over here weap in sorrow?

 insaniak wrote:
Tamiya's product is only superior if you're comparing GW's product as the same thing.


Tamiya tanks are certainly better than GW's as scale models. As gaming miniatures, they're not as good - too fiddly (anf so time consuming) to build, and made from a harder and more brittle plastic with lots of little parts which makes them unsuitable for frequent handling and lugging about the countryside.

You can't really directly compare the two, because they're two very different products, in different genres, intended for different purposes. It's like trying to compare a sword and a cricket bat... They might look superficially similar, but which of them is better depends entirely on what you're trying to do with them.

I disagree. You can compare them quite well as long as you take in to account the differences. It's not like comparing a sword and a cricket bat, it's like comparing a claymore vs a bastard sword, similar but different.

They are both mass produced injection moulded kits, the fact one is produced for wargaming and the other for display simply means the latter is more likely to have small fiddly parts, more likely to separate parts rather than integrating it in to a single piece and so on.

From a value perspective, you can definitely draw comparisons. An Imperial Knight is a similar price to a Tamiya Spitfire. The Spitfire comes with slightly more sprue-age, individually wrapped sprues, extra photo etch parts, a nice little colour booklet in addition to the instruction manual, magnets for removable panels, metal pins for movable control surfaces, metal screws for removable landing gear to pose it in either a ground or flying stance, extra plastic parts that aren't on sprues for thin parts like engine cowlings, rubber parts for wheels and whatnot, metallic name plates to put on a display board.

Obviously all those extras aren't necessarily things you want on a wargaming model (though some are, like the magnets and metal pins/screws), but it gives you a good reference for comparing value. Of course you also need to take in to account Tamiya doesn't release a huge number of kits of that quality, though over the past decade or so they've built up a bit of a stable of large high end kits with aircraft and tanks.

There are obviously some differences, like the Tamiya spit has almost 400 parts which is a boon for a scale modeller, not so much for a wargamer. The Spit is a kit that your average person is going to take several months to build, the Knight your average person is probably going to throw together much quicker.

Not the same, but definitely comparable in many aspects and it's comparisons like that which make people decide whether GW kits are or aren't worth what GW asks for them.

EDIT: Also I don't think Tamiya kits are necessarily more brittle. They seem to vary. Bending the sprues on my Tamiya Spit show they are just as flexible as GW plastic. My Tamiya Bf109 seems to be a bit more brittle, that's a mid 90's kit I believe. GW plastic has varied over the years as well, I was recently working on some Lizardmen that I bought several years ago and was surprised how brittle it was and how easy it was to snap spears/javelins.

While initially investing into 40k is, well, pretty bad, I think a lot of people are drawn to the size of the game. Doing a 3 ship vs 2 ship battle is fun, but I think some of my favorite experiences playing x-wing have been our 300 point epic games with multiple capital ships on both sides. And about the cards, its fething dastardly. Sometimes they put upgrades that are ideal on my rebel ships into empire ships that I don't give a grot's arse about just to make you drop another 15 bucks. Its like if a LCG was in miniature form.

I bought a box of Malifaux because hey, being able to start playing from a single box is great. But its a skirmish game that really doesn't lend itself to expansion. Same with Infinity, Frostgrave, Warmahordes, etc etc. If you wanted your force to look like a unified army instead of a bunch of cosplayers then you don't have that option.

There's not really many options for the scale 40k players want. I like x-wing a lot but its a different dynamic than owning my own horde of orks. Visually its more impressive too and I think a lot of players want that. What would you want in your display case, 3 warjacks or 3 wraithknights?

I don't think GW has good prices btw. I don't think their competition is offering any replacements though. Alternatives yes, but not replacements.