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 Insectum7 wrote:
In order for GW to make a profit the wholesale price has to be profitable. There's no way they're pricing wholesale at a loss. That makes everything beyond wholesale gravy for GW, and I'd guess the wholesale price (the price your FLGS pays to stock the product) is at least 40% off the retail price.

Yes, but most other publishers sell their books to stores at wholesale prices, and still have lower MRSPS for comparable products. Gw makes a tidy profit from its book sales, otherwise they wouldn't be constantly publishing books like the one we're talking about in this thread. Just compare their book prices to things like RPG rulebooks: they're similar. RPG companies make most of their money from those books, so they price them accordingly. Gw aren't just selling books to market their more profitable models, but are turning a profit on the books as well. And they could still turn a profit with lower priced soft back books, even if they were only $10 cheaper like those Kill Team books are compared to a typical codex.

^Oh I wasn't trying to imply that they couldn't do softcover books or anything. I was just pointing out that GW was probably making a tidy profit.

^^Ah, ok. As for the OP: Even if this book included rules for a faction that I play (it doesn't) I wouldn't buy it. After the rip off of PA, I refuse to pay for 4 pages of DLC again, and definitely not for $60. Enough.

Wait, holy fething gak, what was that price tag?!

First, I need a word substitution browser extension that turns all the words back into profanity, but that aside, this thing is $60?!

To further fragment and bloat rules amidst narrative filler?!

Including Day 1 DLC for the Dark Eldar, Month 1 DLC for the Death Guard, and, oh, would you look at that, isn't Admech supposed to be next, so that's Month -1 DLC?

I already consider the codexes unworthy of their price tag, so:

"There are just so very many ways for me to say this to you: Never. Not in a million years. Absolutely not. No way, Jose. No chance, Lance. Nyet. Negatory. Mm-mm. Nuh-uh. Uh-uh. And of course, my own personal favorite of all time, man falling off of a cliff. Noooooooooo! *poof*"

^^^ Yeah, my initial reaction to the book was "nope, not for me the day 1 DLC". That was before I looked at the price. After I stopped laughing I couldn't even muster the energy to be surprised at GW any more.

The annoying thing is if this "experiment" fails it may mean less narrative supplements for the players who actually want this (albeit at a lower price).

Dai wrote:
The annoying thing is if this "experiment" fails it may mean less narrative supplements for the players who actually want this (albeit at a lower price).

It could mean a tonne of things, they might just up the power of the matched play rules to boost sales. Why fix Tau pts costs in an Errata when you can charge money for an expensive hardcover book with rules bloat to fix the problem?

Dai wrote:
The annoying thing is if this "experiment" fails it may mean less narrative supplements for the players who actually want this (albeit at a lower price).

They really suck at releasing narrative rules though. The last experiment was urban conquest, which was a book that I'd totally would have bought if it was available as epub or at least as a stand-alone. But no, they wanted you to buy a box of useless terrain to get the book.

The crusade mission packs are an awesome format though, just do narrative campaigns in the same way.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Yes, but the Kill Team Elites book goes for $40 MRSP, and is 144 pages. A book with a similar page count, on similar paper, printed at a US plant would go for about $15-$20 MRSP, coming from my plant. These would be what you'd call "coffee table books", as well as cook books and the like (no advertisements to offset the cost), with what I assume are similar print runs to typical codexes. And that's for US manufacturing, most gw books are printed in China. I think you underestimate how much gw marks up their printed material.

If it cost GW $20 and they sell it online they'll take $40. If a trade account sells it (over 50% of GW sales) they'll take $10 ($5 when priced at $50). Assuming the original numbers are correct anyway. GW makes big money on their website, so...buy local!

I mean, that's the basic rule.
Always buy local.
I don't care about online discounted prices, my main purpose in buying is to support my local store.

Spoletta wrote:
I mean, that's the basic rule.
Always buy local.
I don't care about online discounted prices, my main purpose in buying is to support my local store.

Buy local, but if that isn't possible at least buy from anyone except GW direct.

I am continuously annoyed by things being available direct from GW, yet my local shop can't get their order filled.

I’m one of those who did want hardbacks, as my prior experiences have been that such books last - I have D&D hardbacks from the 80’s that have seen a lot of use that are still intact (Though I have to admit, my RT book didn’t survive even into the late 90’s; the rest are in great shape).

Unfortunately, I’ve found modern hardcovers are nowhere as durable (my 5E PHB split after 6 mos. or so), and certainly not worth the price when they are being replaced every 2 years or so. If GW is going to physically print books, it needs to go back to soft covers.

Spoletta wrote:
I mean, that's the basic rule.
Always buy local.
I don't care about online discounted prices, my main purpose in buying is to support my local store.

Then buy other things besides GW to support them.

 Stormonu wrote:

Unfortunately, I’ve found modern hardcovers are nowhere as durable (my 5E PHB split after 6 mos. or so), and certainly not worth the price when they are being replaced every 2 years or so. If GW is going to physically print books, it needs to go back to soft covers.

I believe this is a known issue with WotC DnD hardcovers in particular, and probably isn't indicative of most modern hardback rulebooks.

As for Charadon - no thanks. I got burned by Saga of the Beast as it is. $40 for a book that I ended up never getting to use thanks to covid, with a few pages of crappy fluff. Effectively I paid $40 for the 5-6 pages of rules for my orks, which was then almost immediately invalidated when 9e was announced and released. So hard pass on Charadon.

And $60 for less than 100 pages? Forget it. You know what else was $60 and clocked in at almost 400 pages? The Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay rulebook from Cubicle 7.

 Mr. Grey wrote:
Effectively I paid $40 for the 5-6 pages of rules for my orks, which was then almost immediately invalidated when 9e was announced and released.

You can still use Saga of the Beast rules for Orks. The only rules invalidated by 9th is Specialist Detachments from Vigilus Defiant.

 vict0988 wrote:

 Mr. Grey wrote:
Effectively I paid $40 for the 5-6 pages of rules for my orks, which was then almost immediately invalidated when 9e was announced and released.

You can still use Saga of the Beast rules for Orks. The only rules invalidated by 9th is Specialist Detachments from Vigilus Defiant.

Good chance the codex is coming soon, in which I foresee all of the Saga of the Beast stuff just being rolled into the codex. Which still invalidates my purchase.

 Mr. Grey wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Mr. Grey wrote:
Effectively I paid $40 for the 5-6 pages of rules for my orks, which was then almost immediately invalidated when 9e was announced and released.

You can still use Saga of the Beast rules for Orks. The only rules invalidated by 9th is Specialist Detachments from Vigilus Defiant.

Good chance the codex is coming soon, in which I foresee all of the Saga of the Beast stuff just being rolled into the codex. Which still invalidates my purchase.

Well...it wasn't really invalidated by 9th. It's shelf life will probably be about a year if we see Orks before May, which obviously isn't stupendous. It might have felt less brief if not for COVID.

 Mr. Grey wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Mr. Grey wrote:
Effectively I paid $40 for the 5-6 pages of rules for my orks, which was then almost immediately invalidated when 9e was announced and released.

You can still use Saga of the Beast rules for Orks. The only rules invalidated by 9th is Specialist Detachments from Vigilus Defiant.

Good chance the codex is coming soon, in which I foresee all of the Saga of the Beast stuff just being rolled into the codex. Which still invalidates my purchase.

How soon? At least 12 months after Saga of the Beast, probably more like 24 months. How long did you hope Saga of the Beast would be viable for? I think more than 36 months is asking too much, on the other hand, 6 months is way too little. But it's been 12 months and your rules are still usable, so why complain?

Well see, largely I'm complaining because I rarely get to play 40k. Just a few times a year. My last game was in February of 2020. Can you take a guess at what happened just after that? And another guess as to why I haven't had any chances at all to play since then? So yeah, I feel justified in complaining that Saga of the Beast for me is nothing more than a $40 paperweight.

 vict0988 wrote:

 Mr. Grey wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Mr. Grey wrote:
Effectively I paid $40 for the 5-6 pages of rules for my orks, which was then almost immediately invalidated when 9e was announced and released.

You can still use Saga of the Beast rules for Orks. The only rules invalidated by 9th is Specialist Detachments from Vigilus Defiant.

Good chance the codex is coming soon, in which I foresee all of the Saga of the Beast stuff just being rolled into the codex. Which still invalidates my purchase.

How soon? At least 12 months after Saga of the Beast, probably more like 24 months. How long did you hope Saga of the Beast would be viable for? I think more than 36 months is asking too much, on the other hand, 6 months is way too little. But it's been 12 months and your rules are still usable, so why complain?

36 months is too long for a book to be valid? No thanks. If I can’t get 5+ *years* worth of value out of it, it isn’t worth buying.

 Stormonu wrote:

36 months is too long for a book to be valid? No thanks. If I can’t get 5+ *years* worth of value out of it, it isn’t worth buying.

That's extreme, you're describing most editions and codexes, but okay. I guess you and Mr. Grey can continue playing 8th for 5 years, where do I sign up

 vict0988 wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:

36 months is too long for a book to be valid? No thanks. If I can’t get 5+ *years* worth of value out of it, it isn’t worth buying.

That's extreme, you're describing most editions and codexes, but okay. I guess you and Mr. Grey can continue playing 8th for 5 years, where do I sign up

Most editions were 3 years old or less? You're not serious are you?

The last couple of editions for 40k were, I believe, as was AOS 1.0. There's an assumption that AOS moves to 3.0 this summer, which would (I think) be a 3 year cycle.

It has been more than 20 years since an edition began that lasted 5+ years you bunch of dinos

Meh. Where there's dinos...

There are Exodites!

 vict0988 wrote:
It has been more than 20 years since an edition began that lasted 5+ years you bunch of dinos

New doesn't always mean better. In this case it only really means worse. There is no reason they need to churn editions so fast outside of milking the customer for more and more money at a quickened cadence.So some of us may be Dinos, but at least we paid less for stuff that lasted longer. That is, in my dino mind a good thing, and not a bad one. I personally hate the 3 year life cycle it screams lack of conviction to a lasting or good rule set over rampant money churning which while good in short term, doesn't lead to long term contentment for the customer.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Mr. Grey wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Mr. Grey wrote:
Effectively I paid $40 for the 5-6 pages of rules for my orks, which was then almost immediately invalidated when 9e was announced and released.

You can still use Saga of the Beast rules for Orks. The only rules invalidated by 9th is Specialist Detachments from Vigilus Defiant.

Good chance the codex is coming soon, in which I foresee all of the Saga of the Beast stuff just being rolled into the codex. Which still invalidates my purchase.

Well...it wasn't really invalidated by 9th. It's shelf life will probably be about a year if we see Orks before May, which obviously isn't stupendous. It might have felt less brief if not for COVID.

Well, not really. Covid is actually stretching the lifespan of some of the PA books. The last few Codexes have been delayed, after all.

DG and DE players certainly got a longer intended lifespan out of their PA books.

 Mr. Grey wrote:
Well see, largely I'm complaining because I rarely get to play 40k. Just a few times a year.

That's not GWs problem.

 Mr. Grey wrote:
My last game was in February of 2020. Can you take a guess at what happened just after that?

I'm going to guess....

 Mr. Grey wrote:
And another guess as to why I haven't had any chances at all to play since then?

I'm going to guess....

Wrong ! He didn't get games in because of swarms of out of control murder hornets. Thanks for playing, in this episode of why didn't I get to play 40k. Stay tuned next time for who is deadliest, Nurglings or High school Sloppy Joes.

Murder hornets are tyranid vanguard organisms.

Truth.