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Eh, No hobby story offers more than a 10% discount and all in my area only offer a 5%, so even if your spending £100 thats only £5 off, which is basically nothing, so i tend to usually buy my stuff from the local offical warhammer shop since its a 6 minute walk fro me compared to a 10 minture drive to go to a hobby shop with a 5% discount. They also tend to have more stock and more variety in store which is nice, and if they dont have something i can just order it straight away from the touch screen device on the wall, have it shipped for free to the shop with next day delivery. Great for me as it doesnt matter if no one is home to get the package, and the offical shops get their deliveries as a priority [by 10am everyday]

Hmm, my own offers 10% + free shipping (though as a member) to me from anything they sell while another few kilometers away offers 15% off on any GW production + free shipping for anyone wanting to order through their hobby shop. So I alternate between one and another shop depending on how big purchase is. I prefer to support local hobby shops and avoid buying 20% off from online retailers. Online retailers often have old prices which makes them super competitive, but sometimes they are selling stuff for some reason at higher prices. Though with them you can't order too little due to prohibitive shipping costs and you can't order bigger boxes, because of huge shipping costs incurred. I have healthy mix of ordering through hobby shops, retailers and I'm always watching ebay. I have another guy who wants to sell his massive Eldar collection for 1 grand, but that would defeat whole purpose of a hobby in my eyes.

I buy from Uk shops that offer a 15-20% discount (Element games, Wayland games) and with the exchange rates favouring the euro vs how GW does their exchange rates, the total discount in € ends up being something like 30-35%.

I also buy from my local shop because you should buy where you play ,of course.

I have a local shop that has a 10% discount, but it's selection is very poor so the only thing I've bought from there is the latest space marine codex. they seem to have a long time between orders and only ever get in a box or two of anything, i couldn't even get some intercessors from there when i wanted some.

there is another shop somewhat nearby that doesn't do any discount, but does have a private chat group to sell some stuff at a discount and occasionally hat crazy levels just to get rid of excess stock (basically paying what they paid GW for something)

other than that it's online for me. Wayland games and giftsforgeeks are the main two i've used.

 FEARtheMoose wrote:
Eh, No hobby story offers more than a 10% discount and all in my area only offer a 5%, so even if your spending £100 thats only £5 off, which is basically nothing, so i tend to usually buy my stuff from the local offical warhammer shop since its a 6 minute walk fro me compared to a 10 minture drive to go to a hobby shop with a 5% discount. They also tend to have more stock and more variety in store which is nice, and if they dont have something i can just order it straight away from the touch screen device on the wall, have it shipped for free to the shop with next day delivery. Great for me as it doesnt matter if no one is home to get the package, and the offical shops get their deliveries as a priority [by 10am everyday]

My local store does 15% on everything and 20% on stuff that's up for pre-order. They've also just bumped up their standard GW stock to carry basically everything that isn't web store only.

Even if they are out of stock, as long as you order by Monday, it'll arrive in store for the Thursday (GW stock permitting).

I thought this was standard, but maybe I have just dropped lucky.

Herbington wrote:
I thought this was standard, but maybe I have just dropped lucky.

It depends on several things, such as overheads, do they buy direct from GW or from a distributor, and what the store thinks it can get away with...

In regards to Bandai v GW the quality of the Gundam kits blows GW stuff out of the water on a technical level and then when you add the price that becomes an even worse comparison for GW.

I only recently got my first Gundam kit onba whim after reading a thread on here, there a genuine pleasure to put together, are great value for money and lend themselves well to weathering techniques if you don't like the pristine factory finish. The kits are designed to clip together with out glue so they tend to have a fit and finish that GW can only dream of and a lot are designed with gimmicks like being able to transform or having hidden weapons or other cook stuff.

There top of the line Perfect Grade kits retail from about £117+ but there big kits with normally a large transfer sheet and in some cases lighting kits. I don't have one of these yet but I do plan on getting one. I have never watched an episode of Gundam but I do love some mech action and have no regrets on the kits.

SeanDrake wrote:
In regards to Bandai v GW the quality of the Gundam kits blows GW stuff out of the water on a technical level and then when you add the price that becomes an even worse comparison for GW.

I only recently got my first Gundam kit onba whim after reading a thread on here, there a genuine pleasure to put together, are great value for money and lend themselves well to weathering techniques if you don't like the pristine factory finish. The kits are designed to clip together with out glue so they tend to have a fit and finish that GW can only dream of and a lot are designed with gimmicks like being able to transform or having hidden weapons or other cook stuff.

There top of the line Perfect Grade kits retail from about £117+ but there big kits with normally a large transfer sheet and in some cases lighting kits. I don't have one of these yet but I do plan on getting one. I have never watched an episode of Gundam but I do love some mech action and have no regrets on the kits.

A Gundam is about a foot tall. So is a knight. The knight is $150. The Gundam is $220+. I think I know what I'd choose pretty easily.

If it's just about the model, for sure, if you're into Gundams (I'm not, but they are pretty). The Knight is a game piece, while the Gundam is a display piece.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

SeanDrake wrote:
In regards to Bandai v GW the quality of the Gundam kits blows GW stuff out of the water on a technical level and then when you add the price that becomes an even worse comparison for GW.

I only recently got my first Gundam kit onba whim after reading a thread on here, there a genuine pleasure to put together, are great value for money and lend themselves well to weathering techniques if you don't like the pristine factory finish. The kits are designed to clip together with out glue so they tend to have a fit and finish that GW can only dream of and a lot are designed with gimmicks like being able to transform or having hidden weapons or other cook stuff.

There top of the line Perfect Grade kits retail from about £117+ but there big kits with normally a large transfer sheet and in some cases lighting kits. I don't have one of these yet but I do plan on getting one. I have never watched an episode of Gundam but I do love some mech action and have no regrets on the kits.

A Gundam is about a foot tall. So is a knight. The knight is $150. The Gundam is $220+. I think I know what I'd choose pretty easily.

Knights are nowhere near 12" tall. A bloody Warhound is 12" tall and Knights are smaller than that.

Nurglitch wrote:
If it's just about the model, for sure, if you're into Gundams (I'm not, but they are pretty). The Knight is a game piece, while the Gundam is a display piece.

For some it's both.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grimtuff wrote:

Knights are nowhere near 12" tall. A bloody Warhound is 12" tall and Knights are smaller than that.

No - you're right. I didn't brain centimeters well, because I'm a slow. My mistake. 7-8" roughly?

A $20-$30 Real Grade kit that has rubber joints, internal detail underneath the smooth external plates.
https://www.hlj.com/1-144-scale-rg-ms-06r-2-johnny-ridden-custom-zaku-ii-bann19594

Compare that to a $40 sprue of plastic for a character. Or a $55 Wraithlord.

There's a reason why you see various home grown war-game rules for Bandai kits spring up from time to time.

I think I prefer GW rules from the Design Studio rather than homebrew. That said, they're definitely different products for different markets.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

SeanDrake wrote:
In regards to Bandai v GW the quality of the Gundam kits blows GW stuff out of the water on a technical level and then when you add the price that becomes an even worse comparison for GW.

I only recently got my first Gundam kit onba whim after reading a thread on here, there a genuine pleasure to put together, are great value for money and lend themselves well to weathering techniques if you don't like the pristine factory finish. The kits are designed to clip together with out glue so they tend to have a fit and finish that GW can only dream of and a lot are designed with gimmicks like being able to transform or having hidden weapons or other cook stuff.

There top of the line Perfect Grade kits retail from about £117+ but there big kits with normally a large transfer sheet and in some cases lighting kits. I don't have one of these yet but I do plan on getting one. I have never watched an episode of Gundam but I do love some mech action and have no regrets on the kits.

A Gundam is about a foot tall. So is a knight. The knight is $150. The Gundam is $220+. I think I know what I'd choose pretty easily.

Spoiler:

Lmao, I'm glad you took the Knight with the most pixel and compared it to the Gundam with the least. This analysis just fails at every single level.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:


Lmao, I'm glad you took the Knight with the most pixel and compared it to the Gundam with the least. This analysis just fails at every single level.

I really can't help the compression of images from different sources. GW apparently cares more about having higher quality images available, too.

Keep in mind that Gundams are designed to be low poly for animation purposes. They stay low poly once translated to plastic form. I imagine that, by now, Gundams stay low poly because it's easier to make them in plastic, because anime is often just fodder to sell merchandise, but Gundams are plain by design, while GW's stuff is gribbly by design. GW miniatures aren't better for being more gribbly. Gundams spend the effort on articulation.

But it's also true that they are different markets. Gundams are display/modelling projects, while wargaming products are for wargaming (duh) and painting. This puts them in different categories of pricing with different sizes of audience. People on wargaming forums tend to forget how small the wargaming industry is compared to even corner hobbies like Gundam collectors in Japan. I'm sure GW wishes it could shift as many Knight models as Gundam kits. Bandai's factory can produce 24 MILLION kits annually. The Gundam franchise makes 600-700 million dollars annually - it's several times larger than GW, is only a part of Bandai as a total, and Bandai isn't the only player in its market.

GW has no significant competition - it is far and away the biggest wargame producer by probably an order of magnitude, and so it can dictate its price more easily than Bandai can, the anime market is fierce, it's a 19 billion dollar a year industry.

Nah you've been drinking the koolaid if you think some of the new high grade bandai kits are on par with GW offering. They build with articulating joints FFS...
Meanwhile my wraithlords shoulder plates don't fit flush/smoothly so it looks like it has a canyon running through it.

Gunpla is certainly ahead advanced in terms of its kit engineering.
Its setting doesn't make for skulls on top of skulls to go with the skulls and "floaty bits" to float on is all.
Its just a different aesthetic.

I like the simplicity of GW and its product line..
But certainly think companies/system like Mierce have its number when it comes to creative output.

But resin though..

It's comparing apples and oranges though isn't it? GW aren't competing with Bandai

They are both minatures so I guess so? Possibly?
I dunno really. Someone made the comparison so I just sort of went with it.

You could in theory buy expensive centre piece models from GW and never play, and just focus on the modelling/panting from a hobby side. Which would be the same territory as gunpla. However gunpla kits are far more into the modelling/engineering side than asthetics it seems..

But yea I think you could say they are not competing. But both sell model kits.. So maybe its like comparing motorbikes to cars, both run on internal combustion engines I guess.

 Argive wrote:
Nah you've been drinking the koolaid if you think some of the new high grade bandai kits are on par with GW offering. They build with articulating joints FFS...
Meanwhile my wraithlords shoulder plates don't fit flush/smoothly so it looks like it has a canyon running through it.

Gunpla is certainly ahead advanced in terms of its kit engineering.
Its setting doesn't make for skulls on top of skulls to go with the skulls and "floaty bits" to float on is all.
Its just a different aesthetic.

I like the simplicity of GW and its product line..
But certainly think companies/system like Mierce have its number when it comes to creative output.

But resin though..

never had issues with resin from other producers, except for GW/ FW.

Frankly the quality of FW resin is for the price demand unaceptable and i have seen alot of alternativee sources for FW stuff that had better quality resin then FW

 NurglesR0T wrote:
It's comparing apples and oranges though isn't it? GW aren't competing with Bandai

People aren't limited to having only one interest hobby wise. So yeah, GW IS competing for your $.

Sure, but they're competing on value as well as price. There's a ton of cheap plastic Russian toys out there that you could use instead of your Space Marines. There's gorgeous Gundam models out there. There's lego, there's pre-primed D&D models, there's boardgames, kits, books, video games, tv, and drugs.

But resin though..

never had issues with resin from other producers, except for GW/ FW.

Frankly the quality of FW resin is for the price demand unaceptable and i have seen alot of alternativee sources for FW stuff that had better quality resin then FW

I agree, FW has no excuses to have this kind of quality for a price they are asking. Though, I do not see anyone trying to prove that Gundam looks better anymore. I admit that they are far more mechanically complex, but aesthetic is simply not appealing and they lack same level of detail which makes w40k miniatures look so distinct.

Recently I had assembled GW kit from 2013 Wrath and Rapture kit and immediately had started working on Grim Imperium set. Former was made in 2013 from markings on sprues while latter was made in 2017. Level of quality between two boxes is noticeable, but it is also prone to same mistakes even if GW seems to make them less often. Miss marked plastic sprues, assembly instruction manual illogically laid out and with plenty of errors, huge mold lines and difficult to cut model out of its sprue without leaving a lot to scrape off. All those issues had plagued GW production, but I can see significant improvement over the years in terms of it and how pretty models are. I sadly can't compare how Gundam, historical or other models compare. They all are competing for same time and money which I'm willing to spend and if I feel that GW is screwing me over like I felt by starting this thread, I will simply go to spend my money elsewhere.

I think the sasabi kit is the pinnacle of gunpla in terms of asthetics.

 Ernestas wrote:

But resin though..

never had issues with resin from other producers, except for GW/ FW.

Frankly the quality of FW resin is for the price demand unaceptable and i have seen alot of alternativee sources for FW stuff that had better quality resin then FW

I agree, FW has no excuses to have this kind of quality for a price they are asking. Though, I do not see anyone trying to prove that Gundam looks better anymore. I admit that they are far more mechanically complex, but aesthetic is simply not appealing and they lack same level of detail which makes w40k miniatures look so distinct.

...................................

I think the Gundam style is great, and they're plenty detailed. Just not over detailed. Don't state your tastes as objective fact.

But you yourself agree with me with what I had said.

 Ernestas wrote:
But you yourself agree with me with what I had said.

No
, He crizised you, assuming that more detail=better is objective.

Jackal90 wrote:
I’m sure your local GW reciprocates the same feelings towards you.

My "local" GW is 1560 kilometers away. Which is the bloody point. I'm paying the same for miniatures as Joe in LA who has GW across the street. Yet 70% of the price of this plastic is keeping those useless stores in business. To hell with that gak. I'm not giving them money directly anymore.

As some others have said, GW will charge the price that the market will bear. To the consumer it doesn't really matter why prices are what they are. If you feel that the value is there you will buy it. If you don't think that the value is there you won't buy it. Arguing about it is rather pointless. While I respect the franchise, a Gundam kit has almost no value to me. That does not take away from the tremendous value that somebody else might place on it!

An economist might be able to tell us about the elasticity of GW products. My gut is that they are somewhat inelastic despite being luxury goods, perhaps due to their addictive nature and the lack of bone-fide substitutions once you commit to the game?