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 TheAuldGrump wrote:


Kings of War.

Flames of War.

Dropzone Commander.

Pretty much any 15mm historical war game.

Many 25mm historical wargames. (Including, but not limited to, Kings of War Historical - using figures from Perry Brothers and others.)

Just out of curiosity - have you played any non GW wargames? Because getting under $250 for tournament play is not all that uncommon.

The Auld Grump

I'd argue that out of that list only Kings of war really fits as a comparison scale and size wise to GW games. I'd also point out that there are zero headlining events for any of those games in the US other than KoW (could be different in Europe & ROW). Additionally only KoW is 28mm. The rest are 10-15mm which I would expect to be able to pick up in that price range. And I'm not sure KoW is less than $250 for a "decent" tournament army. They have their "army" boxes but most of those aren't solid tournament armies.

All of this supposes there are even tournaments for the above game systems. One of my favorite games in 28-32mm is Wrath of Kings. Excellent game. I can play with a couple of buddies but tournaments simply don't exist. Certainly not on the scale of GW tournaments or even Warmahordes. DZC & FoW are parts of larger conventions and I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure they don't have events on the scale of even some of the smaller weekend 40k events.

So comparable scale and model size games come down to;

Warmahordes (not quite on the same scale but if you actually take 2 different lists to tournaments then comparable)
Kings of War

40k costs more than both if you want to be reasonably competitive (though I'm not sure that much more if you do it smart and aren't going transport heavy) and AoS is likely honestly cheaper for quite a few competitive builds. Heck, at retail you can get a fairly competitive Sylvaneth army right now for $255 for 1500pts. You could have with Flesheaters at one point and you can with Ironjawz and Stormcast right now as well. And that's at retail. Shopping smart it's even less.

Is it across the board on pricing like that? Nope. But it is for a fair few armies.

This next part is going to make me sound super duper pro GW but meh.

I play quite a few games and dabble in more. But I have a family and young kids so my time is severly limited. I mainly play tournaments because I can take a day or two off a month and the most bang for my buck is tournaments where I can lock in 3-4 games in a day. Currently the only company which has a game that does that is GW. Add in decently sized national events going on regularly that friends of mine from all over the country converge at a few times of year and the decision makes itself. X-wing do too (I'm in X-wing/Armada home turf here in MN being 45 minutes from the FFG Event Center) but X-wing isn't my style of gaming though Armada comes very close.

GW is still very much the biggest toy soldier game on the block and the most prevalent. Other games are good and offer more specific tastes for sure but oddly I've noticed that without something like GW, and Warmahordes to a lesser extent, the gaming community has a tendency to fracture and without people with time and energy to drive through new games and help it reach critical mass it kinda just disappears. All of which makes me glad to see GW making positive changes this year. GW may not be the best game or have individually the best models or the best pricing. But it is consistent, it's there, and it's a sort of glue that allows a fair few number of people to dabble in new games because they can always fall back on the GW community.

My personal feelings above were further reinforced when AoS came out and the WFB community (in areas I'm familiar with) dove head first into KoW. Attempting to grow the game to the same level now that "GW had gotten out of the way" and while it briefly felt it was going to happen it foundered fairly hard. And that was with good dedicated people showing up and trying to pull people in. Then the GHB comes out and we start to see fantasy events again and people playing again. For the months between the foundering and GHB everyone had split into tiny cells of KoW, AoS, Wrath of Kings, and 9th Age. No events, no tournaments, no game nights, and a night a month if you were lucky dedicated to one of them from a local gaming group.

To summarize: I play lots of games. GW games are what I can play the most of due to my situation. I think GW has gotten better in the last year. Everyone is a little bit right and a little bit wrong

 Icelord wrote:
Oh ok you meant games with relatively hideous models.

Flames is actually in trouble. The repointing system is basically killing it.

Historicals are hardly worth discussing as a.VAST majority oftheir players aren't playing the games for tournament play.

We can talk only 28mm or larger. Of course smaller games are cheaper.

Bolt Action

 Hulksmash wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:


Kings of War.

Flames of War.

Dropzone Commander.

Pretty much any 15mm historical war game.

Many 25mm historical wargames. (Including, but not limited to, Kings of War Historical - using figures from Perry Brothers and others.)

Just out of curiosity - have you played any non GW wargames? Because getting under $250 for tournament play is not all that uncommon.

The Auld Grump

I'd argue that out of that list only Kings of war really fits as a comparison scale and size wise to GW games. I'd also point out that there are zero headlining events for any of those games in the US other than KoW (could be different in Europe & ROW). Additionally only KoW is 28mm. The rest are 10-15mm which I would expect to be able to pick up in that price range. And I'm not sure KoW is less than $250 for a "decent" tournament army. They have their "army" boxes but most of those aren't solid tournament armies.

All of this supposes there are even tournaments for the above game systems. One of my favorite games in 28-32mm is Wrath of Kings. Excellent game. I can play with a couple of buddies but tournaments simply don't exist. Certainly not on the scale of GW tournaments or even Warmahordes. DZC & FoW are parts of larger conventions and I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure they don't have events on the scale of even some of the smaller weekend 40k events.

So comparable scale and model size games come down to;

Warmahordes (not quite on the same scale but if you actually take 2 different lists to tournaments then comparable)
Kings of War

40k costs more than both if you want to be reasonably competitive (though I'm not sure that much more if you do it smart and aren't going transport heavy) and AoS is likely honestly cheaper for quite a few competitive builds. Heck, at retail you can get a fairly competitive Sylvaneth army right now for $255 for 1500pts. You could have with Flesheaters at one point and you can with Ironjawz and Stormcast right now as well. And that's at retail. Shopping smart it's even less.

Is it across the board on pricing like that? Nope. But it is for a fair few armies.

This next part is going to make me sound super duper pro GW but meh.

I play quite a few games and dabble in more. But I have a family and young kids so my time is severly limited. I mainly play tournaments because I can take a day or two off a month and the most bang for my buck is tournaments where I can lock in 3-4 games in a day. Currently the only company which has a game that does that is GW. Add in decently sized national events going on regularly that friends of mine from all over the country converge at a few times of year and the decision makes itself. X-wing do too (I'm in X-wing/Armada home turf here in MN being 45 minutes from the FFG Event Center) but X-wing isn't my style of gaming though Armada comes very close.

GW is still very much the biggest toy soldier game on the block and the most prevalent. Other games are good and offer more specific tastes for sure but oddly I've noticed that without something like GW, and Warmahordes to a lesser extent, the gaming community has a tendency to fracture and without people with time and energy to drive through new games and help it reach critical mass it kinda just disappears. All of which makes me glad to see GW making positive changes this year. GW may not be the best game or have individually the best models or the best pricing. But it is consistent, it's there, and it's a sort of glue that allows a fair few number of people to dabble in new games because they can always fall back on the GW community.

My personal feelings above were further reinforced when AoS came out and the WFB community (in areas I'm familiar with) dove head first into KoW. Attempting to grow the game to the same level now that "GW had gotten out of the way" and while it briefly felt it was going to happen it foundered fairly hard. And that was with good dedicated people showing up and trying to pull people in. Then the GHB comes out and we start to see fantasy events again and people playing again. For the months between the foundering and GHB everyone had split into tiny cells of KoW, AoS, Wrath of Kings, and 9th Age. No events, no tournaments, no game nights, and a night a month if you were lucky dedicated to one of them from a local gaming group.

To summarize: I play lots of games. GW games are what I can play the most of due to my situation. I think GW has gotten better in the last year. Everyone is a little bit right and a little bit wrong

No, you aren't coming across as 'super duper pro-GW' - you at least acknowledge the existence of other games.

Though I will point out that scale was not part of the question that I was answering in my reply. The only thing barred was 'skirmish' - which in no way describes any of the games I used as examples.

Another point of disagreement - I have actually played in tournaments with Mantic army boxes - and won.

Not the 'Mega-Armies', but the smaller boxed armies, putting together an army using two boxes and a few characters. The boxes are meat and potato armies, and provide a backbone, what they aren't is tailored for any single strategy - that takes tinkering, and why I favor the smaller army boxes over the Mega-Armies. I generally start with two army boxes, then add Reaper Bones characters to add some Inspiring characters or spellcasters (undead need their spellcasters.)

Even adding in the Reaper Bones, it comes to quite a bit less than $250*.

Ironically, the cheapest army at one tournament was the one that beat the snot out of me - he used a bunch of Reaper Bones to make a Night Stalker army - and my army is high in Inspiring leaders.... I think that he spent something like $100, getting the pieces during the Bones Kickstarter. (And his stomping me inspired Jon, another player in my group to get Night Stalkers.)

Last I heard, if you added the AoS games at conventions and the KoW games at conventions together, you still ended up with fewer players than for Warhammer 7th edition. (For the record, I was not a fan of 7th edition, either - but it had a lot of players.)

GW had hurt the market, not just their own brand.

I still have an easier time finding KoW than AoS - but that is quite possibly regional.

Locally, it seems that AoS is still very much being ignored if not openly disparaged. (There are a lot of folks that still harbor anger at GW over the game as it was initially released.)

BUT -The largest and most active game store in the area is putting a lot of work into promoting AoS - last that I heard (on this very thread, I think) they had a tournament with twelve players for AoS, which was a huge increase over the one AoS tournament that I had witnessed there before. (Which had CANCELLED as the number of players .) 7th edition WHFB at that same store often saw more than thirty players. Twelve, while an improvement over CANCELLED is a distinct drop from 7th edition. 6th had more than 7th - the population has been dropping for a while.

My local group of Kings of War players are mostly playing at home - but Crossroad Games, which has AoS games, is one of the nicest and most robust game stores that I have ever encountered in Maine.

Yes, I am plugging a store that is promoting a game I don't like - they are good folks.

Our not playing there is completely a matter of convenience, not snubbery in the shrubbery. (If I had the time and energy, I would try setting up a KoW league there - and I don't have any higher praise than that.)

My own play group is, in point of fact, a mix of grognards and folks introduced to the hobby by said grognards. (One of the players has been in my gaming circle since her age was in the single digits. She was one of my students at a summer program for several years.) There are a bit more than two dozen of us, mostly folks that also play RPGs.

The Auld Grump

* Remember - using non-Mantic figures is tournament legal for KoW.

**EDIT** I will also admit that my opinion of AoS was pretty thoroughly poisoned by my experience with the original release - the game, with its 'funny' war scrolls was, well, crap. On a crap cracker. With a side order of extra crap. We played with the starter box, then tried it with downloaded 'classic' units that had been given war scrolls. Which only made it worse. (Quite literally adding insult - what the holy heck were the game designers thinking?!) On the other hand, the main reason Chris had bought the AoS starter was to use the Sigmarines in his Blood Angels army. So like the game that the figures were made for was secondary to his purposes.

The old saying that you only get one chance to make a good impression holds true - and AoS did not give a good first impression.

-

Icelord wrote:

 auticus wrote:
GW won't get any credit until the following things occur:

* the price for a standard sized army (standard being whatever the community's default tournament size is) is roughly $250 or so.

* GW actively starts fixing their very bad balanced points.

* GW's new edition of 40k is more conducive of a static tournament game and less a narrative random dice roll game.

* GW continues to actively support tournaments (this has begun again)

Those are the things that I read pretty much on a regular basis.

Out of curiosity what is this "perfect: game you obviously play now?! I don't know of any game (that's not of a skirmish size) that you can comfortably play tournament size armies for 250. There might be something out there but that's certainly not the norm and its pointless to dream that it is.

Auticus is basically trying to quote everyone he disagrees with in one generalized post, he's not saying that is HIS perfect game. In fact, if you look at his post history, he's pretty much anti everything on that list except price, which I hope any sane human being wouldn't disagree with that point.

I'm actually very much against GW's horrible balanced points, its one reason that I don't like playing much unless I know who I'm playing against and why I would never play a pick up game. AOS is several leagues in front of 40k at the moment in terms of balance but it has its own issues that any competitive meta will exploit and bleed into the casual or narrative games as well.

I'm also not against tournament games, I'm against games where the community ONLY promotes tournament mentalities. I would love to get back into tournament play, but won't do so until the balance of the games is brought back into line and is not so grotesquely out of whack as it is today.

As to the question on the $250, that is a figure that is about the average of anyone that posts a wish list on pricing. I prefer army games over skirmish games as well, but kings of war and historical models are pretty much dirt cheap which feeds fuel on the fire of the people wanting warhammer and 40k to be $250 or less. "Because mantic and the perry's can do it, GW should do it too".

Also XWing is probably the hottest tournament game in my region right now, and you can get two tournament forces for less than $250. Yes apples and oranges, but tournament gamers I find don't care so much about the game genre as much as they care about a tight competitive game in general, so if it has some models and you roll dice and you kill the other side, warhammer, 40k, and xwing are all comparable.

On thread topic I think that they have come a long way since 2015 and I'm a fan in general. I dumped a ton of money into new thousand sons models bcause that was the legion that got me into 40k long long long ago and I'm feebly banking on 40k getting a modification like fantasy did that will change some things for the better and at least even out the power level's bell curve a tad.

 Bottle wrote:
As a side, I don't really get what's so unique about Mantic "allowing" non-Mantic miniatures. They don't have any stores to run events in. Independent AoS events allow non-GW miniatures too and you'll find lots of Meirce miniatures at those events in particular.

I played in a (admittedly poorly attended) KoW tournament, with prize support from Mantic, with a GW Dwarf army. I recall there being some wording in the first KoW book (not sure about the second) about using models you already have with the rules, just make sure it's clear what is what with your opponent before playing.

I mean, Ronnie is hardly running around in a g-string and pasties screaming 'Don't buy our miniatures!' (the generally bad sculpts do that on their own, unfortunately,) but they're fairly pro-third party compared to other companies.

Mantic is also actively trying to court the angry sour salty former GW crowd by doing everything GW is not as a sales pitch.

Its easier to do that when you're company is a handful of dudes with little to no overhead.

Privateer also once did the "everything you hate about GW we don't do" sales pitch until they got bigger. And lo... they started doing the same things.

And in PP tournaments you could NEVER run anything that was not an official model or even convert the damn thing, and no one batted an eye over that. Hell I knew guys that would rant and rave that you couldn't bring non-gw miniatures to a gw event, but were perfectly fine when you had to only use PP models at PP events.

 auticus wrote:
Mantic is also actively trying to court the angry sour salty former GW crowd by doing everything GW is not as a sales pitch.

Its easier to do that when you're company is a handful of dudes with little to no overhead.

Privateer also once did the "everything you hate about GW we don't do" sales pitch until they got bigger. And lo... they started doing the same things.

And in PP tournaments you could NEVER run anything that was not an official model or even convert the damn thing, and no one batted an eye over that. Hell I knew guys that would rant and rave that you couldn't bring non-gw miniatures to a gw event, but were perfectly fine when you had to only use PP models at PP events.

Don't forget you can't even convert something that has rules if the physical model is not out for general purchase. So this has resulted in things having rules for a year-and-a-half but no model so nobody could actually play in tournaments, and then by the time the model came out the tournament scene had passed it by and it was considered useless, without ever even seeing Play in a competitive environment. In fact there were several models at the end of the prior edition of War Machine that never got to actually be played in tournaments in that Edition because their models didn't come out until this newest edition.

But seriously there are only a handful of games where you are expected to buy everything from only one company. Most games seem to not care it is just a shame that most areas gravitate to Warhammer or Warmachine and that is it. There is a store by me that stocks a lot of Mantic products but I have never seen anybody play which is a shame because I am interested in Kings of war and dead zone but I will not buy it if there are not anyone who plays it.

I have also never seen anyone play flames of war or any sort of historical game which is a shame because I am interested in those games but as far as I could tell nobody within like a 50-mile radius gives a damn about anything that isn't Warhammer or Warmachine with some smattering of X-Wing and supposedly Kings of War somewhere

The fact that a game is trying by all means to attract new gamers, including by saying you can use any miniatures, offering free rules etc. does not make the game better.

It just reflects on the fact that the company selling that game is aware that they have to claim a lot more market share before they start cashing in.

A lot of people seem to conflate rules and miniatures. If you've been exposed to historics, where companies rarely did rules & miniatures until recently, then it's a bit baffling.

I can understand the strict wysiwyg approach from the mega competitive warmachine, and only one company doing figures for a range, but I'm baffled that people think it's unacceptable to use one set of, say, 28mm dwarves in a different game requiring 28mm dwarves. I don't know how GW managed to generate or target that mindset but it's the best move they ever made.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

morgoth wrote:
The fact that a game is trying by all means to attract new gamers, including by saying you can use any miniatures, offering free rules etc. does not make the game better.

Correct. It's the rules that make it a better game.

That you can get them free and proxy the miniatures means you have no excuse not to try it

Herzlos wrote:
A lot of people seem to conflate rules and miniatures. If you've been exposed to historics, where companies rarely did rules & miniatures until recently, then it's a bit baffling.

I can understand the strict wysiwyg approach from the mega competitive warmachine, and only one company doing figures for a range, but I'm baffled that people think it's unacceptable to use one set of, say, 28mm dwarves in a different game requiring 28mm dwarves. I don't know how GW managed to generate or target that mindset but it's the best move they ever made.

I agree. GW seems to be the first to have this "buy everything from one company, accept no substitutions!" approach, while most other wargames (now of course you have like PP and X-Wing and the like doing it because they were trying to follow in GW's footsteps) didn't care what models you used, and in the case of historicals you rarely if ever had a company doing rules AND figures (a few have tried lately though). But I almost always see the counter to "Mantic is doing X" with "Oh but their figuges are terrible" which is a greatly exaggerated statement and often boils down to "It doesn't look like a GW figure" in 99% of the critiques I've seen, and completely ignores the fact that Mantic figures are IMHO correctly priced and something GW should easily be able to do, but refuses to do.

It's the most common criticism of kings of war and frustrates me no end because it's so irrelevant. If you don't like Mantics figures for whatever reason then use different figs.

There is not a single inexpensive hobby that involves collecting in some capacity.

Having played MTG for many years, starting when it was young (I have quite a few mint power 9 which I got for basically nothing), if you want to start collecting and actually keep up in Magic it's far more expensive than Warhammer, unless you play type 2.0, in which case you're effectively throwing money away every new edition...

Firstly, that there's not a single inexpensive collecting hobby is just flat out wrong. I have a friend who collects interesting glass and stones from the beach, how much do you think that costs her? In fact, she occasionally crafts and sells items made or decorated with her finds, so her hobby actually makes her money.

Secondly, cost =\= value. Nobody could argue that many GW items aren't a relatively small amount of money, objectively speaking, to the sort of customer that GW goes after. GW's issue, in the main, is people have increasingly found what was offered to be poor value for the asking price.

Then you have the issues with other countries where the prices are some 150% over what they should be by the exchange rate...

Oh, yes - a 2 inch tall bit of plastic that cost GW 2p to make is so obviously worth $25 US.....

GW miniatures are nice - but they are not the finest in the world.

Mierce is better, UltraForge is better, and even *gasp* GW's own subsidiary Forge World is better.

I complain about GW, I do not complain about Forge World.

GW is peddling cheap plastic toy soldiers, not something worth more than its weight in silver.

The Auld Grump

Eh, honestly, when you break down cost per hour of entertainment for GW models, its actually a pretty good deal, I can spend 60 bucks, and spend a good probably 16 hours of assembling, painting and basing, not counting play time, which is another set of endless hours.

Compare that to other forms of entertainment, its par the course, i mean a movie after tickets and drinks and pop corn are gonna run you about 18 bucks for 2 hours. Suppose it boils down to what you determine is a fair price to hours of entertainment.

But I do think that GW charging 40 bucks for a box models that are from a mold thats how old now? and still charging that much because its in a new fancy AoS box is a bit shady. GW has more then made up the cost to produce the mold.

Eh, honestly, when you break down cost per hour of entertainment for GW models, its actually a pretty good deal, I can spend 60 bucks, and spend a good probably 16 hours of assembling, painting and basing, not counting play time, which is another set of endless hours.

But the flaw with this argument is that you can get the same amount of hours for less or more hours for the same amount of money by buying competing products.

Before we get Jah jumping in with the latest installment in his ongoing series of "I like Space Marines and nothing else will do" I will reference that if you desire GW minis specifically, this will increase the value proposition of GW product, but if your criteria is a slightly more open "models that I like" then GW will often be sharply priced relative to many other options.

 Azreal13 wrote:

Eh, honestly, when you break down cost per hour of entertainment for GW models, its actually a pretty good deal, I can spend 60 bucks, and spend a good probably 16 hours of assembling, painting and basing, not counting play time, which is another set of endless hours.

But the flaw with this argument is that you can get the same amount of hours for less or more hours for the same amount of money by buying competing products.

Before we get Jah jumping in with the latest installment in his ongoing series of "I like Space Marines and nothing else will do" I will reference that if you desire GW minis specifically, this will increase the value proposition of GW product, but if your criteria is a slightly more open "models that I like" then GW will often be sharply priced relative to many other options.

aside from the fact that i collect PP, Infinity, Knight Models, Guildball, Nuts Planet, and a bunch of other manufacturers' minis...
not to mention, Genestealer Cult, Ad. Mech., Guard, Eldar, Orks, Orcs, Dark Elves, Chaos, and Dwarfs, along with whatever other kit catches my fancy...
yeah, "I like Space Marines, and nothing else will do." is a load of rubbish...
i like miniatures, and nothing else will do, not action figures, scale models, Legos, or plushies...
miniatures

if i want miniatures, from any manufacturer, i am not bothered by how much they cost...
if i am lukewarm on a mini, then price definitely becomes a major factor...
if i don't like a miniature, then it doesn't matter how cheap it is, i'm not buying...
see the logic, AZ???

cheers
jah

 Azreal13 wrote:

Eh, honestly, when you break down cost per hour of entertainment for GW models, its actually a pretty good deal, I can spend 60 bucks, and spend a good probably 16 hours of assembling, painting and basing, not counting play time, which is another set of endless hours.

But the flaw with this argument is that you can get the same amount of hours for less or more hours for the same amount of money by buying competing products.

Before we get Jah jumping in with the latest installment in his ongoing series of "I like Space Marines and nothing else will do" I will reference that if you desire GW minis specifically, this will increase the value proposition of GW product, but if your criteria is a slightly more open "models that I like" then GW will often be sharply priced relative to many other options.

Huh? What does Jah have anything to do with this?

That said, what you quoted stands. If someone likes GW products the price is worth it for them. Buying Privateer Press while being a little cheaper would be worthless to them if they don't like the rules/minis/setting or what ever. So not sure what your point is. Of course competing products are just as valid like you said, only if said person likes them or wants them.

 Azreal13 wrote:

Eh, honestly, when you break down cost per hour of entertainment for GW models, its actually a pretty good deal, I can spend 60 bucks, and spend a good probably 16 hours of assembling, painting and basing, not counting play time, which is another set of endless hours.

But the flaw with this argument is that you can get the same amount of hours for less or more hours for the same amount of money by buying competing products.

Before we get Jah jumping in with the latest installment in his ongoing series of "I like Space Marines and nothing else will do" I will reference that if you desire GW minis specifically, this will increase the value proposition of GW product, but if your criteria is a slightly more open "models that I like" then GW will often be sharply priced relative to many other options.

But that too is flawed argument, because we are trying to put a quantitative value on something subjective, the enjoyment from a model. No one can say they are right for buying a model at some price, or they are wrong for not buying it, because its entirely subjective to them. The enjoyment I might get out of a model from GW, might be justifiable for me, but then for someone else it might not be. For example, we can look at the Varanguard, at my current level i cant justify the pricing of them. They are 100 bucks, and i dont see me being able to get 100 bucks worth of entertainment out of building painting, or playing with them. But some one else might, does that make me wrong or them right? No. Now that opinion of mine is subject to change, say i get to golden demon level painting where i can then get 100 bucks worth of entertainment and joy from paining them, then yeah, I can justify it.

Now, GW as a whole, are their models on the expensive side for what they actually cost to make? Yeah, absolutely, but does it mean that if someone thinks they are priced fine because they can get their monies worth of entertainment and joy out of them while others cant is wrong? No, just means they place a different value on their entertainment.

Where my issue comes into play is that GW is either raising or not reducing the prices of model that have not changed in years, like warriors of chaos for example, they just slap a new box on it and say its NEW! when its really not. Like thats really shady.

Davor wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

Eh, honestly, when you break down cost per hour of entertainment for GW models, its actually a pretty good deal, I can spend 60 bucks, and spend a good probably 16 hours of assembling, painting and basing, not counting play time, which is another set of endless hours.

But the flaw with this argument is that you can get the same amount of hours for less or more hours for the same amount of money by buying competing products.

Before we get Jah jumping in with the latest installment in his ongoing series of "I like Space Marines and nothing else will do" I will reference that if you desire GW minis specifically, this will increase the value proposition of GW product, but if your criteria is a slightly more open "models that I like" then GW will often be sharply priced relative to many other options.

Huh? What does Jah have anything to do with this?

That said, what you quoted stands. If someone likes GW products the price is worth it for them. Buying Privateer Press while being a little cheaper would be worthless to them if they don't like the rules/minis/setting or what ever. So not sure what your point is. Of course competing products are just as valid like you said, only if said person likes them or wants them.

He's usually one of those people who, granted is always respectful about it, tend to come into anything talking about GW's problems to say how he finds everything is great, the prices are fine, he doesn't like XYZ model because they don't have the right aesthetics. In fact, the fact he even collects other models as he said is news to me because most of his posts seem to be the "GW has the best miniatures ever, and because of that I'll pay any price for them" variety, and has always come off as seeing no problem at all with anything GW does and I can recall a few times when he's basically said that such-and-such cheaper alternative to GW isn't as good looking.

Wayniac wrote:

Davor wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

Eh, honestly, when you break down cost per hour of entertainment for GW models, its actually a pretty good deal, I can spend 60 bucks, and spend a good probably 16 hours of assembling, painting and basing, not counting play time, which is another set of endless hours.

But the flaw with this argument is that you can get the same amount of hours for less or more hours for the same amount of money by buying competing products.

Before we get Jah jumping in with the latest installment in his ongoing series of "I like Space Marines and nothing else will do" I will reference that if you desire GW minis specifically, this will increase the value proposition of GW product, but if your criteria is a slightly more open "models that I like" then GW will often be sharply priced relative to many other options.

Huh? What does Jah have anything to do with this?

That said, what you quoted stands. If someone likes GW products the price is worth it for them. Buying Privateer Press while being a little cheaper would be worthless to them if they don't like the rules/minis/setting or what ever. So not sure what your point is. Of course competing products are just as valid like you said, only if said person likes them or wants them.

He's usually one of those people who, granted is always respectful about it, tend to come into anything talking about GW's problems to say how he finds everything is great, the prices are fine, he doesn't like XYZ model because they don't have the right aesthetics. In fact, the fact he even collects other models as he said is news to me because most of his posts seem to be the "GW has the best miniatures ever, and because of that I'll pay any price for them" variety, and has always come off as seeing no problem at all with anything GW does and I can recall a few times when he's basically said that such-and-such cheaper alternative to GW isn't as good looking.

it is true, i do prefer the heroic-scale minis over the true-scale...
Infinity is one of the few true-scale style ranges that i am happy to buy, and paint, just because their kind of sci-fi is so beautiful....
given the choice between Wyrd's true-scale HIPS versus a PP heroic-scale HIPS kit, i'll take PP every time...

we all have an aesthetic that we prefer over another, Wayne...
i see it in every thread about models...
one group loves it, and the other says it is horrible...
it's not really strange to have favorites, is it???

why wouldn't i big-up GW when they produce products that i like???
i've said it many times, i don't like Finecast at all, and have not spent any of my money on that horrible material...
aside from making miniatures that i wanted in a material that i won't buy, i don't have a problem with GW, and why should i???
i enjoy the art, the fiction, and the models...

i use P3 paints, rather than Citadel...
there are plenty of things i like about other companies, and i happily support them...
what i don't do, is go around in the Mantic, Wyrd, Mierce, or any other company's thread, and talk about how much i dislike their minis, and don't buy them...
i don't have any desire to talk trash (i do that with my friends, where it is easy to tell i'm joking)...
i'm here to enjoy the beautiful miniatures that make me happy, not be negative...

cheers
jah

Davor wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

Eh, honestly, when you break down cost per hour of entertainment for GW models, its actually a pretty good deal, I can spend 60 bucks, and spend a good probably 16 hours of assembling, painting and basing, not counting play time, which is another set of endless hours.

But the flaw with this argument is that you can get the same amount of hours for less or more hours for the same amount of money by buying competing products.

Before we get Jah jumping in with the latest installment in his ongoing series of "I like Space Marines and nothing else will do" I will reference that if you desire GW minis specifically, this will increase the value proposition of GW product, but if your criteria is a slightly more open "models that I like" then GW will often be sharply priced relative to many other options.

Huh? What does Jah have anything to do with this?

That said, what you quoted stands. If someone likes GW products the price is worth it for them. Buying Privateer Press while being a little cheaper would be worthless to them if they don't like the rules/minis/setting or what ever. So not sure what your point is. Of course competing products are just as valid like you said, only if said person likes them or wants them.

I'm sure they exist, but someone who has decent knowledge of other ranges, and yet likes only GW to the exclusion of all else, all the time, is going to be a fairly rare individual, and those that think that way because they're exclusively confined to the GW ecosystem aren't a valid example.

Regardless, I see plenty of posts in GW release threads on an almost weekly basis where people say they like the product but the price is too much, so not even "liking" the product is sufficient to make it "worth it" in every instance. There's clearly a relationship between preference and price that GW pricing moves outside of pretty regularly, especially in the ROW area (i.e. Not UK, EU or NA.)

Answering the OP, I'll say that I like the direction GW is heading. I started an Oldhammer project earlier this year (having completed a shocking amount of it). This was not driven in any way by GW's current practices...but I can't complain on the model side of things. There are still vast inconsistencies with pricing, and GW still prices almost everything higher than I'm willing to spend (and thus, don't). 90% of my army is refurbished models from eBay. I also have zero interest in current 40K - that's not likely to change. I don't "blame" GW for that...we've just gone our separate ways.

Things I have liked:
+Warhammer TV is great. Enjoy the painting tips, the tongue-in-cheek humor etc.
+Seeing an increase in bundled products, the only way GW will ever put anything on sale
+Boxed games presenting an extremely reasonable value (particularly when combined w/ third party retailers --- $122 for Burning of Prospero or Betrayal? Extremely reasonable prices for what you get)
+A hint at genuinely moving the 40K storyline forward
+Attention being paid to Specialist games, even if they murdered my beloved Warhammer Quest
+Warhammer Community (nice to see articles and some tie-ins for fringe games)

Things I still don't like:
-Some pricing is absurd. Fans or not, $30+ for a single plastic miniature is beyond reasonable. (particularly when compared to some of the stellar deals above). All of their books, novels and eBooks are priced at levels almost no one else could fathom attempting - I suppose good on them for getting people to buy them.
-Books and supplements are still terribly expensive (a huge barrier to entry I think for future sales)
-Forgeworld, while having nice designs still produces some of the worst resin stuff I've seen (using out-dated tech)
-The rules for 7th edition still appear to be a gigantic mess.

All in all, I'd say a net positive for the year. My only exposure is forums, a number of podcasts and the occasional YouTube reviews or battle reports. I'll be sticking to the Oldhammer stuff for the foreseeable future. Short of Necromunda etc., I don't see ever going back to being a current customer for GW.

I'm with Jah in the aesthetic camp, there's something about GW stuff I just don't get from other manufacturers, (no not the skulls! Not Stormcast though, they're rubbish).
I do own the odd mini from a lot of other companies, but nothing like my collection of GW stuff.
I have curbed my GW spending though, ever since they decided to crush imports, refuse to supply independents and based their AU pricing model on a Drangonball z meme, its over 9000!

Whoever is in charge of pricing AU is a real fething dick, and directly responsible for everyone I know quitting the hobby, refusing to take up the hobby, or in the case of store owners just giving up. This continues without Kirby.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dick, dick, dick!

Well, I think that the standard or troop units in 40k should be cheaper than they are now, like 20 to 25 Euro instead of 30 to 35 Euro.
This would also induce much more impulse buys.

Joyboozer wrote:
I'm with Jah in the aesthetic camp, there's something about GW stuff I just don't get from other manufacturers, (no not the skulls! Not Stormcast though, they're rubbish).
I do own the odd mini from a lot of other companies, but nothing like my collection of GW stuff.
I have curbed my GW spending though, ever since they decided to crush imports, refuse to supply independents and based their AU pricing model on a Drangonball z meme, its over 9000!

Whoever is in charge of pricing AU is a real fething dick, and directly responsible for everyone I know quitting the hobby, refusing to take up the hobby, or in the case of store owners just giving up. This continues without Kirby.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dick, dick, dick!

You want the special GW something, you gotta pay for it. And they know it.

Wayniac wrote:
But I almost always see the counter to "Mantic is doing X" with "Oh but their figuges are terrible" which is a greatly exaggerated statement and often boils down to "It doesn't look like a GW figure" in 99% of the critiques I've seen, and completely ignores the fact that Mantic figures are IMHO correctly priced and something GW should easily be able to do, but refuses to do.

They are terrible if you have good eyesight and actually care about miniatures.

If I could repeat some facts to indicate why GW plc have not got better...

The last time I looked GW plc reported all costs excluding logistic and retail was 24% of turn over.
And people I know confirmed GW plc logistc costs ran at about 10%.

So when you buy £100 of minatures from GW .
£2 covers the cost of plastic manufacture
£6 covers all the remaining overheads for manufacture and packaging etc
£16 covers ALL the overheads of GW HQ etc.
£10 covers the cost of shipping and storage.

Thats £34 total to cover all costs to produce and deliver the product to a store for you to buy .

GW get about £15 profit from each £100 they sell.
Thats £49,

But wait, where does all the other money go?

Over half the retail cost of GW product goes on maintaining their chain of B&M retail stores.

The 1990s are asking for their retail strategy back, and GW plc is not listening.

IF GW plc want to run hobby centers for recruitment, that fine.But they should be self financing from the people that actually use them .Like good LFGS are.

So GW plc are charging DOUBLE because they are not efficient at marketing. That is why GW plc has not got any better.


Also GW plc has found its target demographic is diminishing faster than they can adjust prices for.So now they are pretending to care about the 'dedicated fans'.
By slowly engaging with them in the cheapest and least committed way.

But they will have to do a lot more to win back customers from companies that have had much more in the way of positive relations with their customers during GW plc 'Kirby years'.IMO.





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