The Old World - pricing and the future

[Redcomet]

11 hours ago, 2PlusEasy said:

I have four observations:

 

- Beyond some new miniatures, they're charging a premium for miniatures that are 20 years old. I was around when those miniatures were first released: they've easily doubled in price. This is a problem.

 

- SKU bloat. GW are stretched so thinly across as many gaming systems as possible (which as we know is to stamp out competitors who filled gaps that GW created in the first place from, ironically, discontinuing their specialist games a d Warhammer fantasy) and their main systems are so overloaded with factions and sub factions that they can't maintain stock. So the demand is there, but not reasonable (or reasonably affordable) supply which generates a third party market which GW doesn't endorse. This is a problem.

 

- It's easy to say "vote with your wallets." It's harder to convince an indoctrinated fan base to do so. As much as I hate GW as a business, I inevitably always find myself gravitating back towards its games, often just for someone to play. You'd be amazed how many tabletop gamers won't try anything but Warhammer.

 

[Edit] - The penal colony 40% price increase. The new kits are 40% more expensive in Australia then the exchange rate from the British pound. This is ridiculous: no other company in this industry does this.

The price increase is actually very close to normal inflation. And some kits, like the 20 Tomb Guard box are actually cheaper than back in the day

[Halandaar]

Okay to help stave off the melta: I don't think anything about Old World or it's pricing structure heralds anything for the systems relevant to the forum. Why? Because these are prices we're already familiar with in our games, particularly Heresy. If anything the pricing structure for Old World seems to be derived directly from the Heresy range.

 

Tomb Guard at £47.50 for 20 is actually a better price than when they were available back in 8th Edition Fantasy, and is right in the middle of how much they charge for the various plastic Tactical Marines in Heresy. Boxes of plastic infantry models having the model count doubled for a lower overall price is exactly the Heresy playbook, so nothing about that is new. 

 

New FW resin Bretonnian and Tomb King characters are also similarly priced to their 30K counterparts, so again no real surprises there. Even stuff that I was really taken aback by initially like Mounted Yeomen. £45 for 5 metal 1997 minis is outrageous, but again if you compare to Heresy, 5 non-plastic generic models is - you guessed it - £45.

 

Concern about proliferation of resin models; again, same as heresy. The existing models have been used to get the game going and those might well be resin or metal, but new core troops (Knights of the Realm on Foot) and major centrepieces (Duke on Pegasus, Bone Dragon) which are somewhat comparable to vehicles in terms of their footprint are coming out in plastic. New one-off characters coming out in resin is just like Space Marine consuls, and over time we can perhaps expect that some of the old metal kits that are being used to prop up the system gradually get replaced by new plastic iterations.

 

Finally you have the starter boxes. A couple of mentions about how single-faction starter boxes is a change of pattern. Well again, not really. Sure the Age of Darkness box is presented as a 2-force battle box but because all the models belong to the same range, it is just as valid to consider it a single army in box bundled with the rules, so in that sense it's exactly the same format that the Bretonnia and Tomb King boxes.

 

TL;DR Old World pricing isn't going to influence Heresy because Old World copied Heresy.

[Dark Shepherd]

Heres an idea that will save GW money and help distribution problems inspired by old world/imperialis

 

STOP REBOXING MODELS EVERY EDITION

[Matcap86]

I feel we're seeing a similar release pattern that started around Titanicus. Make a relative small scale foray into nostalgia/new stuff, limit amount of investment and see where the sales end up. Often expensive starting point to recoup costs if it fails and the target market is usually already invested customers with a higher spending budget (like the stickershocking Grandmaster edition of Titanicus). 

 

Put up an expansion/secondary game with compatible stuff (aeronautica) a few years down the line (i.e expand to vampire counts etc.).

 

And then when the staying power is actually there combine it all into a bigger project: legions imperialis/full roster of WH fantasy armies.

 

That way you have a development cycle with several milestones which partially pay for themselves along the way, with less risk investment wise. 

 

It'd be interesting to see if other new projects like a revamped BFG will follow similar patterns. 

[Burni]

If they do BFG in the same way as OW (re-releasing old models) it would be DoA for me. I have zero nostalgia for the old models. At best I'd buy the rules and then some get semi 3rd party high-res resin printed ships.

[Dark Shepherd]

A self.inflicted problem for TOW but GW in gen inc 40k is it seems like they really dont want us using the same models across multiple settings eg separation of 30k and 40k units

 

Possible exception of shiney new pricey Belakor, and he had the distinct bases

 

Could be wrong but from what I can see theres no or very few daemons* that are good or strong in both 40k and AoS

 

*havent looked at greater daemons in a minute

[Redcomet]

4 minutes ago, Dark Shepherd said:

A self.inflicted problem for TOW but GW in gen inc 40k is it seems like they really dont want us using the same models across multiple settings eg separation of 30k and 40k units

 

Possible exception of shiney new pricey Belakor, and he had the distinct bases

 

Could be wrong but from what I can see theres no or very few daemons* that are good or strong in both 40k and AoS

 

*havent looked at greater daemons in a minute

If the departments work the same way, the HH team has its own PNL sheet they have to defend and make look good. Same as 40k 

[Marshal Rohr]

For a company that says they make the best miniatures in the world their decisions to restrict miniatures by game system is a super gamey choice. 

[phandaal]

2 hours ago, Matcap86 said:

It'd be interesting to see if other new projects like a revamped BFG will follow similar patterns. 

 

Would really hope they made plastic moulds for the old BFG minis. The models themselves are fine in my opinion, but you could basically forget about any of them staying on those little flight bases long term.

 

Also, they would need to not charge bonkers prices.

[Rain]

11 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

For a company that says they make the best miniatures in the world their decisions to restrict miniatures by game system is a super gamey choice. 

But people on this very forum told me that it was because Heresy era vehicles would be too rare on 40k battlefields. So there was a perfectly good in universe reason for this cynical bean counter decision that does nothing but limit army and modeling theme and variety 

[Halandaar]

9 minutes ago, phandaal said:

Would really hope they made plastic moulds for the old BFG minis. The models themselves are fine in my opinion, but you could basically forget about any of them staying on those little flight bases long term.

 

Also, they would need to not charge bonkers prices.

 

IMO Battlefleet is in a slightly different position because I feel like it's almost inevitable they'd set a rebooted version in the Heresy, and then much like Titanicus and Legions it's just a single model range for the entire game. 

 

GW isn't afraid to do one-and-done plastic releases, we've seen that plenty of times. It's long term support and expansive ranges that are less clear.

[Redcomet]

13 minutes ago, phandaal said:

 

Would really hope they made plastic moulds for the old BFG minis. The models themselves are fine in my opinion, but you could basically forget about any of them staying on those little flight bases long term.

 

Also, they would need to not charge bonkers prices.

Lol. They wouldn’t cost the same as back then in any case. Inflation is a thing.

[phandaal]

22 minutes ago, Redcomet said:

Lol. They wouldn’t cost the same as back then in any case. Inflation is a thing.

 

Yeah I don't really worry too much about the comparison of then vs now. Too many things have changed.

 

But it would be nice if it were priced towards the lower end of GW's scale, so the appeal can be more widespread. BFG making a comeback would be awesome.

[Firedrake Cordova]

As @Halandaar says, I don't think we can infer anything for 40K or The Horus Heresy from The Old World release, because the release is following trends established by The Horus Heresy and other Specialist Games. The Horus Heresy saw existing models being re-introduced in boxes with a larger model count at a lower cost-per-model (the Mk III and Mk IV marines were £30 for 10 and are now £50 for 20), with supporting characters being resin. The Old World continues this trend, with old models being re-introduced in larger boxes with a lower cost-per-model (even before taking into account inflation*), and small character kits being resin (as in The Horus Heresy and Necromunda). 

 

* Tomb Guard were £25.50 for 10 back in 2015 and are now £47.50 for 20; Ushabti were £18 each and are now £52.50 for 3

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

On 1/7/2024 at 10:49 AM, TheArtilleryman said:

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.

Take home message:

 

40K is good value when investing into starter sets for new editions. Other than that it´s going to cost an arm and a leg.

[Rain]

21 minutes ago, Deus_Ex_Machina said:

Take home message:

 

40K is good value when investing into starter sets for new editions. Other than that it´s going to cost an arm and a leg.

Hey kid, the first hit’s free. Whaddaya got to lose? What, afraid you might like it?

[Dark Shepherd]

The penny has dropped...

 

The Old World is just part of GWs strategy to release as many kits with dogs, cats, monkeys, squigs, and parrots as possible

[phandaal]

39 minutes ago, Rain said:

Hey kid, the first hit’s free. Whaddaya got to lose? What, afraid you might like it?

 

This was our local store back in the day, handing out free skinks on Games Day. If only we knew then what we know now...

 

Skinks - not even once!

[crimsondave]

I’ll be honest.  I don’t feel like prices are that much higher today than they were in the mid 90’s adjusted for inflation.  They’ve always been insanely high.

[TrawlingCleaner]

=][= Righto folks, I've hidden a few off-topic comments that strayed too far into TOW. Keep it on topic to how this could be applied to 40k games in future and this can stay open. If someone starts delving into TOW too far, ignore it or report it and move on =][=

[Firedrake Cordova]

One thing that I noticed was that some of the unit boxes contained more models than expected based on previous experience (20 rather than 10). The Horus Heresy has been doing this with the Mk III/IV/VI boxed sets, as well (as have some of the AoS units).

 

I wonder if we may see this in 40K as well? Is there any where this might be appropriate? (I think Guardsmen can be taken in squads of 20 now ... I can't think of any others off the top of my head, although I'm sure there are some?)

Edited January 9 by Firedrake Cordova

[TheArtilleryman]

36 minutes ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

One thing that I noticed was that some of the unit boxes contained more models than expected based on previous experience (20 rather than 10). The Horus Heresy has been doing this with the Mk III/IV/VI boxed sets, as well.

 

I wonder if there are any units in 40K where this might be appropriate? (I think Guardsmen can be taken in squads of 20 now ... I can't think of any others off the top of my head, although I'm sure there are some?)

Large boxes of orks, grots, gaunts, cultists and poxwalkers would all make a lot of sense.

[Halandaar]

2 hours ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

One thing that I noticed was that some of the unit boxes contained more models than expected based on previous experience (20 rather than 10). The Horus Heresy has been doing this with the Mk III/IV/VI boxed sets, as well (as have some of the AoS units).

 

I wonder if we may see this in 40K as well? Is there any where this might be appropriate? (I think Guardsmen can be taken in squads of 20 now ... I can't think of any others off the top of my head, although I'm sure there are some?)

 

My take on this is that the system simply requires (or at least encourages) more models in basic units, much like Heresy does when compared against 40k; 10 Heresy Assault Marines in a box vs 5 40K Assault Intercessors in a box is the most recent example. 

 

Sure there are cases in 40K where you do probably want a bigger unit, but a unit of 10 Guardsmen is still usable and being able to buy them as a 10 is okay, whereas a unit of 10 Skeletons is pretty much pointless.

 

 

[WrathOfTheLion]

It's definitely Specialist Design Studio's way of reducing overall prices, as they've done with Heresy, without directly cutting the price substantially. So we can definitely see that is the way SDS intends to approach things.

 

It'll be interesting to see if mainline studio, which is 40k for the forum's purposes, ever decides to go to larger boxes as well. It is a tool in the box for them to backpedal price increases without overtly doing so.

[Halandaar]

2 hours ago, USNCenturion said:

As much as 20 man boxes of guardsmen or boyz would be nice to have again, I fear they’d then drop Intercessor boxes down to 5 to make up for it. They’ll pull levers to keep prices the same overall. 5% off here, 5% increase there, kind of thing. 

 

Right, Dire Avengers going from a box of ten to a box of five for the same price still annoys me 10 years later.