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Beast_of_Guanyin wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also?

In a genuinely nice way?

Nobody cares if you can’t or can’t, will or won’t, pay a given price for a given thing.

I do feel bad for folks who are priced out, or feel priced out.

But don’t ever tell the next person what the depth of their pocket should be. It’s a futile task. Always has been, always will be.

Indeed the only time I’ve gave a flying proverbial about another hobbyist’s spending was when a former flat mate stiffed me on their share of the rent, whilst holding a bag of new models.

Yeah. People can spend money on whatever they like. If it's legal it's none of my business unless it personally affects me.

And eventually it might. As the younger gamers are priced out, there's no new generation in the hobby to keep it going.
But hey, it's all about the short term money for the shareholders.

It’s not the young gamers though, is it?

Pretty sure kids are just as naturally skint as we were.

Parents. It’s the parents that cough up. Maybe a part time job as well - and what else do kids spend their pocket money or part time Saturday job type wages on?

As ever I can’t speak for anyone else, but when I had a Saturday job? It was 4 hours a week, for £2.50 an hour. Didn’t buy me a whole lot of models at the age of 14.

Back in the 90s when I started GW was still very overpriced for most kids and was very much reliant on parents and birthdays and such. It was always the "expensive" hobby; even if parents would often be keen on things like Hornby or Mecanno in those days and those were just as expensive.

If anything its more that parents related to some products and not others. It's the same way how video games have also gone from "that expensive toy I don't understand" to something many parents now engaged with and still engage with.

Lego is also getting flipping expensive.

Video games can be flipping expensive on release, especially for digital editions, where they tend to stay flipping expensive.

This isn’t an attempt to repaint GW as “cheap”. Just that they’re far, far from the only thing your kid might get into which carries a fairly hefty price tag. And typically it’s the parents and grandparents that are coughing up, and always has been. Because kids are generally noted for their own disposable income, on account….they’re kids.

Back in the 80s when I was a teen no one had a warhammer army, no one could afford one. Each person would have maybe 1 unit, 2 for the 'richer kids', and that probably took some time and saving to acquire. Games were 8+ kids around a table, each controlling one unit.

Also found that any hobby cost the same - specifically 100% of my available money (and I worked multiple paper rounds from as early as I could).

As a parent, 2 daughters who got into horse riding was definitely not cheaper.

there is a difference between being an expensive hobby and being the most expensive hobby of that type

horse riding is not cheaper, but there is still a difference between owing your own horse and having a private teacher or joining a club and rent one to learn it (and it is a nice example as my kids were into horse riding too)

for GW prices, when I started historical games were the ones played but because those were mostly full metal armies, the younger ones startet with Warhammer because those were affordable armies (in comparison)

now it is the other way around and historicals are the affordable miniature gaming/wargaming part of the hobby

GW is expansive, and Warhammer is not "the hobby"

I could afford GW stuff a little bit at a time with my hobby budget.. But they are now roughly twice as expensive as the miniatures for much better games.

They also take a lot of boring time to assemble (Heart of Ghur trees! Ugh, what a chore). I feel like I'm buying IKEA without the benefit of cost savings. Next to no interesting bits left over or possibilities for posing.

For me, the uncompetitive cost plus the mindnumbing assembly time has me looking at GW minis from afar.

GW has a lot more competition in the "miniatures gaming" space then they did even five years ago.

CMON's ASOIAF has great pre-assembled minis which I can basically prime right out of the box. The game play is superb, and a army with many options is $140-$180 depending on whether you shop at discounters or flgs. Free rules, a great app, regular releases for all armies...

Oathmark and Frostgrave plastics scratch my itch for conversions. Skirmish level games like Song of Blades and Heroes let me use whatever minis I want...

GW makes beautiful single pose models (that you have to assemble). But the value isn't there for me. And their games...leave a lot to be desired.

I guess it's how we remember it.
When I purchased my first Citadel figure, it was a 'Great Goblin' in a blister for the mighty price of 60p. At the same time, my pocket money was being spent on ZX Spectrum games, which were around the £5.99 price for a single taped game.

In other words, the single mini blister was about a tenth the price of a computer game. Now a single figure blister is about 25 quid and a new computer game around 50.
So, in my eyes, a mini has gone from 10% of a computer game, to 50% of a computer game. That's how I see it in the eyes of 'little kid' me.
I used to be able to buy a blister each week with my pocket money, but not a computer game. It's all how we view it.

As for kids, I used to run the Warhammer club in a school for a few decades. I slowly watched the numbers decline as the sticker shock went up, until there were just a couple of kids left. No younger kids joined to replace those that grew older and left school, despite me having several small armies to use in the club. They wanted their own armies but saw the GW prices and laughed.

We all know that Warhammer is the gateway drug for miniature wargaming, but I do worry for the future of the hobby. In a few decades, who will be the new whales to keep GW running.

 kodos wrote:

GW is expansive, and Warhammer is not "the hobby"

I always see people saying this kind of thing and it perplexes me. Because I don't think anyone ever actually says that "Warhammer is THE Hobby".
Now true GW's marketing only addresses GW stuff, but the same is true of almost all the other companies in the market. Heck the only part of the market that is active at promoting others is the Patreon 3D print market where its more a cross-posting thing where everyone is fighting over backers so model exchanges with other creators is self serving for both sides and such.


It's also true that many fantasy/scifi game clubs might only play Warhammer games and that if you want something else YOU have to put the time, money and effort into trying to drum up local support.

But not one ever says Warhammer is the only part of the hobby. Though it will dominate on a site named after and focused on the franchise.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

We all know that Warhammer is the gateway drug for miniature wargaming, but I do worry for the future of the hobby. In a few decades, who will be the new whales to keep GW running.

The kids of Warhammer playing parents. Introduced into Warhammer by their parents, through the kids books, through the slowly growing animation productions; through Warhammer Total War; Dawn of War and a myriad of other video games and more.

I mean that's basically where today's older players come from; save that many of us didn't have parents in the hobby and it was much harder to convince them of the virtues of the game and how really important it is to get another carnifex

 Overread wrote:


The kids of Warhammer playing parents. Introduced into Warhammer by their parents, through the kids books, through the slowly growing animation productions; through Warhammer Total War; Dawn of War and a myriad of other video games and more.

I mean that's basically where today's older players come from; save that many of us didn't have parents in the hobby and it was much harder to convince them of the virtues of the game and how really important it is to get another carnifex

One should also be wary of conflating general social trends in hobbies and such with wargaming- or GW-specific symptoms and ailments. While it's undoubtedly true that sticker shock and cost of entry to the hobby can and do drive away a lot of prospects, it's also an observable phenomenon that children and young adults have less free time in general, that social hobbies and hobbies that involve tangible things like arts & crafts, modelling and so on are on the decline, more time is spend in virtual or online communities and in front of screens, and that a lot of pastimes have taken a turn from the creative or at least semi-creative to a purely consumerist stance where you, as the meme put it succinctly 'just consume product and then get excited for the next product' - all of this is not really conductive to hobbies that demand a certain dilligence, a lot of free time, the presence of a friend group in close proximity that has the same, and necessitates a physical space you can occupy more or less uninterupted for a couple of hours.

 Overread wrote:
I always see people saying this kind of thing and it perplexes me. Because I don't think anyone ever actually says that "Warhammer is THE Hobby".

GW absolutely does. It's even part of their training. And many, if not most, GW players may not say it, but they are almost oblivious to anything outside GW.

 Albertorius wrote:

 Overread wrote:
I always see people saying this kind of thing and it perplexes me. Because I don't think anyone ever actually says that "Warhammer is THE Hobby".

GW absolutely does. It's even part of their training. And many, if not most, GW players may not say it, but they are almost oblivious to anything outside GW.

And I addressed all that in my post.
It's all perfectly normal and the same thing every other competing brand does - with one difference that GW is about the only one in wargaming to have their own stores on the highstreet. Others rely on 3rd parties and game groups and local reps and such to spread the word. It's the same as if you go to Lego Land all they are going to talk about and sell to you is Lego. You won't get any Megablocks there and many stores might only stock Lego. It doesn't mean Megablocks doesn't exist, just that if you want it you might have to put a tiny bit more effort in and if you want to promote it you'll have a bit of work to do so.

Again this is all totally normal and expected and its why most 3rd parties that do well have local rep systems for gamer groups; its why they sponsor game events; reach out to clubs and why they work hard to interact and promote their product to the world

 Gimgamgoo wrote:
As for kids, I used to run the Warhammer club in a school for a few decades. I slowly watched the numbers decline as the sticker shock went up, until there were just a couple of kids left. No younger kids joined to replace those that grew older and left school, despite me having several small armies to use in the club. They wanted their own armies but saw the GW prices and laughed.

Not to disparage your experience, but it's hard to deconflict in the face of continued revenue growth at GW.

KillerAngel wrote:

 Gimgamgoo wrote:
As for kids, I used to run the Warhammer club in a school for a few decades. I slowly watched the numbers decline as the sticker shock went up, until there were just a couple of kids left. No younger kids joined to replace those that grew older and left school, despite me having several small armies to use in the club. They wanted their own armies but saw the GW prices and laughed.

Not to disparage your experience, but it's hard to deconflict in the face of continued revenue growth at GW.

I think hobbies come in cycles at school. I recall when I went through school in the 90s to early 00s all the warhammer groups were basically either outright dead or only populated with older students. There was just no active scene of Warhammer present, yet there had been. I'd wager you can track this pattern with a lot of school hobbies as they rise and fall. Magic the Gathering likely does a similar thing - appearing in one big surge and then declining as the students who originally got into it get older and move on and the newer generations have something else they randomly latch onto.

There's certainly a rise and fall of things and whilst price is likely part of it, I'd wager that there's other social elements going on as well which might well be superior influences on the price aspect.

 Overread wrote:


The kids of Warhammer playing parents. Introduced into Warhammer by their parents, through the kids books, through the slowly growing animation productions; through Warhammer Total War; Dawn of War and a myriad of other video games and more.

I mean that's basically where today's older players come from; save that many of us didn't have parents in the hobby and it was much harder to convince them of the virtues of the game and how really important it is to get another carnifex

My son plays the video games (that I bought), watches the youtube videos, reads the books (gifts), and reads the lore from all of my books, and likes the models...BUT

He has zero interest in actually buying them because they're so expensive. Nothing like walking into a store with "pocket money" of around $20-40 and being able to buy like one character blister. For 11 year old him, it was eye opening. For 13 year old him, its now a joke every time we wander into a store to browse.

So while I'm a parent who spent way too much money on GW product, my son has zero interest due to price. Instead, he has saved for and bought a Soviet ww2 force from various companies, and tanks through Rubicon, and painted it all up. He is super happy with his investment and saved a bunch of money.

KillerAngel wrote:

 Gimgamgoo wrote:
As for kids, I used to run the Warhammer club in a school for a few decades. I slowly watched the numbers decline as the sticker shock went up, until there were just a couple of kids left. No younger kids joined to replace those that grew older and left school, despite me having several small armies to use in the club. They wanted their own armies but saw the GW prices and laughed.

Not to disparage your experience, but it's hard to deconflict in the face of continued revenue growth at GW.

A lot of hobbies gave up on 'kids' as a target group altogether and are just content to sell stuff to the same people they sold to 20 years ago, minus the ones that died of course. Model railroads come to mind, but other examples exist. It means an ever-shrinking circle of people, but not necessarily shrinking revenues - due to societal changes there are a lot of people without any real commitments, but deep pockets for their personal entertainment and enjoyment. There's even a certain paradoxical turn to it: not only do the relatively succesful people have a lot of spending money, but the mostly unsuccesful have as well, mainly because they gave up on a lot of the traditional 'live achievements' that cost a lot of money, like e.g. committed relationships, children, their own homes and so on, either because they deem it unachievable or because it actually is unachievable outside of heritages and/or marrying into money. These people have comparatively high disposable incomes once they realize that saving for a mortgage down payment, children's college funds or early retirement will just lead to nothing and decide to blow it all on pleasure, now. As i said before: a dire signal for society in total, but it keeps a lot of boats in the entertainment industry afloat, for now.

 Overread wrote:

 kodos wrote:

GW is expansive, and Warhammer is not "the hobby"

I always see people saying this kind of thing and it perplexes me. Because I don't think anyone ever actually says that "Warhammer is THE Hobby".
Now true GW's marketing only addresses GW stuff, but the same is true of almost all the other companies in the market.

GW is marketing their products as part of "the Warhammer Hobby" they are not promoting 40k as part of the Wargaming Hobby, or Miniature Gaming Hobby, but 40k is part of the Warhammer Hobby, with AoS, Underworlds, Citadel etc are all parts of "the Hobby" which is Warhammer

And I read/hear it more often than not that people see Wargaming/Miniature Gaming and Warhammer is different hobbies, and not one being part of the other and GW marketing does everything to keep it that way
talking about other companies not advertising 3rd party stuff, well giving that most don't have their own colour range or hobby tools, they actually do and non of them is saying that their brand is "they hobby"

for GW prices, when I started historical games were the ones played but because those were mostly full metal armies, the younger ones startet with Warhammer because those were affordable armies (in comparison)

now it is the other way around and historicals are the affordable miniature gaming/wargaming part of the hobby

GW is expansive, and Warhammer is not "the hobby"

I, and few friends were into historicals before Warhammer even existed. Warahmmer when it came along was most certainly not cheaper - warhammer armies of the day were also all metal. Unlike historicals though, there were hardly any bulk buys or different scales. In the early days if you wanted a regiment you bought many blisters of 1 or 2 metal goblins etc. A few 'regiments' would turn up eventually, but they were still all metal.

Historicals on the other hand, I could buy entire 15mm armies for a fraction of the cost of warhammer.

Warhammer is not "the hobby", not sure whether that was aimed at my comment you seemed to be replying to, but I certainly didn't say it was. It is 'a hobby' and like every other hobby it would suck up 100% of my money as a kid, because as a kid I never had enough money to buy 'everything' I wanted for what ever, be it historical wargaming, warhammer, board wargames, D&D or early computer games. All hobbies were expensive, but what mattered then, and to an extent now, is how many others are into the same hobby if your hobby requires some social interaction. As a kid, or even young adult, that aspect probably matters most - not many kids are going to buy into warhammer (or other social hobby) if no one else is into it.

And I read/hear it more often than not that people see Wargaming/Miniature Gaming and Warhammer is different hobbies,

I see both as true, it is the same and it is not. Like so many things in life it depends on the context of the conversation. One can indeed view historical wargaming as distinct just like warhammer. They are subcategories of 'Wargaming' - Wargaming is a wider hobby can include miniature and board wargaming, and then each can include other apsects like genre of period etc. I am into wargaming in the most general sense, and I know plenty of people who are warhammer or nothing, or minis only but not board games etc.

Within the wargaming hobby, there is a distinct Games Workshop Hobby.

Models, rules, glues, tools, paints, brushes, scenery, boards. All available with GW Branding. Same with events.

It’s possible to play, build, paint and collect without setting foot outside of those products.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:
I guess it's how we remember it.
When I purchased my first Citadel figure, it was a 'Great Goblin' in a blister for the mighty price of 60p. At the same time, my pocket money was being spent on ZX Spectrum games, which were around the £5.99 price for a single taped game.

In other words, the single mini blister was about a tenth the price of a computer game. Now a single figure blister is about 25 quid and a new computer game around 50.
So, in my eyes, a mini has gone from 10% of a computer game, to 50% of a computer game. That's how I see it in the eyes of 'little kid' me.
I used to be able to buy a blister each week with my pocket money, but not a computer game. It's all how we view it.

As for kids, I used to run the Warhammer club in a school for a few decades. I slowly watched the numbers decline as the sticker shock went up, until there were just a couple of kids left. No younger kids joined to replace those that grew older and left school, despite me having several small armies to use in the club. They wanted their own armies but saw the GW prices and laughed.

We all know that Warhammer is the gateway drug for miniature wargaming, but I do worry for the future of the hobby. In a few decades, who will be the new whales to keep GW running.

TBF the eighties were a very different world! But GW and wargaming in general has always been a niche hobby, except now there are many many more alternative things kids can do for hobbies, including a completly new genre (i.e. internet related "watching" rather than "doing" hobbies).

The RRP for a new this gen video game is £59.99 (i.e. in theory more money than you'd expect an average child to have in disposable cash) and the average gamer is a 20/30 something year old with a job and therefore cash to spend. Although video games are infintely more popular than GW, as long as interesting models are made, with lore behind them, and rulesets to play some sort of game with them, then there should always be a market for GW even if it ends up being more and more adults rather than kids driving sales.

Cruentus wrote:He has zero interest in actually buying them because they're so expensive. Nothing like walking into a store with "pocket money" of around $20-40 and being able to buy like one character blister. For 11 year old him, it was eye opening. For 13 year old him, its now a joke every time we wander into a store to browse.

So while I'm a parent who spent way too much money on GW product, my son has zero interest due to price. Instead, he has saved for and bought a Soviet ww2 force from various companies, and tanks through Rubicon, and painted it all up. He is super happy with his investment and saved a bunch of money.

It feels to me like a certain (mental) rubicon was crossed when individual normal sized boxes started costing more than a video game does. When a tank costs more than a video game and a character costs half a video game people start to reconsider starting the hobby. Sure there are issues like video games not having increased their prices for years from the 60€ price point and all the DLC backloading/obfuscating the price increase, consoles being needed to play them, and so on but the mental shorthand goes 60€ = a whole gaming experience (video game) vs. a tank.

A good example is WHF. People excuse it's demise with how it became impossible to start an army without investing hundreds of "your local currency" but it was GW who raised the prices constantly, reduced the content of boxes, and made (accidentally and intentionally) bigger regiments more or less an requirement. That were three factors ratcheting in sync to make the game less appealing for newbies. The game didn't just magically become less desirable.

40K (and mainly Space Marines) are much more coveted than the whole of WHF but at some point GW will again come against a situation where their constant price increased and resulting reliance on a slowly shrinking market (not that this second part is happening right now, they seem to be healthy) that just buys more won't lead to increased profits. And by then they'll have a comparably higher overhead that will make cost cutting measurers more difficult. When it happened the last time (at some point in the years before the CEO change) they were already cutting so much and are as a company still rather frugal that it could become difficult next time around while shareholders expect the usual profits.

I bought the MegaBloks ( budget Lego ) TMNT Technodrome for $240 and is just shy of 3000 pieces. A kit with the same number of pieces in Lego is $300. And you WILL notice the quality difference.

For that price I could get Angron and 30 Berzerkers, which to me is an equivalent value and perhaps offers more fun over the long term for the money spent, but I bought it because I friggin' love me some Technodrome.

When I started the internet and computers were not around. Miniatures were precious little metal toys that we managed to get because a guy at store had a catalogue etc.... and was super niche. The vast majority did not know what this was all about. You would have very small forces... and guess what it was actually fun too!

Today all is easier and I would not worry too much about prices because "Warhammer" is so famous these days that for most of us, outpaced with the price increases, theres thousands with a better income that will chip in.

Mario wrote:

Cruentus wrote:He has zero interest in actually buying them because they're so expensive. Nothing like walking into a store with "pocket money" of around $20-40 and being able to buy like one character blister. For 11 year old him, it was eye opening. For 13 year old him, its now a joke every time we wander into a store to browse.

So while I'm a parent who spent way too much money on GW product, my son has zero interest due to price. Instead, he has saved for and bought a Soviet ww2 force from various companies, and tanks through Rubicon, and painted it all up. He is super happy with his investment and saved a bunch of money.

It feels to me like a certain (mental) rubicon was crossed when individual normal sized boxes started costing more than a video game does. When a tank costs more than a video game and a character costs half a video game people start to reconsider starting the hobby. Sure there are issues like video games not having increased their prices for years from the 60€ price point and all the DLC backloading/obfuscating the price increase, consoles being needed to play them, and so on but the mental shorthand goes 60€ = a whole gaming experience (video game) vs. a tank.

A good example is WHF. People excuse it's demise with how it became impossible to start an army without investing hundreds of "your local currency" but it was GW who raised the prices constantly, reduced the content of boxes, and made (accidentally and intentionally) bigger regiments more or less an requirement. That were three factors ratcheting in sync to make the game less appealing for newbies. The game didn't just magically become less desirable.

40K (and mainly Space Marines) are much more coveted than the whole of WHF but at some point GW will again come against a situation where their constant price increased and resulting reliance on a slowly shrinking market (not that this second part is happening right now, they seem to be healthy) that just buys more won't lead to increased profits. And by then they'll have a comparably higher overhead that will make cost cutting measurers more difficult. When it happened the last time (at some point in the years before the CEO change) they were already cutting so much and are as a company still rather frugal that it could become difficult next time around while shareholders expect the usual profits.

I'm surprised the bubble hasn't burst already, Henry Cavill must be buying all these minis himself.

Well any random teenager in my area can get a job at a fast food place for ~$17.50/hour. Converting that to GBP and subtracting approximate taxes, it works out to about 10/hr GBP. More than enough to afford a GW box with every shift and have a decent amount to spare.

HOWEVER I am entirely aware that my local scene is NOT representative, and in fact we have it better than many with California's $15/hr minimum wage.

The UK minimum wage for under 18s is £4.81 but a lot of companies don't pay that low. Fast food places tend to go to about £5/hour to say they pay more than minimum wage but some jobs will pay as high as £6. My first job was 8 hours a week at Greggs getting £6ish/hour and I had plenty of cash to splash on Warhammer.

Part of GW's power on price is that models retain use for decades. With the exception of the Old World to Age of Sigmar disaster and with the exception of Specialist side games (which are honestly FAR more stable now than they have ever been in the past); most GW products last for decades.

So you can collect a small army as a kid (killteam/Meeting engagements; warcry; underworlds etc...). Then as you become a teen; become a student; become a young adult; etc... As your potential disposable income grows you can grow your army from its early foundations.

Gw only has to hook you when young.

^ I respectfully disagree...GW definitely hooked me when I was young (I own 8 Old World fantasy armies and 3 40k armies so a rather massive collection) but my hobby budget has shrunk pretty substantially now due to inflation. Everything costs more which coupled with the poor World Eater release (at least IMO) means I've spent next to nothing on Warhammer in the last 6 months.

Wages aren't raising at the rate prices are and if prices keep going up I'll just step back from 40k and wait till Old World comes out simply because things are just too expensive now. And if the prices for that are outrageous, I'll just buy the rules and play with what I got.

And even when inflation comes back down its not like here in America the fine folks running our companies are going to lower their prices. Definitely difficult decisions to be made ahead IMO.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I bought the MegaBloks ( budget Lego ) TMNT Technodrome for $240 and is just shy of 3000 pieces. A kit with the same number of pieces in Lego is $300. And you WILL notice the quality difference.

For that price I could get Angron and 30 Berzerkers, which to me is an equivalent value and perhaps offers more fun over the long term for the money spent, but I bought it because I friggin' love me some Technodrome.

As someone who collects both Lego and Mega, saying Mega is "the budget Lego" does a huge disservice to Mega. The quality isn't noticeably different, though Mega has a lot more unique shaped pieces and their mini-action figures with their 12-13 points of articulation are leagues better than the Lego Minifig and I WILL die on that hill.

Edit:





All I'm saying is I know which one my money is going to.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Lego is also getting flipping expensive.

Video games can be flipping expensive on release, especially for digital editions, where they tend to stay flipping expensive.

This isn’t an attempt to repaint GW as “cheap”. Just that they’re far, far from the only thing your kid might get into which carries a fairly hefty price tag. And typically it’s the parents and grandparents that are coughing up, and always has been. Because kids are generally noted for their own disposable income, on account….they’re kids.

In regards to Lego, it depends though. If it's some IP like Star Wars and Marvel where they know kids want it, they're making bank. Otherwise for the more "model" kits like the ship in a bottle I received on Christmas.....not too bad actually.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I bought the MegaBloks ( budget Lego ) TMNT Technodrome for $240 and is just shy of 3000 pieces. A kit with the same number of pieces in Lego is $300. And you WILL notice the quality difference.

For that price I could get Angron and 30 Berzerkers, which to me is an equivalent value and perhaps offers more fun over the long term for the money spent, but I bought it because I friggin' love me some Technodrome.

As someone who collects both Lego and Mega, saying Mega is "the budget Lego" does a huge disservice to Mega. The quality isn't noticeably different, though Mega has a lot more unique shaped pieces and their mini-action figures with their 12-13 points of articulation are leagues better than the Lego Minifig and I WILL die on that hill.

Mega used to be lower quality with the figures to be fair. I remember the Dragon Knight sets and the figures were gorgeous, but they had even less articulation than the regular Lego dudes (you couldn't rotate the hands) and their fingers broke really easily, on top of getting loose legs. If they ever updated that line, I'd be spending a lot of money on that.

I've held the Halo guys my nephews have, and while they FEEL flimsy they're a lot more durable than people give them credit for.