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Except there’s of course more to economics than that.

Power bills can go up. In the UK, it doesn’t matter how your electricity is generated, there’s a central cap. At least for homes. Businesses appear to be “whatever we think we can get away with”.

As cost of living increases, you may need to provide comfortable pay rises for your staff.

Fuel costs going up means your shipping costs increase.

The cost of insurances can go up when your insurers underlying costs increase.

Whilst I don’t think this applies to GW specifically as it’s traditionally been credit shy? If the base rate goes up as a reaction to rising inflation, the cost of borrowing goes up.

And so on and so forth. There’s also no law or regulation I’m aware of which dictates one can only increase prices in-line with inflation.

We don’t have to like it, but we can be honest and not pretend this is something unique to GW.

Sorry but before this new crisis the latest batch of 40k minis, specially those tau took a wrong turn for me personally. With the idea that the new ed will be £200 I can say, my interest in adding plastic to my pile, for this kind of money is not on my agenda at all.

£29 for a tiny Votann dude is a nope! £67 for Twin lance thats just absurd.

So yeah they can rise as much as they want at this point, for any given reason they choose to. Not surprised but I'm not impressed.

 NAVARRO wrote:
Sorry but before this new crisis the latest batch of 40k minis, specially those tau took a wrong turn for me personally. With the idea that the new ed will be £200 I can say, my interest in adding plastic to my pile, for this kind of money is not on my agenda at all.

£29 for a tiny Votann dude is a nope! £67 for Twin lance thats just absurd.

So yeah they can rise as much as they want at this point, for any given reason they choose to. Not surprised but I'm not impressed.

The twin lance is sort of funny because people just told me "it's like buying 2 commanders which are £40 each".

Why is a £40 commander an ok price? And why is it ok to hand wave away the twin lance price as a derivative? Madness all round.

Dudeface wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:
Sorry but before this new crisis the latest batch of 40k minis, specially those tau took a wrong turn for me personally. With the idea that the new ed will be £200 I can say, my interest in adding plastic to my pile, for this kind of money is not on my agenda at all.

£29 for a tiny Votann dude is a nope! £67 for Twin lance thats just absurd.

So yeah they can rise as much as they want at this point, for any given reason they choose to. Not surprised but I'm not impressed.

The twin lance is sort of funny because people just told me "it's like buying 2 commanders which are £40 each".

Why is a £40 commander an ok price? And why is it ok to hand wave away the twin lance price as a derivative? Madness all round.

Its madness for sure and makes no sense whatsoever.

So in my cart theres wave 2 Votann to complete my army... its 1Kapricus, 1Heartshaker machine thingy and the new errr grant total 6 minis...£189 and thats with the current nice prices. I mean I had some £600 to waste on whatever and did not pull the plug because I just dont see how so few minis should cost so damn much. Im having more fun buying other brands paints than GW minis and thats even before the new price adjustments for new edition or oil or whatever.

Well, there's hidden costs in designing 40k figures that simply don't apply to the competition, not to mention economies of scale. The more you sell, the higher your cost per unit, as we all know, so GW really can't compete with, for example, WW1 anteaters that Wargames Atlantic can sell at $40 for 24

Billicus wrote:
Nah, they already have a very healthy margin and make absurd profits, they could absolutely eat the short-term spike in costs if they chose to. We're just used to being mistreated.

GW have limited room to absorb costs before shareholders will expect corresponding price increases. Blackrock & friends don't care how 'mistreated' we feel... they'll either dump the stock or insist on board changes to ensure Number Still Goes Up.

So long as sales stay up that will remain the case. You'll only see them relent once it's clear that customers won't keep paying.

I wonder if this last wave has been a bit of a flop. I like a lot of the concepts - but the prices have got silly, to the point of being offputting.

An Eldar Corsairs army for instance would not merely add to the pile of shame, it would be a comically expensive pile at that. Near £30 infantry characters is bonkers. Near £40 for 5 basic infantry guys.

But I can't say whether that's a "me thing" or a "wider market thing".
I find it interesting for instance that some stores are clearly sitting on a lot of copies of the Red Corsairs/Eldar Corsairs boxes. But others are not. In times past that would suggest a lack of buyers. But I can't say whether that's just because some stores overbought.

I'll bring up the characters again, because that's where I think GW really gouge people. But its important because it also undermines a lot of these bonus boxes.
So people have suggested a GW starter in 11th at £200 might not sell. I think it might - provided it gives you around £400-500 of minis, and a respectable proportion of that £400-500 is in "real units", not because you get 6-8 characters who are totally worth £30-40 each, we promise.

Tyel wrote:
I wonder if this last wave has been a bit of a flop. I like a lot of the concepts - but the prices have got silly, to the point of being offputting.

An Eldar Corsairs army for instance would not merely add to the pile of shame, it would be a comically expensive pile at that. Near £30 infantry characters is bonkers. Near £40 for 5 basic infantry guys.

But I can't say whether that's a "me thing" or a "wider market thing".
I find it interesting for instance that some stores are clearly sitting on a lot of copies of the Red Corsairs/Eldar Corsairs boxes. But others are not. In times past that would suggest a lack of buyers. But I can't say whether that's just because some stores overbought.

I'll bring up the characters again, because that's where I think GW really gouge people. But its important because it also undermines a lot of these bonus boxes.
So people have suggested a GW starter in 11th at £200 might not sell. I think it might - provided it gives you around £400-500 of minis, and a respectable proportion of that £400-500 is in "real units", not because you get 6-8 characters who are totally worth £30-40 each, we promise.

Well the rumoured contents list is definitely not what I'd consider £400-500 worth. Given that the bulk of it will be in a later "starter box" for a lower price.

I like how my comment that we're mistreated gets put in look-how-silly-this-is quotation marks and people write long posts explaining market forces and hey-theres-no-law-against-it, while meanwhile GW continue to do their thing. Kind of just proves my point. We are so very used to it.


GW's best way to breach the "£200 starter set" ceiling would be to do faction starters instead, like they already did for Old World. £200 for 11th ed starter might give some sticker shock but people would totally fork over £120+ for a combat patrol sized set for their faction and a rulebook.

Dudeface wrote:


The twin lance is sort of funny because people just told me "it's like buying 2 commanders which are £40 each".

Why is a £40 commander an ok price? And why is it ok to hand wave away the twin lance price as a derivative? Madness all round.

Commanders are also really expensive but at least they come jam packed with options. Twin Lance has effectively none.

 NAVARRO wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:
Sorry but before this new crisis the latest batch of 40k minis, specially those tau took a wrong turn for me personally. With the idea that the new ed will be £200 I can say, my interest in adding plastic to my pile, for this kind of money is not on my agenda at all.

£29 for a tiny Votann dude is a nope! £67 for Twin lance thats just absurd.

So yeah they can rise as much as they want at this point, for any given reason they choose to. Not surprised but I'm not impressed.

The twin lance is sort of funny because people just told me "it's like buying 2 commanders which are £40 each".

Why is a £40 commander an ok price? And why is it ok to hand wave away the twin lance price as a derivative? Madness all round.

Its madness for sure and makes no sense whatsoever.

So in my cart theres wave 2 Votann to complete my army... its 1Kapricus, 1Heartshaker machine thingy and the new errr grant total 6 minis...£189 and thats with the current nice prices. I mean I had some £600 to waste on whatever and did not pull the plug because I just dont see how so few minis should cost so damn much. Im having more fun buying other brands paints than GW minis and thats even before the new price adjustments for new edition or oil or whatever.

Yeah. Im amazed that GW is doing as good as they are with the prices of these models. Everytime im tempted to start an army nowadays i just break out laughing when i realised how much it would cost.

But I do wonder if its only me that's getting more stingy with my money, since i remember paying 10$ for 2 metals minis 25 years ago...

Tyel wrote:
I wonder if this last wave has been a bit of a flop. I like a lot of the concepts - but the prices have got silly, to the point of being offputting.

An Eldar Corsairs army for instance would not merely add to the pile of shame, it would be a comically expensive pile at that. Near £30 infantry characters is bonkers. Near £40 for 5 basic infantry guys.

But I can't say whether that's a "me thing" or a "wider market thing".
I find it interesting for instance that some stores are clearly sitting on a lot of copies of the Red Corsairs/Eldar Corsairs boxes. But others are not. In times past that would suggest a lack of buyers. But I can't say whether that's just because some stores overbought.

I'll bring up the characters again, because that's where I think GW really gouge people. But its important because it also undermines a lot of these bonus boxes.
So people have suggested a GW starter in 11th at £200 might not sell. I think it might - provided it gives you around £400-500 of minis, and a respectable proportion of that £400-500 is in "real units", not because you get 6-8 characters who are totally worth £30-40 each, we promise.

I really dont know about other people and I assume that due to current 40k popularity that the new ed boxes will sell well. Just from my small perspective, £200 set is not for me, regardless if theres real units or a few characters. Yes when its character heavy its quite visible the absurd lack of value, but I would have more pleasure to spend say £50 in four months in things that I actually want, than on a preset of push fit minis. Not even mentioning Blood angels and Orks are not even on my radar of interests.
Also 3 years is not long enough life for a new book.
Basically with a price tag of that size I will be extremely picky about the "value" and guess what, GW starter is not that special.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Cost of oil to produce a box of models doubles from 20 cents to 40 cents, price of box goes up by 5-10 GBP, it's basic economics.

I think its worse than that, frankly their pricing doesn't seem linked to the cost of production at all - there's no link between price and volume of plastic involved. Indeed as has been pointed out, single figures often go for more than packs of five or ten.

As much as GW dress up price increases being down to various global events, inflation or anything else, the reality is GW sell thier stuff based on what people will pay for it, not what it costs to make. It's priced based on demand, not production costs. As prices go up, demand falls off, but there's always a sweet spot price where you maximise profits, and GW are always looking for that spot

Personally? Been very in to GW since around 98, but the army boxes / battleforces are the only thing I buy now, and even those aren't reasonable but they at least sit okay emotionally just because everything else is ludicrous.

Why would they price on the cost of production? They charge what they think will make them the most money.

deano2099 wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Cost of oil to produce a box of models doubles from 20 cents to 40 cents, price of box goes up by 5-10 GBP, it's basic economics.

I think its worse than that, frankly their pricing doesn't seem linked to the cost of production at all - there's no link between price and volume of plastic involved. Indeed as has been pointed out, single figures often go for more than packs of five or ten.

As much as GW dress up price increases being down to various global events, inflation or anything else, the reality is GW sell thier stuff based on what people will pay for it, not what it costs to make. It's priced based on demand, not production costs. As prices go up, demand falls off, but there's always a sweet spot price where you maximise profits, and GW are always looking for that spot

HIPS is a material with extremely high upfront costs and relatively low costs to churn out multiple copies of things. What that means is there's considerable profit in things you can sell a huge number of, but significant risk in things with lower sales. That's why characters cost as much as they do and why GW often tries to bundle them in with other models and even to a certain degree why so many other faction releases all get bundled with marines. The reason most games don't use HIPS is simply that they don't sell enough copies to be able to afford it. GW obviously does, but they still do a lot of things to mitigate the potential for less popular stuff to fail to pay for itself and justify the machine time it takes to produce.

deano2099 wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Cost of oil to produce a box of models doubles from 20 cents to 40 cents, price of box goes up by 5-10 GBP, it's basic economics.

I think its worse than that, frankly their pricing doesn't seem linked to the cost of production at all - there's no link between price and volume of plastic involved. Indeed as has been pointed out, single figures often go for more than packs of five or ten.

As much as GW dress up price increases being down to various global events, inflation or anything else, the reality is GW sell thier stuff based on what people will pay for it, not what it costs to make. It's priced based on demand, not production costs. As prices go up, demand falls off, but there's always a sweet spot price where you maximise profits, and GW are always looking for that spot

Welcome to capitalism. At least GW aren’t using sweat shop labour to make “designer” trainers for pennies, before selling them for hundreds. Or as was the case with my formerly beloved Doc Martens, moving production to another country (fine, doesn’t bother me) and switching to a much lower quality leather (absolutely does bother me) and still putting their prices up.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Except there’s of course more to economics than that.

Power bills can go up. In the UK, it doesn’t matter how your electricity is generated, there’s a central cap. At least for homes. Businesses appear to be “whatever we think we can get away with”.

As cost of living increases, you may need to provide comfortable pay rises for your staff.

Fuel costs going up means your shipping costs increase.

The cost of insurances can go up when your insurers underlying costs increase.

Whilst I don’t think this applies to GW specifically as it’s traditionally been credit shy? If the base rate goes up as a reaction to rising inflation, the cost of borrowing goes up.

And so on and so forth. There’s also no law or regulation I’m aware of which dictates one can only increase prices in-line with inflation.

We don’t have to like it, but we can be honest and not pretend this is something unique to GW.

We have GW financial numbers. They have literally a profit margin of +30%. Like Apple. They can absolutely eat some reduction in that.

But after COVID companies have just found that people will eat price hikes with the most vague of excuses. After opening some Wargames Atlantic boxes and seen the amount of detailed sprues, cheaper than a 3 man space marine kit with 3 small sprues... lets stop making PR talk for GW, yes?

Ogre Gluttons where 28,5€ when released back in 2006 if I remember correctly. Or something like that, I have the old white dwarf. They where 32,50€ in 2020. They are 51,50€ now. The same box with the same 6 ogers and a couple of gnoblars.

 streetsamurai wrote:
<<SNIP>>
Yeah. Im amazed that GW is doing as good as they are with the prices of these models. Everytime im tempted to start an army nowadays i just break out laughing when i realised how much it would cost.

But I do wonder if its only me that's getting more stingy with my money, since i remember paying 10$ for 2 metals minis 25 years ago...

I say its both. I feel the prices are eye-watering in their own right, even compared to other hobbies now.
Add in having the memory of what they used to be relative to other costs, and its a double hurdle.

 skrulnik wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
<<SNIP>>
Yeah. Im amazed that GW is doing as good as they are with the prices of these models. Everytime im tempted to start an army nowadays i just break out laughing when i realised how much it would cost.

But I do wonder if its only me that's getting more stingy with my money, since i remember paying 10$ for 2 metals minis 25 years ago...

I say its both. I feel the prices are eye-watering in their own right, even compared to other hobbies now.
Add in having the memory of what they used to be relative to other costs, and its a double hurdle.

I agree, and not just hobbies, I gravitate towards paintings etc and professional grade materials, paints etc are quite pricy... A GW army and paints etc is not far off and in fact if you do it right you will get ridiculous amount of hours of painting art with prime materials for less than GW plastic hobby.
Even professional activities are competitive when looking at GW value for money.
The problem I see is that now GW pace of releases and prices increases means a much bigger commitment in money and time, that starts to compete with any professional activity. Unless you do it for a living it makes less and less sense to commit to any of it.

We have an updated slate.



Just off to edit the OP.

Vorian wrote:
Why would they price on the cost of production? They charge what they think will make them the most money.

Economically speaking, the cost of production is part what determines the shape and slope of the supply line on the supply and demand graph. So while it doesn't determine the price, which should be the equilibrium point of supply and demand, it is correlated.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NAVARRO wrote:

 skrulnik wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
<<SNIP>>
Yeah. Im amazed that GW is doing as good as they are with the prices of these models. Everytime im tempted to start an army nowadays i just break out laughing when i realised how much it would cost.

But I do wonder if its only me that's getting more stingy with my money, since i remember paying 10$ for 2 metals minis 25 years ago...

I say its both. I feel the prices are eye-watering in their own right, even compared to other hobbies now.
Add in having the memory of what they used to be relative to other costs, and its a double hurdle.

I agree, and not just hobbies, I gravitate towards paintings etc and professional grade materials, paints etc are quite pricy... A GW army and paints etc is not far off and in fact if you do it right you will get ridiculous amount of hours of painting art with prime materials for less than GW plastic hobby.
Even professional activities are competitive when looking at GW value for money.
The problem I see is that now GW pace of releases and prices increases means a much bigger commitment in money and time, that starts to compete with any professional activity. Unless you do it for a living it makes less and less sense to commit to any of it.

That's only really true in a 'chasing the dragon' kind of way. If you buy a killteam, spend 10 hours painting it and then just like...use it for fun games with your friends, that's a perfectly reasonable time investment for a fun little art project.

We can criticize pricing to hell and gone, sure, but if you're investing professional level time, that's because you're engaging with it in a 'professional level' way. To that I say: Stop playing Space Marines.

Daughters of Khaine have had 3 new models since 2019. It's not unreasonable to expect you to be able to handle a terrain kit and a single new unit after 7 years of nothing. In fact, my assumption would be you're EAGER to get that terrain kit and new unit.

I have enough Daughters of Khaine stuff to play every legal permutation of the army against every other legal permutation of the army at 2000pts. Nothing about the hobby demanded I do that. I can't blame GW for the time investment that a completely unreasonable amount of models takes. The same way a Space Marine player can't blame GW for a new unit of Intercessors or whatever, especially considering that CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, new Space Marine units are arse 4 times out of 5.

Great argument, until GW squats your army.

The time issue is a big one. Both in terms of what value you get out of the product - but also in easing the cost. I think a case can be made that buying codexes in 2026 is a bit of a waste of time, and has arguably been for years. They are probably a good marketing tool especially for new players - so GW is unlikely to get rid of them. But when you've got a 3rd/5th/7th/8th/9th/10th codex sitting next to each other, you do feel like this was a waste of money. And paper.

I've historically spent something like £75-100 every 3-4 months or so. Which may sound like a lot compared with £0. But in terms of... most other hobbies I can think of, its not all that much. A Saturday out in London with friends these days can easily cost me more than that. Most computer games want £60 plus inevitable extras.

In terms of the £200 box. Stick a 20% FLGS discount on it for £160. Put the respective halves on Ebay for say £90 (and something for the rules that may or not sell). Even if you are quite suspect on the value of characters, that's probably not too bad. I guess I didn't bother with Tyranids this time round - but its the reason I have some Necrons and Plague Marines.

Billicus wrote:
Great argument, until GW squats your army.

There are ways to somewhat insulate yourself against this- unfortunately, not all of them work for everyone.

As an example: Don't play with people who won't let you use Legends. It's easy for me to say that as a dude that's a home player. But what a lot of people do like about the hobby IS the larger community of pick-up games in stores, etc. and for them it might not be an option.

Another one: Lot's of folks complain about load out changes invalidating their WYSIWYG armies because they painted each legal unit in addition X as a mini-diorama with shared object/source lighting and squad markings and basing.

If they HADN'T done all that stuff, it would be a lot easier to go "Oh, crap... Only one special per unit now- guess I'l swap my secondary special guy for a basic trooper that I used to include in a different unit." But again, if painting and model design is critical to your enjoyment of the hobby, it ain't easy to build and paint all your dudes as individuals just so you can combine them in ways that are legal for the edition-du-jour.

Personally, doing these things to mitigate the potential for a squatted army is well worth it... But everyone has different attitudes and opinions, and everyone values and prioritizes the various aspects of the hobby based on those preferences... So there are always going to be some people who can't enjoy the game to it's fullest potential unless they take those risks.

And it's also worth mentioning that these mitigation strategies, even if you are willing to embrace them, won't protect you 100% of the time.

At this point I suspect the main purpose for Codexes is keeping distribution channels open. It's a regular, physical product that the existing players at a store are likely to buy in reliable numbers that it is easy for a FLGS to stock and make a profit off of. That keeps them ordering from GW's distribution which means they are stocking models and paints and the rest. It just shields distribution from lulls created when there's not product local players are excited for for whatever reason.

The main reason of the Codex is to sell the new release, as GW found out that they sell more models if there is a physical book released at the same time than without a book release

and their distribution doesn't work that way as stores cannot really decide what they order but must order specific items from GW to get access to the full catalogue
They keep ordering from GW because they must order otherwise they won't get anything and not-stocking GW isn't an option in the wargaming sector

Codex are also a great catch-all product. Having art, lore, painting and rules all in one means that all 4 of those fanbases have a reason to want to own a Codex.

Furthermore it means each fan who comes for one thing (often rules) has the others thrust upon them without choice.

If you split those up then people would only go for the one thing they "need" and would ignore the rest. Consider how many people are die-hard fans but only ever read lore in the codex/rule book and never a black library novel.


It's a fantastic product that existing fans buy up in great numbers and new fans get hooked on and turn into long term fans.

ERJAK wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NAVARRO wrote:



I agree, and not just hobbies, I gravitate towards paintings etc and professional grade materials, paints etc are quite pricy... A GW army and paints etc is not far off and in fact if you do it right you will get ridiculous amount of hours of painting art with prime materials for less than GW plastic hobby.
Even professional activities are competitive when looking at GW value for money.
The problem I see is that now GW pace of releases and prices increases means a much bigger commitment in money and time, that starts to compete with any professional activity. Unless you do it for a living it makes less and less sense to commit to any of it.

That's only really true in a 'chasing the dragon' kind of way. If you buy a killteam, spend 10 hours painting it and then just like...use it for fun games with your friends, that's a perfectly reasonable time investment for a fun little art project.

We can criticize pricing to hell and gone, sure, but if you're investing professional level time, that's because you're engaging with it in a 'professional level' way. To that I say: Stop playing Space Marines.

Daughters of Khaine have had 3 new models since 2019. It's not unreasonable to expect you to be able to handle a terrain kit and a single new unit after 7 years of nothing. In fact, my assumption would be you're EAGER to get that terrain kit and new unit.

I have enough Daughters of Khaine stuff to play every legal permutation of the army against every other legal permutation of the army at 2000pts. Nothing about the hobby demanded I do that. I can't blame GW for the time investment that a completely unreasonable amount of models takes. The same way a Space Marine player can't blame GW for a new unit of Intercessors or whatever, especially considering that CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, new Space Marine units are arse 4 times out of 5.

To the point underlined thats what I mean, the pace of GW full armies releases, codex/new edition updates, plus the size of a full 40k average army requires time and money commitment that grossly surpasses a free time weekend hobby slot. It becomes a serious investment that competes with most part time or even full time professional projects. This is exactly why Im not on board with it and makes no sense in my simplistic opinion.
People already mention squatted armies and I felt that with my deleted Stromcasts or savage orcs in the flesh, they also invalidated full systems like WFB.
But yes I agree that a small kill team or necromunda can give you plenty of enjoyment and yes good value in my book... But I cant say the same for 40k full army or new edition every 3 years. I cant for the life of me find time to paint full armies in short time frames.
It's not a hobby anymore it feels like a premium expensive mad rush and you are always behind. Opposite of hobbies.

That's why I prefer 500 point battles to to 2k games.