The weird state of AoS Forgeworld

[Nullius]

3 hours ago, EccentricCircle said:

This is fascinating. I'd never considered that the elements of modern models which you describe might be anti-counterfeiting measures, but now that you've pointed it out, it makes so much sense! No wonder they are in love with very thin strands and tiny little details these days!

Indeed. It began when they first decided to do forge world sized kits in the end times. I imagine there was a long discussion about resin recasting, 3-d printing not yet being widely available. realizing that the recasting market grows in feasibility as the price tags on the large models go up, they had to find a solution. I would imagine the CEO at that time was rather fanatical about it.

The embedded skulls throughout all the end times releases (on Archeaon  and the Mortarchs -for example) are impossible to recast without flaws and bubbles and the support of Archaon on his tale and Nagash on his swirling spirits would sag under its own weight in resin.

with more contemporary kits there is the addition of design elements that would be too brittle with 3-d printing technology, hence Lumineth Spears, the Nighthaunt range, and all the fiddly bits on models like mortarion or Avelenor.

 

modern Warhammer figs can ONLY be achieved (for now) with high temperature, high pressure injection molded plastic and large steel molds machined to precise tolerances. GW, who spend an inordinate amount on R&D for a toy company, hold proprietary patents that allow them to achieve models that other companies cannot yet match (I’m not speaking of aesthetic qualities, but of technical qualities). Nobody in the market can produce a model like Lady Olynder-for example. She would be nightmarish to recast in resin and would collapse in the process of removing the supports if you 3-d printed her. In either case you would have a flawed, obvious, and extremely delicate, reproduction.

Edited December 20, 2020 by Nullius

[Greybeard86]

15 hours ago, Nullius said:

I agree with much of what you’re saying, but the simple fact when it comes to using price as a justification for stealing is that no matter what the price point it, recasters will be able to beat it.

That's simply not true, in this case. Recasters do not have the volume of production, nor the whole logistics + production chain optimization that GW can rely on.  Simply put, it is far cheaper for GW to produce the kits than it is for recasters, in general, even though the latter do not need to pay for the true development costs of the product. You do not need to believe me, GW is publicly traded and you have information on their margins. Knock offs are a viable business mostly based on some kits with outrageously high prices; when it comes to typical plastic kits, the "savings" are far slimmer.

It is the same for 3D printed stuff, with some people saying it will kill the hobby. Printing at home minis is only viable because GW has monopoly levels of prices, it is extremely inefficient to print models with a home 3D printer machine. Again, it looks "cheaper" because of the very high margins GW is putting on the models, but GW can produce those minis at far cheaper prices.

Quote

they can do so because they didn’t incur the expense of employing the artists or writers and do not need to rent the warehouse space. They didn’t establish the IP, or the publishing house, and they didn’t pay for the marketing or the digital infrastructure.

Does not matter, even accounting for this GW is operating at eye watering margins.

Quote

the large models in the main plastic line sidestep this issue by designing the models in such a way that can only be recreated with proprietary injection-molded plastic technology, and that proprietary tech is safely kept in the factories in the UK and NOT overseas where it would be stolen and replicated. (The intentional difficulty of recasting gives us the ubiquitous fiddly bits and unusual weight distribution  that almost all the large kits now have).

And honestly, I dislike those types of models. They are prone to breaking, difficult to transport, and often "overdesigned". There is a middle ground between chunky pre-rogue trader and the cowboys (literally, cow boy), and for my taste it was the mid to late 2000s.

Edited December 20, 2020 by Greybeard86

[Overread]

What logistics to Recasters need? FW itself is already a major niche market and the postage and packaging for a recast is a price passed directly onto the customer. It would only become an issue if the recaster was shipping in bulk and I doubt there are many in the wargaming world who would buy resin models in bulk like that. 

Heck FW didn't even use GW's logistics for years and years. They relied on domestic shipping and whilst it wasn't cheap it was actually cheaper than when they entered GW's logistics system for overseas trade (there was a BIG complaint about that because GW marketed it as cheaper FW and then bumped all the prices up by converting them in-house for overseas instead of the straight £ conversion rate which FW had used for years before when using domestic shipping).

 

Another point to consider is many recasters are in nations where man-hours are typically far less in cost. Resin is more labour intensive than plastic casting so if anything the recaster is again able to undercut GW's costs by paying less per hour for resin produced than FW has to pay per hour for resin produced in man hours. 

 

Again GW might have greater margins, but I'd still wager that the actual cost to produce is less for a recaster than for FW. It's just that the margins are wide enough that the recaster can undercut the price and still make a good profit for themselves. 

[Greybeard86]

18 minutes ago, Overread said:

Again GW might have greater margins, but I'd still wager that the actual cost to produce is less for a recaster than for FW. It's just that the margins are wide enough that the recaster can undercut the price and still make a good profit for themselves. 

There are many things that become far easier and cheaper when you do them in bulk and recasters do not have access to that (nevermind the constant switching of addresses for legal reasons, the stigma of the knock off, inconsistent demand, and a lot of other things). If it is actually more expensive for GW to produce FW kits than for a recaster, then either the market is extremely niche (so that economies of scale don't kick in, and for that we'd be talking about very low volume) or GW is managing FW extremely poorly.

Just FYI, there is far more to logistics than the part where you ship it to the final consumer.

Edited December 20, 2020 by Greybeard86

[Nullius]

3 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

There are many things that become far easier and cheaper when you do them in bulk and recasters do not have access to that (nevermind the constant switching of addresses for legal reasons, the stigma of the knock off, inconsistent demand, and a lot of other things). If it is actually more expensive for GW to produce FW kits than for a recaster, then either the market is extremely niche (so that economies of scale don't kick in, and for that we'd be talking about very low volume) or GW is managing FW extremely poorly.

Just FYI, there is far more to logistics than the part where you ship it to the final consumer.

Most recasters are operating out of their garage and selling a few score kits a year. They are trying to make a quick buck typically in a country where it goes far and there is no enforcement of IP. (Russia, China, etc) There are many recasters, at least a few hundred active ones, particularly a few years back when big forge world kits were highly prized. They are not running a business, just parasitizing somebody else’s work for fun and profit.

economy of scale is effective for plastic after selling a thousands of kits. For resin the manufacturing process is slower with a higher fail rate, (as high as 1/4) and there is overhead. Also, the sort of scale your talking about requires storage space, which is also expensive continuously. there are also fewer customers for a given product. How many Imperial Titan customers do you suppose there are in the world? A few thousand is probably on the right order of magnitude. So we have a few hundred active recasters making a few score large kits annually, and a customer base of a few thousand for, say, a reaver Titan. that will take a bite out of forge world’s very niche business.
 

No matter how cheap the kits are priced, recasters in developing countries will always be able to beat the price so long as the shipping cost doesn’t become overwhelming.

what you’re arguing is that people don’t generally steal, say, books from a Barnes and Nobel because they could never successfully  operate their own illegal Barnes and Nobel bookstore with what they manage to steal. Running a bookstore isn’t their goal.

 

while Games Workshop is indeed a profitable company, it’s not because they are unfairly pricing their toy monsters. Lol. The company has a few distinct advantages. One is that as a company they don’t accrue debt.
 

Consequently they spend dramatically less on servicing debt than any company of similar size would. (servicing debt is typically a massive operating cost for any business) They also don’t advertise, probably because advertising is usually funded with debt arranged on prospective business growth and they hate debt. The company has almost NO middle management, having disassembled all their regional offices over a decade ago and putting entire continental regions under the control of individual directors. The stores have almost no staff, nearly each shop being run by one person with a great deal of automation for inventory and management. When the company exceeds the margins called for in order to pay stock dividends for the fiscal year,  and to put up cash flow for its next development cycle, the company gives the excess profit back to the staff and store managers, enhancing loyalty and keeping qualified personnel often for five years or more. (Many store managers work for the company basically for life). They also offer a wildly generous benefit package by the standards of, say, American companies -so the retention rate for managers with families (most, eventually) is higher and training costs are consequently  lower.
 

the Black Library and licensing the IP are the most purely profitable portions of GW, model. Online sales of 40k in the US is behind that, then sigmar, then a tier lower is sales from actual stores (much less profitable because of rent, upkeep, salaries and benefits) and then sales from trade accounts (less margin on the sale but no overhead for GW aside from managing the trade accounts regionally). Forge world sales are a distant last in profitability, with some exceptions (Horus heresy did VERY well for a while. Not so much anymore). 
 

the company expects each of these branches to turn a profit, as they prefer not to run any part of the company at a loss. Different divisions of the company operate at different expected profits. Cash flow is the key though, because if one division is operating at a loss and cash flow is impacted then again debt rears its ugly head. GW has never failed to pay dividends and despises debt.
 

the company is actually exceedingly well-run, in my experience. (It wasn’t always, btw).   Forge world as a business model (hand sculpted kits in poured resin) is probably simply coming to an end. It’s too niche, the hand sculpting process is too slow compared to autocad (occupying an artist potentially for months on a single large model) and too easy to rip off. 
 

The specialist games have been hugely successful, by comparison. Forge world has done a lovely job with Necromunda, with aeronautica, Titanicus, and with Blood Bowl, and they’ve all been hit and produced at scale. They are beautiful little rules sets and such a pleasure to build and paint. No doubt Battlefleet Gothic is in the pipeline, third edition Necromunda, Blood Bowl

is in its new edition already, and probably epic eventually. This is where forge world is heading. The big old resin kits, I predict, will be gone in a couple years aside from the Titans and a handful of other superheavies. 

Edited December 20, 2020 by Nullius

[Nullius]

5 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

. There is a middle ground between chunky pre-rogue trader and the cowboys (literally, cow boy), and for my taste it was the mid to late 2000s.

I agree. This was a great time for model design. The kits were hand sculpted but the studio had developed for a generation and become extremely good at it. I just painted Wulfrik the Wanderer and an old Archeon and I adore them.

That being said, By comparison, the company was catastrophically badly run in the mid to late 2000’s and nearly lost their collective hats. There were even rumors of selling the company after ‘08. The changes that were made organizationally were what turned the company into a profit engine.

[Greybeard86]

8 minutes ago, Nullius said:

economy of scale is effective for plastic after selling a thousands of kits. For resin the manufacturing process is slower with a higher fail rate, (as high as 1/4) and there is overhead. there are also fewer customers for a given product. How many Imperial Titan customers do you suppose there are in the world? A few thousand is probably on the right order of magnitude. So we have a few hundred active recasters making a few score large kits annually, and a customer base of a few thousand for, say, a reaver Titan. that will take a bite out of forge world’s very niche business.

No matter how cheap the kits are priced, recasters in developing countries will always be able to beat the price so long as the shipping cost doesn’t become overwhelming.

No one is arguing that FW doesn't take a hit from recasters. The point of contention is whether someone in a garage can produce GW kits of a a similar quality at a lower cost than GW systematically. The answer to that question is, in general,  a resounding no. Recasters are a thing because GW finds it more profitable to still price high and lose some costumers to recasters than to adjust prices more competively.

Granted, it is easier for recasters to compete with GW on resin than plastic stuff, and on big pricey models than on more competitively priced smaller ones. That is not necessarily because they are better from a cost perspective at producing those kits, but rather because their hit and run tactics work better for those models.

If you want a recent example that illustrates how high prices are: other legit companies are also pricing their not-Gargants very competitively against GW. Do you believe those companies can produce not-Gargants cheaper than GW? I don't think so.

8 minutes ago, Nullius said:

while Games Workshop is indeed a profitable company, it’s not because they are unfairly pricing their toy monsters.

"Unfairly"? No, they are pricing them "high" because they have market power. That is what is making them profitable, very large margins on their core products.

You can tell me that they are amazing at running their company, in your opinion, but truth is I don't honestly care that much about it. Great, GW runs their company well and can produce dividends and growth for the myriad of investment funds that own it. I simply don't care about that, I care about the product they produce, their customer service, their prices, their rules, and the impact the have on "the hobby" more generally.

The product is, IMO, decent, with some kits better than others (I love the new goblin models); their customer service is good, their prices are very high (not competitive), and they are too dominant in the hobby for my taste (and in the past very aggressive against competitors). So, mixed bag for me as a consumer.

This is not the story of a company owned by hobby enthusiasts that barely breaks even and is getting torn to shreds by knock offs. This is an investment fund owned corporation that has a large share of a highly concentrated market and has a "high prices" policy that reflect that reality. I do not like knock offs in general, but I do hope that they get assaulted by new companies putting out good product; competition is good for me, a consumer.

[SunStorm]

Not all shareholders are investment funds. I got myself some shares. I mean I spend so much money on my hobby anyway, at least I can now say I'm helping my share holdings

[Nullius]

I can understand that, but it’s also worth mentioning that excesses of annual profit are not reinvested or rendered as massive bonuses to the company’s officers, but rather are given back to the employees of the company in a totally even split (something unthinkable to an American publicly traded company). Additionally, the company takes steps to keep the lion’s share of its manufacturing in the UK and pays its employees a living wage with excellent benefits. I understand that doesn’t necessarily effect you as a consumer, but certainly if the company were intensely fixated on profit margins and made all their decisions from that position,  then working for the company would be much more akin to working for GameStop or Bestbuy or whatever (miserable and without benefits to speak of), and they would cut quality and manufacture overseas where labor laws are weak and the pound goes further.  
 

competition is a good thing, but IP theft is something else entirely. A pet peeve of mine, frankly. I find it’s effect on the hobby objectionable. The silly naming conventions of Warhammer for example, or the overly baroque models, - and in this particular case the disappearance of large models from Forge World- are common objections to the current line, and they all have their genesis in defense against IP theft. It feels like the need to avoid this cost of doing business impacts the design and direction of the hobby, and constrains the artists. I find this frustrating. The cost of the models impacts me less, personally, but I understand this is a major concern for many.

I suppose there is not really any hint to be done about recasters, but I always feel a need to point out how recasting ultimately negatively impacts the hobby as a whole.

 

•  

Edited December 21, 2020 by Nullius

[Greybeard86]

That glowing review of GW made me curious about working conditions there:

https://www.careerbliss.com/games-workshop/salaries/

https://www.indeed.co.uk/cmp/Games-Workshop/salaries?job_category=sales

Pay does not seem to be stellar or above average, I do not know about the benefits (I suppose this will matter more in the US). Your very positive outlook, may I ask where it comes from?

Is IP theft the real reason for naming changes? This is a funny story, since essentially GW universes are, at its origin, one giant copy paste of fantasy and science fiction themes. The popularity of warhammer then made it appealing for others to copy, and the inability of GW to defend as their own the IP they had copied themselves let to the current naming horrors. I do understand though that by now they have developed a warhammer flavor and that they want to protect that. I wonder, though, what would have happened to them had those IPs been as zealously defended when they were starting. 
 

I don’t know what would have been of the hobby had GW not snow balled into the current corporate behemoth. But, in any case, my personal pet peeve is the harmful effects of overly dominant companies on prices, products, wages, and in general our day to day. I do honestly believe that cross compatibility, more serious focus on the actual product and games and less on hype, those are things that will benefit the hobby. So for every mega gargant release, I hope that more and more companies go into feeding frenzy and undercut them. I wish kings of war success, as they are more centered around the rules. I want other skirmish games to do well, so that they force GW to rethink what they are doing with theirs.

This is not GW hatred, I probably will end up buying the GW sculpt a lot of the times. I just believe that competition is what keeps companies honest, and that GW is overly comfortable at the moment. Nice exchange, by the way! I also want to thank the mods for allowing it.

 

[RuneBrush]

@Greybeard86 probably just worth pointing out here that GW's public margins aren't anything to do with the margin/markup on models - they're the companies profit margins (which is the difference between revenue from sales exceeds business costs).  The actual markup/margin GW make on a miniature kit is a pretty closely guarded secret.

2 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

Is IP theft the real reason for naming changes? This is a funny story, since essentially GW universes are, at its origin, one giant copy paste of fantasy and science fiction themes. The popularity of warhammer then made it appealing for others to copy, and the inability of GW to defend as their own the IP they had copied themselves let to the current naming horrors. I do understand though that by now they have developed a warhammer flavor and that they want to protect that. I wonder, though, what would have happened to them had those IPs been as zealously defended when they were starting. 

There was, what shall we call it - an "incident" a few years back where GW and one third-party ended up in court in the US.  The details have been covered in depth in other parts of the internet, but suffice to say that neither party had what you'd call a definitive win and it resulted in a fairly sizable shift where GW now secures it's IP a lot more aggressively both in names and styles.  It also highlighted the difference in IP laws between different countries.

There is a whole philosophical debate on originality (which isn't specific to AoS - or in fact GW - so won't go down that road).

3 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

I don’t know what would have been of the hobby had GW not snow balled into the current corporate behemoth. But, in any case, my personal pet peeve is the harmful effects of overly dominant companies on prices, products, wages, and in general our day to day. I do honestly believe that cross compatibility, more serious focus on the actual product and games and less on hype, those are things that will benefit the hobby.

There's been a few interviews with various former GW staff over the years.  I believe it was Rick Priestly said in one that GW either had to become a "company" or stay as a small hobby business and risk vanishing into obscurity or being bought out by somebody else.  GW does have a tremendous reputation within UK as a good employer too.  The base wage isn't the greatest (though I've been told they're not awful for Nottingham), however there have been regular company bonuses, good holiday, sick pay, things like a subsidised canteen (at HQ), gym (also at HQ), achievement awards, evenings out and a staff discount.  They also appear to have been really fair during the first UK lockdown, where all staff were paid on full wages whilst being furloughed.

3 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

So for every mega gargant release, I hope that more and more companies go into feeding frenzy and undercut them. I wish kings of war success

I hope that other companies put as much time effort and money in and produce their own alternatives that people are prepared to pay a similar price for.  This is what the smaller companies need to compete with GW.

[Overread]

I should note GW didn't just pay staff full wage during the first lockdown; they paid off their entire Government furlough money during the gap between lockdowns. One of GW's smartest moves has been to avoid holding debt in any form. It might cost them more in the short run, but it leaves them in a powerful position when things do slow down because they retain control over their entire expenditure. If they have to cut things they can cut things to make a saving and keep going. Meanwhile firms that have massive loans can't just cut out those loans and repayments so they are forever a huge weight on the firm. Fine when things are doing well; a huge burden that can drag them down to nothing when economic times take a downturn. 

It might well be that if GW took out loans instead of using profits to reinvest, they might well be able to retain their margins whilst lowering their prices to the consumer because of rapid expansion offered by investment. However it would be a time bomb ticking potentially away when things took a turn and slowed down. 

 

Whilst we might lament GW's prices, we can't deny that the firm is in a very robust position right now. Which honestly its a good thing for us because it means that GW continues to be able to produce what we love to play and engage with. 

[Greybeard86]

1 hour ago, RuneBrush said:

@Greybeard86 probably just worth pointing out here that GW's public margins aren't anything to do with the margin/markup on models - they're the companies profit margins (which is the difference between revenue from sales exceeds business costs).  The actual markup/margin GW make on a miniature kit is a pretty closely guarded secret.

I don't need to know that, it would be a complex cost accounting exercise that would be ultimately pointless: we know they have, overall, high margins.

1 hour ago, RuneBrush said:

There is a whole philosophical debate on originality (which isn't specific to AoS - or in fact GW - so won't go down that road).

I wouldn't call it "philosophical", it is pretty well established what the early references for 40k and fantasy were. It was an exercise of picking those themes and putting them in a grotesquely hyperbolized universe. 30+ years later, here we are, talking about orruks, aelves, and ogors (though I refuse to use those names).

1 hour ago, RuneBrush said:

There's been a few interviews with various former GW staff over the years.  I believe it was Rick Priestly said in one that GW either had to become a "company" or stay as a small hobby business and risk vanishing into obscurity or being bought out by somebody else.  GW does have a tremendous reputation within UK as a good employer too.  The base wage isn't the greatest (though I've been told they're not awful for Nottingham), however there have been regular company bonuses, good holiday, sick pay, things like a subsidised canteen (at HQ), gym (also at HQ), achievement awards, evenings out and a staff discount.  They also appear to have been really fair during the first UK lockdown, where all staff were paid on full wages whilst being furloughed.

No idea. It is my understanding that a large fraction of the employees are in retail, hence the relatively low wages. If they have good benefits, I am happy for them. I was just curious because of what the other poster said, that made it sound like some sort of "cooperative enterprise" as opposed to a more typical large corporation. So I did some digging, I have no prior on this and I am not looking to bash the company for the sake of it. It is, nevertheless, a mistake,  to think that successful business can only be monopolies or large dominant corporations. Those are the more profitable forms for the owners, but most certainly not for the consumers.

1 hour ago, RuneBrush said:

I hope that other companies put as much time effort and money in and produce their own alternatives that people are prepared to pay a similar price for.  This is what the smaller companies need to compete with GW.

I disagree. Smaller companies attempting to be GW, lacking its brand recognition, first mover advantage, and already established market dominance, will likely fail. Most likely, they need to capitalize on the hype, price more aggressively, and deliver "better" products wherever they can. Rules are an easy one, since those are not necessarily a matter of "investment" but rather an issue of priority setting. So, go Kings of War! And I wish all the best to the folks of 9th age.

38 minutes ago, Overread said:

Whilst we might lament GW's prices, we can't deny that the firm is in a very robust position right now. Which honestly its a good thing for us because it means that GW continues to be able to produce what we love to play and engage with. 

It is most definitely not true that the success of GW equates that of the hobby. Market dominance is a b**** and there is a reason why we spend so much effort trying to fight it. I want GW to do well insofar they deliver what I want, but I also recognize that they need a severe ****** kicking for them to price more competitively and put more care in the "gaming" side of their products.

[Nullius]

58 minutes ago, Overread said:

I should note GW didn't just pay staff full wage during the first lockdown; they paid off their entire Government furlough money during the gap between lockdowns. . 

And they paid their entire US staff through the lockdowns with no US federal government policy of any kind on the offer to defray those costs, nor any tax incentives to continue employing their entire staff to stay home with full benefits for the employees and their families.  
 

1 hour ago, RuneBrush said:

@Greybeard86 probably just worth pointing out here that GW's public margins aren't anything to do with the margin/markup on models - they're the companies profit margins (which is the difference between revenue from sales exceeds business costs).  The actual markup/margin GW make on a miniature kit is a pretty closely guarded secret.

 

Precisely what I was trying to explain to this fellow. The relentlessly profitable history of Games Workshop has mostly to do with excellent cash flow, a firm belief in avoiding corporate debt, a lack of advertising expenditure (marketing done entirely in house and by the web team), and an extremely lean and cheap management structure overseeing a large sales operation with a bare minimum of oversight.

 

5 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

That glowing review of GW made me curious about working conditions there:

https://www.careerbliss.com/games-workshop/salaries/

https://www.indeed.co.uk/cmp/Games-Workshop/salaries?job_category=sales

Pay does not seem to be stellar or above average, I do not know about the benefits (I suppose this will matter more in the US). Your very positive outlook, may I ask where it comes from?

GW is overly comfortable at the moment. Nice exchange, by the way! I also want to thank the mods for allowing it.

 

Indeed! Well I suppose we are behaving like ordinary gentlemen and not hurling profanities at each other, so good for us! Haha

I am a previous employee of GW, with a fairly detailed knowledge of the company’s operations, the parameters of its business model, and it’s philosophy towards its employees. It was, along with the US Marine Corps, one of the leanest, most rational, and best run organizations I’ve had experience with. I have taken a great deal of GW’s best practices and philosophy  into management of my own businesses.

Edited December 21, 2020 by Nullius

[Greybeard86]

12 minutes ago, Nullius said:

I am a previous employee of GW, with a fairly detailed knowledge of the company’s operations, the parameters of its business model, and it’s philosophy towards its employees. It was, along with he US Marine Corps, one of the leanest, most rational, and best run organizations I’ve had experience with. 

I think they have been grown to be a very profitable and dominant company in the market. It is a pity that, in some cases, the interests of the consumers are not well aligned with those of GW. When they are, I cheer for them. Certainly pricing and other marketing strategies they have are not in our best interest.

In any case, here stands the dwarf (not duardin), grumbling over prices and the fact that Bugmansson's is worse than good old Bugman's.

[RuneBrush]

8 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

I don't need to know that, it would be a complex cost accounting exercise that would be ultimately pointless: we know they have, overall, high margins.

You've been talking about the margins in a number of your comments as if it were the margins they make on miniatures which is why I made the comment that the margin you're talking about is the overall company profit margin - that includes everything from computer game franchises to the beer they sell in their HQ.

17 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

I wouldn't call it "philosophical", it is pretty well established what the early references for 40k and fantasy were.

I meant more that the references originally drawn upon weren't original in themselves.  Tolkien features heavily in many fantasy works, but many of his ideas were iterations of other ideas.

11 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

30+ years later, here we are, talking about orruks, aelves, and ogors (though I refuse to use those names).

I'd suggest you may wish to revisit this opinion because this is an Age of Sigmar forum and that's the names they go by.   There's no problems with the odd slip here or there, but a downright refusal won't be looked kindly upon 😉

[Nullius]

4 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

I think they have been grown to be a very profitable and dominant company in the market. It is a pity that, in some cases, the interests of the consumers are not well aligned with those of GW. When they are, I cheer for them. Certainly pricing and other marketing strategies they have are not in our best interest.

In any case, here stands the dwarf (not duardin), grumbling over prices and the fact that Bugmansson's is worse than good old Bugman's.

Haha well this sort of grumble is an honored tradition as old as the hobby itself! In any event I’m off to work. Have a nice one brother and merry Christmas in advance! Stay safe out there.

[Greybeard86]

1 hour ago, Nullius said:

Haha well this sort of grumble is an honored tradition as old as the hobby itself! In any event I’m off to work. Have a nice one brother and merry Christmas in advance! Stay safe out there.

Well said, wish you a good one too (and to the rest of the community).

[EccentricCircle]

18 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

Well said, wish you a good one too (and to the rest of the community).

You see, this sort of exchange is why this forum is such a fantastic community!

[stratigo]

On 12/19/2020 at 7:15 PM, Nullius said:

Indeed. It began when they first decided to do forge world sized kits in the end times. I imagine there was a long discussion about resin recasting, 3-d printing not yet being widely available. realizing that the recasting market grows in feasibility as the price tags on the large models go up, they had to find a solution. I would imagine the CEO at that time was rather fanatical about it.

The embedded skulls throughout all the end times releases (on Archeaon  and the Mortarchs -for example) are impossible to recast without flaws and bubbles and the support of Archaon on his tale and Nagash on his swirling spirits would sag under its own weight in resin.

with more contemporary kits there is the addition of design elements that would be too brittle with 3-d printing technology, hence Lumineth Spears, the Nighthaunt range, and all the fiddly bits on models like mortarion or Avelenor.

 

modern Warhammer figs can ONLY be achieved (for now) with high temperature, high pressure injection molded plastic and large steel molds machined to precise tolerances. GW, who spend an inordinate amount on R&D for a toy company, hold proprietary patents that allow them to achieve models that other companies cannot yet match (I’m not speaking of aesthetic qualities, but of technical qualities). Nobody in the market can produce a model like Lady Olynder-for example. She would be nightmarish to recast in resin and would collapse in the process of removing the supports if you 3-d printed her. In either case you would have a flawed, obvious, and extremely delicate, reproduction.

I hope them making fiddly bits isn't to defend against printing or recasting because the fiddliness of some models is infuriating to try and work with. Breaks so darn easy.

[zilberfrid]

I've noticed that 1 Vorgorath is about equal to 672 infantry, 112 cavalry, 15 commanders and 18 artillery in a Perry army deal (28 mm).

Together with barely existing rules in the game, and models dropping from sale without a notification, FW doesn't need recasters to be a bad option.

[NinthMusketeer]

I just want to know if Legion of Azgorh will be continued or cut. I want to make the army and am willing to pay for it but as things stand I don't know if that army would be invalid in 6 months. 

[Greybeard86]

19 hours ago, zilberfrid said:

I've noticed that 1 Vorgorath is about equal to 672 infantry, 112 cavalry, 15 commanders and 18 artillery in a Perry army deal (28 mm).

Together with barely existing rules in the game, and models dropping from sale without a notification, FW doesn't need recasters to be a bad option.

It really is insane how much they think they can target high end consumers with FW.

[zilberfrid]

21 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

I just want to know if Legion of Azgorh will be continued or cut. I want to make the army and am willing to pay for it but as things stand I don't know if that army would be invalid in 6 months. 

Yeah. We know it's not really a 2.0 book, but it is not yet in compendium state. GW does not have a good track record in admitting something will be cut (like chaos familiars or some 30 kits and warscrolls july 2019), and communication for FW is worse than the main line.

[Enoby]

I think, far and away, the constant threat of squatting is what stops me buying into FW. 

Even if they released a fantastic looking massive Slaanesh dragon, I don't think I'd buy it at the expected price point because I wouldn't trust GW to not turn it into an nice looking but otherwise useless statue  few years after its release.

To be honest, I don't know how easy or hard it is to produce rules for a faction or model and keep it updated. It seems easy enough, but I could easily be overlooking something. Regardless, for the price I pay for a FW model, I expect it to be updated in the rules and in points in line with the other GW armies.