The Old World - pricing and the future

[Valkyrion]

*This isn't a thread on the Old World, rather a thread on GW's pricing structure for the Old World - I understand it may get locked if talk moves towards the WFB of it, but that isn't my intention.*

 

£50 for 12 man sized metal models. £36 for 3 (three!) knights. I have no real interest in WFB beyond the normal nostalgia, but the idea was massive rank and file battles, and massive can't be done if it's £50 for 12 or £36 for 3. 

 

 

There's every chance I've missed a 'reason' for the pricing structure, I'm only passively interested in WFB after all, but it seems like a traditionally low points unit (5 points per model or something) for an outrageous monetary price. 

 

So what gives? 

[Redcomet]

They charge it because they can. It is called Nostalgia Tax. Also the ones you have highlighted, you would never have more than one unit of, so extra tax for that.

 

The Old World is aimed, by GW’s own admission, at already established gamers and WHFB veterans. So it is not priced for young beginners.

[Marshal Reinhard]

Wait, the oold world uses metal models?

 

I don't see 40k or HH moving back to metal any time soon

[Redcomet]

10 minutes ago, Marshal Reinhard said:

Wait, the oold world uses metal models?

 

I don't see 40k or HH moving back to metal any time soon

Yes all the old minis are in metal not in finecast/resin. 
 

Sidenote, people rushing out to but 25 year old, and terrible, skeletons will give GW ideas 

Edited January 6 by Redcomet

[StratoKhan]

Horus Heresy is in a very different state, it started as a FW resin range and was augmented by two plastic boxed sets: Betrayal at Calth and Burning of Prospero.

 

As far as I remember, no HH models have ever been white metal. I cannot think of any reason why they’d introduce any new metal models , given that production techniques have moved on. The old metal moulds that have been resurrected in WHtOW, do not exist in HH’s case.

 

Since the launch of HH 2.0, the HH team have been quite diligent about releasing plastic kits (ok maybe not in the order we were hoping), and where this is not applicable, resin models have been released. I do not see how any WHtOW old metal minis coming back means this is changing. It’s due to historical reasons in the WHtOW range that those metal models are back.

 

Finally, HH has an established pricing structure based on the new plastics and the new resin releases. Plus ‘legacy’ pricing on the FW resin kits. That’s the baseline, any changes they make will be from there rather than any complete re-engineering of the pricing structure.

Edited January 6 by StratoKhan
Typo

[Evil Eye]

It's also worth noting that new WHFB sculpts are in FW resin (not Finecast, thank the gods), and only models previously available in metal will be returning in metal. So unless previously-retired models for 40K get reissued on a permanent basis rather than MTO, metal is likely not coming back to the 41st millennium any time soon.

 

Whilst the prices are outrageous as always (and I'm not sure how to fix that short of kidnapping a GW exec's children and forcing them to build 3E metal Gargoyles until prices fall) I will say that it might not be too horrible to collect assuming the standard game size is closer to 6th and prior rather than 7th-8th's greatly inflated size (AKA "hordehammer"). That said? I'm more annoyed that the Tomb Kings are still using those rather...questionable skeletons and that the army box's main new sculpt is that horrible looking dragon thing!

[Noserenda]

I suspect this has more to do with the dire reputation of Finecast than anything else (Though id heard tin prices are down again?) bringing back metals and definitively saying Forgeworld resin before things that use it.

Metal Cavalry have always been relatively pricy though, they universally dropped significantly when moving to plastic so it stands to reason something like this would be the result after all the inflation between releases.

Oh and all the Metal knights are elites i think, which isnt going to help, the line troops are all plastic, though yeah, people enthusiastically embracing the godawful tomb king basic troops is going to set a depressing precedent for what SG can get away with :D 

[Noserenda]

I dont think its trying to have it not succeed, they do love money after all and all the core game design and development work is already done and paid for, they are more curating existing stuff than creating reams of new things.

No its exactly the same annoying rivalries that get in the way of obvious 40/30k crossovers, if you have an extensive AoS branded range available you get sidelined in OW (Except Chaos, because there are limits lol) just like no Chimeras or Sanguinary Guard in 30k or (nearly) all the 30k plastics being legends in 40k.

I am begging GW to develop more sophisticated metrics :P 

[Emperor Ming]

Its not an inspiring start for the return of wfb

 

Cobbled together ancient kits of resin metal and plastic  

 

If gw were being serious, it would all be new plastic kits. 

 

It feels like they are being ultra cautious, not to much investment, just encase it dies again

[phandaal]

The approach does seem to be in line with 30k vs 40k - nothing can be allowed to interfere with the main line. For HH that means the units are separate and no longer compatible with 40k. For TOW, it means they come up with whatever lore/production reasons they need to keep it walled off from AoS.

 

We can infer that this is going to be their approach going forward. To keep it in line with this forum, that means we will continue to see Horus Heresy units with minimal crossover to 40k.

 

As for the pricing, well... AdMech players can probably sympathize with anyone who wants to buy a bunch of TOW cavalry or Ushtabi.

[Nephaston]

53 minutes ago, Emperor Ming said:

It feels like they are being ultra cautious, not to much investment, just encase it dies again

This is probably the case, just to gauge interest, meaning people will have to reasonably buy into it just to show there being an interest.

 

 

[Rain]

This was always going to be a “homework done on the bus” kind of release. To expect anything else would have been magical thinking. Along with that come certain unfavorable corollaries such as the TK Skellies first designed in 1942 by torchlight.

 

But it’s still (comparatively) low fantasy Warhammer in a traditional middle-ages-Europe-with-dragons fantasy setting without the “realms” and other “creative”  of AoS lore. It’s The Witcher to AoS’s World of Warcaft. So, I’ll take what I can get.

Edited January 7 by Rain

[Lexington]

No idea how representative this is, but absolutely no one I know who plans to get into TOW is actually planning on using many GW models for it, m’self included. This is, uh, not unrelated to the prices.

[Noserenda]

1 hour ago, Lexington said:

No idea how representative this is, but absolutely no one I know who plans to get into TOW is actually planning on using many GW models for it, m’self included. This is, uh, not unrelated to the prices.

Ha, very true! Though i think at least in our groups case, two of us are building Empire armies that arent available and most of the rest are just dusting off old armies. One chap is buying some Bretonnians but they both have a great job and are significantly isolated from those of us that have printers or spend too long browsing historical game catalogues lol. I may well come get some monsters and demigryphs when they come to Empire or something cool from the back half of their army book.

Actually thats the most worrying thing from the release for me, splitting the "codexes" into an unwieldy compendium and still needing another book for the rest of it! One way or another please...

[tinpact]

The Grail Knights are particularly egregious as a Rare choice (typically 1 unit per 1000 points - although there's no upper limit on unit size, they're also about four times the points cost per model of your average infantry unit). So, you have the usual elite unit tax on top of being metal and they come out to roughly on par with the various legion-specific Terminators.

 

4 hours ago, Noserenda said:

Actually thats the most worrying thing from the release for me, splitting the "codexes" into an unwieldy compendium and still needing another book for the rest of it! One way or another please...

That I'm tentative about - I'll have to see for myself, but HH has two books for a faction that shares all of its units and force orgs, so it's not that far off. To be honest, I think the "Arcane Journal" format is an idea I'd like to see used for AoD - Considering Siege of Cthonia was a fairly hefty book compared to its contents, a softcover supplement book at a lower price point with a faction focus, art, and a few alternative ways to play appeals to me.

[TrawlingCleaner]

I think it would only be comparable to GW creating or bringing back a game system and using mostly out of print models. 

The only two scenarios I can think of would be either the Scouring or BFG.

 

The Scouring if they chose to bring back all the Firstborn kits. By the time this could release, I'd imagine most Firstborn stuff is gone from 40k.

 

BFG makes the most sense out of the two I think

[Felix Antipodes]

Now BFG I would jump on, even (especially?) with the original models.  Even with TOW like pricing. 

[Gamiel]

10 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

questionable skeletons

I quite like the skeletons (the horse ones could be a bit more dynamic but I have no problems with the human ones). And based on the community's reaction to AoD so would not using many of the old figures lead to just as many complains and self-proclaimed neckbeards declaring that the new design was wrong and went against established lore.

 

9 hours ago, Noserenda said:

they do love money after all

Well, can't all us who complain about having to spend money also be said to love it by that standard. 

[Orion]

35 minutes ago, TrawlingCleaner said:

I think it would only be comparable to GW creating or bringing back a game system and using mostly out of print models. 

The only two scenarios I can think of would be either the Scouring or BFG.

 

The Scouring if they chose to bring back all the Firstborn kits. By the time this could release, I'd imagine most Firstborn stuff is gone from 40k.

 

BFG makes the most sense out of the two I think

 

At one point I was kinda hoping that's where HH would inevitably end up, as a gradual progression, but then we got 2.0

Some kind of aftermath, transitional stage, between 30k and 40k sounds like it could be really cool.

A shift away from just the Legions would be appreciated.

 

Basically like Badab 2.0. Maybe with different chapters, and more semi chaos designs.

 

This is all living in a dreamworld though. In reality we're just gonna get more primarch models.

[TheArtilleryman]

The pricing structure is bonkers. But then the cost you’ve quoted for those knights is the same as similar models in 40K, so follows what is now an all-too familiar pattern. For example, £35 for 3 Primaris Eradicators; £40 for 5 heavy intercessors. I mean c’mon, 5 battleline guys! And don’t get me started on the most recent space marine combat patrol with the same starter set sculpts … £95 for almost the same models as the £65 starter set, but without all the extra tyranids or rules etc.

 

It does seem an odd decision for GW to go for both the old models and the high pricing, considering just how many far superior 3D printed sculpts there are out there.

[Bouargh]

It looks like it isindeed a standard princing pattern. What I find really surprising yet is the lak of basic troops boxed set at launch day. Only way to get access is though the Army set. A little bit surprising I guess.

 

NOw, metal + plastic is probably a transitory state of fact. Shall the game develop we might see these resculpted and rereleasede unde rmodernized versions. At 2nd Ed...

 

Quite similar to 40k reset in fact. doing new with old.

[Dark Shepherd]

I think the closest 40k parallel is the faction launch boxes; codex launch boxes seem to be becoming a standard thing this edition

 

In general resin and metal can be reused by GW but plastic cant, and they get to use the cheapo direct only boxes

[Marshal Reinhard]

18 hours ago, Redcomet said:

Yes all the old minis are in metal not in finecast/resin. 
 

Sidenote, people rushing out to but 25 year old, and terrible, skeletons will give GW ideas 

Huh. I thought "old" was just in the title. Ie it'd be the old setting, but not minis

 

regardless. I think this still minimizes the "old world" pricing system applicability for 40k/HH, but you never know

 

[LSM]

Worth mentioning: Tomb Guard are being sold for £47.50, for a box of twenty.

 

I forget the exact pricing (and have given up trying to find it, after fifteen minutes of poking around on google), but I'm pretty sure that in 2015 a box of ten was more than £23.75. So their per-model price has gone down.

 

(I have found one source that lists the price of Tomb Guard as "$41.25" (which I assume is USD). The current price is $80 for twenty. The same source says a Necrosphinx was $53.75, now $75, and Necroserpents were $54.50, now $60.)

 

When factoring in inflation, that's "GW standards" reasonable.

 

We've also seen with a lot of 40k MtO stuff that the price of GW metal is extremely high nowadays. Remember: less than a year ago they charged £40 for the ten man Armageddon Steel Legion squad, £19 for single models (the Commissar, Plasma Gunner, Officers), and £67 for a Lascannon Squad (three models). Ushabti at £52.50 is staggeringly high... but it's not new. I don't think it means anything for the future of GW pricing.

Edited January 7 by LSM

[SvenIronhand]

Tin (which GW uses in their white metal, not lead as is popularly believed) has gone up in price.