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What GW charge for their products is up to them. People buy everything they put out, even with what I think is a ridiculous price for miniatures. I works and they make money.
Even though you own something that they made and invested emotionally in their product, it is still their IP to do with as they please. They do not produce essential items, so have no obligation to make it affordable.

If you don't like how they do business then don't support them. I don't play GW games anymore and there is still more hobby and games than I have time for.

That said, the way GW treat their games has more to do with why I stopped than their prices.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I mean, bread and circuses only work if the ringmasters don’t price out the hoi polloi.

Bread and Circuses were free for the Plebs - that was the point

 meatybtz wrote:
However, I love it when people with no experience in business or manufacturing try to call GW too expensive when they don't understand that a single injection plate is 150-300K USD (sometimes even more! depending on complexity and GW products are COMPLEX as injection plastic comes). Engineering the plates is not cheap. It is not just something you throw in software and a computer auto-fits it for you. Vents, plastic flow, etc needs a skilled engineer who knows how it will work or you will blow 250K on a mold that fails to fill out properly. And, no, you cannot just cut additional channels into them like you do with resin to solve mold issues.. you make an ENTIRE NEW ONE.. for another 250K. Each sprue plate is a separate mold. Even to this day I still see most molds are operating in quads (4 plates-sprues) per machine.

The sources I have (non-GW miniature companies and KS) put current prices for steel inyection moulds at a much, much, muuuuch lower mark than that. You can get a small mould for as little as $2k-$5k, and the "regular size" sprues would need mould that might cost up to $25k... which means that you're about one order of magnitude too high on your estimates. And that's outsourcing the manufacturing, something GW doesn't need to do.

From what sources are you getting that 150-300k estimates?

 Albertorius wrote:
From what sources are you getting that 150-300k estimates?

If I had to guess, the early 2000's?

I had read that it was in the region of £10-20k for injection moulds (although I'm sure it is more complicated than that and there are lots of factors).

If it was that expensive you wouldn't have the absolutely massive range of plastic kits for model kit building, there is no way the market would be able to support something like a 1:72 scale of something like the kit in spoilers below.



Or, in the miniature world, you imagine relatively tiny companies like Wargames Factory or some of the other ones that crop up in N&R having anything like the resources to make even a single sprue and hope to make any money from it.

https://rexplastics.com/plastic-injection-molds/how-much-do-plastic-injection-molds-cost

There's a good amount of info here.

boyd wrote:
It's like that commencement speech - Always Wear Sunscreen. Prices will rise and you will look back and remember that when you were young, prices were fair.

Peg the price to another hobby/ vice - cigarettes were $2.50 when I was in HS. Now that same brand/pack is about $9.00 and change. Heck looking back just 10 years ago, my 2 BR/2BA flat was $825/ month. The same unit is listing for $1,485/ month now. I wouldn't say it's inflation, just the purchasing power parity you learned about in Econ 101.

Cigarettes are a poison that get taxed higher because eventually the rest of us are gonna have to pay for your habit of slowly killing yourself (yes, even in America with private insurance, the rest of us end up helping pay your bills provided you can afford them). Cigarettes have a social cost that increased taxes help reflect. Their raise in cost is a reflection in realizing just how expensive cigarettes are for the economy. And, like, not even nearly as much as their overall cost. Governments have long struggled to force companies to factor in the cost of their externalities and companies spend a lot of money lobbying governments to not force them to pay those costs.

Models, uh, aren't the same comparison.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


So if there sales lowered, so would their overall profit margin. Is that daylight robbery? Or is just, y’know, how business and capitalism work in general?

I mean, the answer is yes to both.

Companies will charge what they can get away with, and that's pretty much never to the benefit of the consumer.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
For what it's worth GW has great customer service, good rules support, and a ton of information on the kits on their site.

And they are made in the UK with what I assume are higher labor and wage standards than the majority of toys made in China.

They being said I never touch their $35 special characters. That's what the closet of bits is for!

GW is probably in trouble when the chinese casting factories figure out how to make models of a quality remotely near them.

 Jjohnso11 wrote:
I also think their models are worth it. Buying the cheaper miniatures from other companies (looking at you Privateer Press) gets you cheaper looking models and barely a smidgen of the support that GW provides. I am pleasantly surprised when another company makes models nearly as well as GW.

PP/Mantic/FFG miniatures assemble poorly, the websites have 5 or fewer pictures of their models, no videos, and hardly any lore for the armies. I'm not even going to talk about regular updates, short stories, novels, a monthly publication...

If I get a bad cast of a model from any of those other companies they want you to return to the retailer and have the seller refund/replace/etc. I received a box from GW with a missing sprue and GW mailed me an entire new box no questions asked.

I haven't found the price and quality to be particularly related. GW produces a lot of very pretty models, and some duds, but, uh, doesn't really price them differently.

 Lorek wrote:
Good timing!

As always, it's hard to be upset about pricing on goods that are quite certainly luxury goods.

Only if you assume the affluent are the only ones worthy of luxury.

 Overread wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I do so enjoy how instantly relevant this topic became. Let's see how the White Knights defend this...

 Lorek wrote:
As always, it's hard to be upset about pricing on goods that are quite certainly luxury goods.

No, it's pretty damned easy. I think you know that.

See I rarely see "defending" or white knighting. I do see people looking for logical justifications and I do see a lot of personal justifications of tolerance of the prices. Tolerance doesn't mean people like it; I don't think anyone enjoys paying more for things. But in the end if you are into the hobby and into Warhammer then you either have to leave or justify the prices. So I think some move on from the rises quicker than others, whilst some find its the tipping point in breaking them back.


I also notice a fair few often say things like. "well that's stopping me buying everything I want" even when in other threads they admit they've piles to rooms full of unbuilt stuff. So sometimes I think it is only curbing spending habits rather than actually impacting their hobby -at least for those fortunate few.

A lot of justifications are "It's just capitalism and thus is good" as if capitalism justifies anything and everything.

 Shooter wrote:

Doctor-boom wrote:

Finally someone that understand how costing works.
33% profit margin is good and is about what most would say is the target one should have in manufacturing, at least according to the classes I took on the subject.
The molds that gw use to make the plastic figures cost more and more (and they were already 250k each when the rhino was introduced): the more complex the parts are, the more expensive the mold.
Also they invested heavily in injection system to increase production and that's many many millions of dollars of cost that need to be amortized.
Contrary to popular thinking making stuff in high quality plastic is EXPENSIVE!

Can you explain why profit margins need to be so high? I mean a third of that profit went to shareholders (i might be mixing up years here?). And mould costs are obviously counted in costs, they don't come from the profit. the investment in inhection systems that cost millions of dollars is amortized in costs too.

I guess manufacturing needs high margins for reinvestment, but then isnt it normal to borrow to do that? and obviously if you use reserves then then just hits profit in another year, so if a company has ~33% long term, while building/investing, then that amount is after that investment, no?

Ultimately companies exist for the benefit of shareholders. They are the only people that matter. All decisions are made for their profit and peace of mind, which is very often not the same thing. Every cent of profit not spent on dividends has to be defended as garnering more profit at a later date.

 Tamereth wrote:
GW have announced price rises and an edition change in one week. All at a time when the world is crashing into the largest recession for 100 years when huge numbers of people are out of work.

They really must think a small number of "whale" customers are going to carry them.

Falling profits have often led to price raising, even when counter productive.

Note that THESE price rises are more likely to do with brexit than they are with CV, but when the economic effects of CV are better understood, expect more prices rising. If the assumption is that the average consumer isn't able to afford models because of economic instability, then there's little reason to have anything but prices targeting the fattest whales. With an issue being, of course, that GW is so very reticent to LOWER prices. A glorious, brief, period where the effective cost of GW miniatures dropped in bundles and deals is being returned to the normalcy of GW price structures.

 DarkBlack wrote:
What GW charge for their products is up to them. People buy everything they put out, even with what I think is a ridiculous price for miniatures. I works and they make money.
Even though you own something that they made and invested emotionally in their product, it is still their IP to do with as they please. They do not produce essential items, so have no obligation to make it affordable.

If you don't like how they do business then don't support them. I don't play GW games anymore and there is still more hobby and games than I have time for.

That said, the way GW treat their games has more to do with why I stopped than their prices.

I do not think it is a coincidence that GW's profits being the best they had ever been coincided with multiple ways to save money on their products.

Crispy78 wrote:
https://rexplastics.com/plastic-injection-molds/how-much-do-plastic-injection-molds-cost

There's a good amount of info here.

I had seen that site before, but forgot about it. Thanks for the link. From the site:

"A plastic injection mold costs between $1,000 and $80,000. The mold’s size, complexity, material, and type affect its price. However, a typical mold costs $12,000."

"At least to some degree, asking what plastic injection molds cost is a lot like asking, “How much is a car?” Will your mold be a Pinto or a Porsche? And don’t forget that the price of a mold is just the beginning. To determine overall plastic injection molding costs for any project, you have to consider raw material, operation, and repair costs later down the road too."

And we know what kind of cars GW likes!

I also seem to remember that there were steel molds for plastic injection, which were talked about 10-20 years ago, as being very expensive, but lasting forever. Then I seem to remember talk about aluminum or some other type of metal, that were cheaper for molds, but wore out.

It wouldn't surprise me if GW uses the cheapest molds possible, hence the small production runs, and then decides whether to re-cut the mold or re-run the models based upon some opaque metric.

Of course, its all conjecture on my part. Because otherwise, they could just roll out old steel molds and make anything they're ever had in inventory (in plastic). It would also perhaps explain the small batch character models in plastic. No way you're running those out of a steel mold, I would think.

Even in this thread, we have the usual massive disinformation by people who are desperate to defend the cost of a product.

Plastic injection molds have never been anywhere near the $250K mark. This is blatant lying to try to support an argument.

GW has likely never lost money on a mold since...maybe Dread Fleet - which was widely avoided and put a huge dent in GW's enthusiasm for specialist games for quite some time. In the past 10-15 years? No money lost unless they intentionally did that by releasing a super tiny run of a special character (which is their choice and their right).

Plastic molds are expensive and it's a serious financial consideration for SMALL companies. A company of GW's size doesn't bat an eye over mold prices. That's an argument from the late 90's when GW was smaller and plastic sprues for stuff like gaming miniatures were more or less in their infancy. There is a reason that mom and pop shops, or people who sell games/miniatures as a hobby do not have plastic sprue kits. The cost is actually higher for renting the workforce to produce the materials and the shipping costs of having it delivered to your market, etc. The sprue cost is essentially a non-factor for a company of GW's size.

One only has to look at cost of sales listed on the financial reports, understand that includes not only machining of HIPS molds but every other thing that they spend money on to take a product from inception to being physically sat in a box ready for sale, including design, raw materials, packaging etc to make a reasonable assumption as to how small a part of their expenditure making molds must be.

The 250k mark is a bit misleading--but it likely is factoring in that GW owns their own machines. There is no "renting the workforce" or anything of that nature--outside of terrain kits and Endless Spells(and purportedly they're tooling things up to be able to do those too).

That doesn't really make sense, a business doesn't invest in capital purchases unless they're going to make money, not cost more.

 Azreal13 wrote:
That doesn't really make sense, a business doesn't invest in capital purchases unless they're going to make money, not cost more.

Unless that investment might result in:

1) A stronger position against future cost inflation from using an external company.

2) A more stable company because now a core component of production is in-house rather than external. This means you're not worrying about other demands on outside firms; concerned about having to re-negotiate deals when the contracts come up, knowing full well that the outside firm is essential (they have a stronger leg to stand on).

3) A higher quality of product because a key part is now internal and thus specialist can be sought/trained exactly for the role(s) required and is working purely for GW's interests without other projects. Rather than using external specialists which might have a broader range of skills, but lack specialist understanding for the company's requirements. Plus any external firm might well have time constraints, with fast increasing costs if a mould prove challenging and starts to impact on their other projects/clients.

4) Stable and known production quality of machines. Even if GW loses key staff; they at least have a known quality with their machines. External firms could be a problem if GW had to use different companies at different times and could result in variation in quality of production of moulds from those different firms. Even if some might be superior to what GW can achieve in-house - sometimes having a known value in-house is better than variable external.


There are aspects which likely might cost GW more. Bringing it in house means paying staff wages related to mould casting directly out of their own pocket, as opposed to staff who are hired by a firm which produces GW products as only one of many. With the latter the costs are shared over multiple firms; with the former its only GW hiring them and using them (unless they hire out the machines as well during periods when GW isn't making new moulds). Of course GW might have those staff trained in other processes or might even have sufficient mould casting requirements that warrants full time single task dedicated employees.


Of course one would expect that bringing it in-house would result in a financial gain, however when you consider that GW only expands with profits and not loans, they can actually afford to invest in expansions which might yield less return on investment, but could yield higher product qualities or simply be pet-projects/ideas of management. Yes the latter would be a disaster if those projects resulted in long term debilitating running costs or if they invest in so many that they burn their profits away to nothing.

Of course one would expect that bringing it in-house would result in a financial gain

Yes, so, like I said, to make money.

If someone else can do the thing cheaper than you can, you pay them do it and reap the same advantages, should those advantages be "non financial" (not that that's really a thing.)

 Overread wrote:
2) A more stable company because now a core component of production is in-house rather than external. This means you're not worrying about other demands on outside firms; concerned about having to re-negotiate deals when the contracts come up, knowing full well that the outside firm is essential (they have a stronger leg to stand on).

That would have prevented the delay GW had with the Sylvaneth release last year or am I misremembering something?

 Ghaz wrote:

 Overread wrote:
2) A more stable company because now a core component of production is in-house rather than external. This means you're not worrying about other demands on outside firms; concerned about having to re-negotiate deals when the contracts come up, knowing full well that the outside firm is essential (they have a stronger leg to stand on).

That would have prevented the delay GW had with the Sylvaneth release last year or am I misremembering something?

It might have yes. Because GW gets their endless spells and terrain from overseas as well as hardback printing and I believe all their cardstock (which I assume would include both things like warscroll cards and also boxes to put models into). I believe I recall reading that GW were looking at getting some card printing machines of their own to bring that in-house as well; a surprising move considering that right now a lot of printing is done overseas because its cheaper and its unlikely GW could beat the quality (or that the current quality is lacking).

That said the bonus for them is reducing their reliance on firms half a world away and long shipping times. Letting them react quicker to needs; to have quality control in-house; to not be reliant on international trade agreements which can change or cause problems etc... Again we're looking at benefits where cost is only one aspect. Again because GW would pay for this out of profits, whilst it is money they could invest elsewhere, it also means that they don't pay for it long term as they would with a loan or investor. So if it all turned out a disaster they aren't left paying for it for decades to come.

It's the kind of big costs ideally spent during affluent times. Of course one hopes that GW also puts into savings and investments of its own to give themselves some safety nets for the future as well. It would be a huge mistake to invest all their profits into expansion and pet projects and securing fancy machines- esp since all expansion options mean more staff and that means increasing their actual running costs. So I guess that is one trap - raising their operating costs through expansion of bringing more aspects in-house.




**Edit - I'm not actually sure why GW gets terrain and spells cast overseas. I can only assume its because they hit their production capacity - in theory the new factory - brought online and up to full speed (assuming no more power shortage at their HQ and no more covid restrictions/slowdown) should let them make up for that. In theory meaning that spells and terrain should be back in house again.

If GW's models were of the same quality as average plastic model kits, and were priced accordingly, they would still look fine, be much cheaper, and bring in a huge customer base, I think. It would almost get too popular.

The problem with Ebay is that if everyone starts going there, then the supply will dry up. Ebay is actually one of the factors that made it possible for me to get back in to playing 40k. Others include Guardsmen from Bolt Action, Guardswomen from Victoria Miniatures (though that might not be any cheaper), SIsters and a Priest from Fox Box, another Priest and two Death Cult Assassins from Reaper Bones, and, last but not least, numerous Papercraft vehicles.

(I made the mistake of using fairly heavy paper, figuring that the models ought to have some weight to them, but actually they're harder to fold, and didn't come out so well. I might re-do some of them.)

I know that this next opinion might be uncommon, but it dawned on me when I was assembling the new GW Sisters and Arco-Flagellants that I found the process very tedious. It's much easier to just glue the metal figure into the base, and then put on the plastic arm(s) equipped the way you want.

I also don't like the designs of some of the new stuff. I think that the old Exorcist was silly, and the new one is Rigoddamndiculous. I use the Forge World-style (not actually bought from FW) that actually look military. I like the old Immolators (not the original), but the new ones look goofy. The new Rhinos are nifty, however.

GW really bothers me. Maybe they'll be forced back to their senses by overseas competition and/or third-party proxies, worries about a next generation of players, etc.

They definitely need to commit to their board games. Those are a fine way in, and the minis are usable in 40k.

ive been annoyed with GW pricing for years, and the climbing of price has resulted in all of my friends i know who had any interest in GW walking away.

the local gaming groups dropped off the mark, and im siting here with plenty in mini's i never got to play with, but looking at what Gw makes lately, along with the pricing, it doesn't fit my general mentality.

The sisters stuff is a solid example- FirstwetakedC Im in agreement with the new sisters vehicles, but also im tired of Gw's new focus on "dynamic" modeling for characters as well.

with sisters the closest thing to what i wanted was something akin to the imagifier's posture. i wanted serenity in war, not all the extra bobbles, and the cost for the new sisters sealed the deal of me not caring to go to plastic with what i had if i could find a match.

At this point id much rather go to alternative, but the closest place i could still theoretically find a game at is a GW store a town over. even then id still rather buy Wargames atlantic mini's instead when i get an IG related Idea over GW (the raumjager look really good to me), from both an aesthetics level and a cost level.

currently im trying to figure out if alternatives exist for imperial knights, just to see what i could compare that range to outside of GW. i heard some scale mech models might?

 Firstwetakedc wrote:



I know that this next opinion might be uncommon, but it dawned on me when I was assembling the new GW Sisters and Arco-Flagellants that I found the process very tedious. It's much easier to just glue the metal figure into the base, and then put on the plastic arm(s) equipped the way you want.

The multi part plastics are way easier to paint properly though. Maybe I'm just not dexterous enough but there are plenty of places in monopose singlepart metals that I can't reach.

I also don't like the designs of some of the new stuff. I think that the old Exorcist was silly, and the new one is Rigoddamndiculous. I use the Forge World-style (not actually bought from FW) that actually look military. I like the old Immolators (not the original), but the new ones look goofy. The new Rhinos are nifty, however.

I've always thought the SoB were a little theatrical for my liking, as much as I like their infantry. The previous Immolator was a good design, the current one is a bullet magnet. Talk about modelling for a DISadvantage. I don't mind a small embellishment to make it look more Church-y and less Military-y but like you said, Riggoddamndiculous.

I've only got one non GW GW miniature that I bought on a whim from China. A resin SoB Heavy Bolter. I have no use for her, I only have other SoB Seraphim. It was the cheapest model available to check quality. While GW are keeping China under strict lawyership currently, they are going to lose this if they don't kill WH40K off first. The quality was decent, although it was a copy, not an innovation. But China will get there if the market is big enough.

I am not actively playing outside of Necromunda (and maybe a pickup game of Kill Team) so I'm not running the latest and greatest release but looking at the prices of current models I'm unlikely to simply replace my entire Marine army with Primaris. The models are cool but the money can be used elsewhere.

I'm a firm believer in the "penny from the masses vs pound from the few" mentality and I am cognizant of the fact model design and molds are not cheap, but neither a 3d Printers. Is the pound from the zero better than the penny from the many?

 Kanluwen wrote:
The 250k mark is a bit misleading--but it likely is factoring in that GW owns their own machines. There is no "renting the workforce" or anything of that nature--outside of terrain kits and Endless Spells(and purportedly they're tooling things up to be able to do those too).

...yeah, owning the machines usually reduces the costs, not increases it, as long as the expense of having the machines is justified. Amortization such and such, I think it's called.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Firstwetakedc wrote:
I know that this next opinion might be uncommon, but it dawned on me when I was assembling the new GW Sisters and Arco-Flagellants that I found the process very tedious. It's much easier to just glue the metal figure into the base, and then put on the plastic arm(s) equipped the way you want.

Oh, it's not just you... the amount of parts to make what amounts to monopose figures is kinda ridiculous.

Don't buy them then...

There are plenty of companies who sell high quality plastic kits for half of what GW costs.

And no I don't care about "BuT tHeY dOn'T sElL SPESH MAUREENS!!!"

Back when I was staff, we had access to 'Lead Weight' discount. The sprue was weighed against lead and that is the price we paid. I bought the old Dark Eldar Reaver Jetbikes for 6p a sprue. GW still made profit on that sprue. This is back when Dark Eldar were not a great selling line, so the sprues had still to cover the cost of the molds, design, etc.

GW have high prices, so high in fact that it has killed off one of their games (WFB). It didn't sell well enough to justify keeping, as people were not too eager to buy multiples of 10 plastic figures for £25 to have just one unit.

Also comparing GW's prices to the price of fags and booze is utterly ridiculous! Tobacco and alcohol are heavily taxed. That is some high calibre white knighting there!

I rarely buy GW, not because I can't afford it, bit because I don't think it is good value, my Yorkshire background prohibits me from throwing money away needlessly.

 stonehorse wrote:

Also comparing GW's prices to the price of fags and booze is utterly ridiculous! Tobacco and alcohol are heavily taxed. That is some high calibre white knighting there!

At least it's not as bad as when they start comparing it to restoring classic cars.
Collecting a museum worth of jets.
Buying a yacht etc etc.

Heaven forbid to some people you compare plastic soldiers to plastic soldiers

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Nah. Just Capitalism.

GW are a large company, with lots of rent, taxes, bills and that to pay.

Let’s look at their actual profit margin, shall we? https://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019-20-half-year-report.pdf

In 6 months, before licensing revenue? Income was £148.4m. Actual profit £48.5m.

So their actual profit margin is around 33%. And that’s with pretty stellar sales volumes. Why do sales volumes matter? Because your base operating costs tend to be relatively fixed, and you only see profit once those costs are met.

Here, we can reasonably infer that GW’s operating costs are around the £100,000,000 mark. Yes, lower sales would mean lesser stock production which would help reduce that figure, but not by a huge percentage.

So if there sales lowered, so would their overall profit margin. Is that daylight robbery? Or is just, y’know, how business and capitalism work in general?

Someone probably already said this in the News & Rumors thread but, with regards to the recent price rises, I do think there's a pretty likely explanation for it.

Slow moving stock.

A lot of the listed kits are either old (as GW said), non-essential (official terrain kits), one time purchases (army rule cards), or specialist games.

And the current size of GWs product line, customer resistance to product discontinuation, and rate of catalog growth is leading them to an unreasonable situation for both warehousing and production.

 stonehorse wrote:
Back when I was staff, we had access to 'Lead Weight' discount. The sprue was weighed against lead and that is the price we paid. I bought the old Dark Eldar Reaver Jetbikes for 6p a sprue. GW still made profit on that sprue. This is back when Dark Eldar were not a great selling line, so the sprues had still to cover the cost of the molds, design, etc.

Yeah, I was working there by that time, too. It was glorious, because they also had the full parts catalogue. I got some kilos of lead that way back then, and the prices of the sprues were ridiculous ^^. Back when they closed the localized mail stores (Spain, in my case), I got a box chock full of Rhinos (they were almost brand new at the time), Preds, Chimeras and Russes, like... 10 of each, IIRC. I think I paid something like the equivalent of 70 euros for the whole box.

I could fit inside that box.

 stonehorse wrote:
Back when I was staff, we had access to 'Lead Weight' discount. The sprue was weighed against lead and that is the price we paid. I bought the old Dark Eldar Reaver Jetbikes for 6p a sprue. GW still made profit on that sprue. This is back when Dark Eldar were not a great selling line, so the sprues had still to cover the cost of the molds, design, etc.

That's how I got my Farsight army done. One day, GW took this away and staff started panic buying product on weight before it went forever. I had a few friends that worked there and ones of them stockpiled Crisis suits as they were 30 or 50p each (I forget which). A few years later and he's still sitting on this hoard and I buy 10 off of him for £5 each, which was still a reasonable price compared to the at least twice as much GW were charging at the time.

My favourite story from the "pay by weight" era was regarding Epic 40k models. Some of them were so small they didn't even register on the scales so staff had to be charged 20p for them I believe as quote, "We had to charge you something!" as the manager that told my this story said.

Bdrone, I also agree about the characters. I'm so glad that I got the metal Canoness, plus other characters that I don't have a use for right now, but wanted anyway: the Imagifier, the Dialogus, and two Hospitalers (I thought that I lost one!).

Regarding mecha kits, that's a good idea. A gaming group could buy inexpensive mechs, and play using the GW rules, out of spite, or simple practicality.

I'm not replacing my Fox Box Sisters; I spent good time, money, and paint on those!

I get you, FirstwetakedC.

My sisters are in metal, but I am no longer interested in them. but there was effort in the collection of them, just like your fox box sisters. im in no mood to update.

i wish i knew what would be the most effective mecha models to make this concept i have work. im unsure about scaling for example. maybe the 1/100 scale, like some Zaku?

The 1/100 Destroid Monster kit from Macross (Robotech) is really cool and really affordable. Gribble it up with some Ravenwing Accessory Sprue bits, and you’ve got a titan.


Edit: looks like it’s back ordered at hobbylink Japan. They seem to produce more every couple years because it was back ordered when I bought it, and ai got it a few months later, then back out of stock, then back in again...

Meanwhile, there are other Destroid kits in the 1/100 or even 1/72 range that mostly look the part for an affordable price.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Elbows, how would he feel about using unofficial minis? Wargames Atlantic make passable IG minis, Shieldwolf makes close-enough Sisters, etc.. Reaper has a few Bones plastic knights that look suspiciously like Space Marines in need of guns and backpacks. Would he be interested in any of that?

in the same vein, some people have an interest in 3d printer farms and would happily help out. i'm not saying thats me, and i don't mean to get into the 3d printing argument here, but it is a viable way to build an army for relatively little expense.