The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[Chico]

Really not keen of those new Dwarves, their nakkedness scares me hehe

On a plus side for once GW/FW have just taken some of my money for the first time in many many years in the form of 30k/HH.

GW standard prices are now so expensive that FW prices seem a tad more reasonable and I've caved in dew to the releasing of BaC I've now bought some of their 30k/HH kits.

Oh and the new Blood Bowl in the future GW might get a couple quid on me..

Oh I feel Ill... what did I just do and admit too

[Momotaro]

The new "Start Collecting!"  bundles up for pre-order today are looking suspiciously sane... new year, new plan?

Looking at the new prices, the answer is "Not in the slightest"  

Don't mind the look of the dwarfs, but I though I was seeing the prices in Roubles  

[Vermis]

Looking more and more like stiff action figures. Out of Masters of the Universe or something. They're not good, they're not bad, they're boring.

Irony number 2. GW have "lost" Slaanesh in a concession to their 12 year old demograph

Irony number 4. No they didn't.

[Major_Gilbear]

Don't mind the look of the dwarfs, but £60 for ten Slayers and £40 for five Hearthguard?

Wowsers, and I thought that £35 for ten Witch Elves was arse-clenching!  

Also the "starter armies" are not brilliant value unless you feel that the regular pricing is sensible.

For example the Space Marine set retails at £53 pounds without the Captain (and £73 with). So, you're only really getting a free character (or the equivalent) plus £2-3 in loose change by way of savings in the battle forces starter armies now.

[Momotaro]

Wowsers, and I thought that £35 for ten Witch Elves was arse-clenching!  

Also the "starter armies" are not brilliant value unless you feel that the regular pricing is sensible.

For example the Space Marine set retails at £53 pounds without the Captain (and £73 with). So, you're only really getting a free character (or the equivalent) plus £2-3 in loose change by way of savings in the battle forces starter armies now.

Sorry Major, I removed the prices from my post - I believe they should be in US dollars.  Mind, £40 for ten dwarfs and £25 for five other dwarfs is still somewhere within the definition of awful.

The price for the command figures does skew the value of the starter sets, not to mention the recent price hikes for, say, the Tau, and I don't think a bloke on a plastic dinosaur was ever worth £50, but I can see where they're coming from for the 40k ones.  Add another squad of troops for £20-£25 and a support blister and you're kind of in Bolt Action 1000-point army territory.  A ruleset that's optimised for that size of force would be a good next step for GW  

On the other hand, plenty of them bring the models to reasonable prices.  If you think of the AdMech box as a £25 vehicle, a £15 squad and a £10 commander, it feels, well, closer to the competition.  Find some spare torsos and legs in the bits box, and you'll get second unit out of the troops sprues.

It's still a very welcome move from a company not known for such things.

Clearly the fantasy armies are struggling to compare with Mantic's £50 armies, although they do offer more variation - cavalry and monstahs(!).  And they're not, er, Mantic figures.

Element Games has them on pre-order for £39.99 and at Dark Sphere it's £37.50.  I'd say they're all good buys at that price, although you will need to buy a couple of boxes (and another small item) to qualify for free shipping.

[Elbows]

The GW prices lack one thing: consistency.

Imperial guard old-school metal squads (10 figures): $30 (same as their price about 12-15 years ago).  Completely fine by me.

Retail discounted Jetbike box (three models): $32, completely reasonable.

Single Character plastics: $20...not reasonable.

Start collecting Tau set: $85 (discounted probably around $70), completely reasonable. The three crisis suit set itself is $75 retail.

Varanguard (3 cavalry figures): $100...get stuffed.  Even at discount that's absurdity.

Blood Warriors (10 figures): $62...get stuffed.  Again, ridiculous.

Dire Avengers (5 plastic figs): $29 ---- at retail discount, get stuffed.  Nonsense.
___________________

My point is that while I've been perusing the GW site a lot lately to see what they're really on about, at discount from retailers, some kits are completely okay.  But most are just laughably silly.  I'd even consider getting into 40K (indirectly, using other rules) again with Eldar if they didn't have an entirely nonsense resin army. 

[nic-e]

I'm getting the start collecting skiitari box, I've wanted that dune crawler since it came out, and since i can get the box for £40 at tabletop tyrant ,I can use the infantry and leader for 40k-Grave.

[Major_Gilbear]

Well, unless you want lots of the plastic hero models or whatever, I can't see much point in buying more than one (maybe two) of these sets - they are quite literally starter forces, and comparing the SM bundle to the Calth box just serves to highlight this further (i.e., for twice the price, you get three times the stuff and it's a better and more useful ratio of models).

Yet again, a missed opportunity for: high sales volumes, repeat sales, accessible entry to the games, good PR.

Okay, so some of the sets are better value than others - that's not unexpected (and indeed the Ad Mech starter has already sold out). But a lot that I looked at just seemed... Same-old, same-old. I really feel that GW understand people's attitude to their pricing, and want to convince you that you're getting some sort of bargain in every way that they can, except by actually giving you a real discount.

Also, none of these sets (at least the 40k ones) contain enough to let you play a game with them - they are just too limited.

I am frankly surprised that GW still hasn't moved to doing a battleforce with a specific set of sprues in the starter-box style. This would make them cheaper, a better entryway to the game, and not compete with the "full" kits available separately.

As an example, the Dark Vengeance contents for the Dark Angels would make an ideal starter army all on its own, and given the price of the full DV set could easy be priced at around £35. Such sprues could even include an exclusive hero or two (like DV does), and perhaps a pamphlet with a narrative scenario that uses your starter force (and is designed to fight another starter force). Starter armies like these would fly off the shelves!

And comparing that example of what could be done against these following bundles currently offered by GW:

• Weapons of Atonement (21 troop models, £110)

• Dark Angels Battleforce (5 bike/light vehicle models, £60)

• Dark Angels Dark Vengeance Expansion Set (9 models including 3 bikes and a flyer, £85)

Yeah.

So, against the silly bundles, the starter forces look great. But looking at what they can/could do instead, they just look like more head-in-the-sand "offers" that totally miss any sense of reality. But then, I guess the emphasis is now on "collecting models" rather than "buying models to play a game with".

Anyway, sorry for another pricing rant!  

[Elbows]

I agree, namely because if anything the BoC box is 100% proof that they can provide a heap of figures/models for a reasonable price.  And unlike the starter boxes of old, the BoC figures are not snap-together short-cut models...they're 100% proper plastic sprues/kits.  I'd have an awful hard time looking at a box of five terminators in the store for what $55-60...and then seeing BoC with all of that stuff for twice the price. (well $125 at discount).  It simply does not make any logical sense and that's what pisses me off.

[Dim_Reaper]

As for the Fyreslayers, I dunno... I suppose I might think of them as one of those "I don't personally like them, but I appreciate the fact that they exist" kind of things. But they also make me wonder how many more rounds of iterative stylistic ante-upping GW can go through. How much more extreme can a Slayer become by this point? Is there something even more OTT in store for when AoS 2nd Edition rolls around?

Indeed. To paraphrase Yahtzee Croshaw somewhat, how better can something get than the concession of: a) having tits, and b) being on fire?

Re: the consistency of GW pricing and value of kits, just bear in mind that GW are obviously at least partly aware that when their stupid business practices fail (and they usually do) they need to save themselves with the odd limited box that has value you'd be stupid to pass up. Given that this year was going to be really bad for GW before the Calth box set came out, I have no difficulty seeing the motive.

The fact that keeping fans satisfied with quality and value is seen by GW as an unsustainable effort is remarkably odd. But I guess they'd rather stick to this fantastic plan of theirs than admit they're wrong. Ultimately, GW's decision makers are sales people. Like most sales people, they have no idea what sells. But they do know how to keep the higher ups from sacking them for another year.

Now you understand the point of Calth. Likewise, these starting army deals could have been useful around Xmas time, but my suspicion is, sales are falling away AGAIN and they needed to do something to make them rise. They're trying everything to make their business look solid before the financial year ends, other than not sucking at what their product is for.

[beefcake]

Indeed. To paraphrase Yahtzee Croshaw somewhat, how better can something get than the concession of: a) having tits, and b) being on fire?

Fyreslayers, they've got the fire, and from those pics I'm sure I caught a glimpse of sideboob.

[Streetline]

Speaking of sales

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/08/games-workshop-fails-weave-christmas-magic


JDE

[Cubs]

Wait ... they re-branded their stores 'Warhammer' because that's what its customers call it?

1. Eh? I've never heard it called that. It's the Games Workshop or GW shop.

2. Why spend so much money on a rebrand for such a ridiculous reason? Does Marks and Spencer plan to call its shops Marks and Sparks now? Will McDonalds call itself Maccy D's? If you accept that customers have a nickname for your shop (I don't accept that Warhammer is it, but there we go) you don't rebrand to fall in line. That's ... moronic.

3. Why rebrand to a name you have just nuked out of existence?

Is anyone actually steering this ship or is it basically just a shoelace tied to a steering wheel with a post-it note saying 'Out to lunch' ?

[Chico]

Wait ... they re-branded their stores 'Warhammer' because that's what its customers call it?

1. Eh? I've never heard it called that. It's the Games Workshop or GW shop.

Heh my old mum used to call it the ''Warhammer shop'' 20 odd years ago, does that count

[Cubs]

Heh my old mum used to call it the ''Warhammer shop'' 20 odd years ago, does that count

It might.