Rodiger

Personally for me the real issue is that compared to 2 years ago, the same models are considerably more expensive now. I haven't seen an increase in quality from 2 years ago to warrent that price increase and at the same time there has been record profits. Other hobbies don't change that. A model/game that I thought was ok priced 2 years ago looks nothing more than a rip off now because I remember it's previous price. GW may have a good reason for price increases, I don't know what that is though and I feel just ripped off. I could purchase anything I wanted every week, however I choose not to. I suppose a lot of this debate is our own personal opinions in what is worth a certain amount of money. For instance I also play guitar and my regular expenditure would be strings. I buy expensive strings because I've tried many brands and I believe the best ones are actually the most expensive, if they went through a period of quick price rises however I may change the brand if I no longer thought they were worth the new higher price for the same item. Same for this. I also play computer games, I've won the treble on Champ Manager with Darlington. I've built amazing cities on Sim City, and I've bred competitive Pokemon, none of that is a physical thing, but it was much more memorable than painting a tactical squad of Space Marines that are now in a box in a cupboard.

Around 2 years a go I thought GWs prices were reasonable for these things. The original Kill Team starter I thought was quite well priced, as was the first Necromunda box, Blood Bowl and Shadespire. I bought all of them, some just because I was prepared to take a chance and there was a lot of stuff in the box. Now after 3 price rises, they look awful. I bought War Cry last year and I thought that was a bit too much. Now all of these things are less stuff for more money. I'm no longer prepared to take a chance on stuff like this or impulse buy it. Everything in the box has to be of worth for those prices. If the prices were less I'd spend more. As is I'm spending nothing. The new Hero Quest is 150 pounds with all the stretch goals that include 2 expansions. That is a much better deal than this.

Yeah, I think you're right. I'm quite excited to do other things. I have about 3 other projects I'm interested in doing.

I've hit some what a brick wall with my desire to paint this month. I've painted my Bloodbowl Humans black and washed them. I really have no desire to do any more painting on them. I'll be lucky if I do this months challenge. There are other projects I want to start, getting quite burnt out on painting Blood Bowl teams. Just don't really want to abandon painting them, I dread I'll never go back. I've painted over 50 Blood Bowl models this year. Still got around 25 to go.

That looks class! Love the sheild too.

Sorry I don't agree that this builds community, it just sounds like all the other bland statements other large companies make about their social media, which the cynical part of me just believes they have them to drive up more revenue than actually caring what their customers do. The guys who work in the GW shops do a tremendous job and they should be classed as the community. It's a tough gig as they have to mix in the high pressure sales too, but once they are past that you can see the communities that revolve around the shops That is a seperate but concurrent issue I have with GW in 2020. I'm not happy about price rises, but this would still be an issue even if they had lowered the prices. This post was never supposed to be about prices, I've said my views on that in other threads, this is just about what I thought about the style and purpose of Warhammer Community.

I was writing my reply as you were writing yours, I did kind of address this in my post but to be specific, no GW have no right to just cater to my desires, and yes some people might like the high pace or releases, I remember a time when this wasn't the case though and I much preferred the slower release schedule. Also as I was trying to say, it's pretty hard to ignore, even if you don't visit the site. I also don't live in the U.K, I think we live in the same country actually, I started off with none of this and found all of these things much much cheaper.

Well it seems that a lot of people like Warhammer Community and I have rubbed some people up the wrong way. I don't really get these arguments saying they are a company with their own site to push sales so I should just accept that, and I shouldn't point the finger and say I've had enough of their sales drive. My interaction with that site is on a Monday morning to see what is coming next week, that's it. Pre community that used to be revealed on the Saturday when they went up or the in the White Dwarf. That was enough for me, didn't need the week long hype. Google's algorithms do like to stick articles in my suggested news feed. I don't read anything else on there. But being the big dog, what they do is then talked about everywhere and you can't ignore it. It's like news sites and the U.S, I am not American,I don't live in the U.S, and I have absolutely no interest in their news, but news sites from every country stick U.S headlines on their front page, so you can't miss it even if you have no interest at all. That article is maybe the straw that broke the camel's back, I don't like the tone of how it is being all chummy and matey, but it is trying to sell absolute rip offs, just comes across as a sleazy conman. I'm guessing they have a lot of stock and the message came down they need to sell some of it off so get something on the website. Even if you are completely new to this hobby would you buy any of that. They want to sell things, fine, just don't write it like they are your friend. It's like seeing those 'reviews' on sites that have to have the 'paid advertisement' written into them. Some of the comments have me wondering about what the actual audience of Warhammer Community is supposed to be. Due to the high prices, I'd say the main target of their advertising would be middle class well off men in 30's 40's, but their articles are written with teenagers in mind. Maybe it's just a scattergun approach. I have never felt any sense of community from that website, I've always felt like the target of a sales pitch.

I know the purpose of Warhammer Community has always been to sell GW products, White Dwarfs always has been. What do I want from it? Maybe just to slow down and stop for a bit. I suppose I've just had enough of the hype train it creates, that is then copy and pasted around the web, then dominates all the conversations, and is rammed in your face. It's relentless in pushing the pre order one week, then casting aside as soon as the next pre order is revealed. Rinse and repeat. It won't be a surprise, but I don't read much on there, due to it being marketing, not liking the style it's written in and not finding the other things that interesting. If people like it then that's fine. I didn't really use to have a problem with it, I knew what it was there for, just having the lockdown break from it, made me realise that I actually don't like it.

I am aware it exists to sell things, that was kind of the point, it was the way they are presented that I had a problem with. Which is also why I questioned should it have the word community in it's name, community suggests a two way relationship, not just reading articles designed to sell you things. Isn't that their job, regardless of how hard they work, it's not a charity after all.

Recently I've been getting quite tired of Warhammer Community**. When the U.K went into lockdown and GW had to roll back production etc. it broke up a never ending cycle of product hype and marketing that had been going for years. It made me step back and realise that all the articles about the new release are just marketing, they aren't helpful free things, they are just there to sell the new release, all the different previews whether they are rules, fluff, painting all have the same core message, buy, buy, buy. It was so nice to have a break from it all. Even if you don't go on Warhammer Community a lot of other websites just copy and paste the articles.*** This article is a good example. https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/10/12/hobby-at-home-getting-started/ It starts off talking about how people are experiencing difficult times and then goes into 'instructional advice'**** how to set up a hobby area and find space to play in. But really all it is doing is trying to sell some of the worst priced items GW make.***** It creates a problem then solves it with a link to buy one of their products. I did a quick count there are 18 links in there to buy things, the cost of the hobby items alone is £150. "Experiencing hard times? More free time because you lost your job due to the global pandemic? Well your good friend Warhammer Community's got you covered, with expensive hobby items you don't need."****** The writing style of Warhammer Community is also especially inane.******* The constant use of asterisks is completely unnecessary and quite annoying. It was a joke that was mildly amusing on one article.******** Also the constant use of 'we've got you covered' which just means spend more. I know White Dwarf is designed to sell products, but it does occasionally have some interesting content in it. It isn't all just marketing. Sorry, I know the site rules, topics shouldn't just be complaining, and I have been doing a bit of that recently, maybe I should take a break from posting for a bit. That article rubbed me up the wrong way, and I just think GW are taking the Mick********* out of their customers at the moment with their record profits, record price rises, record new prices. Any shine has rubbed off 'New GW' and Warhammer Community has been a big part of that. I think they are being exposed for the greedy company they are and not the matey one they try to trick you into thinking they are. I'm starting to miss the 'Old GW' where they didn't communicate with the community at all. Am I wrong? Have I got the wrong end of the stick? Does Warhammer Community actually deserve the word community in its name? * replace 'your helpful friend' with 'cynical marketing under the guise of being your friend.' ** Community maybe the wrong word for advertising. *** free hype! Actually just a bad joke that you had to scroll down to read. **** it's not instructional or advice ***** no it's not the Mega Gargant, that's already being sold in the first sentence. ****** you can find better alternative for free lying around your house. ******* god these are annoying aren't they. ******** joke is maybe too strong a word, I don't think a physical smile crossed my face. ********* ****

Not to get into an online tit for tat, I think Necromunda would be fine off the sales of the gangs, weapon upgrades and the scenery. The rules for the original version are free and people can use the new models etc for that. Personally I've stopped buying rule books. I have a shelf full of books that are pretty much useless rules wise. Army books are great as a 1 off purchase if you like the Army, the fluff, art, pictures are all wonderful, but the next editons book largely just repeats all this and you only get a few pages of updated stuff, and Army books are expensive compared to books. And that few pages of new content just isn't worth the money for me to buy a new one. Yes you get the rules, but the rules have a life span, they get an FAQ pretty quickly then updated again in a yearly book that you also have to purchase. And after all of that you're lucky if you get more than 2 years out of it. The 40k indexes were great. When I play 40k I just use them, I'd much prefer that model of rules release, but much cheaper.

Then there were suckers like me who bought the base game and all the Gang War books, all were so badly written that as soon as the hardbacks came out they were basically retired as un playable. I spent quite a lot on badly written useless rule books, it would have been nice if GW had offered some sort of discount on the hardbacks for people who were stupid enough to buy them and support the game in its early stages. But no, we were expected to buy them again. I refused, that pdf was a lot more usefull than my official rule books were. No one made me buy them, but I wanted to play the game and was excited for each as it came out, anf I got stung for it. I have no issue with people using that pdf. They seemed like the smart ones to me.

Maybe another thing that hasn't been mentioned, is to be content with what you have already. If you've been doing this most of your life then you must have a sizeable collection. The only things we really 'need' are things like paints as they run out. New armies etc are just things we desire. If you are a tournament player then maybe, try win with what you have. If however you just really want that model, then wait a while, see if you still want it, sell some stuff you don't want if you have too. I don't know what kind of priced out you are. Is it can't afford it, or not willing to pay for it? I would say I've been priced out, but it is because I am just refusing to pay that price for stuff nowadays, I've been burnt on expensive books with short life spans too many times and I never impulse buy anything any more. The only spending I do do goes on things with a limited shelf life like Blackstone Fortress. If it is a permanent thing then it can stay on the shelf until I will be using it. I think I would have bought a lot more this year if we hadn't had 2 price rises. I would have gotten a 2nd Lord of Change, but I refuse to buy it because it had a huge price rise just so all the Greater Deamons could be the same price. The Mega Gargant looks great, but no way am I going to pay that much for it. If it was more in line with an Imperial Knight I may have bought one at some point. And we are still in the middle of a pandemic, things are ok now for me, but who knows what this winter will bring, Warhammer is an expensive luxury. The fable about the ant and the grasshopper I think is very relevant right now. Personally I've cut spending on every expensive luxury and I'm trying to save.

I've got my eye on a bookcase, I have the room for it. The Missus is the big stumbling block though. She's not the biggest fan of my warhammer hobby and she is pretty anti me buying one.