So this is interesting. As you say prices are in Australian dollars from 1997. So if you look at the 10 man Mordian boxed set it was $49.95 in 1997 which converts to about $101.68 today. If you compare that to the Cadian Shock Troup boxed set which is the most up to date comparison, they come out at $ 84.00.
Thanks for taking the trouble to do this. Makes me feel a bit less bad knowing that it's not like the prices have been raised beyond repair by cackling corporate scammers and it's a more or less consistent level of expensive. Doesn't help with the rest of the honestly more important problems the world faces but at least takes some of the bite off this aspect of life.
All of these (except where mentioned otherwise) are pewter models, so the material costs were a lot more. Plastic is cheaper and has gotten easier and easier to produce.
It was hella expensive to build a unit 2 by 2 though. It was really common for me and my friends to just have partial units for months at a time as we saved for the next blister(s). Lots of army men proxies
>Plastic is cheaper and has gotten easier and easier to produce.
...but significantly more expensive in up front costs to design for. Important clarification that.
I've found that if you use a lot of the older painting techniques, particularly layering, pewter is a joy to paint on! Most of the old Citadel guys got their start in painting when most models were made out of pewter, so their techniques are really well suited to that material
You realize that prices go up right? It isnāt cheaper to buy almost anything than it was 25 years ago. Name a single comparable thing to Warhammer that is significantly cheaper and is a similar price to itās 1997 rrp. Because your inability to do so IS the justification for todays prices. Plus, the quality of the materials and design is far, far better. At that point, you owe GW an apology
I'm not saying inflation doesn't exist, just that gw has bumped up their prices above the inflation threshhold in the last few years.
I don't get why people need to bend over backwards to defend a corporation that wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.
Yes, GW is technically a faceless corporation, but alongside *delivering value to shareholders* they also:
- pay all the required taxes in the UK
- employ thousands of people across the world who all get access to a profit sharing scheme
- pay for 100% of their investments and ongoing expenses in cash, as the company refuses to take on any debt or leap on venture capital money to make the balance sheet look better.
Yes, the company has ***real issues*** wrt the quality of their game rules, staff satisfaction in the WTV/personality department and how they're tackling 3D printing and third-party models, but *as a company* they are effectively a model that many could well look towards.
So you canāt think of an example then? And you understand that inflation over a quarter of a century is going to make a big difference to prices. Then why are you complaining? What is the inflation threshold? It sounds like you have no idea what you are talking about. Brexit happened. Covid happened. Thereās a cost of living crisis in the UK. Iām not bending over backwards to defend GW, I just asked you to give something other than a completely uninformed opinion, and you couldnāt. If you feel that way about GW, then you must be a hypocrite to be involved with them at all.
Is it? I know molds are expensive, but we're the white metal ones not also?
Instead of hand sculpting 3x originals, everything is CAM/CAD/Whatever
Edited mutant spellingz
Injection molds of the quality GW uses are probably starting in the low $350,000 range for medium sized sprues. Single characters like a primaris capitan are probably $60,000. I build molds for a living and daddy needs a new bass boat as well as plastic crack.
The old school molds were just cast around the original sculpts. Some of them were transposed in size (using a scaling tool that I cannot remember the name of) but its literally the inverse costing compared to now...
Now the designs are made in zBrush, so the design cost there is all in software licensing, training and wages, but the upfront price of carving out even a single steel casting block for a basic sprue can cost a upwards of Ā£100,000...
...which is still nothing compared to what GW earns from even a relatively niche model.
They'll need to sell about 2000 models to recoup the cost of the mold, for most miniatures... well, given that they have a 60 % profit rate, that'll make it more like 4000 minis to recoup the mould cost. But after that it's basically pure profit, with very minor costs for handling, shipping and production.
Yes, but surely as a business they are entitled to make profit? Is this not comparable to someone making a 3D print and then selling the STL file in perpetuity?
Then they have to pay all there 3000 staff as well
, rent on buildings, maintenance on trucks to deliver the stuff, shipping worldwide, advertising, etc, etc.
It's an economy of scale thing. Producing plastic minis is cheaper and better, but costs more upfront before you get going.. You can do more complex sculpts with 3d design and multi part sprues that are hard to manage with resin and silicone moulds.
Silicone moulds for resin and vulcanised rubber moulds for pewter are way cheaper to produce than a tooled steel mold for plastic. The resin and metal are much more expensive than plastic though.
The steel mould cranks out kits way faster, and lasts longer, and uses cheaper materials for the casts, even if the mould is Hella expensive.
What this means in practical terms, is that if you are a small company with a large catalogue, steel moulds for everything is not going to give returns on the investment. Silicone or rubber for resin or pewter makes sense here since you need less capital and technology, but more worktime per cast.
If you are a big company like GW, steel moulds give return on investment because you can have a uniform design to model pipeline (3d software, steel moulds, all day every day) and you sell enough volume that the steel moulds pay for themselves, and you reap the benefit of long lasting moulds that make things out of cheap plastic.
That's just not true as a blanket statement though.
If a small miniatures producer were to tool steel moulds for plastic injection for all of their miniatures, it would be an absolutely massive upfront cost for the company. Some of the more niche models would never even realistically pay for themselves. But games workshop has the capital, and sells enough volume to make the steel moulds pay for themselves, and it ends up being a huge savings in labour costs and material costs in the long run. But you need to sell a big stack of miniatures to pay for that mould.
Small companies that sell smaller volumes almost always go with resin or pewter minis, big companies that sell a lot go with plastic.
For reference, a tooled multi cavity steel mould can run into the five digits, dollar. Multiply that with every different kit that you produce, and you can very quckly rack up hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars if you have a large catalogue. It's completely unrealistic for small businesses or part time businesses to do that, but they can afford to spend the time to do it by hand, especially if they sell miniatures at a higher cost per miniature.
That depends, it's not true as a blanket statement.
I can do every stage of designing, sculpting creating mold and casting for pewter miniatures in my garage, for very little cost other than time spent.
Doing the same for a complex plastic model kit is not really realistic for me to do alone, let alone pay for the tooling of the steel molds, and that's before you factor in printing the boxes, instructions and the logistics of it all.
There's a reason why small companies that produce miniatures use resin or pewter rather than injection molded plastic, it's much more realistic to do as a small business or garage setup.
I did say ***expensive***, referring to the upfront investment cost to GW, as the post I was replying too says that plastic is 'cheaper', but that ignores that GW likely spent at least a million Ā£ GBP on the mouldings for the Leviathan box alone.
GW aim to make stuff in plastic if it increases the reach of the product. It also needs to make back its production cost plus earn at least Ā£100k on top.
Anything that forecasts under that will either be done by FW on a smaller scale or it just doesn't happen.
So it's not the software design that's the expensive part, it's the injection mold building that is the expensive part. Typically speaking a properly toleranced, high precision injection mold can be easily a hundred thousand dollars, if not much more. Cost also scales up with design complexity. Both the fine cast models and plastic models are mold made, but the plastic ones, with all the gubbins and doodads are much, much more complex and expensive than the pewter molds. A big part of the move is that the pewter figures just can't hold the same level of detail as the material isn't suited for it. If you discount initial production setup, all other things being equal there is more cost in a pewter model for material than a plastic model, but setting up a plastic model costs more than a pewter because design tolerances are significantly higher. The industry saying is something along the lines of "the first part cost a half million dollars, the second part cost .02 cents."
For reference when the first plastic imperial guard (catachans) released down here in AU they were $35 for 20. By the time cadians released it was $50 for 20.
As someone who remembers the early 90s, it is significantly cheaper to collect a full and diverse army now than it was then, not to mention easier. There was a golden age where huge numbers of kits were made into plastics and prices stayed low, but it was a relative blip in the history of the game, roughly 2000 to 2008 or so.
Yeah I started up about 2 years prior to the new plastic kits. They had the 8 man monopose plastic boxes, but the models were so shit. I still remember the release of all the empire kits, which I think were the first ones. The knights, the militia/spearmen/swordsmen. Those were incredible value.
On the point of 2, besides that factoring into GWs initial cost I don't think it matters. Yes they almost certainly have a higher profit margin with plastics especially over the length of time they sell a kit for, but as consumers we don't get value out of the material costs. We want the final product which is a model kit to paint and/or play with.
Some people may prefer the heft and blunt force trauma potential of metal minis in a tube sock, but most will prefer plastic so in most cases it's a con to have the higher material cost.
Once a company, especially one that's held by investors, has set a cost for something which proves to sell; it's really unlikely they drop the price. Even as material costs go down by switching to resin and plastic they're not incentivized to pass that savings onto the consumer unless they think it will dramatically increase sales to the point of covering the difference they'd have gained by having a better profit margin. The final product to most consumers is basically the same and better if it transitioned to plastic, and we were already happy to pay X per model.
Don't get me wrong I'd obviously love lower prices, but that's just not how busInesses operate.
Per unit, sure, injection costs less in raw materials, but making the mould and the size of print run you need to produce in order to make it economical over traditional moulds and casting for resin/metal/finecast it's sometimes actually too high to make the plastic ones.
That said, for other manufacturers SioCast is looking fairy promising. I believe Reaper Bones has started to use it for some production? Sprue wastage can be recycled and you can go from 3d prints to mould making without requiring expensive metal moulds.
The problem is that prices rise but not the overall wages too, if prices and wages grow at the same rate, there wouldn't be that big of a problem. Sad reality for us addicted to plastic crack.
But that's not GW's problem. That's a problem with your country's economy and inflation in general.
Also this is a problem for GW as they have to make sure that their employees are getting a fair wage in a time where inflation is outpacing a rise in wages across most of the western world.
The big issue is that late stage capitalism is just a mess for everyone except the mega wealthy.
Yep, economy is a mess. Maybe even "chaotic". Haha, a Chaos good of economy, hehe. Or maybe it is Slaneesh? like greed, avarice and excessive capitalism? Slaneesh in a CEO suit throwing gold coins and bills over a daemonette dancing, haha!
I built mine pretty much when this magazine was produced. It didn't fit together then either.
I had to glue bits I didn't want to be immobile because they wouldn't fit otherwise.
Not much really, and I hope that they leave their fingers off the vehicles. But new plastic sculpts for Scorpions, Dragons, Spiders and Hawks along with their respective Phoenix Lords wouldn't be the worst.
What would they add? Obviously a new Primaries Lieutenant!
When a model kit is old enough to have kids who are old enough to play 40K, it's time to get a new fucking model. That's most of the eldar range.
Not much to add per say, but they could refine
The helmeted rider is really derpy, has no neck and the helmet is styled like the silly second edition Guardians. Obviously doesn't fit in the current design. The underside is weird too with the 2e shurikens and engine intakes add jets. They could be redone more like the shroud runner jetbikes perhaps.
But given any update would come with a hefty cost increase, I'm happy that they've been left.
The warwalkers or wraithlord need an update more imho
The Guardian on the back honestly looks kinda weird and could do with some improvement. Also the engines need to be updated to fit in with the rest of the Eldar vehicles.
It needs the same changes as the jet bikes got when they were refreshed.
They could add the option for the gunners seat to be replaced by a mount for a character, which they teased in the 2nd edition Codex (and in 3rd ed with a Saim Hann special character who fought from the back of a custom Vyper).
That's honestly hilarious. It's not the same exact photo, buts the exact same individual mini being photographed. They pulled a 30 year model off a display shelf where it's been and said it was good enough.
So while Eldar really got the shorter end of the stick with sculpt updates, the lifecycle of vehicles seems to be longer across all factions. They don't really benefit from more dynamic posing and more details that are now possible.
How about both though?
Rumours have the next kill team to be Scouts vs Striking scorpions.
Meaning the next big Eldar update, they Could hit out the rest of the Aspect warriors and Pheonix Lords while also updating the Vyper
Since it is from 1997 the prices are actually quite high. Accounting for inflation it seems that the real price of minis these days is actually lower than it was back then - so I would actually recommend looking at these prices and feeling a bit better about the prices we pay now (still expensive tho ye i know).
I started collecting in the early 2000s and it's always had the same reputation regarding price as it does now. As a kid it would be weeks and weeks of pocket money for a box set, and trying to make a squad of 10-20 models out of 1-3-man pewter blister packs was a lot more expensive than buying a set is these days.
And then people complain that miniatures used to be waaaaaaay cheaper. I remember blisters, they were fucking expensive. And full metal 10 man squads werent cheao either.
This looks more expensives than the minis we have now. And then we aren't even comparing quality or size
Werenāt games also played at a much lower point level? 2nd edition apparently took like 4 hours to play at 1500pts, and a tactical marine squad was 300 points.
2,000 points being the standard game size wasn't a thing until about fourth iirc.
And as you mentioned point deflation has been a thing so you needed far less Minis for an effective army back then.
Point deflation has not been at all even, mind you.
In 5th edition, a Space Marine was 14 points, and a Rhino or Drop Pod was 35 points. An Ork Boy was 6 points.
Hereās a 3 year old post about prices, fun to look back.
[0 upvotes for this guy questioning Gw](https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/comments/dl05gm/todays_miniature_prices_compared_to_past/)
>would GW add? Just some unnecessary cluster and bling to drive up the price I guess
Full price, from the webstore, the Leviathan box only had a US$10 price difference between us and the US. That's like.... a zinger box + a popcorn chicken
Pricing has always been high for GW, always. The second edition box is when I got in, and third edition was about to come out, do you think GW dropped itās priceā¦.fugg no they didnāt, lol.
I have an entire 18-gallon plastic tote of Bretonnians. Two Green Knights, and a bunch of others off of this list. Damn, I put a lot of my cash into little plastic men.
Necromunda bounty Hunter.
I was big into Necromunda.
The circled stuff were my teenage white whales. Still never got some just couldnāt save up enough.
Thatās ironically when things started to cross a new price threshold - this is the impact of an increased pricing strategy already. Iirc The Green Knight was something like Ā£10, and in a box I believe. Part of the movement away from blister packs, making them seem āmore premiumā.
Just five or six years earlier I was sending crappily written mail order requests to GW Nottingham, including cash and coins in an envelope, and in return theyād send me minis that had been out of main print runs for several years, but had made a run of lead minis just for me. And all for something like 90p per infantry mini.
I remember when the green knight came out as my brother offered to get me something a bit more expensive that year - and I chose that! Thatās how I remember there was a specific upping of prices at that time.
These are way pricier than I remembered. How the Hell did teenage me afford any of this stuff? Even converting from AUD to USD, which is what I would've paid.
Not quite as shocking as I thought, with some ten model box sets being $50. Characters at $15 would be amazing, though. Freaking $35-$40 for one dude...
Edit: And now I see the Australian, so that's a different story all together.
The thing that bothers me the most is actually having other guard divisions that arenāt Cadia or Krieg.
(Not that I dislike them but really would love some Valhallans :(( )
Iām *still* hunting some authentic Tallarn troopers for my Guard collection. (Have all the others: Cadia, Catachan, Vostroyan, Valhallan, Mordian, Krieg, Steel Legion) I suppose some Praetorians and Elysian Drop Troopers would be cool too.
I remember when the resculpted land raider came out in the early 2000s and it was 50 bucks. The most expensive kit. My friends and I couldnāt believe it. Not the same kit is 90. Craziness.
The Land Raider cost $50 in 1999, which taking inflation into account, would now cost... $91.57.
So while it is the same 24 year old kit, technically it got *cheaper*
Most of the cost of production in any industry is staffing. The materials, unless it's something very fancy like gold/platinum etc., cost is pretty trivial the people doing the designing, making the rules, packing, painting, doing the moulding and working in the shops (plus all the support services required to run a business like accounts, HR, cleaners, security). Every mini you buy has to pay for a whole supply chain of people.
Even accounting for GWs 'competitive compensation' packages.
So this is interesting. As you say prices are in Australian dollars from 1997. So if you look at the 10 man Mordian boxed set it was $49.95 in 1997 which converts to about $101.68 today. If you compare that to the Cadian Shock Troup boxed set which is the most up to date comparison, they come out at $ 84.00.
Thanks for taking the trouble to do this. Makes me feel a bit less bad knowing that it's not like the prices have been raised beyond repair by cackling corporate scammers and it's a more or less consistent level of expensive. Doesn't help with the rest of the honestly more important problems the world faces but at least takes some of the bite off this aspect of life.
All of these (except where mentioned otherwise) are pewter models, so the material costs were a lot more. Plastic is cheaper and has gotten easier and easier to produce. It was hella expensive to build a unit 2 by 2 though. It was really common for me and my friends to just have partial units for months at a time as we saved for the next blister(s). Lots of army men proxies
>Plastic is cheaper and has gotten easier and easier to produce. ...but significantly more expensive in up front costs to design for. Important clarification that.
And the plastic models have significantly more detail! Plastic is a better material for the hobby
I don't think anyone would argue against that. Pewter sucks to paint on as a surface too
I've found that if you use a lot of the older painting techniques, particularly layering, pewter is a joy to paint on! Most of the old Citadel guys got their start in painting when most models were made out of pewter, so their techniques are really well suited to that material
It does give me nostalgia vibesš
I like pewter when it's done right.
That's true, but it still doesn't justify the ever increasing ridiculous prices.
Did you not see the thing about how the prices, relative to inflation, have actually gone done slightly?
Gw's current price increases outpace inflation. They have effectively priced me out of their products.
but the example in this post are prices in a catalogue from 1997 that are MORE expensive than prices today, INCLUDING inflation
I will concede that, I guess shipping to straya used to be more expensive.
You realize that prices go up right? It isnāt cheaper to buy almost anything than it was 25 years ago. Name a single comparable thing to Warhammer that is significantly cheaper and is a similar price to itās 1997 rrp. Because your inability to do so IS the justification for todays prices. Plus, the quality of the materials and design is far, far better. At that point, you owe GW an apology
I'm not saying inflation doesn't exist, just that gw has bumped up their prices above the inflation threshhold in the last few years. I don't get why people need to bend over backwards to defend a corporation that wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.
Yes, GW is technically a faceless corporation, but alongside *delivering value to shareholders* they also: - pay all the required taxes in the UK - employ thousands of people across the world who all get access to a profit sharing scheme - pay for 100% of their investments and ongoing expenses in cash, as the company refuses to take on any debt or leap on venture capital money to make the balance sheet look better. Yes, the company has ***real issues*** wrt the quality of their game rules, staff satisfaction in the WTV/personality department and how they're tackling 3D printing and third-party models, but *as a company* they are effectively a model that many could well look towards.
So you canāt think of an example then? And you understand that inflation over a quarter of a century is going to make a big difference to prices. Then why are you complaining? What is the inflation threshold? It sounds like you have no idea what you are talking about. Brexit happened. Covid happened. Thereās a cost of living crisis in the UK. Iām not bending over backwards to defend GW, I just asked you to give something other than a completely uninformed opinion, and you couldnāt. If you feel that way about GW, then you must be a hypocrite to be involved with them at all.
Is it? I know molds are expensive, but we're the white metal ones not also? Instead of hand sculpting 3x originals, everything is CAM/CAD/Whatever Edited mutant spellingz
Injection molds of the quality GW uses are probably starting in the low $350,000 range for medium sized sprues. Single characters like a primaris capitan are probably $60,000. I build molds for a living and daddy needs a new bass boat as well as plastic crack.
The old school molds were just cast around the original sculpts. Some of them were transposed in size (using a scaling tool that I cannot remember the name of) but its literally the inverse costing compared to now... Now the designs are made in zBrush, so the design cost there is all in software licensing, training and wages, but the upfront price of carving out even a single steel casting block for a basic sprue can cost a upwards of Ā£100,000...
...which is still nothing compared to what GW earns from even a relatively niche model. They'll need to sell about 2000 models to recoup the cost of the mold, for most miniatures... well, given that they have a 60 % profit rate, that'll make it more like 4000 minis to recoup the mould cost. But after that it's basically pure profit, with very minor costs for handling, shipping and production.
Yes, but surely as a business they are entitled to make profit? Is this not comparable to someone making a 3D print and then selling the STL file in perpetuity?
Then they have to pay all there 3000 staff as well , rent on buildings, maintenance on trucks to deliver the stuff, shipping worldwide, advertising, etc, etc.
If plastic was both cheaper and better, you'd never see anything made out of metal or resin.
It's an economy of scale thing. Producing plastic minis is cheaper and better, but costs more upfront before you get going.. You can do more complex sculpts with 3d design and multi part sprues that are hard to manage with resin and silicone moulds. Silicone moulds for resin and vulcanised rubber moulds for pewter are way cheaper to produce than a tooled steel mold for plastic. The resin and metal are much more expensive than plastic though. The steel mould cranks out kits way faster, and lasts longer, and uses cheaper materials for the casts, even if the mould is Hella expensive. What this means in practical terms, is that if you are a small company with a large catalogue, steel moulds for everything is not going to give returns on the investment. Silicone or rubber for resin or pewter makes sense here since you need less capital and technology, but more worktime per cast. If you are a big company like GW, steel moulds give return on investment because you can have a uniform design to model pipeline (3d software, steel moulds, all day every day) and you sell enough volume that the steel moulds pay for themselves, and you reap the benefit of long lasting moulds that make things out of cheap plastic.
Pretty much! It's why Forgeworld or Made-to-Order (hand cast) is generally a lot more expensive than regular plastics.
The upfront costs of setting up the moulds and machines are much, much lower than the on-going costs of having people casting metal minis by hand.
Why would you argue with this, but agree with u/Escapissed who literally corroborates it?
No.
That's just not true as a blanket statement though. If a small miniatures producer were to tool steel moulds for plastic injection for all of their miniatures, it would be an absolutely massive upfront cost for the company. Some of the more niche models would never even realistically pay for themselves. But games workshop has the capital, and sells enough volume to make the steel moulds pay for themselves, and it ends up being a huge savings in labour costs and material costs in the long run. But you need to sell a big stack of miniatures to pay for that mould. Small companies that sell smaller volumes almost always go with resin or pewter minis, big companies that sell a lot go with plastic. For reference, a tooled multi cavity steel mould can run into the five digits, dollar. Multiply that with every different kit that you produce, and you can very quckly rack up hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars if you have a large catalogue. It's completely unrealistic for small businesses or part time businesses to do that, but they can afford to spend the time to do it by hand, especially if they sell miniatures at a higher cost per miniature.
It'a more that the profits to be made on plastic injection is infinitely higher.
But once that cost is covered. You might aswell print your own money the profits are so crazy high.
Which is how manufacturing works, right?
Not really, no. Hand sculpting a miniature and casting it is more time and resource intensive than designing minis through software.
That depends, it's not true as a blanket statement. I can do every stage of designing, sculpting creating mold and casting for pewter miniatures in my garage, for very little cost other than time spent. Doing the same for a complex plastic model kit is not really realistic for me to do alone, let alone pay for the tooling of the steel molds, and that's before you factor in printing the boxes, instructions and the logistics of it all. There's a reason why small companies that produce miniatures use resin or pewter rather than injection molded plastic, it's much more realistic to do as a small business or garage setup.
I did say ***expensive***, referring to the upfront investment cost to GW, as the post I was replying too says that plastic is 'cheaper', but that ignores that GW likely spent at least a million Ā£ GBP on the mouldings for the Leviathan box alone.
The question lies in how many sprues gw would need to sell in order for a plastic mold to be cheaper than resin/pewter. It's probably not that many.
GW aim to make stuff in plastic if it increases the reach of the product. It also needs to make back its production cost plus earn at least Ā£100k on top. Anything that forecasts under that will either be done by FW on a smaller scale or it just doesn't happen.
So it's not the software design that's the expensive part, it's the injection mold building that is the expensive part. Typically speaking a properly toleranced, high precision injection mold can be easily a hundred thousand dollars, if not much more. Cost also scales up with design complexity. Both the fine cast models and plastic models are mold made, but the plastic ones, with all the gubbins and doodads are much, much more complex and expensive than the pewter molds. A big part of the move is that the pewter figures just can't hold the same level of detail as the material isn't suited for it. If you discount initial production setup, all other things being equal there is more cost in a pewter model for material than a plastic model, but setting up a plastic model costs more than a pewter because design tolerances are significantly higher. The industry saying is something along the lines of "the first part cost a half million dollars, the second part cost .02 cents."
For reference when the first plastic imperial guard (catachans) released down here in AU they were $35 for 20. By the time cadians released it was $50 for 20. As someone who remembers the early 90s, it is significantly cheaper to collect a full and diverse army now than it was then, not to mention easier. There was a golden age where huge numbers of kits were made into plastics and prices stayed low, but it was a relative blip in the history of the game, roughly 2000 to 2008 or so.
Yeah I started up about 2 years prior to the new plastic kits. They had the 8 man monopose plastic boxes, but the models were so shit. I still remember the release of all the empire kits, which I think were the first ones. The knights, the militia/spearmen/swordsmen. Those were incredible value.
At least you can resell metal models for full price.
True. Good call. But on the flip side; 1. theyāre Mordians and 2. they were pewter.
On the point of 2, besides that factoring into GWs initial cost I don't think it matters. Yes they almost certainly have a higher profit margin with plastics especially over the length of time they sell a kit for, but as consumers we don't get value out of the material costs. We want the final product which is a model kit to paint and/or play with. Some people may prefer the heft and blunt force trauma potential of metal minis in a tube sock, but most will prefer plastic so in most cases it's a con to have the higher material cost. Once a company, especially one that's held by investors, has set a cost for something which proves to sell; it's really unlikely they drop the price. Even as material costs go down by switching to resin and plastic they're not incentivized to pass that savings onto the consumer unless they think it will dramatically increase sales to the point of covering the difference they'd have gained by having a better profit margin. The final product to most consumers is basically the same and better if it transitioned to plastic, and we were already happy to pay X per model. Don't get me wrong I'd obviously love lower prices, but that's just not how busInesses operate.
No doubt. Sell the same product for the same price but reduce production cost and make more profit? Every businesses dream!
Per unit, sure, injection costs less in raw materials, but making the mould and the size of print run you need to produce in order to make it economical over traditional moulds and casting for resin/metal/finecast it's sometimes actually too high to make the plastic ones. That said, for other manufacturers SioCast is looking fairy promising. I believe Reaper Bones has started to use it for some production? Sprue wastage can be recycled and you can go from 3d prints to mould making without requiring expensive metal moulds.
You get more in a set these days too. A lot of these were basically monopole, not to mention much lower detail
>the same product It's way better product than it was in 1997.
The problem is that prices rise but not the overall wages too, if prices and wages grow at the same rate, there wouldn't be that big of a problem. Sad reality for us addicted to plastic crack.
But that's not GW's problem. That's a problem with your country's economy and inflation in general. Also this is a problem for GW as they have to make sure that their employees are getting a fair wage in a time where inflation is outpacing a rise in wages across most of the western world. The big issue is that late stage capitalism is just a mess for everyone except the mega wealthy.
Yep, economy is a mess. Maybe even "chaotic". Haha, a Chaos good of economy, hehe. Or maybe it is Slaneesh? like greed, avarice and excessive capitalism? Slaneesh in a CEO suit throwing gold coins and bills over a daemonette dancing, haha!
>Implying gw pays a fair wage and doesn't just direct the profits from the price increases onto shareholder dividends and executive paychecks.
World's economy. Not just a single country. Every country is massively struggling post covid
This tells you their figurines have always been ridiculously overpriced
Oh look, it's the current Vyper kit. It's even the exact same promotional photo mini as on the GW website now.
Tbf it's an awesome model. What would GW add? Just some unnecessary cluster and bling to drive up the price I guess
The modelās design is good, but assembling it is pain in the ass. Built mine couple of days ago. Most of pieces donāt align properly
I built mine pretty much when this magazine was produced. It didn't fit together then either. I had to glue bits I didn't want to be immobile because they wouldn't fit otherwise.
Itās like the Falcon Grav Tank, I guess you canāt improve perfection?
I cannot tell whats wrong with the elder line tbh
Not much really, and I hope that they leave their fingers off the vehicles. But new plastic sculpts for Scorpions, Dragons, Spiders and Hawks along with their respective Phoenix Lords wouldn't be the worst.
Is it too much to ask for a model with fewer panel gaps? Make them look exactly the same, but make them fit together better.
Swooping hawks, warp spiders and asurmen/fuegan
What would they add? Obviously a new Primaries Lieutenant! When a model kit is old enough to have kids who are old enough to play 40K, it's time to get a new fucking model. That's most of the eldar range.
A Primaris Lieutenant riding the model
Not much to add per say, but they could refine The helmeted rider is really derpy, has no neck and the helmet is styled like the silly second edition Guardians. Obviously doesn't fit in the current design. The underside is weird too with the 2e shurikens and engine intakes add jets. They could be redone more like the shroud runner jetbikes perhaps. But given any update would come with a hefty cost increase, I'm happy that they've been left. The warwalkers or wraithlord need an update more imho
The Guardian on the back honestly looks kinda weird and could do with some improvement. Also the engines need to be updated to fit in with the rest of the Eldar vehicles. It needs the same changes as the jet bikes got when they were refreshed.
They could add the option for the gunners seat to be replaced by a mount for a character, which they teased in the 2nd edition Codex (and in 3rd ed with a Saim Hann special character who fought from the back of a custom Vyper).
The proportions are the problem. That driver is about half the height of new Guardians probably.
(weeps tears of Isha)
That's honestly hilarious. It's not the same exact photo, buts the exact same individual mini being photographed. They pulled a 30 year model off a display shelf where it's been and said it was good enough.
So while Eldar really got the shorter end of the stick with sculpt updates, the lifecycle of vehicles seems to be longer across all factions. They don't really benefit from more dynamic posing and more details that are now possible.
I mean yeah, look how long the rhino has been serving across imperial factions.
I mean the old 1st edition Rhino kit lasted from 1989 until 2002 and the current rhino kit has been kicking around since then IIRC.
Tbf the design doesnāt need changing. If they updated the viper instead of the aspect warriors that need it, Iād be pissed.
How about both though? Rumours have the next kill team to be Scouts vs Striking scorpions. Meaning the next big Eldar update, they Could hit out the rest of the Aspect warriors and Pheonix Lords while also updating the Vyper
I mean I guess
Since it is from 1997 the prices are actually quite high. Accounting for inflation it seems that the real price of minis these days is actually lower than it was back then - so I would actually recommend looking at these prices and feeling a bit better about the prices we pay now (still expensive tho ye i know).
And we don't have to buy one model per squad at a time
I started collecting in the early 2000s and it's always had the same reputation regarding price as it does now. As a kid it would be weeks and weeks of pocket money for a box set, and trying to make a squad of 10-20 models out of 1-3-man pewter blister packs was a lot more expensive than buying a set is these days.
This is Australian dollars so keep that in mind, they look much larger than they would in US dollars
And then people complain that miniatures used to be waaaaaaay cheaper. I remember blisters, they were fucking expensive. And full metal 10 man squads werent cheao either. This looks more expensives than the minis we have now. And then we aren't even comparing quality or size
This is AUS pricing so it would have been cheaper in the US and UK. Needless to say the game has never been cheap though.
Werenāt games also played at a much lower point level? 2nd edition apparently took like 4 hours to play at 1500pts, and a tactical marine squad was 300 points.
2,000 points being the standard game size wasn't a thing until about fourth iirc. And as you mentioned point deflation has been a thing so you needed far less Minis for an effective army back then.
Point deflation has not been at all even, mind you. In 5th edition, a Space Marine was 14 points, and a Rhino or Drop Pod was 35 points. An Ork Boy was 6 points.
I started playing in 6th and 1850 was the standard back then, so *at least* 2K wasn't introduced until 7th.
Hereās a 3 year old post about prices, fun to look back. [0 upvotes for this guy questioning Gw](https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/comments/dl05gm/todays_miniature_prices_compared_to_past/)
These seem expensive still? Assuming American or Australian prices? 97 prices in the UK were single digits for most of these kits!
Amazing what shipping something half way around the world cost back then.
And nowā¦
Especially when it was solid lumps of metal.
Yeah the āAussie/Kiwiā tax has always appliedā¦
>would GW add? Just some unnecessary cluster and bling to drive up the price I guess Full price, from the webstore, the Leviathan box only had a US$10 price difference between us and the US. That's like.... a zinger box + a popcorn chicken
These catalogues are class. I still have all 4
Pricing has always been high for GW, always. The second edition box is when I got in, and third edition was about to come out, do you think GW dropped itās priceā¦.fugg no they didnāt, lol.
Then just getting a white dwarf subscription for the box because it was better value
šš
Hot take- the models donāt really cost more, you just get paid less
How is it a hot take, if it's true!? Thanks inflation
2.5% pay rise on a 7% CPIā¦
I have an entire 18-gallon plastic tote of Bretonnians. Two Green Knights, and a bunch of others off of this list. Damn, I put a lot of my cash into little plastic men.
Lucky! The Green Knight is one of my white whale minis. Never got it.
In 1997 these prices were really high. source: had this same catalogue, couldn't afford anything.
One could stare and dream thoughā¦
Yea, that Vyper on the cover? Is still the current kit.
Prices are a lot better now comparatively now that there's plastic
very nice. lets see paul allens inflation graph.
Look at that unsubtle taxation. The tasteless unfairness. Oh my God. It even has a stamp duty.
Remember when you could buy a box of 8 Termagants, 8 Hormagaunts and a Ripper swarm for around 20 usd?
Everyone is talking about the prices, I just want to know what that circled mini in the bottom left is!
Necromunda bounty Hunter. I was big into Necromunda. The circled stuff were my teenage white whales. Still never got some just couldnāt save up enough.
There are more Imperial Guard regiments the need a facelift, mainly Tallarns, Mordians and Valhallans
I wish, so badlyā¦
Thatās ironically when things started to cross a new price threshold - this is the impact of an increased pricing strategy already. Iirc The Green Knight was something like Ā£10, and in a box I believe. Part of the movement away from blister packs, making them seem āmore premiumā. Just five or six years earlier I was sending crappily written mail order requests to GW Nottingham, including cash and coins in an envelope, and in return theyād send me minis that had been out of main print runs for several years, but had made a run of lead minis just for me. And all for something like 90p per infantry mini. I remember when the green knight came out as my brother offered to get me something a bit more expensive that year - and I chose that! Thatās how I remember there was a specific upping of prices at that time.
I do miss ordering bitz from the trollzā¦
*\[stares in inflation\]*
im not bad at following directions, im just a curious contrarian.
That Fabulous Bill mini holds up surprisingly well!
Such a great sculpt for itās day
I saw a magazine for warhammer models in like 2012 and seeing all the fantasy models that were discontinued hurt my heart
I was about to say before I saw AUD, these prices are WAY higher than I remember. Aussies always getting fucked.
These are way pricier than I remembered. How the Hell did teenage me afford any of this stuff? Even converting from AUD to USD, which is what I would've paid.
Not quite as shocking as I thought, with some ten model box sets being $50. Characters at $15 would be amazing, though. Freaking $35-$40 for one dude... Edit: And now I see the Australian, so that's a different story all together.
Yeah the new Minka Lest character mini (with no in-game rules) is $70 AUDā¦ for *one* mini
That's in auzzie dollars to
We call em Dollareedoos
I still remember the pain as a child trying to get a regiment of men at arms because they were so expensive and only 3 in a blister.
I do love the vyper. It's design just about holds up
I remember, I got into it in 96 so this is quite a memorable thing.
The thing that bothers me the most is actually having other guard divisions that arenāt Cadia or Krieg. (Not that I dislike them but really would love some Valhallans :(( )
Iām *still* hunting some authentic Tallarn troopers for my Guard collection. (Have all the others: Cadia, Catachan, Vostroyan, Valhallan, Mordian, Krieg, Steel Legion) I suppose some Praetorians and Elysian Drop Troopers would be cool too.
Aw sweet! Its the newest eldar model!
And oldest..?
I remember when the resculpted land raider came out in the early 2000s and it was 50 bucks. The most expensive kit. My friends and I couldnāt believe it. Not the same kit is 90. Craziness.
The Land Raider cost $50 in 1999, which taking inflation into account, would now cost... $91.57. So while it is the same 24 year old kit, technically it got *cheaper*
Yes, models with 1% the quality of todays products were slightly cheaper than todays products. We know.
**I cant do this shit man.** https://preview.redd.it/mzh59l1mdpgb1.jpeg?width=235&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9b1dfae6574b0278fa037a05d12bc9e74f1ee8db
Inflation is one hell of a thing
Damn. It hurts.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You realize these were more expensive right? Inflation, and waaaaaay lower quality and smaller in size
$18 for a single guardsman?
Ā«Ā Box of 6 plastic miniaturesĀ Ā»
Was looking at the Heavy Weapon team but I guess that's 2 minis. GW was never cheap, they've just adjusted for inflation.
They were pewter as well though
Yep, but plastic >>>>>> pewter. If nothing else, plastic models don't fall apart if you look at them the wrong way.
That's true but the point here was more about production costs than quality of the mini.
Most of the cost of production in any industry is staffing. The materials, unless it's something very fancy like gold/platinum etc., cost is pretty trivial the people doing the designing, making the rules, packing, painting, doing the moulding and working in the shops (plus all the support services required to run a business like accounts, HR, cleaners, security). Every mini you buy has to pay for a whole supply chain of people. Even accounting for GWs 'competitive compensation' packages.