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 Peregrine wrote:
I bet the recasters are happy though, when the price of legal kits just went up considerably.

The funny thing is, some of the recaster quality is better than FW and they don't just slather everything in release agent. So now I can move 100% of my purchases to recasters.

bogalubov wrote:

 Breotan wrote:

 Mysterio wrote:
GW realized that there was some untapped revenue here - without realizing that FW sales are most likely about to take a massive hit - at least from a ROW perspective.

Next year's financials will be worth checking to see if this actually happens.

Do they actually report profits by division and then UK vs ROW?

Yes and no.

FW is classed as direct sales, excluding their stores. So it gets reported in a lump with GW.com and Black Library.

So if revenue falls for that segment, then yes, it'll probably be this, but there'll be nothing in black and white to explicitly confirm it.

It is nice to see them move to a reasonable system for shipping pricing. (I.e the same system basically every business in the world has used for as long as the internet has existed).

But the price increases of the actual product sadly does make it quite prohibitively expensive for many to buy legal FW

They're still trying to sugar-coat this online.

"But shipping is faster!"
"No more currency conversion fees!"

And of course the White Knights are out in force. "You save on import duty!". Import duty ain't 50%, Einstein.

It probably doesn't matter much to me; I voted with my wallet against buying Forge World a long time ago - but the primary reason was the poor quality (the Storm Eagle was the final nail in the coffin for me: mold release everywhere, twisted, ill-fitting components, stuff that looked like it had only partially filled the mold so the casters topped it up, stuff that looked like the mold had been squashed before the casting had set...). Folks are right when they comment on recasters being better - of course there are those who produce cheap and nasty stuff that smells like petroleum, but there are also a few out there who are much cheaper than FW and produce a significantly better quality product to boot.

I'm happy to buy plastic upgrades for my Adeptus Titanicus products, but if Forge World was going to try and tempt me back with resin upgrades, this foreign spite tax helps ensure I will remain strong in my commitment not to buy their stuff.

Maybe if all you who've been adversely effected organise a mass opt out from the newsletter it might show them the change hasn't gone down well?

As to be fair to them the majority of complaints about FW previously were about slow delivery, expensive shipping etc

(and to be fair to you it's clear they've taken major liberties with the prices to make up for the improvements that people have been asking for)

There is, of all things, an online petition addressed to Rountree to get this reversed.

Sometimes I dispair, just on this occasion I'm not sure if I'm dispairing at wargamers or humanity in general.

I don't get how they could think increased prices would be a good idea. If anything they should have dropped prices by 10-15%. Most FW fans would love prices that would allow them to binge buy or impulse buy. I would love to just be able to jump on FW's website and throw money at whatever conversion idea I have but once the price tallies up I just clear the basket and move on.

I agree with other posters that the recaster business is going to boom. Especially the ones that really do produce better product than FW.

 BrotherGecko wrote:
I I agree with other posters that the recaster business is going to boom. Especially the ones that really do produce better product than FW.

Not only that but some stores in Canada, Australia, and the US are talking about another ban on Forge World.

It was already expensive, and people are angry- and the Forge World Social Media guy on Facebook must have blisters and carpal tunnel at the rate he's having to remove comments from people showing the price difference from before today's changes. I don't even have Facebook and it's a good thing because I would not have pleasant things to say about this.

While it doesn't impact them in a big way, my small sub-group (the 8-10 guys I normally play with) are all laughing at the price increases. Any chance of business they had is long gone, unfortunately.

I do think there are enough people with money who don't notice/care that it won't be a huge impact on them, but they are undoing a ton of good will they've built recently. In the local community, even outside my group the general consensus is "Awwww, GW...and you were doing so good!". This coupled with the high price of AT starter, etc. Not a great month for them.

The only way I'm buying FW now is through friends/people I know that would somehow manage to visit one of UKs expos, or go through Nottingham. I'm NOT paying 8 euros out of air for a pack of Thallax. I'm just glad I've been panic buying since they first announced this new system, so I managed to get pretty much everything I've ever wanted from them.

 Elbows wrote:
While it doesn't impact them in a big way, my small sub-group (the 8-10 guys I normally play with) are all laughing at the price increases. Any chance of business they had is long gone, unfortunately.

My friend is a Tournament Organizer and hosts at least one tournament a month.

Today he showed me a 'before' and 'after' of his tournament rules.

Before, the rules were "No counterfeit, imitation, or replica models are allowed" (Third party components for conversions were always welcome, as were proxies for models that have long since been discontinued)

Today it says "Proxy models are must reflect, with a reasonable measure of accuracy and similar dimensions, the model they are intended to represent"

Because we're not calling them 'Recasts' here any more. From this point forward, they are very interesting proxy models from overseas.

Heh. I call it "Imported Forge World."

This is pretty much my reaction to the news:

I still don't get who at GW thought this was a good idea - on a day that should have seen them take record order from FW due to a lower and fairer postage system; they raised the prices for every other country on high priced goods and shot themselves in the foot. Instead of lower they've raised the price and for what gain?

That's what I don't get. They've spent good money setting up overseas wearhousing for a market that they just dried up. If customers were not buying before due to price how can GW management think they'll be buying now by raising the prices so significantly?



After a year or more of generally very good management choices they've burned a lot today internationally. The UK market is fine (actually happy with lower postage costs); but the rest of the market and world (including the very large USA market) is angry.

One can only hope someone at GW pushes through a change in policy here otherwise its a daft move.

I've sent fw an email, cleared my cart on the website that I was planning g on making my next purchase, and do not plan to purchase anything from FW from the website now. Maybe I can use the 40k sharing group on fb if 8 want to get anything in the future.

The only thing I can see that might 'justify' this is that they're rolling in the expense of 'free shipping at 250 quid' into the cost of the model. Easier to calculate the shipping cost when you're pricing everything by the region its being sold to.

It's a crappy, crappy way of doing things. Charge what it costs and get rid of 'free' shipping entirely.

Ok, let me explain why GW know they'll get away with it.

FW is a tiny part of GW's overall revenue stream.

GW proper has been operating this system now for some time.

They opened a Facebook page and previewed some models and now they're making more money than ever. They're literally selling models faster than they can make them.

The hike in pricing will offset a remarkably pessimistic drop in business, a drop that they're unlikely to actually experience for very long, if at all.

People will protest, but not by withholding actual funds, and therefore it won't matter.

Also note this happened just after warhammer fest where people could confront them about the change

The drop in sales won't hit GW central lines at all - they might lose one or two customers who are really irate about it, but barring that they won't lose out there.

Where it loses out though is the investment they've made under the FW name and its the FW international sales that will suffer as a result. Whilst its a smaller wing of GW proper its a wing that GW has ploughed money into in this last year. They've added several specialist game lines to it and also have founded a new Sigmar team as well. GW clearly wants FW to work and profit and I think more than ever they want it to be more than just a lot of space marine stuff.

So there will be a real financial hit for this and it will hit FW itself which is, basically, GW in itself.

It's also a lot more marked for these products because the prices are so much higher so the markups are now measured in the hundreds for some. Those are not small increases but big ones; way beyond postage costs. In fact it creates a system that either encourages UK buying and private export or recaster support.

They've basically "solved" the international postage price system with a method that backfires. I mean unless their intent was to crash international sales..

 MajorWesJanson wrote:
Also note this happened just after warhammer fest where people could confront them about the change

And I don't know if Forge World is going to be at NOVA in DC.

 Overread wrote:
The drop in sales won't hit GW central lines at all - they might lose one or two customers who are really irate about it, but barring that they won't lose out there.

Where it loses out though is the investment they've made under the FW name and its the FW international sales that will suffer as a result. Whilst its a smaller wing of GW proper its a wing that GW has ploughed money into in this last year. They've added several specialist game lines to it and also have founded a new Sigmar team as well. GW clearly wants FW to work and profit and I think more than ever they want it to be more than just a lot of space marine stuff.

So there will be a real financial hit for this and it will hit FW itself which is, basically, GW in itself.

It's also a lot more marked for these products because the prices are so much higher so the markups are now measured in the hundreds for some. Those are not small increases but big ones; way beyond postage costs. In fact it creates a system that either encourages UK buying and private export or recaster support.

They've basically "solved" the international postage price system with a method that backfires. I mean unless their intent was to crash international sales..

You've a lot more confidence that people will follow through on abstaining from purchases when the new shiny for their thing shows up. All the last few years has shown me is while there was always a better way, there's a core of customers who'll keep buying regardless. Heck, there's probably a percentage who'll barely notice.

This will be no different.

Not to mention new people won't ever know any different, and will already be accustomed to paying a premium based on geography.

This will be a blip, if that, then it'll self correct.

Welp, any plans for new DKoK models this year are out the window.

In fact, probably ever at these prices.

EDIT: Jesus...a single two-man DKoK heavy weapons team is now as much as an entire plastic cadian Heavy Weapons *squad*. $50 for a single Laser Destroyer? Almost $160 for a single artillery carriage with crew?

O_o

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Overread wrote:
The drop in sales won't hit GW central lines at all - they might lose one or two customers who are really irate about it, but barring that they won't lose out there.

Where it loses out though is the investment they've made under the FW name and its the FW international sales that will suffer as a result. Whilst its a smaller wing of GW proper its a wing that GW has ploughed money into in this last year. They've added several specialist game lines to it and also have founded a new Sigmar team as well. GW clearly wants FW to work and profit and I think more than ever they want it to be more than just a lot of space marine stuff.

So there will be a real financial hit for this and it will hit FW itself which is, basically, GW in itself.

It's also a lot more marked for these products because the prices are so much higher so the markups are now measured in the hundreds for some. Those are not small increases but big ones; way beyond postage costs. In fact it creates a system that either encourages UK buying and private export or recaster support.

They've basically "solved" the international postage price system with a method that backfires. I mean unless their intent was to crash international sales..

You've a lot more confidence that people will follow through on abstaining from purchases when the new shiny for their thing shows up. All the last few years has shown me is while there was always a better way, there's a core of customers who'll keep buying regardless. Heck, there's probably a percentage who'll barely notice.

This will be no different.

Not to mention new people won't ever know any different, and will already be accustomed to paying a premium based on geography.

This will be a blip, if that, then it'll self correct.

Might be might not be; I agree people will try to get around this; grey importing (ergo second hand sales from the UK to overseas) will likely spark up on the higher priced items where the price difference is measured in hundreds.

The cheaper items will likely settle after a time; however I think it will be quite a long blip. Plus I think its the kind of blip that will really harm the warehousing, staff and sock that FW has clearly invested in for this launch. That in itself will increase this blip event in the financial figures; at least in the short run.

Also it will be more of a serious blip than on core GW products because FW was always the optional boutique line. So its a lot easier to be ignored - at least for the core range (specialist products might survive this better as they are mostly lower priced items and thus the rise isn't as extreme)

And I sold my Adeptus Custodes Achillus Dreadnought that I bought for 40€ from a guy in UK (It was a legit FW product) to a friend because he really wanted it and needed it for a tournament... and I was planning to buy it back at some point in the future directly from FW...

Now it is 70€ on the website... I know that... at the end of the day, 35€, or 70€, isn't really that much money.

But it still stings a bit

I've been considering buying some FW goodies for my Imperial Guard a few weeks now. I postponed ordering when I heard they were revamping ordering thinking the new system would be better. I've now permanently shelved any plans from purchasing from forgeworld and I'm canceling my plans for starting a Admech army entirely.

 Azreal13 wrote:
You've a lot more confidence that people will follow through on abstaining from purchases when the new shiny for their thing shows up. All the last few years has shown me is while there was always a better way, there's a core of customers who'll keep buying regardless. Heck, there's probably a percentage who'll barely notice.

This will be no different.

Except there's no other* way of purchasing FW products.

This isn't like regular GW stock, where I can find a discounter and buy it from them. FW has one (soon two) sources - their HQ in the UK. Don't want to buy it from there, then that's it. No other way to get it*.


*Without resorting to recasters, that is.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
You've a lot more confidence that people will follow through on abstaining from purchases when the new shiny for their thing shows up. All the last few years has shown me is while there was always a better way, there's a core of customers who'll keep buying regardless. Heck, there's probably a percentage who'll barely notice.

This will be no different.

Except there's no other* way of purchasing FW products.

This isn't like regular GW stock, where I can find a discounter and buy it from them. FW has one (soon two) sources - their HQ in the UK. Don't want to buy it from there, then that's it. No other way to get it*.


*Without resorting to recasters, that is.

Or you make friends with someone in the UK who can onward ship stuff as a "gift/present" for tax purposes.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
They're still trying to sugar-coat this online.

"But shipping is faster!"
"No more currency conversion fees!"

And of course the White Knights are out in force. "You save on import duty!". Import duty ain't 50%, Einstein.

What impact does the currency paid in have on import duty?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
You've a lot more confidence that people will follow through on abstaining from purchases when the new shiny for their thing shows up. All the last few years has shown me is while there was always a better way, there's a core of customers who'll keep buying regardless. Heck, there's probably a percentage who'll barely notice.

This will be no different.

Except there's no other* way of purchasing FW products.

This isn't like regular GW stock, where I can find a discounter and buy it from them. FW has one (soon two) sources - their HQ in the UK. Don't want to buy it from there, then that's it. No other way to get it*.


*Without resorting to recasters, that is.

So people are even more likely to suck it up and pay. I'm sorry, but for years I've seen people on here and in real life continue to throw money at GW while moaning about the cost (even after discount) to think this will be any different aside from the odd individual.

Hell, there's people in your country choosing to pay full retail in their stores, why wouldn't GW assume that bringing their pricing model on FW.com in line with the rest of the company will work?

Price has never been an issue for GW, despite what people think. When they were at their lowest ebb under Kirby their price model was broadly similar. Open a Twotterbook and throw out some Genestealer Cultists and everyone goes nuts. While there're more value options nowadays, the top end continues to get more and more ludicrous, and yet people still fall over themselves to buy Grandmaster Editions with a coin.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ice_can wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
You've a lot more confidence that people will follow through on abstaining from purchases when the new shiny for their thing shows up. All the last few years has shown me is while there was always a better way, there's a core of customers who'll keep buying regardless. Heck, there's probably a percentage who'll barely notice.

This will be no different.

Except there's no other* way of purchasing FW products.

This isn't like regular GW stock, where I can find a discounter and buy it from them. FW has one (soon two) sources - their HQ in the UK. Don't want to buy it from there, then that's it. No other way to get it*.


*Without resorting to recasters, that is.

Or you make friends with someone in the UK who can onward ship stuff as a "gift/present" for tax purposes.

Not sure of the specifics in the other direction, but a gift only gives you a little extra headroom coming into the U.K. these days, so with international shipping and small consignments, it's unlikely to be economical if it applies the same going the other way.