Getting Priced Out

[Greybeard86]

7 minutes ago, Scurvydog said:

GW is enabled by things like store policies of GW only models for warhammer and those players who refuses to play against proxies and are wysiwyg purists, even if it costs them a much larger community to enjoy the hobby with.

I never understood that mentality in tournaments (I understand why GW stores do it, of course). As long as you give your opponent a list and nothing is confusing, demanding that a gargant is a true GW garant (tm) seems like throwing stones on our own roof.  Same goes for WYSIWYG and the need to magnitize everything, or end up using sculpt variations you dislike for that. I wish more conventions for avoiding this would be adopted, as players only stand to win by it.

You are right that current prices reflect market dominance.

[Aeryenn]

29 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

To sum it up, just keep your cool and don't spam the buy botton (swatting my hand away from a 300 bucks NIB Giants of Albion set).

This is one way to put it. So far if I liked a model, I just hit the buy button. Prices seemed ok to me. If now, the very same company charges me twice as much for pretty same product I feel uncomfortable. I run a shop myself (jewelry) and it never crossed my mind to suddenly double the prices without any good reason. I would just lose customers. GW is rising prices in time of coronavirus, when most people suffered from economic lockdown. I don't get it. I'm sorry but I won't support this. It just feels wrong to me. People interested in 3d printing know how little it costs to produce these kind of miniatures. GW is making like 500% profit on every single model and they still think that's not enough. Well, I do. I'm not buying until they come back to normality.

Edited October 7, 2020 by Aeryenn

[Clan's Cynic]

11 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

I never understood that mentality in tournaments (I understand why GW stores do it, of course). As long as you give your opponent a list and nothing is confusing, demanding that a gargant is a true GW garant (tm) seems like throwing stones on our own roof.  Same goes for WYSIWYG and the need to magnitize everything, or end up using sculpt variations you dislike for that. I wish more conventions for avoiding this would be adopted, as players only stand to win by it.

You are right that current prices reflect market dominance.

I think a lot of tournaments want Daddy GW's official backing, or at least to be noticed, therefore do everything they can not to risk it by allowing proxies. It's probably also why 40k is also seeing a push towards only using official Citadel(tm) terrain, with the 'tournament ruleset' to match, because GW know that's the attitude among a lot of places - or at least, want it to be.

Edited October 7, 2020 by Clan's Cynic

[Overread]

6 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

I never understood that mentality in tournaments (I understand why GW stores do it, of course). As long as you give your opponent a list and nothing is confusing, demanding that a gargant is a true GW garant (tm) seems like throwing stones on our own roof.  Same goes for WYSIWYG and the need to magnitize everything, or end up using sculpt variations you dislike for that. I wish more conventions for avoiding this would be adopted, as players only stand to win by it.

You are right that current prices reflect market dominance.

It's about achieving a consistent visual image which in turn is about communicating with your opponent silently during the game. 

It's a lesser issue for AoS because most models only have one or two very distinct weapons to choose from - things like a sword or a spear or a duel handed sword or single handed sword. Basically really big and obvious different weapons. So you can easy proxy in another one handed sword because you just need a sword.

In 40K its different because there are multiple different weapon types for some units, its not just a gun its a specific type of gun. Your opponent wants to be able to see if its a plasma or a lasgun at a glance without having to confirm every single time. Furthermore it helps both players remember which units is where on the table, especially if you run several units of the same type but with slightly different loadouts. 

It's all about visual information and information tracking in the game. There are also practical limits, most players need to see unit type and weapon type; upgrades and such are typically not required because they might be invisible (bionics); easily mistaken (marines have seals on a lot of models so seals don't stand out); might be practically not  visible (eg grenades on a warriors hip). Furthermore its simply impractical from a collecting point of view since some units have a lot of upgrades and the number you'd need to own to have options would be insane. I've known some who do model everything, but its a neat thing not a required thing. 

 

 

And people do allow conversions for different weapons so long as its clear what is what. If your plasma gun looks identical to the lasguns then people are not going to be happy. It's not that you can't play its that its not clear information and its open to cause confusion (either player forgetting which is which). 

 

Like I said its an issue more so for 40K and less for AoS since AoS tends to have far bigger differences visually between weapons and far fewer of them in general for most kits. 

 

 

[Overread]

2 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

I think a lot of tournaments want Daddy GW's official backing, or at least to be noticed, therefore do everything they can not to risk it by allowing proxies. It's probably also why 40k is also seeing a push towards only using official Citadel(tm) terrain, with the 'tournament ruleset' to match, because GW know that's the attitude among a lot of places - or at least, want it to be.

The Terrain push is more from GW than events, but yes the big events would like to get picked up and marketed for free by GW because it makes a vast difference to their event getting noticed. Plus, esp in the USA I notice, there's also a desire to have "perfect" matches and GW terrain at least allows for GW to issue pre-deisgned board systems which are in theory balanced (or at least the bias is in GW's end of things rather than the Tournament Organiser etc....). 

The vast majority of events will just go with what is easy and if GW is making high grade easy to use terrain many places will steadily pick it up to use

[Greybeard86]

15 minutes ago, Overread said:

It's about achieving a consistent visual image which in turn is about communicating with your opponent silently during the game.

While it would be neat to be able to have everything perfectly coherent with the army list, I think that it is a bit much once we consider the meta swings, the addition of new models, and the fact that this precludes completely 3rd party options (which will never be 100% identical).

There are many creative ways to identify units on the table without strict WYSIWYG . For example, you could place them in a base next to the unit (a pile of weapons), or at the feet of the champion of the unit, or in a drawing and attached to the standard, or with a standard bearer next to them that is just a marker, or printed in a piece of plastic that you leave next to the unit. The possibilities are endless, and arguably some pretty cool visually. It reminds me of the old discussions about unit fillers in oldhammer. It is not a necessity, to have the exact same models, and the current fairly strict rules go too much, for my taste, in the way of making it hard for players.

At the end of the day, allowing for 3rd party options and loser representations (not strictly WYSIWYG) does require some work on tournament organizers and players. But I believe that if we all made that effort  it would help expand the tournament scene, and in general the hobby. Surely GW could use a bit more competition

 

[Greybeard86]

35 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

I think a lot of tournaments want Daddy GW's official backing, or at least to be noticed, therefore do everything they can not to risk it by allowing proxies. It's probably also why 40k is also seeing a push towards only using official Citadel(tm) terrain, with the 'tournament ruleset' to match, because GW know that's the attitude among a lot of places - or at least, want it to be.

Yes, of course. And tournament organizers often being companies carrying the GW product themselves makes them very vulnerable to that sort of pressure. That's why I love when there are strong "intitutionilized" player organizations. GW should do what they do best, gorgeous models and over the top narratives. Players need to stand up a bit for themselves when it comes to playing with the models

[Gotz]

On the wysiwyg topic, I think its important on a tournament space, since you want to minimise ambiguity and proxying is quite a big cup of that.

On friendly matches, store pick and play is all about agreeing between both sides what is allowed, but tournaments should be more strict. Using GW figures only is an easy way for tournament organizers to avoid ambiguity by limiting the range. 

I don't mind 3rd parties on tournaments, but i think wysiwyg should be mandatory

[Cordova]

The new giant models are lovely, but so expensive.  Unfortunately, it seems the "models hobby" is expensive and seeing price increases everywhere (a Tamiya 1:35 tank used to be ~£25, they're now ~£40-75, and some of Privateer Press' models are more expensive than GW's are in the UK).  

On top of the suggestions made by others, would your group consider some of the older specialist game systems?  The "living rulebook" version of the rules for Mordheim and (original) Necromunda are available online, are a good rulesets, and are low model count.  If converting and personalising your models is your kind of thing, they also encourage that.  (as a bonus, the new Necromunda models can be used with some thinking, and are cheaper after adjusting for inflation than the metal ones were in 1997, which is quite unbelievable!) 

I think I saw a fan-made skirmish system for Age of Sigmar on here a while ago, too ...

50 minutes ago, Aeryenn said:

People interested in 3d printing know how little it costs to produce these kind of miniatures. GW is making like 500% profit on every single model and they still think that's not enough. Well, I do. I'm not buying until they come back to normality.

Actually casting the models is cheap, but designing the models and making the moulds is less so.  According to N1SB on the Bolter and Chainsword who's gone through their accounts, their profit margin is in line with Lego - about 75% (obviously, that includes logistics, store costs, pensions, etc), which is still seriously high.

Edited October 7, 2020 by Cordova

[Greybeard86]

8 minutes ago, Gotz said:

On the wysiwyg topic, I think its important on a tournament space, since you want to minimise ambiguity and proxying is quite a big cup of that.

On friendly matches, store pick and play is all about agreeing between both sides what is allowed, but tournaments should be more strict. Using GW figures only is an easy way for tournament organizers to avoid ambiguity by limiting the range. 

I don't mind 3rd parties on tournaments, but i think wysiwyg should be mandatory

I honestly don't see why. If I put a very big "PICK AND SHIELD" marker next to my unit of vulkite beserkers, do you really care if I have modeled them with two axes?

[Aeryenn]

2 minutes ago, Cordova said:

Actually casting the models is cheap, but designing the models and making the moulds is less so.  According to N1SB on the Bolter and Chainsword who's gone through their accounts, their profit margin is in line with Lego - about 75% (obviously, that includes logistics, store costs, pensions, etc), which is still seriously high.

We are not talking about rocket sience here. Even Kickstarter projects run by a small group of people have more often a quality of a GW model. I won't believe that designing those mega-gargants cost GW hundreds of thousends pounds. If a fresh graduate of 3d graphics can reach that quality it is much, much cheaper. At least 50% of AoS model price is the Warhammer logo on the box. I'd assume it's much bigger fraction...

[Kasper]

22 hours ago, Grim Beasties said:

So this is a continuation of the SoB price conversation that was in the rumor thread. I've been in this for most of my life, but these prices are getting to the point where I just can't anymore. If anyone has any ideas on how to help spend less for models please let me know, I don't want to leave this hobby but at this rate I might not have a choice.

Is the price really that extreme considering each Mega Gargant is 1/4 of your army? If I wanted to buy my current 2.000 pts list for Seraphon that I currently play Im looking at £325 from GW and thats without calculating Geminids and Balewind Vortex (which is OOP, so costs a lot currently). 3 Mega Gargants will £360. You have been able to get the Aleguzzler guys rather cheap off ebay and other local sites/facebook groups for a long time. It might just be me, but an army typically costs around £350.  

Edited October 7, 2020 by Kasper

[Marcvs]

2 minutes ago, Kasper said:

Is the price really that extreme considering each Mega Gargant is 1/4 of your army? If I wanted to buy my current 2.000 pts list for Seraphon that I currently play Im looking at £325 from GW and thats without calculating Geminids and Balewind Vortex (which is OOP, so costs a lot currently). 3 Mega Gargants will £360. You have been able to get the Aleguzzler guys rather cheap off ebay and other local sites/facebook groups for a long time. It might just be me, but an army typically costs around £350.  

if you are calculating at "prices from GW"  a Gargant army costs 510£ (and you get a spare mancrusher)

[Kasper]

1 minute ago, Marcvs said:

if you are calculating at "prices from GW"  a Gargant army costs 510£ (and you get a spare mancrusher)

Wasnt the pricetag for the Megas 120? How is it 510?

[Marcvs]

1 minute ago, Kasper said:

Wasnt the pricetag for the Megas 120? How is it 510?

3x120 (gargants) + 2x75 (mancrushers) = 510

[Cordova]

 

5 minutes ago, Aeryenn said:

Even Kickstarter projects run by a small group of people have more often a quality of a GW model. 

Well, I'm not sure what the current costs are, but the steel plastic moulds used to cost GW tens of thousands of pounds, each.  The small Kickstarter projects don't have GW's other costs (hundreds/thousands of staff, store network, mandatory pensions, etc), do they?   As I said, someone went through their accounts and worked out their overall profit margin.  You can believe that, or not - the choice is yours.

[Gotz]

16 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

I honestly don't see why. If I put a very big "PICK AND SHIELD" marker next to my unit of vulkite beserkers, do you really care if I have modeled them with two axes?

yeah, but that marker could "disappear" any moment... and if you're organising a tournament you want to avoid any conflict, and the easy way is to not allow non-standard stuff. 

In an ideal world it wouldn't matter at all, but when there's people thats going to exploit any crack possible, you want to have the least

[Greybeard86]

13 minutes ago, Gotz said:

yeah, but that marker could "disappear" any moment... and if you're organising a tournament you want to avoid any conflict, and the easy way is to not allow non-standard stuff. 

In an ideal world it wouldn't matter at all, but when there's people thats going to exploit any crack possible, you want to have the least

Disallowing something like this because "someone might cheat" is, I think, weird. What if you bolt it on to the standard bearer? I mean we could find ways to make it more inconvenient to cheat, but at the end of the day markers with buffs / wounds all the time next to units and it is accepted.

I think WYSIWYG and no 3rd part sculpts is something that GW has make a wonderful job to put into our subconscious (myself included!). Any deviations from it are often met with a lot of impediments, but I believe some of those are more the result of the subconscious battling against our best interest than anything reasonable.

[Marcvs]

17 minutes ago, Gotz said:

yeah, but that marker could "disappear" any moment... and if you're organising a tournament you want to avoid any conflict, and the easy way is to not allow non-standard stuff. 

In an ideal world it wouldn't matter at all, but when there's people thats going to exploit any crack possible, you want to have the least

although I agree with the point of "avoiding conflict" I think it is often overestimated. I mean, if I am playing vs Fyreslayers and they have a unit of berserkers with poleaxes and the other with picks (or whatever they are called) I will 100% not be able to tell unless I go check at table level. Instead, I will remember it and if in doubt, ask. We have so many armies where units look the same that the emphasis on WYSIWG and "GW only" miniatures sometimes feels exagerated.

[Gotz]

7 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

Disallowing something like this because "someone might cheat" is, I think, weird. What if you bolt it on to the standard bearer? I mean we could find ways to make it more inconvenient to cheat, but at the end of the day markers with buffs / wounds all the time next to units and it is accepted.

I think WYSIWYG and no 3rd part sculpts is something that GW has make a wonderful job to put into our subconscious (myself included!). Any deviations from it are often met with a lot of impediments, but I believe some of those are more the result of the subconscious battling against our best interest than anything reasonable.

 

1 minute ago, Marcvs said:

although I agree with the point of "avoiding conflict" I think it is often overestimated. I mean, if I am playing vs Fyreslayers and they have a unit of berserkers with poleaxes and the other with picks (or whatever they are called) I will 100% not be able to tell unless I go check at table level. Instead, I will remember it and if in doubt, ask. We have so many armies where units look the same that the emphasis on WYSIWG and "GW only" miniatures sometimes feels exagerated.

I'm only advocating for wysiwyg in tournament scenarios. You need to have clear rules about this kind of things. You can't have someone coming wysiwyg, another with printed tokens on a base and one guy with the weapon option attached to the standard bearer or on the champion feet.

In any other case, whatever you agree with your oponent should be fine.

You want to train with paperhamer before deciding on a build? if everybody agrees I think should be fine.

On 3rd party it should be whatever the organizers feel is better for their tournament.

I think alt models in a tournament or in pick ups should fine, but proxying is kind of tricky (Proxying Cities of Sigmar comes to my mind now)

On the money side...

I've been running some numbers and an escalation league following the Path to glory rules should get you around 1k points and 200-350€ (depending on Start Collecting boxes) in 6 months 

[Greybeard86]

8 minutes ago, Gotz said:

I'm only advocating for wysiwyg in tournament scenarios. You need to have clear rules about this kind of things. You can't have someone coming wysiwyg, another with printed tokens on a base and one guy with the weapon option attached to the standard bearer or on the champion feet.

That is the role of player organizations: to discuss and come up with an acceptable standard. Because the "acceptable standard" for GW is, obviously, to sell more models and disallow 3rd party options. And due to the lack of such "standards" most tourney organizers don't want to deal with messes and go with WYSIWYG and only official models.

If everyone agreed that weapon loadouts can be represented with a combination of handing the opponent a paper list and tokens, then there would be no confusion. And so on, this is just a very obvious example.

[JackStreicher]

54 minutes ago, Aeryenn said:

We are not talking about rocket sience here. Even Kickstarter projects run by a small group of people have more often a quality of a GW model. I won't believe that designing those mega-gargants cost GW hundreds of thousends pounds. If a fresh graduate of 3d graphics can reach that quality it is much, much cheaper. At least 50% of AoS model price is the Warhammer logo on the box. I'd assume it's much bigger fraction...

All knowledge I have gathered about GW, the casting, the production etc. over the years and from some famous "tea spillers" makes me rather sure that one box of a giant costs GW 6€ tops to produce incuding wages, materials, machines etc. .  The profit margin was and still is insane. 

[Kasper]

31 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

I think WYSIWYG and no 3rd part sculpts is something that GW has make a wonderful job to put into our subconscious (myself included!). Any deviations from it are often met with a lot of impediments, but I believe some of those are more the result of the subconscious battling against our best interest than anything reasonable.

Honestly I dont really understand the whole WYSIWYG debate. What does it matter to me if your Mortek Guard models have spears but you want to play them as having swords? Absolutely no difference to me. It has zero impact on my overall strategy. The only interest to me is if your dude suddenly got a 3" reach weapon instead of the 1" reach weapon he has been modelled with.

[Kasper]

56 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

All knowledge I have gathered about GW, the casting, the production etc. over the years and from some famous "tea spillers" makes me rather sure that one box of a giant costs GW 6€ tops to produce incuding wages, materials, machines etc. .  The profit margin was and still is insane. 

The price of GW products cover a lot of costs though. Salaries to the sculpter, costs for the PC sculting program that is likely licensed, materials (probably the least), costs of the mold, shipping costs of the product, wear and tear on the machines, rent, advertisements, salaries to the dudes doing the articles/advertisements etc. etc. 

You arent just paying for grey plastic. Even if the gross profit is great, the revenue isnt just meant to cover the cost of sales, but also operating expenses etc. Im sure the shareholders/owners would like some profit too. 

 

Edit: It is not really a fair comparison by any stretch, but as a consultant about 1/4 of the price we charge clients only goes to cover my salary per hour, the remaining goes to cover all kinds of other costs and my boss would also like to earn just a little bit from having me work for him. 

Edited October 7, 2020 by Kasper

[JackStreicher]

42 minutes ago, Kasper said:

The price of GW products cover a lot of costs though. Salaries to the sculpter, costs for the PC sculting program that is likely licensed, materials (probably the least), costs of the mold, shipping costs of the product, wear and tear on the machines, rent, advertisements, salaries to the dudes doing the articles/advertisements etc. etc. 

You arent just paying for grey plastic. Even if the gross profit is great, the revenue isnt just meant to cover the cost of sales, but also operating expenses etc. Im sure the shareholders/owners would like some profit too. 

I know that:

Sculpters are underpaid, because they count as grafical designers, one cast-form costs about 100K, their other costs are about 6 Million Tops, if they really want to finance a lot with a single kit ?

they produced 1 Million Giants = 6€ per giant. And that is the VERY crude calculation. Realistically they produce some hundred-thousand giants and the calculation does not include 6 million GBP distributed across only one product.

 

Edit: This is ofc guess work, yet it‘s no guess out of the blue. We can have a look at their expanses in their end if the year report.

Edited October 7, 2020 by JackStreicher