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I'm asking this because when looking a FW Leman Russ costs £64 but a vulture which is better in every way stats wise except for having 1 toughness less is £64 also the vulture has more material on it so I want to know. Because with GW it costs the amount of the materials worth pluss how good stats are and then a bit extra whereas FW is random I mean some of the rhino doors cost more than a heavy weapons squad both FW made.

All we can is speculate on their pricing. They have no reason to explain their full strategy, it is better for them to keep it fuzzy.

Honest but not particularly helpful answer is they price it based on what they think they can get away with charging for it.

GW prices in general and FW in particular are a mystery. My pet theory is they roll on a chart and just assign a price.

Because they have a monopoly. Simple as that. No-one else can (legally) make Leman Russ tanks so they can charge you whatever they want for 30 pence of resin.

Age of kit (the heavy weapon teams are way older than most of the Rhino doors) is a factor. How good the unit is on the tabletop is never a factor, as far as I can tell (or they'd be paying us to cart away their stock of GK kits). In the case of the Vulture the factor you may be missing is that it's made of a small number of big solid chunks of resin that stick onto the plastic Valkyrie kit (the main hull is one piece, the cockpit is another, and the tail is three pieces of resin, but the wings, tail booms, and the rest of the cockpit parts are all Valkyrie parts) whereas some of the older Russes are all resin. You also have to consider that the Valkyrie is way more expensive once you factor in the fact that you need to buy the wing guns separately.

As to the more general question of why GW stuff is so expensive I read an article on someone's blog a few years back talking about how the process of tooling the moulds for the injection-moulding machines is stupidly expensive and GW's profit margin on the plastic kits isn't actually that significant, I'll see if I can find it again. Forge World is better explained by observing that they're the small-volume subset for kits they assume very few people will ever want so they have to absorb the design costs across a smaller number of kits than the plastic ones; it's a chicken/egg problem, fundamentally, because if they were cheaper more people would buy them, but companies like GW employ marketing people with degrees in estimating the size of the market and the appropriate price for a thing. I don't think they're right most of the time because they don't appear to consider how their rules affect the market, but I do think it's less random than rolling on a "how much should this kit cost?" table.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Because they have a monopoly. Simple as that. No-one else can (legally) make Leman Russ tanks so they can charge you whatever they want for 30 pence of resin.

Oh look, the same old "RESIN IS SO CHEAP" argument that completely ignores the labor costs, design costs, etc, and assumes that the entire cost of a kit is the material used to make it.

As for the OP, they're actually fairly similar in size once you include the turret for the LRBT. Not exactly identical, but close enough that having the same price isn't too surprising. And BTW, the Vulture is trash in 8th. Less durability, less ability to hide out of LOS, and getting BS 3+ requires giving up the -1 to hit by not moving while the LRBT just upgrades to a tank commander. It's a cool model, but only take it if you're not too concerned with winning.

 Peregrine wrote:
Oh look, the same old "RESIN IS SO CHEAP" argument that completely ignores the labor costs, design costs, etc, and assumes that the entire cost of a kit is the material used to make it.

Taken literally, yes, it's every bit as unreasonable to cite the raw cost of resin in regards to FW prices as it is to cite the raw cost of blank DVDs in regards to movie and videogame prices.

On the other hand, I once had an ex-FW staffer tell me that FW was still making money when selling to their employees at 50% discount. There's a huge markup on their products that has nothing to do with production costs, and other companies are selling minis with comparable sculpt quality for much lower prices.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
As to the more general question of why GW stuff is so expensive I read an article on someone's blog a few years back talking about how the process of tooling the moulds for the injection-moulding machines is stupidly expensive and GW's profit margin on the plastic kits isn't actually that significant, I'll see if I can find it again.

That is certainly true. A tooling for an injection moulded kit can easily cost in excess of £100K. Then you have the cost of actually making models from the mold (raw plastic,electricity, packaging, distribution). Given the high fixed tooling costs, you can see why core vehicle chassis kits like the Rhino, LR, Falcon, Russ and Chimera have been in production without much change for over 20 years. That is the sort of investment that GW doesn't want to repeat on a regular basis.

Another issue is that GW maintains its entire manufacture in the UK. This puts up nearly all the overhead costs, especially for things like labour (wages); but also likely health and safety standards; emissions; waste disposal; energy costs etc...

Not all, but many other companies (esp a lot of newer start-up ones) outsource their production to China and other countries where such costs are vastly reduced. The flipside is that many have had nightmare issues with quality control and finding an honest and reliable factory. Plus there's the huge disconnect in time and space with the factories a whole world away; and the fact that you're even more tied to overseas shipping of container loads of models so there's likely some issues with balancing stock against demand.


With regard to "in game" I believe the only part of that which influences price is the models points and value in armies in terms of how many people are likely to take. Therefore a battleline model kit is more likely to be cheaper than an elite model kit. Even if they are both warriors with the same number of models in the box. Because GW can expect you to buy many battle-line warrior kits, but only a few or even one elite kit. So the elite has to make a lot more profit per sale to cover its costs because they just aren't going to sell as many to gamers. This works well until the game chances and GW's internal policy of not lowering prices on released kits kicks in - AoS suffers from this. Armies like Daughters of Khaine, where once elite units are now battleline suffer from very inflated prices (Witch Aelves are THE most expensive kit barring Morathi and the Throne and yet they are the kit that makes both battle-line models and thus are going to sell in high volumes for that army)

There is 0 (zero, nada, the total absence of) relation between the rules of a model and the dollar value of a model.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
There is 0 (zero, nada, the total absence of) relation between the rules of a model and the dollar value of a model.

Aren't characters and elite single models always overcosted, as in money cost, comparing to rank and file troops. Not an FW example, but for GK, it is better to just buy a box a 5 termintors and make the ancient, apothecary, librarian, valdus, draigo etc out of those models then buying singles of those units.

Karol wrote:
Aren't characters and elite single models always overcosted, as in money cost, comparing to rank and file troops. Not an FW example, but for GK, it is better to just buy a box a 5 termintors and make the ancient, apothecary, librarian, valdus, draigo etc out of those models then buying singles of those units.

That's not about rules power, it's about how many you're expected to buy. Characters cost more per model because you only buy one of them, resulting in much lower sales volume for GW. If they want to make a profit on the kit they have to raise the price to compensate for spreading out the fixed costs (mold design, concept art, etc) across a smaller number of sales. But what you don't see is a character costing $10 more than another character (of similar size/complexity/release year) just because the rules are more powerful.

 Peregrine wrote:

Oh look, the same old "RESIN IS SO CHEAP" argument that completely ignores the labor costs, design costs, etc, and assumes that the entire cost of a kit is the material used to make it.

Ah, this again. The old 'Design costs' argument, forgetting that those leaked, we know what they are, and the total cost, materials, design, packaging, all the overhead, was under $5 for a Space Marine tactical squad. The bulk of GW's costs really is the materials. The design costs, way back in the day, have dropped down to less than a dime per tank.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Ah, this again. The old 'Design costs' argument, forgetting that those leaked, we know what they are, and the total cost, materials, design, packaging, all the overhead, was under $5 for a Space Marine tactical squad. The bulk of GW's costs really is the materials. The design costs, way back in the day, have dropped down to less than a dime per tank.

Or, instead of speculating about leaks, we can look at the financial reports that GW is legally required to publish with criminal penalties for falsifying them. And in those numbers we find that GW's profit margins are in line with a typical retail company, they aren't making $45 profit on a $50 kit.

deotrims 16th wrote:
I'm asking this because when looking a FW Leman Russ costs £64 but a vulture which is better in every way stats wise except for having 1 toughness less is £64 also the vulture has more material on it so I want to know. Because with GW it costs the amount of the materials worth pluss how good stats are and then a bit extra whereas FW is random I mean some of the rhino doors cost more than a heavy weapons squad both FW made.

Last time I checked the kit was about $30 different, when you include the upgrade spree that no longer comes with the basic kit. Doesn't seem too bad when you get the free shipping.

Tactical squad is probably the best selling kit, so you would expect it's cost per squad to be skewed down as the upfront costs must be spread very thin.

There maybe a million space marines sold, one for every planet in the imperium, but I doubt Forgeworld has sold that many Alpha Papa Pattern Lemon Wusses.

 Peregrine wrote:

Or, instead of speculating about leaks, we can look at the financial reports that GW is legally required to publish with criminal penalties for falsifying them. And in those numbers we find that GW's profit margins are in line with a typical retail company, they aren't making $45 profit on a $50 kit.

Oh, really? Because Product was one of the smallest expenses in the Fiscal report. 3m pounds out of 94 million pounds operating costs. That 3m pounds produced 219 million pounds of income. So, yes, we're very much making $45 on a $50 kit. Even factoring in other costs incurred by GW business practices, which are the bulk of overhead (45m pounds just to run the world's GW stores), profit before paying shares was 74m pounds, or nearly 50%

catbarf wrote:

On the other hand, I once had an ex-FW staffer tell me that FW was still making money when selling to their employees at 50% discount.

So? A 60% margin as an example would be totally reasonable for a business. That would allow the company to still make a small amount of money from a 50% discount.

 Stux wrote:

So? A 60% margin as an example would be totally reasonable for a business. That would allow the company to still make a small amount of money from a 50% discount.

Only if you're dealing drugs. A reasonable profit in most retail industries is about 30% when all is said and done.

They were making 10% or so after taxes before the Roundtree boom.

They could lower prices now, but then they'd be in a pickle if popularity wanes or Brexit hits. Raising prices during turmoil is never a great idea.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Stux wrote:

So? A 60% margin as an example would be totally reasonable for a business. That would allow the company to still make a small amount of money from a 50% discount.

Only if you're dealing drugs. A reasonable profit in most retail industries is about 30% when all is said and done.

They aren't just a retail company, they are also production. Compare to a company that makes their product from scratch.

There's also a lot of crossed wires happening now between people talking gross and net.

All this is academic anyway, based on what some guy in a store said once. No way that person would have any reliable idea of P&L details.

 Stux wrote:

All this is academic anyway, based on what some guy in a store said once. No way that person would have any reliable idea of P&L details.

It jives with what they released to the investors, which I have a copy of, being one. Also, IIRC, the 'guy in the store' was a GW corporate vice president.

30% btw, was Ford. They do make their own products.

Most of GW's overhead is the operation of GW stores. Not the production of product.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Stux wrote:

All this is academic anyway, based on what some guy in a store said once. No way that person would have any reliable idea of P&L details.

It jives with what they released to the investors, which I have a copy of, being one. Also, IIRC, the 'guy in the store' was a GW corporate vice president.

30% btw, was Ford. They do make their own products.

Most of GW's overhead is the operation of GW stores. Not the production of product.

Fair enough.

Is that 30% GP or net? I can't believe that they run a 30% GP, that would be crazy low.

 Stux wrote:


Fair enough.

Is that 30% GP or net?

Net.

In the six month report, Gross profit is 83m pounds, whereas Net Profit is only 43m pounds. Product expenses are higher, with approx 10m pounds expended, mostly in machinery, so they're retooling atm, This is still half of retail expenses, so again the cost of all those GW stores stands out like a elephant in a group of meerkats.

Ah there you go! When I was talking about 60% I was talking margin, GP.