The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[Vladimir Raukov]

New dryads box has 16 models instead of 12, so the price has gone up by a couple of quid, but it works out less per model than before.
Also the new forest battleforce box thing is apparently cheaper than buying the things individually, which is a first for gw, but i haven't counted it out so don't quote me on that.

Most of the battallions work out a little cheaper in my experience, but that might just be the few I looked at.

[Argonor]

I actually kind of like the new grey... er .. golden knights. If they weren't so darn expensive, I could see them used as constructs/living statues in settings like Frostgrave and the likes.

[Major_Gilbear]

Most of the battallions work out a little cheaper in my experience, but that might just be the few I looked at.

Battalions (and Battleforces) were relatively good value compared to buying the kits separately. Some were definitely better than others though (namely: those you'd want to buy two or three of, rather than those that you only want one of because they contain a poor/ugly unit).

Nowadays, they do still offer a very modest saving, but the sizes are getting chopped down a lot which tightens the saving even more. I also think that a lot of bits sellers were buying the big boxes and chopping them up, which is probably a major reason why GW stopped making them better value (i.e., force the cost to the bits sellers to rise, and hopefully make the parts they sell unattractively expensive to put them out of business).

@ Argonor: I think that's essentially what they are in AoS anyway!

[nic-e]

New khorne bloodreavers out next week. 20 miniatures for £30 (?) ,look good!
Also, this https://www.facebook.com/oldhammermemes

[nic-e]

so I can buy the chaos guys out of the box seperate next week?

Apparently so.

[Connectamabob]

I also think that a lot of bits sellers were buying the big boxes and chopping them up, which is probably a major reason why GW stopped making them better value (i.e., force the cost to the bits sellers to rise, and hopefully make the parts they sell unattractively expensive to put them out of business).

Maybe it's just me being a relative outsider to all this GW stuff, but why would they care about bits sellers parting up sets? I mean, GW still gets money from set sales whether they're being sold to bits resellers or end users, and if bits sellers buying sets to resell means more sets are sold total then otherwise would be, then if anything they'd be a good thing?

And running prices up to put the bits sellers out of business? How is that not cutting of ones own nose to spite one's face? I mean, if you're making it too costly for the bits sellers by way of making resold bits too expensive for end users, HTF does that not also make the sets themselves too expensive for end users?

[Arlequín]

Yes that's quite logical, but when a bits buyer can service perhaps 20 people out of that one set, each of whom might have had to buy a whole set to get the bits they needed otherwise, GW are down -19 set sales.

On another note, I was surprised that WFB only accounted for 15% of GW sales last year, yet typically takes up some 30-40% shop space. It's suddenly become quite clear why they needed to clear the decks.

[Ajsalium]

Except that no one is going to buy a whole set just for one bit.
That seems to be too hard to comprehend in Nottingham, mind you.

[matthais-mouse]

What they could have done instead is sell fantasy just online instead of in the shop.

I was talking to the York manager the last time I was there about old army books and apparently of not sold by the end of September they are all destroyed. Not sold to whole sales or anything sensible,  just destroyed. What a waste.

Sorry if that has been said before...

[Connectamabob]

Yes that's quite logical, but when a bits buyer can service perhaps 20 people out of that one set, each of whom might have had to buy a whole set to get the bits they needed otherwise, GW are down -19 set sales.

Except they aren't, because most of the people buying from the bits sellers are doing so because the sets are priced out of the market for them. They aren't lost sales, because they never would have bought the sets anyway.

SOME of them would buy the sets if the resellers weren't around, but only a small minority, so in the big picture killing off the bits sellers just reduces GWs gross sales.

This would ESPECIALLY be true if one were driving off bits resellers by raising the prices of the sets 'till their customers can't even afford the bits. Yeah, SURELY those people will be able/willing to buy those sets now, amirite? In fact, good job: you've even just choked a chunk of those few ligit "lost sales" out of your market. 

Claiming that they all (or even just a majority) represent lost sales smacks of the sort of blind "everyone will buy all our stuff no matter what" mentality people often complain of here. Same attitude that had us in the US putting our auto industry on welfare not too long ago.

[Momotaro]

Maybe it's just me being a relative outsider to all this GW stuff, but why would they care about bits sellers parting up sets? I mean, GW still gets money from set sales whether they're being sold to bits resellers or end users, and if bits sellers buying sets to resell means more sets are sold total then otherwise would be, then if anything they'd be a good thing?

There was a time when they offered deep reductions on big sets, and bitz sellers would snap them up.  So it wasn't uncommon to be able get a vehicle on the sprue for £10 when they were £20+ from GW.  That's what the Major was talking about.

GW reckoned this was killing them in the mid-2000s.  So they stopped the deep discounts.  

More recently, they've gone after bitz sellers who break up individual boxes for pieces (and lets be honest, you have a pile of bitz left over after EVERY box from GW).  This is truly bizarre, lacking even the slightest logic.  As you say, these folks buy GW kits to provide a service that GW themselves would find impossible.

It helps if you think of GW as the Tom Kirby Retirement Fund and see their strategy in that light.

[Vermis]

Welcome to Games Workshop: After The LotR.

Sorry if that has been said before...

I don't think it can be said enough.

More recently, they've gone after bitz sellers who break up individual boxes for pieces (and lets be honest, you have a pile of bitz left over after EVERY box from GW).  This is truly bizarre, lacking even the slightest logic.  As you say, these folks buy GW kits to provide a service that GW themselves would find impossible.

Yup. I dunno about raising the prices to put off bits sellers, but they effectively did that when they stopped trade accounts to bits sellers two years ago.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2013/03/40k-news-cya-later-bits-says-games-workshop.html
http://natfka.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/games-workshop-policy-changes.html

Now, fair to say I haven't studied the matter too much to know if it's global or just on the American side, but it doesn't seem to have stopped many bits sellers that I know about. Something I've been grateful for, recently.

[Connectamabob]

There was a time when they offered deep reductions on big sets, and bitz sellers would snap them up.  So it wasn't uncommon to be able get a vehicle on the sprue for £10 when they were £20+ from GW.  That's what the Major was talking about.

Ah, I see. That makes a bit more sense. Not so much resale issue as a scalping issue, then.

It helps if you think of GW as the Tom Kirby Retirement Fund and see their strategy in that light.

I've read that before, but I don't understand it. Every publicly traded company is a retirement fund (or part of one) for chunk of its investors. I mean, unless you're planning on dying really soon and have a really expensive bucket list, a health company with an expanding future would be preferable to corporate autocannibalism always one misstep ahead of insolvency.

[Momotaro]

I've read that before, but I don't understand it. Every publicly traded company is a retirement fund (or part of one) for chunk of its investors. I mean, unless you're planning on dying really soon and have a really expensive bucket list, a health company with an expanding future would be preferable to corporate autocannibalism always one misstep ahead of insolvency.

Many of their recent decisions have an air of "Apres moi, le deluge" short-termism about them.  Very generous (sometimes over-generous) dividends - guess who's a big shareholder?  Extreme price hikes in the very short term, cutting back on staff in shops when they're your major outlet and the infamous £4 million to his wife's company to build the website.

In a certain light, of course 

[Major_Gilbear]

@ Connectamabob:

Momotaro is correct on all counts.

The old official bitz service was stopped by GW who didn't want to spend money on staff and storage, and didn't want people to just buy a part instead of a complete set either - this was to force higher sales for lower overheads. So when independent bitz sellers set up and used the big boxes (with their deep discounts improved further by getting a retailer's discount on top), GW didn't like it and has tried several different ways to shut them down.

Further, I understand that they limit what discount retailers are allowed to offer the public as a condition of having a retailer account with GW. Retailers are also apparently not allowed to use the GW official pictures of their boxes and models (but it's fine if they take their own). These restrictions, combined with a restricted selection and quantity of products that GW will sell them, are all intended to prevent independent retailers from undercutting GW direct sales and to drive more sales to GW's own stores.

It's a really greedy and short-sighted series of decisions in so many ways, but they've been talked about enough already so I won't go into them again. Suffice to say that I don't think they've helped big armies sell well.

I don't mind businesses doing well, or wanting to do well/better - it's usually why they exist in the first place after all! But as a customer I dislike being forced out of buying a product through massive unnecessary price hikes, and then being indirectly blamed by the same company for not buying what they priced me out of as the reason that their sales are doing badly. Again though, covered enough in this thread alone already, so I'll leave it there.

Many of their recent decisions have an air of "Apres moi, le deluge" short-termism about them.  Very generous (sometimes over-generous) dividends - guess who's a big shareholder?  Extreme price hikes in the very short term, cutting back on staff in shops when they're your major outlet and the infamous £4 million to his wife's company to build the website.

In a certain light, of course 

Quite!

I was talking to the York manager the last time I was there about old army books and apparently of not sold by the end of September they are all destroyed. Not sold to whole sales or anything sensible,  just destroyed. What a waste.

Yeah, they apparently did the same with copies of Dreadfleet that they failed to sell.

A waste maybe, but (1) not that uncommon actually, and (2) shows how much profit was made if they can afford to do that. I suspect that it's also to eke out what they can money-wise before killing off any remaining competition to AoS - again, not a big surprise really. <shrug>