Price increase on GW Products (coming 7th March)

[Sleboda]

On 3/1/2022 at 9:36 AM, pnkdth said:

I have never used an airbrush (and have zero plans or concerns about that) in my life.

You're not alone.

I appreciate the skill of excellent airbrush usage, but the result, for me personally, is almost always off-putting. Airbrushed models just don't look painted to me, in the traditional sense. They look like shortcuts, flash and style over more appropriate, detailed techniques.

Pretty? Yep!

Look 'right?' Nope.

 

No disrespect to those who use or like airbrushing. Like I said, I respect the skill. It's just not personally interesting to me.

 

Of course, I still buy my music on CD, read paper books, and find my lovely ladies (like @TwiceIfILikeIt, my love) at bars and not on Tinder.

[RuneBrush]

8 hours ago, Sleboda said:

You're not alone.

I appreciate the skill of excellent airbrush usage, but the result, for me personally, is almost always off-putting. Airbrushed models just don't look painted to me, in the traditional sense. They look like shortcuts, flash and style over more appropriate, detailed techniques.

Pretty? Yep!

Look 'right?' Nope.

 

No disrespect to those who use or like airbrushing. Like I said, I respect the skill. It's just not personally interesting to me.

 

Of course, I still buy my music on CD, read paper books, and find my lovely ladies (like @TwiceIfILikeIt, my love) at bars and not on Tinder.

One of the issues with airbrushes is that people view them as a one-stop solution rather than another tool in your repertoire.  If you're doing it right, nobody knows it's been done with an airbrush, because it'll be combined with other techniques and traditional brush skills.  Would 100% agree that they're not for everyone either.  But I digress and this thread has gone wildly off topic 😂

[JackStreicher]

8 hours ago, Sleboda said:

You're not alone.

I appreciate the skill of excellent airbrush usage, but the result, for me personally, is almost always off-putting. Airbrushed models just don't look painted to me, in the traditional sense. They look like shortcuts, flash and style over more appropriate, detailed techniques.

Pretty? Yep!

Look 'right?' Nope.

Whaaat

One does not have to use the airbrush for fancy effects. I mostly use mine to block out base colors (it is SO much faster) and to build up transitions/color saturation. I used to do that with a brush and it took ages. 

Then I go in with brushes and do more shadows and highlights.

To me the air brush is an padsaw whereas brushes are handsaws: Super practical for the detail work, yet a chore for sawing along long lines and very time consuming.

 

Edited March 3, 2022 by JackStreicher

[pnkdth]

On 3/2/2022 at 2:13 PM, Greybeard86 said:

Domestic 3d printing might get more followers, but I find it extremely hard to believe that it will replace proper mass production processes any time soon. Some might knit their scarves, but most won't.

 

21 hours ago, Kaleb Daark said:

I don't think 3d printing cuts into their profits, rather more of a child like annoyance to them, but it certainly wont make them lose any sleep at night.

The DIY community is unlikely to hurt them much but I've already seen people replace GW's overpriced characters with printed models, low model units too, as well as monsters, some even print out armies. So calling it knitting or children at play is providing a fairly limited view on the subject matter. Several posts (and walls of text!) before this has concrete examples.

The only thing that needs to change on a large scale production side is production/time becoming more efficient/cheaper than mass production and shipping. We've already seen how vulnerable GW is to global events and how it impact them (and us with this recent price hike). With that also in mind I think GW are keeping both eyes real close on the potential of 3D printing. They are already making use of it for display models and streamlining the production process is always a good thing.

Who knows, they have specialist games which could be useful test runs or simply let the community keep "dead" games alive by selling updated rules. That's a lot of in between rather than all or nothing. Just as I do not think 3D printing is going to kill GW. It will probably change how they approach things and given their massive presence on the market and tabletops they can leverage that to become the go-to 3D printing service as well.

However it goes, more options for us = good times.

Edited March 3, 2022 by pnkdth

[Kaylethia]

On 3/2/2022 at 9:27 AM, yukishiro1 said:

GW is so opposed to selling digital things that they won't even sell you a digital version of their rules without buying the physical version too. 

Actually, they do. It isn’t advertised much. 
Digital rules.

I have no idea when it launched, and the 40k side is barren of current rules. 

[yukishiro1]

They discontinued that with AOS 3.0, just like they discontinued it with 40k 9th. You are correct that they still sell digital versions of AOS 2.0 rulebooks if you want to buy those, but they don't offer it for anything new and won't unless they go back on that policy. 

 

Edited March 3, 2022 by yukishiro1

[AaronWilson]

They make far too much money on selling battletomes, the broken realms books etc to ever move to a digital model. 

 

[GrimDork]

1 hour ago, AaronWilson said:

They make far too much money on selling battletomes, the broken realms books etc to ever move to a digital model. 

 

I resent that they removed the digital versions (ebook etc)

I bought all the Broken Realms books and have bought multiple battletomes and GHBs digitally. I like being able to access everything on my desktop, my tablet and my phone. The app comes nowhere close to offering the same level of service/flexibility. I don’t just want the rules digitally, I want the full tome, the lore, the artwork, the rules. The app is pretty rubbish, with lots of gaps that you need to refer back to the tome for anyway (at least for some of the 2.0 tomes anyway).

Since the change with AoS 3 to paper only with app backup I have bought zero battletomes or books.

I probably would have picked up the Orruk battletome, I would’ve picked up the GHB 21. Digital books are so much easier to impulse buy! Paper books for me are a planned purchase which I end up talking myself out of.

The only paper tome I have is the first Ltd Lumineth tome, (which was forced on me in the battle box). I rarely end up looking at it tbh.

I may pick up the idoneth tome as they are currently my main army and I don’t have any other option, but I resent not being able to get it in my preferred format. I don’t see how it would cost GW anything to sell digitally again and they have definitely lost money that I would’ve spent with them.

[RuneBrush]

29 minutes ago, GrimDork said:

I resent that they removed the digital versions (ebook etc)

I bought all the Broken Realms books and have bought multiple battletomes and GHBs digitally. I like being able to access everything on my desktop, my tablet and my phone. The app comes nowhere close to offering the same level of service/flexibility. I don’t just want the rules digitally, I want the full tome, the lore, the artwork, the rules. The app is pretty rubbish, with lots of gaps that you need to refer back to the tome for anyway (at least for some of the 2.0 tomes anyway).

Since the change with AoS 3 to paper only with app backup I have bought zero battletomes or books.

I probably would have picked up the Orruk battletome, I would’ve picked up the GHB 21. Digital books are so much easier to impulse buy! Paper books for me are a planned purchase which I end up talking myself out of.

The only paper tome I have is the first Ltd Lumineth tome, (which was forced on me in the battle box). I rarely end up looking at it tbh.

I may pick up the idoneth tome as they are currently my main army and I don’t have any other option, but I resent not being able to get it in my preferred format. I don’t see how it would cost GW anything to sell digitally again and they have definitely lost money that I would’ve spent with them.

The whole digital vs paper does come down to personal choice.  I think everyone has their own view on what they actually prefer.  I lean more on having a physical format - I can loan to a mate and they can loan to me and they don't run out of charge and I'm not a fan of reading on a digital device.  I've certainly bought battletomes I'd not considered after reading through somebody else's copy.

Bringing it back round to the original topic, the whole pricing of battletomes is a tricky one - I actually think these are one item that's increased in cost to the point where I'm unlikely to be picking books up on a whim.  Physical books have really suffered due to the transportation problems in the world, so it's understandable there's a price increase, the sad bit is we all know that if things improve we won't see the prices reduce.

[GrimDork]

16 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

The whole digital vs paper does come down to personal choice.  I think everyone has their own view on what they actually prefer.

Oh, I completely agree! I just don't see why GW can't cater to both preferences?

[RuneBrush]

41 minutes ago, GrimDork said:

Oh, I completely agree! I just don't see why GW can't cater to both preferences?

I suspect it comes down to sales vs cost.  One thing GW has access to and we don't is the sales of physical and digital alongside each other.  It may be that digital sales were tiny by comparison, so not worth the investment to make a digital product.  Alternatively it may be that digital meant less overall sales due to piracy issues.  Could simply be that they don't want to do it anymore 😂  It's certainly worth feeding back to GW that you miss the digital battletomes though, else they'll not know there's a demand for it.

[Gaz Taylor]

Just to add to that, I imagine it’s a pain with the formatting for most devices as GW want their books to look cool with all the art and background. I quite like what they are doing with the app and books as you get the best of both, but I’m no longer in the mindset of collecting all the books. 

[azdimy]

I have reduced my book purchase quite a bit. While I bought some in digital and other in paper in the past, I have yet to use any codes for the digital content we pay for when buying the aos 3 battletomes. I really hope they will revisit this code with paper purchase model. In the mean time I ll buy a lot less 

I only purchased the orruk warclan tome because I was able to get it at the aos 2 tome price while I also own a stormcast and an idoneth army, I have no intention to purchase their new battletomes at this new price

Edited March 4, 2022 by azdimy

[zilberfrid]

I have received my Ironclad, and while it's a nice thing, the lack of options and frankly size disapponted me a bit. The 1:48 Heinkel 111 I purchased for €25 (mrsp €40 compared to msrp €95 commonly available around €80) has more and larger sprues, to make a more detailed and much larger craft with more options.

Now I know it doesn't have the dwarf painting it from the outside, but it's a lot less for a lot more. I'm not going to return to GW's vehicles.

[Acid_Nine]

so.... is it still taboo to play with 3d printed models?

[Joseph Mackay]

On 3/4/2022 at 11:36 PM, RuneBrush said:

I suspect it comes down to sales vs cost.  One thing GW has access to and we don't is the sales of physical and digital alongside each other.  It may be that digital sales were tiny by comparison, so not worth the investment to make a digital product.  Alternatively it may be that digital meant less overall sales due to piracy issues.  Could simply be that they don't want to do it anymore 😂  It's certainly worth feeding back to GW that you miss the digital battletomes though, else they'll not know there's a demand for it.

My issue with this, is that when they stopped digital releases and included codes in the book, they put up the prices, I’m guessing, to compensate the loss of digital sales

[CommissarRotke]

5 hours ago, Acid_Nine said:

so.... is it still taboo to play with 3d printed models?

Only at tournaments

[RuneBrush]

11 hours ago, Joseph Mackay said:

My issue with this, is that when they stopped digital releases and included codes in the book, they put up the prices, I’m guessing, to compensate the loss of digital sales

Who knows?  It's possible that's why they put up the prices or equally they put it up due to an increased cost in production - or a bit of both.

[Marcvs]

7 hours ago, CommissarRotke said:

Only at tournaments

even there, it depends. In my area even the main tournaments have changed their policies to "alternative models must be pre-approved" so you just send them the picture of your 3d printed minis and the arbiters will tell you if it's approved or not -and in my experience they generally are as long as they are similar, loosely respect WYSIWYG in terms of weapons loadout, and do not generate confusion with other units in your list. There's even a thread in the discord with picture of approved minis to provide guidance.

Edited March 24, 2022 by Marcvs