Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

SKR.HH wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
@SKR:HH Because there are no peasants or armored foot troops in fantasy worlds? I seriously hope you get paid well to shill for GW....

No, because human minis constitute only a tiny fraction of a fantasy setting.

Maybe some fantasy settings, not others. The fantasy world I've been most immersed in recently has been The Witcher and that's mostly humans who would be well represented by a kit bash of Perry's figures.

Perry figures would also work very well for Game of Thrones, especially the armies of the main Westeros kingdoms.

 Bottle wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 Bottle wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
Yes but it doesn't change the fact that actually building on to the Army is in my opinion prohibitively expensive. The problem has never been starting, it's been once you graduate to actually building up a decent Army for regular gaming

I would recommend getting out of the mind set that you need to build a tournament sized army to play with. Collect GSC for Kill Team, Inq28, Combat Patrol or maybe just play at 1000 points. £25 for 10 Hybrid Neophytes is great value in my eyes. The Acolytes are a bit pricey but DW:OK gives you enough for a good price. GSC are a horde army, and horde armies are going to be amongst the most expensive to make a 2000 point army with - that's just the nature of wargames - but you don't have to be boxed in to playing at 2000 points.

Except when people don't want to play less. Trust me, I'm usually the (lone) voice arguing for small point games. I prefer 1k points for AoS and ~1250 for 40k (enough to have one centerpiece but not overpowering). It does absolutely nothing when everyone else is "Yeah no I want 2k points so I can use <insert kewl formation here>". At that point, either I give up or I give in to what the "majority" wants. Kill Team, Inq28 (nobody does this at all I've seen) or Combat Patrol (nobody does this either) doesn't mean anything if I'd be sitting at the GW store all day with nobody willing to play, people already seem to hate playing Kill Team (I usually see people outright refuse to play it, they'd rather wait another and see if anyone shows up for "real" 40k than play a game of Kill Team in the interim). You are super optimistic I think because of your area. Mine is, while not as bad as others (auticus' springs to mind), mainly higher points and that's it. If you play less, either you team up with someone to play against the guy who wants 2k points, or you just don't get a game at all. I'm working on trying to change that mindset, but it's insanely hard when I'm the only one arguing for it.

Yeah, from what I have heard your area is really tough. Have you not made a gaming buddy that enjoys the same style of play as you? Inq28 isn't something you can play as a pickup game (or in a GW store) - I am playing a mini campaign in January with a friend. As for pick up games - I have never found an opponent unwilling to play what I want (so if I want a quick game I rock up with 1000pts and if I want a big game I bring 2000pts). I am getting back into 40k this year, and definitely doing it on my own terms (as in I don't want to keep my GSC <100 models - and if that means it's a low point army I will only play low point games with them.

I guess I must be lucky with my area but opponents are always accommodating. I hope you meet at least one opponent that likes smaller games too.

I am trying. Most people seem to want only bigger games. I did chat with someone (he plays Guard and has Minotaurs space marines) who mentioned liking smaller points, so that's a plus and at least one potential lead. Potentially a couple (they play Wolves and Blood Angels) who seem to not have a ton of models either (not sure of what exact points) who might be persuaded into it also (in which case I'd like to find another xenos player for my "team"). It's a work in progress, but very hard as there isn't much communication between people beyond "want a game". I know for a fact one of the regulars would refuse, he ONLY likes 2k points or higher because he exclusively uses a demi-company, and most of the people I see play tend to want that style as well (big games with lots of flyers/tanks, that usually have to stop at turn 3 because the store closes). The one I was watching today was another 3v3 game, probably 4k points or so that had like barely any terrain either because the 6x4 table was so cluttered with models. I don't get how people can enjoy playing like that.

You basically need to find three or four guys willing to do it, put out public games with those guys in a campaign or something, and thats how you will pull the guys on the fence over to being willing to play that style with you.

There are probably a lot of guys willing to play smaller points, but they follow the lead of the more vocal community leaders who will advocate for tournament style games. Once other events are seen where guys are playing in them that are something else, they become viable events and you will find your numbers grow a little bit.

SKR.HH wrote:
And which one look like fantasy? Spoiler It's not the Perry ones.

Nice goalpost shuffling. Well played.

Bloody hell, I just looked out of interest and those dwarf models are £35 for 10!!

SKR.HH wrote:
And which one look like fantasy? Spoiler It's not the Perry ones.

Depends on your idea of fantasy. You mean D&D-esque? Yeah the Perry ones. You mean over the top high fantasy with weird krazy things happening? Still probably the Perry ones, but now you're getting closer into the GW aesthetics.

Why are people comparing Perry Miniatures with GW at all? Until a few years ago they worked for GW and were responsible for a lot of the LoTR miniatures and multiple sets of the "human" faction (Empire, Bretonnia, some IG, …if I remember correctly). The difference between their Perry Miniatures work and their GW work is mostly a question of stylistic choice and not about the tools. Both don't use fancy slide mould with undercuts, multiple colours, or other fancy features but seem to be two part moulds with a simple cavity.

If you compare the plastic kits they worked on for GW with the ones they did for Perry Miniatures then the quality should be relatively the same (with the exception of art direction). It's not like the work they did for GW years ago got magically "better" because they sat in an official GW office. One could simply compare their old GW work and with their Perry Miniatures work for a more objective comparison (price/miniature or sprue or whatever you want to compare).

Just to give you folks an idea how cheap it is to produce plastic minatures with GW set up at Nottingham.
A few years back GW did a costing exercise of out sourcing plastic production to China.
And found it was 30% cheaper to keep manufacturing plastic in Nottingham.

The only reason GW plc have to charge so much for their plastic minatures is the B&M retail chain eating up over 50% of their gross profit!

Wayniac wrote:

SKR.HH wrote:
And which one look like fantasy? Spoiler It's not the Perry ones.

Depends on your idea of fantasy. You mean D&D-esque? Yeah the Perry ones. You mean over the top high fantasy with weird krazy things happening? Still probably the Perry ones, but now you're getting closer into the GW aesthetics.

D&D offers multiple races... Humans is only one of them. If you want to play humans... fine (even though it eludes me why you don't play historicals in the beginning if you seem to like that particular aesthetics)...

SKR.HH wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

SKR.HH wrote:
And which one look like fantasy? Spoiler It's not the Perry ones.

Depends on your idea of fantasy. You mean D&D-esque? Yeah the Perry ones. You mean over the top high fantasy with weird krazy things happening? Still probably the Perry ones, but now you're getting closer into the GW aesthetics.

D&D offers multiple races... Humans is only one of them. If you want to play humans... fine (even though it eludes me why you don't play historicals in the beginning if you seem to like that particular aesthetics)...

Because there is more to fantasy universes than what clothes the peasants press-ganged into the army wear.

How on earth did we get this far on this line and not mention North Star's Frostgrave stuff?



Unquestionably Fantasy themed (it's only a small, young range as far as plastic goes, but Gnolls are already part of it) and £20-22 for 20 models, with options (the cultists come with undead parts for instance.)

Mario wrote:
Why are people comparing Perry Miniatures with GW at all? Until a few years ago they worked for GW and were responsible for a lot of the LoTR miniatures and multiple sets of the "human" faction (Empire, Bretonnia, some IG, …if I remember correctly). The difference between their Perry Miniatures work and their GW work is mostly a question of stylistic choice and not about the tools. Both don't use fancy slide mould with undercuts, multiple colours, or other fancy features but seem to be two part moulds with a simple cavity.

If you compare the plastic kits they worked on for GW with the ones they did for Perry Miniatures then the quality should be relatively the same (with the exception of art direction). It's not like the work they did for GW years ago got magically "better" because they sat in an official GW office. One could simply compare their old GW work and with their Perry Miniatures work for a more objective comparison (price/miniature or sprue or whatever you want to compare).

Exactly. Having elves instead of humans doesn't justify a price increase, especially not at the level of GW's prices. Nor does GW's aesthetic choice to copy/paste skulls and purity seals over every surface of the model. The Perry stuff is equal to GW's by every objective standard, and the only differences are subjective individual taste.

 Azreal13 wrote:
How on earth did we get this far on this line and not mention North Star's Frostgrave stuff?

Spoiler:

Unquestionably Fantasy themed (it's only a small, young range as far as plastic goes, but Gnolls are already part of it) and £20-22 for 20 models, with options (the cultists come with undead parts for instance.)

Not only that, but they're not UBER FANTASY. It's a shame that there's a partion of the hobby community that thinks GW's stuff most accurately represents high fantasy because it's just so over the top.

Lanrak wrote:
The only reason GW plc have to charge so much for their plastic minatures is the B&M retail chain eating up over 50% of their gross profit!

That would only be true if you think they'd have the same sales volume if they closed their stores. Their stores only made a small loss, so if closing all their stores also meant they lost all those sales, they wouldn't really be in any position to lower prices.

The main reason GW charge as much as they do is because that's what they want to do. They think that's what's going to make them the most amount of money. They could keep the price per box the same but double the number of models in a box and it wouldn't cost them a hell of a lot because the actual cost of casting is small. The question would be whether people would buy more or less boxes that way.

Some might buy less because they would have previously bought 4 boxes of Cadians where as with double the number of models they only have to buy 2, other people would buy the same because they were only ever going to buy 1 box, but now they get 20 models instead of 10, still other people would buy more because previously they wouldn't have bought any because they saw a Cadian army as being too expensive buy now see it as affordable.

When it comes to plastic models it's less about how much you sell each individual model for and more about how much money you can extract out of customer's wallets. The likes of Perry, Warlord and so forth don't sell their boxes more cheaply, they simply pack more models in to them.

If your business revolves around whales who must buy 100 Space Marines and they can only be Space Marines and nothing else, then charging the most money per model is going to get you the biggest profit. In a world where people have finite time, finite money and broader interests, charging more money per model isn't necessarily the way to go.

This is all talking about mass produced plastic models, when talking about resin or metal models they don't have the same economy of scale so as a manufacturer you have to think more about price per model.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
hat would only be true if you think they'd have the same sales volume if they closed their stores.

It's a pretty good approximation, at least for the US market. GW stores are few and far between, and clearly inferior to the independent stores. I can't imagine GW is making many sales from those few stores that wouldn't immediately be replaced by sales through independent stores and/or the GW website.

Their stores only made a small loss, so if closing all their stores also meant they lost all those sales, they wouldn't really be in any position to lower prices.

It's not just the loss, it's the sheer amount of money the retail chain costs. GW has to set MSRP so that a sale through a GW retail store makes a profit, or at least the smallest possible loss. If you take away all the obscene costs of running the retail chain GW can sell through alternative channels at a lower MSRP and still make a profit. That's why a lot of independent stores sell GW products at 10-20% off MSRP, they aren't burdened by GW's failed retail business so they can make a profit off a lower sale price per kit.

 Peregrine wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
hat would only be true if you think they'd have the same sales volume if they closed their stores.

It's a pretty good approximation, at least for the US market. GW stores are few and far between, and clearly inferior to the independent stores. I can't imagine GW is making many sales from those few stores that wouldn't immediately be replaced by sales through independent stores and/or the GW website.

Globally just over 41% of GW's revenue comes from GW stores, if you assume that trade sales are made at 60% of retail price, it still accounts for approximately 33% of product shifted.

I'm not convinced all of that that 33% would jump over to the webstore or FLGS's.

Their stores only made a small loss, so if closing all their stores also meant they lost all those sales, they wouldn't really be in any position to lower prices.

It's not just the loss, it's the sheer amount of money the retail chain costs. GW has to set MSRP so that a sale through a GW retail store makes a profit, or at least the smallest possible loss. If you take away all the obscene costs of running the retail chain GW can sell through alternative channels at a lower MSRP and still make a profit. That's why a lot of independent stores sell GW products at 10-20% off MSRP, they aren't burdened by GW's failed retail business so they can make a profit off a lower sale price per kit.

Well customers can already buy from those discounted locations, if we're talking about prices being inflated because of GW's high wholesale price, that can only be reduced if sales from the retail stores transfer over to webstore or FLGS when the retail stores close.

If they don't, GW won't be able to reduce their wholesale price and so independents who already sell at a discount won't magically be able to increase their discount. GW would simply reduce their revenue by a similar amount to their expenses and the net effect on profits wouldn't be small, they'd just be shifting far less product for the same profit.

Now if you do think the 33% of product shifted through stores would still be shifted through other channels, sure, I agree, they could lower their prices, but I'm just not entirely convinced that would happen.

If we do the maths here.
(Approximately rounding up etc.)

If GW plc turn over £120m.
That means the GW stores generate approx £50m of that turn over.(Allowing for maximum profit from sales, up that to about £60M)
And the stores cost them £65 approx to keep open.

Other outlets , independent retailers and the web store cost at most £1 in admin costs.And generate at least £60M in sales.

Fixed overheads cost GW plc about £30-£35M.(Including logistics.)

So worst case scenario and GW the loose all retail chain sales.
GW plc spend £35 to generate £60M turn over.Nett Profit £25M.

GW plc spend £100M to generate £120M .Nett profit £20M and lots of negative attitude.


I am not saying GW plc can just close its retail chain overnight and halve prices and all would be fine.

But NOT recognizing the value of the internet for retail and marketing to grow you business, is what has left GW plc out of touch with its customer base , and over priced when compared to companies that utilized the internet effectively.

The shift to a stronger on line presence in the late 1990s early 2000s, just leaving hobby center recruitment shops that paid their own way.Would have left GW plc is a much stronger position today.

Lanrak wrote:
And the stores cost them £65 approx to keep open.

Where did you get that number? The last financial report placed retail profit at -£3.4M and retail revenue of £48.4M, which was a bigger loss than 2015 were it was -£1.5M and £49M.

So if they closed all their stores they'd be up a few million in profit, but not enough to significantly alter prices. Even in your estimates where you have stores making a £5 loss, the most they could drop prices and maintain profit would be an 8% reduction, that's hardly explaining why a Cadian is 324% more expensive than a similar model from Perry.

It's certainly not a silver bullet to lower prices and I don't think it's a good explanation of why GW's prices are high. GW's prices are high because GW set them high because they think they're at the peak of the revenue vs. price chart. They don't think lowering prices will get them enough additional sales to make up for the reduction in revenue-per-product.

Maybe 5 or 10 years ago here in Australia specifically I could have believed if GW closed their stores customers would have kept buying from independent stores and they could have lowered the wholesale price so FLGS's could lower their prices. I don't believe that would be the case anymore, FLGS's have been put off by GW enough that they no longer actively advertise GW products.

I was just using the figures I was given from some one at GW HQ.

All costs excluding retail =33% of revenue.
Subtract the Gross profit appx 15%, this leaves over 50% of turn over being used to keep the B&M stores open.

There was a clear choice in the late 1990s to move from the expensive B&M store retail model, and compete in the open market.(Internet and independent retailers.

Moving GW product in to the open market would mean quite a bit of work for GW to get their products on a competitive footing.

Keeping the B&M stores open allowed GW to isolate their customers from the open market, and brainwash them into thinking GW was the entire hobby.

I said over 5 years ago GW plc had painted them selves into a corner with their retail strategy. It is limiting the market share they can get, and they are too invested to lose any revenue from changing from it at this late stage.

In a growing market GW plc is still not growing market share as far as I can tell.Other companies without the heavy overhead of thier own retail chain are growing with the market.

I believe to only way GW plc can actually grow again is decide if its a minatures company, or a games company.
And use the proven route to success for these business types.
Telling everyone they are unique, when GW plc has just been badly managed for decades, is not going to cut it much longer IMO.

SKR.HH wrote:
This is a hypothetical problem because at the moment they are available. Maybe they will receive a new Starter Box before Overkill vanishes, who knows?

Who knows? So no comments about GW prices for $30 for one mini or over $50 for 5 minis you can't get in Overkill eh? I am going to start calling you Mr Deflector. Doesn't actually address what is being talked about and talking about something else. Or are you only picking and choosing what you want to debate about so your point is correct?

Lanrak wrote:
I was just using the figures I was given from some one at GW HQ.

All costs excluding retail =33% of revenue.
Subtract the Gross profit appx 15%, this leaves over 50% of turn over being used to keep the B&M stores open.

There was a clear choice in the late 1990s to move from the expensive B&M store retail model, and compete in the open market.(Internet and independent retailers.

Moving GW product in to the open market would mean quite a bit of work for GW to get their products on a competitive footing.

Keeping the B&M stores open allowed GW to isolate their customers from the open market, and brainwash them into thinking GW was the entire hobby.

I said over 5 years ago GW plc had painted them selves into a corner with their retail strategy. It is limiting the market share they can get, and they are too invested to lose any revenue from changing from it at this late stage.

In a growing market GW plc is still not growing market share as far as I can tell.Other companies without the heavy overhead of thier own retail chain are growing with the market.

I believe to only way GW plc can actually grow again is decide if its a minatures company, or a games company.
And use the proven route to success for these business types.
Telling everyone they are unique, when GW plc has just been badly managed for decades, is not going to cut it much longer IMO.

I think at this point GW has decided they're a miniatures company that use games to sell those miniatures. Which is not necessarily a bad thing except the rules for their biggest seller are a mess because they've been stuck in a rules rut since 1998 (3rd edition).

I do think it's a natural progression that GW would lose market share. There was a time when they were the only games in town but they didn't take the opportunity to corner the market and make it hard for start ups. Instead they receded in to 40k and left the table open for competitors to grab market share.

But I tend to think of them largely as separate ruts.

You have GW's rules rut which comes about from having the same 40k rules since 3rd edition.

You have the retail rut which came from trying to conquer the world with their stores instead of using them to compliment independents.

You have their pricing rut which came from them pretending they were a Ferrari.

You have their stock size rut which comes from them relying on new releases to drive one third of their revenue (which is somewhat good for customers, but is cumbersome from a supply/storage/distribution perspective and adds to their rules woes).

 auticus wrote:
GW's overhead is why mantic can afford to sell models for cheap and GW cannot. Mantic is a handful of guys in a tiny office with little to no overhead.

But GW has economics of scale to go with. They are the ones that are inheritently better suited for producing cheap high quality plastics by sheer weight of numbers. Mantic is the one that should be struggling to that as they don't shift as many boxes by far.

It's GW putting price they think customers are willing to pay. Simple as that. Why ask 50 when customer pays 100?

@AllSeeingSkink.
I think we agree on the basic errors GW plc management have made ,(under the Kirby years.)

When GW actually let the game developer develop and support games that were fun to play out of the box/book.GW had its widest reaching customer base, as they catered for a wide range of ages and game play preferences.

When GW partnered with companies that gave them massive global marketing,(M B Games and New Line Cinema.)They had their biggest periods of growth.

I believe as GW plc had never bothered with any 'actual ' marketing, because these companies did it so well, T.Kirby simply thought it was his understanding of 'the niche within a niche ' business he was running that had lead to success.

Odd then that in 2007 he said GW had 'grown fat an lazy on the back of easy success', but carried on with the same 'fat and lazy' options until he was removed as C.E.O years later.

I got the impression T.Kirby had no idea how to run the large business GW plc had become, but he felt he should profit as much as possible from it while he made it a more manageable size for him to deal with, before he was replaced.... And so the choices he made reflected that.IMO.

You posted..
''I think at this point GW has decided they're a miniatures company that use games to sell those miniatures. Which is not necessarily a bad thing except the rules for their biggest seller are a mess because they've been stuck in a rules rut since 1998 (3rd edition).''

If they used games with great game play to sell minatures like game companies do.They would not need to prop up customer interest/ retention with so many new minature releases every year, at ever higher prices, to give their diminishing customer base more stuff to buy.And they would not have to isolate their customers in the 'GW hobby'

At this point GW plc use inspiring sounding rules to support new minature releases, not games with rules focused on game play.
.
Unfortunately inspiring rules to sell the latest releases, are not resulting on clarity brevity and intuitive rules to deliver the game play people expect.

I think this is why they wanted to sell their products in isolation,in their own retail chain.Because in comparison to other rule sets 40k rule books and codex books are over priced and fail to be as functional as they should be.

The cost of this isolationism (over half the gross profit GW plc make.)Is the reason GW plc have to increase prices.

@tneva82.
You are completely right about the economies of scale .
If GW plc stuck to their original plan for plastic manufacture , GW would not have needed to up prices over the rate of inflation.As a pure minatures company, GW plc could undercut the price of every competitor in the plastic soldier market!

I am not saying they should do this, but they could do this.(GW own plastic manufacturing plant has paid for itself.When its cheaper for GW to manufacture in their Nottingham site than out source production to China, it gives you an idea how cost effective GW plc manufacturing investment was! )

The choice was improve the rules to appeal to a wider audience to grow GW customer base by word of mouth.(Like they used to do in the early 1990s.)
This would support the economies of scale and let them keep prices fixed for years as higher profit off higher volume of sales.
Or.
Focus on the much smaller market of collectors who did not care about rules , but would simply be inspired to buy by the art and narrative GW plc fed them.
This would allow a shrinking of product lines , and smaller customers base, but higher profit off each minature sold.

Unfortunately for GW plc the core of fanatic price elastic collectors was not as big as they had hoped.And so GW plc has had to raise prices so fast to make up for falling sales volumes , their sales volumes are shrinking even faster.(Generally.)

 Azreal13 wrote:
How on earth did we get this far on this line and not mention North Star's Frostgrave stuff?

Spoiler:

Unquestionably Fantasy themed (it's only a small, young range as far as plastic goes, but Gnolls are already part of it) and £20-22 for 20 models, with options (the cultists come with undead parts for instance.)

Every time I see this I think the guy on the right has just said "I'm gonna stick this up their bum" and the middle dude is horrified.

Joyboozer wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
How on earth did we get this far on this line and not mention North Star's Frostgrave stuff?

Spoiler:

Unquestionably Fantasy themed (it's only a small, young range as far as plastic goes, but Gnolls are already part of it) and £20-22 for 20 models, with options (the cultists come with undead parts for instance.)

Every time I see this I think the guy on the right has just said "I'm gonna stick this up their bum" and the middle dude is horrified.

Well, they don't like it up 'em!

I found that this has been the most disturbing picture regarding GW.
In this way, GW got better.

 wuestenfux wrote:
I found that this has been the most disturbing picture regarding GW.
In this way, GW got better.

SOON

Anyway, until GW fixes 40k and make it back into the infantry focused game it was in 4th, I'm not saying its better.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
I found that this has been the most disturbing picture regarding GW.
In this way, GW got better.

SOON

Anyway, until GW fixes 40k and make it back into the infantry focused game it was in 4th, I'm not saying its better.

Seconded.
I also miss the infantry based game in 40k. Now we have an apoc-like game at 1850 pts. That's too much and kills the game.
However, we played some 30k games mostly with infantry. Marines vs. Marines is a smooth game. No fear to get annihilated by turn 1.

3rded. 40k was an infantry game when I started it. The few tanks in the game were serious threats

Herzlos wrote:
3rded. 40k was an infantry game when I started it. The few tanks in the game were serious threats

Probably the reason so many 40k players seem to have moved to Bolt Action. The game era/background isn't the same but the gameplay is so much more like 40k was and should have become.

We all 'know' the next edition of 40k won't go back to that style of game, with the amount of huge kits GW now peddle. If anything it will be more 'unbound' gameplay with use of all the best stuff you can buy from any faction in a huge mix.

-