How have Gw price rises affected your purchasing habits?

[Overread]

19 minutes ago, gjnoronh said:

Large scale injection molding plastic casting is purely an industrial process meaning you are talking about setting up a factory line to run this.    Think long assembly lines and big machines.    It's not the kind of thing you are doing in your backyard.  It's largely factories in China that all the miniature manufacturers are contracting their work out to.   

Which is a big difference as GW only uses overseas factories - far as we are aware - for things like Endless Spells and terrain which typically have less fine details and can be one-time orders. 

Meanwhile all their regular miniature production is produced in the UK (In their Nottingham HQ  on the same site as Warhammer store etc...). So they do actually pay a premium for UK labour costs and such. They've actually built a new factory this year (not sure on its progress) to help them cope with tehir increased production. 

 

Note for those interested this video gives some idea of the injection moulding process

 

[novakai]

i can stomach some prices now but some of the new boxes like Blood of The Phoenix and the Necromunda box is getting quit agricious and concerning for me when it comes to the future. it has pretty much means order online and pay no shipping cost to get it at a discount. I wish to support my LSG and maybe I will do it through Magic the Gathering but not through GW products.

[Charleston]

The whole moulding process is in general a fascinating thing that show how little we know about gw´s numbers. In general, when a mould costs 100k, and you sell like 10k kits, each kit has a production cost of 10*currency*+further manufacturing and production costs. This would fit the gw prices quite well. Add up overhead costs for packaging, logistic, developement, marketing and a profitable margin and you end up quite fast at the current gw pricing.

But we do not know how many kits of something gw produces or sells. or how expensive the moulds are. It may be, that gw already started their own mould production a while ago. Or that it will be a part of the new plant. They seem to optimise this btw, and Shadowspear is a good example. A dual box, sold a lot, and the moulds are now still in use for SC!-Boxes. Looncurse was also only a small mould to be used for the heroes and reuse of existing moulds. Therefore dualboxes are a smart move by gw. This is also while I would expect the upcoming monopose sisters of battle to be reused, maybe for a SC!-Box in a year

[Panzer]

10 hours ago, Overread said:

They've actually built a new factory this year (not sure on its progress) to help them cope with tehir increased production. 

They said they plan to have it running this winter.

[Beastmaster]

3 minutes ago, Panzer said:

They said they plan to have it running this winter.

I foresee an expensive next year for all of us. 😄😎

[Overread]

1 hour ago, Beastmaster said:

I foresee an expensive next year for all of us. 😄😎

Honestly I think the its more just to help them continue at their current rate. Especially for overseas markets. It should see GW shoring up tehir overseas stock levels so that fewer plastic kits fall out of stock. I seem to recall that some regions have had a lot of trouble getting things like KO kits in general; whilst Daughters of Khaine have issues with the Blood Cauldron kit falling out of stock very fast. 

Shoring up their production and supply chain whilst giving them considerable head room to expand are both big things for GW if they continue even at half their current rate of releases. 

[Beastmaster]

Ok, but wouldn’t it make sense for them to, for example, have the goal of changing the whole AoS miniature range to modern plastic within the next year, once they have their new factory?

I would consider this goal quite achievable, seeing the sheer amount of new minis that came out this year. And I know what I would buy instantly... 😁

 

Edited November 6, 2019 by Beastmaster

[Overread]

4 minutes ago, Beastmaster said:

Ok, but wouldn’t it make sense for them to, for example, have the goal of changing the whole AoS miniature range to modern plastic within the next year, once they have their new factory?

I would consider this goal quite achievable. And I know what I would buy instantly... 😁

 

GW are certainly moving away from finecast and metal. Metal is too unstable a raw material in terms of price for GW to maintain as a major part of their casting process for the order volumes that they produce and work with. Smaller scale its easier, but with GW the amount they'd order in for mass production proved very vulnerable to massive price variations - which of course makes it much harder to budget for.

Finecast is a disaster of a material/casting system. Not sure what really failed on it - might be material or even the machines GW used. Whatever happened it just proves (even now) to be too unreliable for the high quality of castings that GW's customers desire at the mass production level.

Plus both of those and even if they went for a regular resin, are all labour intensive forms of production.

 

GW is clearly moving full steam toward plastics. For them I think its a balancing act between replacing and adding. AoS certainly has some armies in major need of updates - Skaven come to mind but also Ogors, Seraphon and several others still have big chunks of resin and metal. GW has updated pretty much all of the Chaos Demon armies over time. I think that they are now all plastic barring perhaps one or two hero's here and there. Slaves might also get a big update with further removals and replacements with their Tome. 

There's also some old plastics and we are setting GW update them too - heck just the other day we saw that they are replacing warriors and knights for Slaves to Darkness.

 

So it has been happening and is continuing to happen. I think its just a steadier pace. 

[EccentricCircle]

12 hours ago, Overread said:

Which is a big difference as GW only uses overseas factories - far as we are aware - for things like Endless Spells and terrain which typically have less fine details and can be one-time orders. 

Meanwhile all their regular miniature production is produced in the UK (In their Nottingham HQ  on the same site as Warhammer store etc...). So they do actually pay a premium for UK labour costs and such. They've actually built a new factory this year (not sure on its progress) to help them cope with tehir increased production. 

 

Note for those interested this video gives some idea of the injection moulding process

 

Really interesting watch, Thanks!

Does this mean that we've all been using the word "sprue" incorrectly? From his description it sounds as though what we call the sprues are actually the runners and in some cases the gates.

[Overread]

It might be but it could also be variation in terminology within the industry or even between the industry in different countries. You often also get simplification as you move down chains of learning. It might be easier for GW to say "remove the sprue" than "cut the gates which lets you remove the runners and the sprue from the model".

In the latter you have to learn 3 terms for an item that you're going to throw away; whilst the former might not be technically correct within the industry, but its good enough to communicate what is needed

[EccentricCircle]

1 hour ago, Overread said:

It might be but it could also be variation in terminology within the industry or even between the industry in different countries. You often also get simplification as you move down chains of learning. It might be easier for GW to say "remove the sprue" than "cut the gates which lets you remove the runners and the sprue from the model".

In the latter you have to learn 3 terms for an item that you're going to throw away; whilst the former might not be technically correct within the industry, but its good enough to communicate what is needed

Oh for sure! I just thought it was interesting to know the actual names for the various components of what I had previously assumed was a single "thing". As a Lego fan the discussion of how they avoid the various mold lines and gate marks was fascinating as well. I was aware just how high precision Lego's manufacturing was, but not the ins and outs of how it works!

[Rodiger]

This has wandered wildly off topic, but I found this interesting.

https://magalparts.com/why-are-injection-molds-so-expensive/

I still don't understand how that Land Raider mold cost £100,000, I'd really like to see a cost breakdown, just so I can understand it. That is a lot of money, you can buy a house for that.

I am assuming the price of mold production for GW must have gone down in the 10-15 years since that article was printed, and when they tool a mold they probably have a number of different kits cut into the same piece of steel. They cram so much into a single sprue nowadays, they must be maximising as much of the mold as physically possible,  you can tell the age of a kit just by looking at how much space is between bits.  

Anyway this should be in another thread if it is interesting enough to carry on with. 

[MitGas]

Well, I don't want to brag but so far price increases haven't bothered me. Yes, it's far from a cheap hobby and compared to fun stuff like videogames it feels terribly expensive to shell out the same amount for a few pieces of plastic but oh well... going out and getting a few good drinks or an expensive dinner is even more expensive if I think about how much enjoyment I get out of these things - good food and/or drinks are literally gone the next day and I can enjoy them over the course of a couple hours at most, a videogame or minis can last me days to weeks to years, depending on how long I tend to stick with them.

I always break down any kind of investment into just that: price per hour of fun. And with that kind of thinking it's not expensive anymore, really. I'd pay even more if I didn't have to clean mold lines.

What might have helped me though is to stick with one theme - 99% of the time I only buy Tzeentch stuff or something I can use with a Tzeentch force (that limits me to DoT/StD and 1kSons/CSM, both with daemons, respectively). Obviously there are other cool factions and models out there too but seeing how I'm a very slow builder/painter I already got too much. 

When I was younger I was a more impulsive buyer and owned a few armies. in the end I sold most of them off, not even having opened the boxes. i still got some stuff like a lot of Death korps of Krieg minis from FW that I never took out of their pack outside of inspecting the casts. That's where i was dumb. Now I know that I'm very, very slow (and purposeful) and stick to my true love, big T. And suddenly it's not a very expensive hobby anymore for me. 

[Overread]

Actually if you compare a top end computer or even a modern generation console - that's an army in cost before you can even play. In contrast many of the tools for wargames are pretty simple and cheap (even if you get them at Gw's inflated prices). Plus most (barring paints and glues) will last you YEARS. A new generation console might last you a handful of years before its replaced. 

Of course in contrast a new game might only be the cost of a few models and you can argue that your home PC does more than "just" play games. However in general I don't think the price difference between the two is all that great if you're buying new products. 

 

Heck I've got a harddrive failing (boo) and that's likely going to cost me as much if not more than a Great Demon of Slaanesh to replace. 

[KK9T]

It forced me to get a better paying job!

[feraxil]

I'm not affected by their prices. 

I either have it in my budget or I save this months hobby budget for next month and get it then.

[MitGas]

1 hour ago, Overread said:

Actually if you compare a top end computer or even a modern generation console - that's an army in cost before you can even play. In contrast many of the tools for wargames are pretty simple and cheap (even if you get them at Gw's inflated prices). Plus most (barring paints and glues) will last you YEARS. A new generation console might last you a handful of years before its replaced. 

Of course in contrast a new game might only be the cost of a few models and you can argue that your home PC does more than "just" play games. However in general I don't think the price difference between the two is all that great if you're buying new products. 

 

Heck I've got a harddrive failing (boo) and that's likely going to cost me as much if not more than a Great Demon of Slaanesh to replace. 

Indeed, very valid points - the cost of the consoles and/or PC have to be taken into consideration as well. At least nowadays you won't need a new computer every 2-3 years. I can remember the times when a PC was hopelessly outdated after like 3 years because specs got better so fast. Now I only got a MacPro (the trashcan) and for my work stuff it's good enough despite being far from perfect. I do play games on a WIN partition with it and most stuff runs reasonably well but I plan to buy a ridiculous gaming PC soon. It should light up like a christmas tree! And well, when I think what that'll cost me, Warhammer is suddenly  a less expensive hobby.

 

Edit: Oh and good luck with your hdd!

Edited November 8, 2019 by MitGas

[Mcthew]

Compared to some hobbies, this is one of the cheaper options, judging by the costs of say playing golf, mountain biking, photography etc. Although unlike some of those distractons, this hobby wont do anything for your fitness levels!

For value, comparing ours with those hobbies is like comparing apples with potatoes (not even pears, to be honest). The fairest comparison is with other entertainment hobbies such as console gaming:

We bought an Xbox One S last Christmas for our kids for the same price as 3 start collecting sets. For that you got a console and one game. That's one game that you'd soon get bored of (they did). So already AoS looks better value.

But then, what you don't realise is that you get all this free stuff when you buy a console. You get access to free TV content, movies, music, the internet, and the best games on the Xbox are free to play.

On average we use the Xbox between 10-15 hours a week, to watch films, TV and play games.
Compare that to AoS, where we spend about 5 hours a week on average, and that outlay on the Xbox is already looking like better value for money. Particularly if you take into account we've spent in the region of £500 so far this year on AoS, compared to £50 on games for the Xbox.

It's that casual nature that makes AoS poor value. If you spend 15+ hours a week on our hobby then it's pretty good value, but that depends on availability of local gaming groups, your love of painting miniatures, the love of the lore etc. The more time you invest the more the prices seem irrelevant.

The casual gamer doesn't or can't invest that time however, and so the price of the hobby is inflated.

So it's hard to get others to buy into this hobby. Parents will look at AoS and see eye-watering entry prices that does nothing to get their kids out of the house for physical exercise and is more expensive over months than console gaming (let's face it, your kids wont settle on a starter set - and competitive play is to AoS what Electronic Arts is to console gaming - pay to win).

But then, this hobby always was more expensive than console/computer gaming. Its apples and pears really. Console gaming wont fear GW - Warhammer is in a retail bubble all of it's own, which confounds business analysts. If there is any other comparison, it might be gambling, based purely on the addiction for the hobby (and those dice rolls!).

At least with our hobby, while it might cost you a house, a marriage or sanity, you get a nice display case of amazing plastic models.
With gambling you'd get nowt!😁

[Panzer]

On 11/8/2019 at 6:59 PM, Overread said:

Actually if you compare a top end computer or even a modern generation console - that's an army in cost before you can even play. In contrast many of the tools for wargames are pretty simple and cheap (even if you get them at Gw's inflated prices). Plus most (barring paints and glues) will last you YEARS. A new generation console might last you a handful of years before its replaced. 

Of course in contrast a new game might only be the cost of a few models and you can argue that your home PC does more than "just" play games. However in general I don't think the price difference between the two is all that great if you're buying new products. 

 

Heck I've got a harddrive failing (boo) and that's likely going to cost me as much if not more than a Great Demon of Slaanesh to replace. 

One army? That's either pretty optimistic or thinking in the past. My new PC isn't even top end, just really good and I could've easily bought two 2k point armies for the price (without monitors and such of course, just the PC itself).

[RuneBrush]

On 11/5/2019 at 9:44 PM, schwabbele said:

Wow, why is a plastic mould so expensive?

On 11/8/2019 at 4:49 PM, Rodiger said:

This has wandered wildly off topic, but I found this interesting.

https://magalparts.com/why-are-injection-molds-so-expensive/

I still don't understand how that Land Raider mold cost £100,000, I'd really like to see a cost breakdown, just so I can understand it. That is a lot of money, you can buy a house for that.

I am assuming the price of mold production for GW must have gone down in the 10-15 years since that article was printed, and when they tool a mold they probably have a number of different kits cut into the same piece of steel. They cram so much into a single sprue nowadays, they must be maximising as much of the mold as physically possible,  you can tell the age of a kit just by looking at how much space is between bits.  

Anyway this should be in another thread if it is interesting enough to carry on with. 

As @Overread says, we don't have up to date information from GW as to their manufacturing process.  That information comes from when they outsourced their plastic production to another company - which (if memory serves) they ended up buying so they could reduce the costs by doing production in house (this is when the ballpark figure of £50k per mold came from).  At that point GW began investing money into making the process as good as they could for producing plastic miniatures and the techniques and processes involved became closed to the outside world in case a competitor ripped them off (a bit like some restaurants have a "secret sauce").

What we do know is that each mold is made from two* solid lumps of very high quality stainless steel and machined using CNC machines.  The physical size of the sprue will affect the size (and cost) of the steel blanks and the complexity of the parts on it will affect the time it requires to machine.

Now you don't have to use stainless steel, other metals work and I'm sure I've heard that you can also use epoxy molds.  However they all are going to effect the quality of the end result.  If you think about the original AoS scenery which was produced in China, the quality wasn't very good at all and that was down to the material used for the molds not being a high enough quality to maintain a crisp edge.

Of course it's also worth bearing in mind that the cost of the mold is likely only a portion of the total investment put the product we buy.  You've the hours put in by sculptors, painters, games designers, artwork, marketing etc plus the physical overhead of things like business rates, heating and lighting.  It wouldn't surprise me if the actual Bonereaper release actually cost in the realm of 2 million all told.

* there are odd exceptions that use more - the Baneblade super heavy tank for example used more than two molds in order to achieve the holes in the gun barrels.

[Overread]

On the subject of overseas the new bonereaper endless spells (which from the shipping website "leak" we know were ordered from overseas") appear to be improving in overall quality and detail. Granted its not down to the really fine details that we see on models direct from GW, but I think they've certainly improved; esp from the earlier Malign Sorcery spells. Though granted most of those spells were somewhat more fantastical magical abilities and not as dense with fine details so that could be masking it. 

[Zadolix]

I work in an industry that is heavily involved in using different types of steel and CNC / precision machining it. I'd be amazed if the top and bottom mold slabs combined cost more than £25-30k MAX. If it's all being done in house with their own labour and machinery and not outsourcing the steel for machining then it's probably lower than that. These cost figures that are been quoted very much depend on whether it is the cost ONLY of the molds themselves or whether it is the broader cost including labour, machining, maintenance, building overheads etc.

Personally for me my spending habits have slowed down, I've got plenty of backlog to go at and plenty of painted miniatures to play with. And I've sold off a big ton of miniatures from backlog that are just sitting there. I take a much more disciplined approach now. Also having a display cabinet incentivises me to finish what I have rather than keep buying more.

[Fairbanks]

On 11/12/2019 at 5:45 AM, RuneBrush said:

As @Overread says, we don't have up to date information from GW as to their manufacturing process.  That information comes from when they outsourced their plastic production to another company - which (if memory serves) they ended up buying so they could reduce the costs by doing production in house (this is when the ballpark figure of £50k per mold came from).  At that point GW began investing money into making the process as good as they could for producing plastic miniatures and the techniques and processes involved became closed to the outside world in case a competitor ripped them off (a bit like some restaurants have a "secret sauce").

What we do know is that each mold is made from two* solid lumps of very high quality stainless steel and machined using CNC machines.  The physical size of the sprue will affect the size (and cost) of the steel blanks and the complexity of the parts on it will affect the time it requires to machine.

Now you don't have to use stainless steel, other metals work and I'm sure I've heard that you can also use epoxy molds.  However they all are going to effect the quality of the end result.  If you think about the original AoS scenery which was produced in China, the quality wasn't very good at all and that was down to the material used for the molds not being a high enough quality to maintain a crisp edge.

Of course it's also worth bearing in mind that the cost of the mold is likely only a portion of the total investment put the product we buy.  You've the hours put in by sculptors, painters, games designers, artwork, marketing etc plus the physical overhead of things like business rates, heating and lighting.  It wouldn't surprise me if the actual Bonereaper release actually cost in the realm of 2 million all told.

* there are odd exceptions that use more - the Baneblade super heavy tank for example used more than two molds in order to achieve the holes in the gun barrels.

Personally, I don’t think rising costs (thus rising prices) are coming from production.

There’s a Warhammer store in my town of 100,000 (which I’m exaggerating, since there’s another town of 100,000 10 minutes away). There is a massive sink cost involved with putting in stores everywhere.

[Malios]

I confess that the increasing prices over the past 10 years have made me downscale my GW related hobby from large army formats and regular 2000pt games to skirmish and smaller game sizes less frequently.

Without going into depth, GW are a unique beast in the wargaming market. Most wargaming companies don't or no longer:

-  Have brick and mortar stores
-  Have such a large media footprint, including access to regular, free painting tutorials
- Produce their own monthly magazine
- Edit, produce and publish their own novels and  audiobooks
- Sell their own artwork
- Produce their own paints range and hobby gear or,
- Produce their own terrain. 

There was a dark time when they didn't do those things and shot themselves in the foot, but GW now does all of those things. Their revenue is also larger then all of the other companies combined by an exponential degree: GW has no actual competition to balance the market. They don't conform to the pricing or business trends of the other companies: they ignore them. That's why GW get away with the prices they charge: no other wargaming company is in a position to really challenge them.

So I confess that I've moved to the smaller format games over time: Skirmish and Kill Team in particular. As GW's scale becomes larger and larger with bigger games requiring more expensive models then before, the smaller format has kept the hobby affordable for me and I can invest more effort into individual models for theme and conversion which I enjoy more these days. Gone are the days of forking out $1000+ on a single 2000pt army for a period of time before moving on to the next $1000+ army.

That's partly what drew me to AoS initially: it offered a smaller, more affordable scale compared to 7th Ed 40k or Fantasy before its retirement. This has largely been superseded now with AoS 2nd edition where alot of rules reward players for large hordes of miniatures.

So, I'm not out of the GW hobby: I respect their lore and setting, and respect their quality of miniatures compared to the competition. But, I disagree with some of their business practices. As a result, I've moved to their smaller scale gaming systems and have shifted to focusing more on enjoying the hobby aspect rather then the gaming. This is partly because I'm getting older, but also because I've dipped my toes into other companies and have seen what GW do well versus what they don't.

At the end of the day, we can only vote with our wallets. GW does alot of good for the industry, but there's alot they need to improve upon as well. 

[edit]

A few examples of what I mean by seeing the good and the bad in GW compared to other companies.

- For the entry price of fulfilling all of the minimum mandatory requirements for a Primaris Space Marine Battalion in 8th Ed 40k, I can purchase two complete 40 point armies for A Song of Ice and Fire Miniatures Game. ASOIAF's rules are free and updated regularly via their War Council app and the starter box includes all peripheries to play including 2D terrain markers to start off with. On the flipside however, CMON's distribution and support leaves alot to be desired compared to GW and the models, although they aren't bad, cannot compare to GW in quality.

- Corvus Belli have a highly structured tournament system (ITS) for both Infinity and Aristeia! Their rules are also updated regularly with annual season tweaks and mission updates which GW kind of copied the concept with the General's Handbook / Chapter Approved. However Corvus Belli does it for free, focusing your money instead on buying the models.

- GW makes some good paints and colours. Their washes and some of their technical paints are phenominal. However, their 12ml base and layer ranges are more expensive then Vallejo and Scale 75 who make far better paints in 17ml dropper bottles. Vallejo primer spray cans are also $14 a pop compared to $25 - $28 from GW. But again, citadel paints are widely available through GW brick and mortar stores as well as most independent stockists who sell GW: Vallejo and Scale 75 brand paints are not.

Edited November 16, 2019 by Malios
spelling issues.

[Rodiger]

Since I started this thread there has been 3 box set releases with eye watering prices, Feast of Bones, Necromunda Uprising and this Sister of Battle Army, (I have no interest in Sisters, but making a limited quantity boxed release, especially after 2 years worth of blogs following it, and the years of 'plastic sisters' comments, and then advertising when to get online to pre order it so you don't miss out, why make that box set limited? At least give it a decent run before it's broken down into separate units. What a reward for all your waiting. In Bird Culture that is considered a D... ...)

Anyway for me, all 3 have left the realm of reality in price and gone off to crazy land. I can afford these things, I could have bought all 3 if I wished, but it's like GW are trying to outdo themselves each week with the next insanely priced release. Some recent examples include the Underworlds Beastgrave Gift Set, Champions of Dreafane Collection, the two new 40k Start Collecting boxes taken from Shadowspear, which means the Shadowspear box had a saving of $15, the Tooth and Claw box set from last year was $195 saving.  

We can try and justify this to ourselves anyway we want, we can compare it to other hobbies, we can compare it to eating out at restaurants, we can talk about the production costs and the prices of injection molding, we can even claim that these things are 'great value' if we bought them separately, but the cost of them separately is so inflated anyway that it shows how brainwashed we are. But we are still buying it, the Sisters box sold out, so did the Feast of Bones and I've seen people being delighted with the Necromunda one.

Sorry I'm not sure where I'm going with this, I've just been scratching my head a lot over the last couple of months when the new releases come out and this weekend has been no exception, I'm not rage quitting or anything, but I'm certainly not spending anything at the moment.