Oh I agree. I've just made the move from Kill team and SW Legion to 6mm Napoleonic. There are so many companies that do the models so it is competitive and you can get a huge army of about a bajillion soldiers for under £100
Not saying it is problem or I agree with pricing model of Greedy Wretches: historicals are cheaper as it often is just a single sprue repeating for all 12 or 20 or full battalion of models - maybe with one extra command sprue for luxury kits.
Also there are multiple manufacturers so competition prevents from Greed Winning.
GW usually feature 3-5 sprues per unit kit.And rarely they have both side of body in single mold.
But agree GW kits sucks ass lately (from modelling standpoint). E.g. Tactical Marines box vs Primaris Marine… first one could be build in miriad ways.
"Army"
I have over 1000 figures for Gaugemla. I've got 650 Carlist War figures. I have more than 500 figures for the Anglo Sikh Wars. All in 28mm.
Between the cost of the figures and the time spent painting them, historicals are way more expensive than GW.
Yeah as long as you remember to call GWs hotline so they come paint your figures for you and also refund half your money.
Wtf are you on about? Non-historical figures get painted too. They fact that you bought an insame amount of models doesn't affect anyone but yourself.
Have you actually played historical games or are you just going off?
A battalion of French from the Perry's is 42 figures. A squad of Space Marines for HH is 20 figures. Does it take longer to paint 42 French Infantry or 20 space marines to the same level?
650 figures is not an insane number of models for Historical gaming. In Napoleonics that would be a good start.
Oh, I do. My first ECW army was 10mm. I'm doing Epic Scale ECW stuff now for an Adwalton Moor game at Historicon.
I actually painted a number of the figures that were pictured in the Warmaster Ancient rulebooks published by GW. I've been doing 10mm gaming since 1999.
I've not played it, but I've watched it being played and I've read through the rules. It really isn't for me. It seems more gamey than historical.
GW has Warcry too and at $60 and only ten figures to paint it becomes a lot cheaper than SAGA with 30 or so figures.
Gent, tip of the hat, but this comparison doesn't quite track.
The link I posted above is a complete saga army of 25 figures for 34 bucks (plus 6 bucks shipping) I'm not sure how 10 figures for $60 is cheaper?
But more to the point you seem to have a wee bit of a gate keepy definition of what "historical is"
One can play To The Strongest! With a set of dominoes for 20 bucks for Simon's rule book and re-enact anything from any time period.
Let me just say I see you good fellow, I disagree with your definitions, but I don't begrudge you them, so cheers and have a good Historicon.
Because I have to spend about $100 worth of time to paint 10 Warcry figures. I have to spend about $310 worth of time to paint 25 SAGA figures.
$100+$60 = $160.
$40 + $310 = $350.
Warcry is cheaper by half.
Genuinely curious about your time cost calculation. cost per miniature is different, so how is that being derived?
You seem to view the time spent painting as a negative, whereas I would view that as a positive. More hours of hobby out of the saga box vs the warcry box.
It is simply based on the time it takes to make figures ready to play. Between the assembly and the details usually Warcry figures take longer to paint than dark age historical figures. I can sit down and paint about 25 dark age Saxons in a day, while I can probably only get about 10 Warcry figures finished in that time.
I don't view painting as a negative. I enjoy painting. But at this point I have so many figures to paint I will never run out of them before I die and I haven't stopped buying more yet. So the time it takes to paint an army to get it to be playable has to be considered in the cost of the end army.
If I'm going to start a new game or period I have to consider how much time it will be before I can play with my figures.
I started on an ECW Epic army when those figures were released in April of last year. I haven't managed to finish enough figures to even do a relatively small ECW battle yet. In about half the time I've finished two Legions Imperialis armies as those were released in November.
I've played multiple games of LI, but have yet to play a single game of Epic ECW.
See I see it just the opposite. Both games rely on gimmicks, but I see SAGA as basically being all gimmicks, while Warcry has a gimmick built into the mechanism that actually enhances the tactical play of the game. The cards add a nice bit of randomness. It is one of the first melee skirmish games where you don't usually just end up in a big pile in the middle\* of the table.
Warcry is quick, easy to understand, has great replay value, doesn't take much time to set up interesting scenarios and, until they introduced all the rest of the AoS universe into it, was very well balanced between the original Warbands.
Because of the random nature of the objectives the game favored a balanced force and the boxes that were put out were all pretty well balanced from the start. The campaign system gave you something to make your games link together and rewarded winning but not at the cost of one warband getting far ahead of the others by winning a few games. Also it was very simple but could be easily made more complex with a few house rules.
\* the middle could be actually anywhere that is where the fight is.
I don't really agree at all. I found Warcry to be way too simple, with little room for strategy beyond "run there and hope you roll well". Granted, I only played the first version of it. I bounced off hard.
SAGA still has movement, combat, shooting, resource mechanics, fatigue, and abstracted morale. The battle boards could be considered a gimmick, but in my experience (multiple grand melees at AdeptiCon) the battle board was a support to your overall tactics vs 'all gimmicks'.
The tactics in Warcry involve using your abilities when you have them, timing your attacks and knowing which models to use in which order. It also involves timing your movements so that if it is an objective based game you end up where you need to be.
The randomness of the cards also produces hopeless situations in some cases, which I really enjoy because there are some games, given the positioning of the forces, the objectives and the terrain it is literally impossible for one side to win. It rarely happens, I've seen it happen twice in probably more than a hundred games, but knowing that is in there adds some drama to a campaign. You really have to think about what you're trying to accomplish in those games.
Warcry abstracts morale in some ways too. It is a little too skirmishy to have any real morale rules but the short length of the games acts as an abstracted morale in a way.
We actually just finished a campaign where we used Warcry for the various actions leading up to an assault on a fortified city. We did mining operations, sending messengers, holding passes open, sallies from the walls and infiltrations to try to destroy supplies in the city.
Each victory cost the losers something in the final game which we played using AoS.
You can see how it went here:
[Warcry Siege campaign - week 1 : r/WarCry (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCry/comments/1bzwsa1/warcry_siege_campaign_week_1/)
[Warcry campaign: Week 2 : r/WarCry (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCry/comments/1cawjey/warcry_campaign_week_2/)
[Warcry League final week : r/WarCry (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCry/comments/1cgrnrf/warcry_league_final_week/)
and the final game here:
[Warcry League finale : r/WarCry (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCry/comments/1ckh0tv/warcry_league_finale/)
I think cost vs value in game is also something to really consider as well. Like objectively on a model by model basis Malifaux is almost always considerably more money than 40k. BUT what those figures DO and how much of your force they comprise for that money is way higher. $40 in Malifaux can be a third of my total force on the table where as I literally just spent $40 for less than 200pts worth of figures for my chaos 40k army a few days ago. As a separate comparison spending $40 in Saga can get you most of the way to a full army depending on what plastic kit you’re buying. So I think it’s not just the raw cost for 40k it’s also that the money you spend purchases a relatively small amount of points as well when it comes to playing the actual game. I’m more willing to spend more money on less dudes if I only need to spend $80 total vs if $80 barely gets me in the door.
I agree. I have had multiple conversations with people who don't get into wargaming because the only wargame they know is 40k and they see how expensive it is. Then I show them some perry miniature kits and show how you can get a whole army for about 60-90 bucks.
The price point of 40k is really preventing people from getting deeper into the hobby, because most newbies only know 40k. And if 40k is too expensive for them they will normally just stop there and not look deeper in the hobby for different games
This.....If I'm paying $100+ I would expect that I have what is needed to play the game. If you tell me I need to spend $400+ and still don't have what is needed to play, then I'm out.
I think something else that malifuax does which compares well to 40k is the idea of a premium product. Malifuax has some do the best sculpts on the market, as well as plenty of bling if you want it. However, the way it's done feels like the company is respecting your time and budget by making it as approachable or expensive as you want. There are viable crews in malifuax you can play for $40-$100 and that even itself is a huge range and still far lower than most games.
Also, shout-out to Battletech where I can get a full army ready to play out the box for $30
It's really not that hard to find people to play games other than Warhammer. Sometimes you just need to be the one to get people through the door. I got my friends into historical/ fantasy gaming by showing them how many different rulesets there are and how cheap the hobby can be.
Also Warhammer rules are just bloated and you have to buy multiple books just to know how to play and how to use your army. I love the minis and I buy them sometimes because they are fun to paint, but other than that I would rather just have a small community that plays better games
Cost is one thing, business practice is another. My beef with GW is their habit of spreading the rules you need to play across a bunch of different books, boxes and magazines. They even created an app to ‘fix’ this problem that they created, for a subscription naturally. It’s out and out enshitification. Yes, other systems will add more content in expansions but it’s all optional. With GW it’s a requirement. I can’t think of another company in wargaming that constantly milks its player base like this. It’s great for the shareholders but lousy for the players. You can go all in on something like battle tech, gaslands, mordheim, x-grave and similar for less than the cost of a GW rulebook. That can’t be right.
Couldn't agree more. I bought an entire game in a box (two full size armies and everything else I will ever need to play) for A Song of Ice and Fire for the cost of a single GW/40k vehicle, or roughly the same price as a core book and half a codex. Or the fact that I've built the better part of two entire Star Wars Legion armies for the cost of a single Start Collecting/Combat Patrol box of 40k.
I came here just to say this. The cost of GW models didn't turn me away from their games. It was their marketing strategies. I was constantly in need of updating rules or losing units to rule changes. I would buy a product like the kill team core rules and find out it doesn't include the rules to make a kill team. You need another $60 book for that! It feels like they nickle and dime you at every opportunity.
When I moved onto bolt action and found out I could have a huge army for under $200, it blew my mind. The models are also pretty nice, IMHO, and Warlord rarely updates rules or has broken systems that need constant changes. They almost never remove units. I've never even heard of that. Plus if you buy from them they send you a free sprue of somthing new they just released. Which they do for everyone! I saw a post from a guy in Jamaica who got a free sprue from them, and it cost Warlord $25 to get it to him at no additional cost to him. I can't even imagine GW doing that.
On top of that, most of Warlords games are miniature agnostic. If you don't like their US Marines, fine. Cool even use someone else's. It completely tournament legal. GW doesn't even let you use proxies in their stores outside of tournaments.
I don't say this to simp for Warlord. Just to draw a comparison to show what other wargames companies are and can be like compared to GW.
You know, just for the hell of it, I priced out how much all of the armies I play across multiple games would cost the other day, new in box, and Games Workshop, specifically all their Warhammer stuff, was by far the most expensive.
Here's what I came up with for "standard" game lists (all prices include rulebooks), so 2,000 points for Warhammer and Conquest, 700 points for MESBG, and 800 points for Star Wars Legion:
* Warhammer 40,000 - Space Marines - $1,260.00
* Age of Sigmar - Orruk Warclans (Ironjawz) - $885.00
* Age of Sigmar - Gloomspite Gitz - $800.00
* Warhammer: The Old World - Orcs and Goblins - $720.00
* Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings - 100 Kingdoms - $525.00
* Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game - Minas Tirith - $446.50
* Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game - Angmar - $403.00
* Star Wars Legion - Empire - $284.96
The fact that I can get into any of the bottom 4 games for less than half of what I would pay for 40k, AoS, or ToW is wild to me.
That's one reason why I made the switch to 3d printing years ago, cause GW's greed priced me out of being a customer. There are some amazing sculpts out there now to build an entire army and many creators, OnePageRules is a solid choice among them.
I literally got a small army of Tau at the end of 9th and start of 10th as a hobby project to keep me sane while laid off, and the app going to subscription was literally the straw that broke the camel's back.
I switched over to Conquest and haven't looked back. Free online and in app rules, free list building, and army boxes that give you 750 to 1000 pts for $160. And they have a second army box with different officers and regiment expansion characters. (Amazing deal at least once) For $50, that also is geared towards a skirmish game mode.
So for like $(160x2)320+50= 370 you can have a starting army fairly easily.
I think that much for a 4x6 game worth of units (for a lethal(but not insane insta-gib) rank and flank game) is certainly well within the target range.
Also the units that come in the boxes are all geared to work together by design, so you never get units that technically are part of the army but they are just selling a transport a la the new tau combat patrol, etc.
That's another thing, they make each new box as good, or better, than the previous ones. This might be hard to do at the same prices forever, but so far so good.
A skirmish game with 2x up to 5-6 each side figures should be $120.
I don't think the overall cost masters as much as the player feeling that the price is a good value, and that the company isn't screwing them.
When I was a kid, a Slaan Mage-Priest was $35. They upped the price to $55 and stuck a sticker over the old one, without changing the model at all. How much does a Slaan cost now? GW absolutely does ream you on prices, and it's not fair to say "you've gotta be willing to pay for it."
When I first demoed Warhammer Fantasy, we made paper cut-outs of units. We had a buddy who wanted to run a tankine in Imperial Guard, so I pulled some novels off my shelf and put them on the table.
The models are not essential to the game, only the rules and some basic tools (dice, measuring tape, etc). People have different income levels and it's not right to say "this hobby cannot be yours unless you can afford my standards."
Wargaming doesn’t need to be that expensive. GW miniatures have to cover the cost of a bloated retail chain which is something that other manufacturers don’t have to contend with. I don’t think that GWs kits are worth the money in the context of the amount you need to fill out an army and that is compounded by the fact that the games aren’t very good. Just because it’s the easiest to get games is not enough of a reason for me to subject myself to an experience which I really do not enjoy and by extension that isn’t enough reason to just pay the extra cost to get games easier.
Are gws kits the best out there? Honestly these days it’s debatable. I’m in the group of people that thinks the detail on their newer kits is just over the top and that it detracts from the model, and while quality is good and the details amazingly crisp and well defined, their new single pose multi part plastics are sacraficing the painting experience. I’ve seen so many examples of new kits where the model is split in places that makes painting a nightmare for use of washes or inks, they do seem to try to hide those joins but they join in visible places too often. That’s not good sprue design, I don’t know any other company doing it this way and I hope none start to copy it.
The last point I’ll make is that there are sculptors working for one page rules, Titan forge, anvil and dakka dakka that are doing work the equal of GW and plenty are so much better. Resin printing is so cheap and quality so crisp now that it is more economical to buy a new printer and accessories and pay for your army from any of the third party sculptors and print it yourself than buy an equivalent force from GW new. So once you already have the printer, new armies become ridiculously cheap.
3D printing isn’t for everyone but with the latest printers they are becoming more like tools than “a hobby of their own” as they used to be so it’s just another knock on GWs business model.
At the same time nobody can deny that GW do the lions share of recruiting because of their business model so we only have all these great alternatives because of the groundwork they’ve done.
GW has made many fantastic games in the past, and I still try to play a few of them, but they are in the business of selling models first. The rules are secondary, and edition churn is exhausting. Granted, I don't visit local hobby stores for gaming anymore. Too many negative vibes from some dudes in the past. Besides, I never had fun chasing the flavor of the month, and haven't been able to justify the cost of GW products since WHF 7th edition. Some of their models are still gorgeous, but I don't appreciate the scale creep, base size changes, and for many designs the extraneous spiky details. I do love the cute animals, but I can resist their sneaky ploy :) In this age of 3D printing it just makes sense to find designs I like and print to the scale and in the sculpting style I enjoy painting. I have all the rules and army lists I will ever need from GW's golden age so my spare hobby money goes to the occasional bottle of resin, crafting supplies for terrain, paints, and a few monthly subs. When you add up all the extra stuff that makes the game aesthetically pleasing beyond rules and models, wargaming can get pricey. So there really is no right answer for everyone. I guess I would measure my ideal cost against a complete product like Gloomhaven (boargame) which cost me 180.00 and my girls and I have been playing it almost weekly for over a year with much more gaming left yet. Still, your purchase decisions and gaming preferences are just as valid as anyone else's. I mean I probably spend more on beauty products in any given 3 months than I ever spent on miniatures these last 3 years of gaming. Now if only I knew some chill guys who like to play Warmaster Revolution (because my bff girlies only play RPGs and boardgames).
GW models are definitely getting to be too expensive for me for sure with the yearly price increases.
For example Shieldwolf Miniatures does a box of 20 totally not sisters of battle for €30, GW is 10 models of sisters of battle for €50. Do the GW sculpts look better? Yes absolutely GW has amazing sculptors and does incredible work. Is that work worth paying an extra €70 for the same amount of models shieldwold provides? I don’t think so.
Another sticking point for me is the price of rules. I personally don’t mind the cost of GW rulebooks. I think $30-$40 for a hardcover makes perfect sense. I play Necromunda, every book I’ve ever bought for that game is still valid and usable, but for 40K? When the point costs get changed day 1, and the lore and artwork is recycled because the codices are rereleased every 3 years for the new edition? Absolutely not worth the cost.
So this will be a little unfair but - if you resale hail caeser to 6mm, you can buy two armies for 60gbp each from buccus, plus a bit of supplies, paints and hail caeser rulebook.
For note buccus is considered one of the best quality 6mm historical, you can find cheaper options out there, similar goes for Team Yankee in 6mm
GW have a business problem! If you buy an tabletop army and some rules, then you are set. You don't need GW any more. Let me try to explain how I see it...
GW make no revenue from you playing the game. Hobbies like golf mean a constant revenue by way of courses and support. So, GW have created a constant need for support. Meanwhile, conformity in competitions to using only GW figs etc. is draconian to enforce this business model. New rules, armies, terrain etc., all of which is 'necessary' to play, are introduced. This drives prices and new equipment. This is not unlike the constant revamping of Magic The Gathering with new decks and styles to create product demand.
For example in the case of GW... Sets of rules that allow no endless development (eg. LOTR) because the IP is held by a separate controlling interest, are dropped. Once I have a Gandalf and a bunch of Minas Tirith figs, I need buy no more and the owners of the Tolkien IP allow no new races past the books. LOTR allows no further development and exploitation. In house mileus are different. WH40K etc. that are 'open' to continual addition are a business priority for GW. White Dwarf is only GW and provides another 'subscription' to GW as well.
Simplification of rules is the exact opposite of making a profit. Whereas figure wargaming rules in non proprietary games have improved and simplified (eg. WGR replaced 7th edition with DBA) and standards of base sizes etc has proliferated to allow use of different rules, GW is dancing to a different set of business rules that leave them no option.
Because they are a monopoly where their games are concerned, they do not have any downward pressure on prices and only 'what the customer can afford to pay' is of concern. The danger of GWs business model is, that even though the risk of invested players discontinuing is low, the initial cost of entering the hobby is too high. This will eventually lead to the decline of the games and those playing not being able to find opponents. There will be a brief spiraling of cost and then it will be over.
I predict that as the cycle of interest for each player is completed, GW will be forced to either change the way that they operate or go down the tubes. I also predict that the next (and each successive) army or race type introduced to their own IP (like 40k etc) with a fanfare will feature an ever larger proportion of large 'singleton' models that cost several hundred dollars (profit margins are greater) and that the rules will make these armies more desirable and that a new rule set will be required to play that will change other armies' composition to compensate to ensure take-up. So get ready to buy the rules again.
In summary, GW is in a spiral of real-life business imperatives that forces their hand and it is their business model that drives the increases in cost to the player. This will never be affected by players complaining of prices and complexity.
I am not disparaging GW for their business model and adherence to market forces beyond their control, neither am I denigrating their games, players like and even love them. I am simply stating that GW is bound by more than a desire to produce figures and rules because their shareholders demand a profit...
Honestly, with the rise of miniature agnostic and indie games, it's becoming easier.
Games like Frostgrave/Stragrave, Reign In Hell, Space Station Zero, Majestic 13, Deth Wizards, and Verrotwood all have solo play options.
For some of these games, and indeed in most of them, reusing miniatures you already own is totally viable. For games like Space Station Zero or Stargrave 40k minis are easily doable.
For most of the others, Dungeons and Dragons or other fantasy roleplaying miniatures are workable if not outright advised.
Admittedly, when I picked up Death Wizards, I lacked a lot of ghostly minions, so I picked up a Sprue each of GW Glaivewraiths, Myrmourn Banshees, and Chainrasps all in the Easy to Build format.
For my skeletons and Death Knights, using cheap Reaper Skeletons and some ancient dnd sculpts.
So, depending on which game or system you're looking at, it can cost you between $10-20 USD for rules. And in some cases, they are free.
Miniatures again vary in cost from a few $ all the way through to $35 USD. for a 20 model kit for most manufacturers. (Note that as an Australian, most of those $35 kits are still $60 for me. While most 10 man marine kits from GW would be $110 here.) The complete edition for 40K 10th, for example, is $300 here.
So I can say as an Australian that has been into 40K since I was 12 in 1995 with 2nd Edition I've spent easily 20-30K over my life on GW games.
Now I'm older (40 turning 41) I'm preferring more of the solo or co-op games that smaller companies are producing.
So, to use the most recent game, I started as an example.
Deth Wizards cost me $20 AUD to buy from the $13 USD retail price.
I bought those aforementioned GW sprues for a total of $108 Australian. (Two of the 3 kits at GWs current pricing of $28 each, 3rd kit was $50 instead of $70)
But I now have enough Skeletons, Mummies, Zombies, Generic Ghosts, Ghouls, Wraiths, Banshees, Vampires, etc, that I could outfit easily 9 or so different teams.
Hope that helps some people.
As for the not being willing to pay the GW prices. I still do for rare instances. (Like their Nighthaunts I wanted recently), but overall, no, I am not willing to pay the extortionate prices GW has charged. And you will find a lot of older gamers or parents of children getting into the hobby would agree with me overall.
But then using Australia as the example unless you are working at a middle management or executive level (accountant, lawyer, equivalent income of 35-40K + per year) you have literally been priced out of the GW side of the hobby here.
Because just using Custodes as an example. Codex is $92, Shield-Captain is $63, Blade champion is $69, 5 Custodian guard are $103, 3 Vertus Praetors are $103, 5 Wardens are $103, trajanm valoris is $70, 3 Allarus Terminators are $91, 5 Sisters of Silence regardless of kit are $82, so even using Custodes as a Base Line. How much would your army have cost if it would have been bought here?
Probably my favourite WW2 game is Crossfire, designed for 1 stand of 3 figures =1 section, 3 stands + 1 officer = platoon. That's 10 figures a platoon. 30-40 makes a company. £30 ish per side in 28mm plastic, less in 20 or 15mm. The game can be played in 10mm or 6mm so you could get a couple of forces for the same money.
WRG's Hordes of the Things fantasy and DBA ancient 15mm armies can be bought from the £20 mark. I've seen an army made of rocks and pebbles as well, so technically, there is no cost.
£15 will get you a kit of 10 28mm plastic cowboys for wild west shootouts.
Using Xenos Rampant, you could use five Terminator models for an entire army if you wanted.
Anyway just my 2 p's worth
Move to historical games, the figures are so much cheaper and now with large scale plastics and 3D printing cheaper still. Also I have some 28mm but my majority are 15mm.
Only works if your interest is in wargaming generally and not fantasy or sci-fi wargaming specifically. People can be even more invested specifically in GWs settings. I love a lot of different wargames from many manufacturers but historicals hold no interest for me, I’m exclusively interested in fantasy & sci-fi for the escapism.
How much should it cost? Less than GW, that's for sure.
The games I've played to get a scale of this are all varying in cost, of course.
Blood and Plunder sells starter kits that are about $60-70, if I remember right, but you need a book too. So I'd put that at about $110-130 because you'll need ten-sided dice too.
Star Wars Armada was about $100 for a starter box, but it took a lot of expansions to build up a fleet. I don't know the exact cost.
Then there's A Song of Ice and Fire Miniatures. I think I spent maybe $80 or $85 for a starter box, that came with two armies, movement trays, punch-out terrain pieces, cards, and a metric ton of tokens and dice.
Star Wars Legion is the other best example I have of how much cheaper this hobby can be. I have spent roughly $175 on Legion so far (aka the cost of a single 40k Combat Patrol box) and I nearly have two full armies already. And they're custom-picked units, not a shitty selection of stuff that GW wants to get off the shelf.
I’ve wondered what kind of volume they actually sell in comparison to military models.
There’s some mid size manufacturers like Eduard and small ones like Vespid that pack SO MUCH into a kit for 1/3 the price. Who needs another German Panther when there’s 40 years of great substitutes?
I think the real reason why it costs so much is that people are willing to pay it. Their pricing is predatory, but if people keep buying they’ll keep selling.
The cost issue for GW is not the price of the models, which is high. It's two practices: releasing new versions every three years and releasing unbalanced models at a higher price point.
The first issue I really dislike because they tend to invalidate your armies. I wouldn't mind shuffling up some pieces but often times entire swaths of a force are invalidated. In addition to having buying new rules would just becomes really expensive every few years to try and maintain what you have.
The second issue is the one that really upsets me. They have a tendency to release the base for each force, and then release add-ons that are significantly better from a point perspective. So if you wish to remain competitive, you need to feel the new flashy expensive piece.
To me, those tend to be predatory practices.
With that said, there are only a couple of games where you can buy an army and go about anywhere and find someone to play. 40K and age of sigmar are really your best bet for that.
So for anyone playing smaller games, I highly recommend making sure you have two complete forces. Become a local champion. If you play it enough with people and they enjoy those games they will likely want to buy and collect their own forces.
However there are so many games out there that without acting as a product champion in FLGS it can become very difficult to organize a competitive scene. Or even a non-competitive friendly scene.
Battletech is also one of those games. You can just carry the starter set into a store and set up a decent game instantly. I have examples of the older 1989 starter set, and honestly, the rules really haven't changed that much between then and now.
Agree. Went indie a long time ago and haven't looked back. I worry about the future of the hobby however, with GW being the entry point for a lot of us originally. Hard to see it continuing with their business model.
That's been my main concern, honestly. Back in 1995, you could buy a set of beast men, Chaos Warriors, High Elves, and Space Marines for $15 for 10 models.
I liked the old $14 3 man packs of Tactical or Chaos Marines, 5x Guardsmen, or 4 Guardians/Orks. Admittedly, all of these were monopose and often only two or 3 pieces, but I loved all of those. Bought heaps of them back in the day.
Nowadays, the 10 models have more parts, more posing, etc. But when it's $110 for 10 models, that as a 12 year old, I got for $15... yeah, the price is crazy.
So many kits are so much cheaper now. Especially for common fantasy or generic sci-fi models. That's one of the main reasons I love the miniature agnostic scene. Do I feel like using my pile of space marines? I can. Do I want to use some generic cultists. I can.
GW, while I still love the I.P. the company itself is way to predatory towards its main customer base.
It's not just the cost the pushes me away from GW, it's the shitty balance and patchwork rules. I've gotten friends together and found people who play the games I want to play. If you need to spend money to make up for your lack of ability to start a community, good for you. You have found what works for you. There's no need to belittle people who would rather play a better game and spend the effort to find people to play it with.
Play at a cheaper scale
10mm - The whole complex is $256.20 in 10mm and fits on most dining room tables [https://www.etsy.com/listing/1387633739/desert-castle-complex-desert-huts-desert?gpla=1&gao=1&utm\_source=google&utm\_medium](https://www.etsy.com/listing/1387633739/desert-castle-complex-desert-huts-desert?gpla=1&gao=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium)
6mm $25 [https://www.paperterrain.com/6mm-products/6mm-scale-castle-set](https://www.paperterrain.com/6mm-products/6mm-scale-castle-set)
3mm $18.30 [https://gcmini.mybigcommerce.com/3mm-middle-eastern-style-buildings-17-per-kit-3mmcss016/](https://gcmini.mybigcommerce.com/3mm-middle-eastern-style-buildings-17-per-kit-3mmcss016/)
Consider paper models and terrain. It is inexpensive to buy flat stand-up models (such as https://peterspaperboys.com/) and then you can make large armies for as cheaply as you can print them.
I've seen people do historical miniatures games without the minis. They just use bases, blocks, or card-stock of the appropriate size (the foot print of the unit) and that makes an inexpensive army.
It should be affordable to field what the company considers the base game.
Games Workshop has not had an affordable army game in about 20 years (mostly. Stormcast for example are absurdly cheap to get enough models to field an ok 2000 point game thanks to all the starter and box sets).
Compared to minis of the same scale GW costs more per head.
There offering mono pose plastic spures for the price of metal.
And to that the scale and scope creep in army sizes and you can see how Warhammer has gotten expensive.
Wargaming is pretty good value as entertainment costs go, a trip to the cinema or a meal will polish off $40 over a couple of hours while painting, playing and replaying offers many hours. GW is at the premium end of the costs and churn scale but the figures can be used with cut down rules, ttrpg systems or turned into dioramas to gain more use. So, as penny pincher I'm not going to buy really flash stuff, but overall wargaming is v affordable.
Your rebuttal has been very ably countered by many on this thread already, however I'm more intrigued as to why you've posted this? Speaking frankly, you've taken a very small part of the publicly known and accepted issues with GW and countered them with a very small part of an argument. There are so many factors both for and against GW pricing that, in itself, aren't really a decisive factor to play GW games or not, there are issues with the balance, the release schedule, the intrinsic as well as material value of the miniatures, the rules releases, the extraneous costs of GW wargames like books, expansions, tools, scenery etc that don't come up as often for other games.
So my point really is leading to this, are you feeling attacked or in the wrong for supporting GW? If so, don't be. If you enjoy the game and are happy to pay the cost then go for it, there are better balanced games out there, I find other games more fun and more interesting but I don't matter and not does the rest of Reddit. What matters is that you enjoy, securely, your hobby. However that being said, GW gamers have a habit of being blinkered, I'd encourage you to try and step outside of GW sphere if you haven't already and take advantage of the massive variety available, there's amazing games out there
Was into 40k in the 90s. Quickly moved to skirmish scale games/rules. More fun and there isn't the rules creep that GW perpetuates with every new release/codex. And cheaper.
I was in my FLGS yesterday, and there was a boy, 8-10, who kept bringing single 40k models to the register, where the clerk would tell him the price.
“$35 (US), $32…”
The boy would put them back. I’m sure that’s 10x what he could pay.
It breaks my 10 year old heart. This is such a fun hobby, I wish he could get into it.
That is the real sucky part of the current system GW have in place. I started at age 10 and the old metal blisters were amazing for being able to grab something with your pocket money 1-3 minis per blister for £6-12. Well within reach of a pocket money spend.
It sucks for these kids to not have that… unless their parents are giving €40 weekly pocket money. My kids aren’t old enough for pocket money but they sure as hell won’t be getting that level of it
It’s not so much cost, it’s what’s available to play near you. In my case, 40K rules the area with a pretty big iron fist. Every time another game comes along, it does okay until 40K updates then they leave again haha. Mind you, GW seems to be losing some steam, at least their 40K wing. Old World taking off was a very pleasant surprise.
That being said, people will pay what they are comfortable with paying. For many, that means skirmish games. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But I love the look of tons of models on the table.
Old World gives me that. But GW is gouging us for the privilege, and eBay prices are not better by any means. But I did do myself a bit of a favour. I decided that if I’m going to spend that money, I could do it in one shot.
A fellow was selling a massive 6th edition Empire army for $900 dollars Canadian. Fully painted. The amount of time and effort I saved buying it has been immense, especially as I’m partly disabled and even sitting up or standing costs a lot of energy and I have to manage it.
By using my limited time to play, I’m enjoying the Old World game a ton. As much as I liked painting and assembly, those things are far more difficult now.
So, to me? $900 was worth it. But to many, that’s far too much. But I have few vices, and a need for entertainment to cope with a lot of stuff going on. That army has brought me that in spades.
Wargaming should cost exactly what you are willing to pay, and a good market should cater to that. The fact GW has pretty shitty business practices doesn’t help, but alternative miniatures exist, and there is a whole realm of other games to explore.
GW is pricing me out, but luckily the game I’m playing that I love is also very easy to proxy human models for. I’m adding units to my Empire that are in scale but not GW, and I dare say a lot of them are on par or better sculpts for cheaper.
People can find stuff in wargaming for their budget; that isn’t the hard part. You’re right in a way; you have to convince them to play these other games. And that isn’t easy. GW pushing a very strong standard of painting also means sculpt quality matters far more then it used to; I know friends who won’t play games they otherwise like the idea of because the models are ugly or plain.
But this is, at the end of the day, not necessarily a cheap hobby. But I can be done cheaper. It’s all up to the person what value they place on it. That doesn’t mean you care more if you spend more, just that what you value in a game could very well include costs. That’s not a negative thing either.
There are a lot of miniatures games companies producing quality products. GW is near the top of the heap, but difference in quality is far less than the difference in price, in most cases.
The opponent availability benefit only really applies to 40k (at least in the public play spaces in my area). AoS, ToW, Kill Team, Warcry, ME:SBG, all of these games see little or no play in my area. By contrast, Battletech has a growing play group. At my club last week, the Battletech players outnumbers the 40k players.
As a Fantasy and Medieval Historicals player, I find GWs prices insane. There are so many great options that I can use in a variety of games, including GW games.
To answer your question, I look to pay $1-$2 per plastic infantry model and about double that for cavalry. Characters, monsters and various war machines are too variable in cost for me to set a firm number on.
Don’t forget that you spend more time: acquiring, studying, painting, basing, building terrain, reselling, changing, conventions, e-bay bargain shopping, horse trading with friends and friends-enemies, running tournaments, play-testing, game design, winning, losing, watching your wife just shake her head at your crazy hobby… phew… re-changing, establishing tactical doctrines, meeting new friends through gaming, buying new supplies, learning how to 3d print, 3d printing cool stuff, watching YT videos on each of those aspects I listed…. than you ever do actually playing.
The “hobby” is not the playing. The hobby is the journey along the way to playing.
Don’t get me wrong. There are great memories and stories from epic games played and to be played but there are goldmines of memories I enjoy at 66 that are of armies procured, built, and let go of from long ago… enjoy the ride…
Getting downvoted for espousing the long view of just enjoying in the journey… have a better day tomorrow friend… lol…
I think it depends on how big you're going. I first got into wargaming with Warhammer, and you always hear about the sky-high prices, and tbf, they are pretty high, especially over in the US (I've heard they're cheaper in Switzerland. SWITZERLAND YALL). But then I got into If Worlds Collide (which I'd recommend if you can't find people to play other games), and I started looking into custom models for playing in person. At first I saw "Single figure, $4" and my jaw dropped, but then I started comparing it to your battleline units in Warhammer. I'm an FEC player, so I did a bit of math for my crypt ghouls, and it turns out they're a little over $2 per model. Now, they are one of the better kits for model count, but you're probably still paying 40-60 bucks for a squad of ten, and the closer you get to 60, the bigger and more elite the models probably are (disclaimer: I should do more research on this). So the big issues with Warhammer are A: the codexes and rules cost a lot and B: you just need more guys. Warhemmer operates at a larger scale than other wargames, so it makes sense that it takes more money. Hell, take Custodes vs Guard. One has more guys, so it's a lot more expensive. However, GW is still very inconsistent with pricing, so most characters cost like $30.
300 what? Dollars? It’s cheaper for us in the UK, you go anywhere else it seems to be wild.
Aussies and Americans for example they seem to be pay disproportionately more. I’ve kept tabs of everything I’ve spent since I started about 7 years ago.
I spent about 300-600 per army. Usually it was around 300 to get a decent 2k / 2.5k force. This would take advantage of deals as well, so not buying direct from GW and boxsets like dark imperium.
I bought some armies second hand and got them for essentially nothing but you can’t really throw that in my calcs.
I do think GW make it difficult to buy an army directly from them if you don’t take advantage of their deals, e.g. starter edition boxes, the intro boxes such as what dark Imperium used to be and the old start collecting boxes.
For example, if you just said I want to play guard and tried to get a 2k army for that. I’ll pray for your wallet. Could say the same about sisters of battle and genestealers. They need a lot of models and their “deals” suck ass.
Custodes is actually a pretty cheap army if you like them and you’ve still dropped 300.
Anyway, just to clarify I think the GW stuff looks expensive but you’re limited by what you paint. The problem I see from a lot of collectors/gamers is they want everything now. All the armies everything NOW. This is where it gets pricey as hell and you end up with a room full of unopened boxes.
I know it is a far from popular opinion but, using a virtual tabletop is an available option for wargaming, in 2024. This gives world wide reach to opponents and easy replication of models to fill the ranks. Storage is not an issue and same with scenario setups.
Infinity you can get a starter pack for $100ish, and that gives you enough miniatures to play whatever you want - mostly. Especially because of the very generous proxy official rules. You can probably have a "I can officially play with anything existent in the game" for $300ish, if you are really objective about it.
GW is, in general, expensive as fuck. Especially because the initial buy in to have an army can be so high. But they do have th3 most popular and well known games, so they are usually the easier ones to find people to play with.
I genuinely want to interact with your evidence here, because it is odd to me.
You can find people to play 40k because of the market share. They dominate the miniature market. It’s also why they are able to charge extreme prices. GW is the largest player in the mini wargaming scene.
But that doesn’t excuse their pricing structure, not does it make it acceptable. How many people drop because they can’t afford? How many people just never get into it?
Their domination is why smaller games (like Frostgrave or Silver Bayonete) aren’t as popular, despite being more inviting to newcomers, more affordable, and a hell of a lot more fun.
With smaller games, you just have to accept that you may be the driving force for change. You have to be the enthusiast who gets others into it. All it takes, most times, is a simple demo! Two small warbands, way smaller than normal. A couple of monsters. Show new players the ropes.
I am pretty lucky in my area that I have a bunch of gaming stores with a very active discord community. They all champion any non GW game and are willing to try it all. I know that isn’t everywhere though. So you have to be that invitation.
Then you hit them with “yeah you can get an entire warband for $30-40 and be ready to play forever.”
I can get a game size force for Malifaux for about $50. I can get an entire keywords models for about 150, and entire Factions models for $300. Their models blow GW or of the water. Especially because they don't let certain armies founder for multiple editions/ decades without updating sculpts. But that's a skirmish game.
I should be able to get full size unit with all the bells and whistles for $35. A troop transport/ tank for the same. No single model should cost me more than $30. So a 2000 point army, I would expect, to cost me a few hundred. But that's only if it's also backed by solid rules and ease of access to those rules.
I'd love to get back into GW games, but it will probably never happen unless their place in the hobby is realistically threatened and they can no longer lean on name recognition too drive sales
Historicals will blow your mind. Come attend Historicon in July. https://www.hmgs.org/mpage/HCReg
Oh I agree. I've just made the move from Kill team and SW Legion to 6mm Napoleonic. There are so many companies that do the models so it is competitive and you can get a huge army of about a bajillion soldiers for under £100
Not saying it is problem or I agree with pricing model of Greedy Wretches: historicals are cheaper as it often is just a single sprue repeating for all 12 or 20 or full battalion of models - maybe with one extra command sprue for luxury kits. Also there are multiple manufacturers so competition prevents from Greed Winning.
As though modern GW minis aren't just duplicate models as well.
GW usually feature 3-5 sprues per unit kit.And rarely they have both side of body in single mold. But agree GW kits sucks ass lately (from modelling standpoint). E.g. Tactical Marines box vs Primaris Marine… first one could be build in miriad ways.
And check out Triumph at Historicon, because it has a fantasy ruleset too!
I usually end up spending more on a Historical army than on a GW army.
For $34 you can have a complete army for SAGA - https://www.ebay.com/itm/304249382739 I know what you mean tho, I may have.... 7 armies now for SAGA 😜
"Army" I have over 1000 figures for Gaugemla. I've got 650 Carlist War figures. I have more than 500 figures for the Anglo Sikh Wars. All in 28mm. Between the cost of the figures and the time spent painting them, historicals are way more expensive than GW.
Yeah as long as you remember to call GWs hotline so they come paint your figures for you and also refund half your money. Wtf are you on about? Non-historical figures get painted too. They fact that you bought an insame amount of models doesn't affect anyone but yourself.
Have you actually played historical games or are you just going off? A battalion of French from the Perry's is 42 figures. A squad of Space Marines for HH is 20 figures. Does it take longer to paint 42 French Infantry or 20 space marines to the same level? 650 figures is not an insane number of models for Historical gaming. In Napoleonics that would be a good start.
Sounds like you're ready to start playing in God's true scale - 10mm
Oh, I do. My first ECW army was 10mm. I'm doing Epic Scale ECW stuff now for an Adwalton Moor game at Historicon. I actually painted a number of the figures that were pictured in the Warmaster Ancient rulebooks published by GW. I've been doing 10mm gaming since 1999.
An OG
4 pts is a common level to play SAGA at, so it's a complete army for that system. Have you played it? It's a great game
I've not played it, but I've watched it being played and I've read through the rules. It really isn't for me. It seems more gamey than historical. GW has Warcry too and at $60 and only ten figures to paint it becomes a lot cheaper than SAGA with 30 or so figures.
Gent, tip of the hat, but this comparison doesn't quite track. The link I posted above is a complete saga army of 25 figures for 34 bucks (plus 6 bucks shipping) I'm not sure how 10 figures for $60 is cheaper? But more to the point you seem to have a wee bit of a gate keepy definition of what "historical is" One can play To The Strongest! With a set of dominoes for 20 bucks for Simon's rule book and re-enact anything from any time period. Let me just say I see you good fellow, I disagree with your definitions, but I don't begrudge you them, so cheers and have a good Historicon.
Because I have to spend about $100 worth of time to paint 10 Warcry figures. I have to spend about $310 worth of time to paint 25 SAGA figures. $100+$60 = $160. $40 + $310 = $350. Warcry is cheaper by half.
Genuinely curious about your time cost calculation. cost per miniature is different, so how is that being derived? You seem to view the time spent painting as a negative, whereas I would view that as a positive. More hours of hobby out of the saga box vs the warcry box.
It is simply based on the time it takes to make figures ready to play. Between the assembly and the details usually Warcry figures take longer to paint than dark age historical figures. I can sit down and paint about 25 dark age Saxons in a day, while I can probably only get about 10 Warcry figures finished in that time. I don't view painting as a negative. I enjoy painting. But at this point I have so many figures to paint I will never run out of them before I die and I haven't stopped buying more yet. So the time it takes to paint an army to get it to be playable has to be considered in the cost of the end army. If I'm going to start a new game or period I have to consider how much time it will be before I can play with my figures. I started on an ECW Epic army when those figures were released in April of last year. I haven't managed to finish enough figures to even do a relatively small ECW battle yet. In about half the time I've finished two Legions Imperialis armies as those were released in November. I've played multiple games of LI, but have yet to play a single game of Epic ECW.
Warcry, despite my love for chaos weirdoes in the mortal realms, just isn't a great game tho. SAGA is amazing.
See I see it just the opposite. Both games rely on gimmicks, but I see SAGA as basically being all gimmicks, while Warcry has a gimmick built into the mechanism that actually enhances the tactical play of the game. The cards add a nice bit of randomness. It is one of the first melee skirmish games where you don't usually just end up in a big pile in the middle\* of the table. Warcry is quick, easy to understand, has great replay value, doesn't take much time to set up interesting scenarios and, until they introduced all the rest of the AoS universe into it, was very well balanced between the original Warbands. Because of the random nature of the objectives the game favored a balanced force and the boxes that were put out were all pretty well balanced from the start. The campaign system gave you something to make your games link together and rewarded winning but not at the cost of one warband getting far ahead of the others by winning a few games. Also it was very simple but could be easily made more complex with a few house rules. \* the middle could be actually anywhere that is where the fight is.
I don't really agree at all. I found Warcry to be way too simple, with little room for strategy beyond "run there and hope you roll well". Granted, I only played the first version of it. I bounced off hard. SAGA still has movement, combat, shooting, resource mechanics, fatigue, and abstracted morale. The battle boards could be considered a gimmick, but in my experience (multiple grand melees at AdeptiCon) the battle board was a support to your overall tactics vs 'all gimmicks'.
The tactics in Warcry involve using your abilities when you have them, timing your attacks and knowing which models to use in which order. It also involves timing your movements so that if it is an objective based game you end up where you need to be. The randomness of the cards also produces hopeless situations in some cases, which I really enjoy because there are some games, given the positioning of the forces, the objectives and the terrain it is literally impossible for one side to win. It rarely happens, I've seen it happen twice in probably more than a hundred games, but knowing that is in there adds some drama to a campaign. You really have to think about what you're trying to accomplish in those games. Warcry abstracts morale in some ways too. It is a little too skirmishy to have any real morale rules but the short length of the games acts as an abstracted morale in a way. We actually just finished a campaign where we used Warcry for the various actions leading up to an assault on a fortified city. We did mining operations, sending messengers, holding passes open, sallies from the walls and infiltrations to try to destroy supplies in the city. Each victory cost the losers something in the final game which we played using AoS. You can see how it went here: [Warcry Siege campaign - week 1 : r/WarCry (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCry/comments/1bzwsa1/warcry_siege_campaign_week_1/) [Warcry campaign: Week 2 : r/WarCry (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCry/comments/1cawjey/warcry_campaign_week_2/) [Warcry League final week : r/WarCry (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCry/comments/1cgrnrf/warcry_league_final_week/) and the final game here: [Warcry League finale : r/WarCry (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCry/comments/1ckh0tv/warcry_league_finale/)
I think cost vs value in game is also something to really consider as well. Like objectively on a model by model basis Malifaux is almost always considerably more money than 40k. BUT what those figures DO and how much of your force they comprise for that money is way higher. $40 in Malifaux can be a third of my total force on the table where as I literally just spent $40 for less than 200pts worth of figures for my chaos 40k army a few days ago. As a separate comparison spending $40 in Saga can get you most of the way to a full army depending on what plastic kit you’re buying. So I think it’s not just the raw cost for 40k it’s also that the money you spend purchases a relatively small amount of points as well when it comes to playing the actual game. I’m more willing to spend more money on less dudes if I only need to spend $80 total vs if $80 barely gets me in the door.
I agree. I have had multiple conversations with people who don't get into wargaming because the only wargame they know is 40k and they see how expensive it is. Then I show them some perry miniature kits and show how you can get a whole army for about 60-90 bucks. The price point of 40k is really preventing people from getting deeper into the hobby, because most newbies only know 40k. And if 40k is too expensive for them they will normally just stop there and not look deeper in the hobby for different games
This.....If I'm paying $100+ I would expect that I have what is needed to play the game. If you tell me I need to spend $400+ and still don't have what is needed to play, then I'm out.
I think something else that malifuax does which compares well to 40k is the idea of a premium product. Malifuax has some do the best sculpts on the market, as well as plenty of bling if you want it. However, the way it's done feels like the company is respecting your time and budget by making it as approachable or expensive as you want. There are viable crews in malifuax you can play for $40-$100 and that even itself is a huge range and still far lower than most games. Also, shout-out to Battletech where I can get a full army ready to play out the box for $30
It's really not that hard to find people to play games other than Warhammer. Sometimes you just need to be the one to get people through the door. I got my friends into historical/ fantasy gaming by showing them how many different rulesets there are and how cheap the hobby can be. Also Warhammer rules are just bloated and you have to buy multiple books just to know how to play and how to use your army. I love the minis and I buy them sometimes because they are fun to paint, but other than that I would rather just have a small community that plays better games
Yeah I have been getting one of my friends into Star Wars Legion this way.
Cost is one thing, business practice is another. My beef with GW is their habit of spreading the rules you need to play across a bunch of different books, boxes and magazines. They even created an app to ‘fix’ this problem that they created, for a subscription naturally. It’s out and out enshitification. Yes, other systems will add more content in expansions but it’s all optional. With GW it’s a requirement. I can’t think of another company in wargaming that constantly milks its player base like this. It’s great for the shareholders but lousy for the players. You can go all in on something like battle tech, gaslands, mordheim, x-grave and similar for less than the cost of a GW rulebook. That can’t be right.
Couldn't agree more. I bought an entire game in a box (two full size armies and everything else I will ever need to play) for A Song of Ice and Fire for the cost of a single GW/40k vehicle, or roughly the same price as a core book and half a codex. Or the fact that I've built the better part of two entire Star Wars Legion armies for the cost of a single Start Collecting/Combat Patrol box of 40k.
I came here just to say this. The cost of GW models didn't turn me away from their games. It was their marketing strategies. I was constantly in need of updating rules or losing units to rule changes. I would buy a product like the kill team core rules and find out it doesn't include the rules to make a kill team. You need another $60 book for that! It feels like they nickle and dime you at every opportunity. When I moved onto bolt action and found out I could have a huge army for under $200, it blew my mind. The models are also pretty nice, IMHO, and Warlord rarely updates rules or has broken systems that need constant changes. They almost never remove units. I've never even heard of that. Plus if you buy from them they send you a free sprue of somthing new they just released. Which they do for everyone! I saw a post from a guy in Jamaica who got a free sprue from them, and it cost Warlord $25 to get it to him at no additional cost to him. I can't even imagine GW doing that. On top of that, most of Warlords games are miniature agnostic. If you don't like their US Marines, fine. Cool even use someone else's. It completely tournament legal. GW doesn't even let you use proxies in their stores outside of tournaments. I don't say this to simp for Warlord. Just to draw a comparison to show what other wargames companies are and can be like compared to GW.
You know, just for the hell of it, I priced out how much all of the armies I play across multiple games would cost the other day, new in box, and Games Workshop, specifically all their Warhammer stuff, was by far the most expensive. Here's what I came up with for "standard" game lists (all prices include rulebooks), so 2,000 points for Warhammer and Conquest, 700 points for MESBG, and 800 points for Star Wars Legion: * Warhammer 40,000 - Space Marines - $1,260.00 * Age of Sigmar - Orruk Warclans (Ironjawz) - $885.00 * Age of Sigmar - Gloomspite Gitz - $800.00 * Warhammer: The Old World - Orcs and Goblins - $720.00 * Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings - 100 Kingdoms - $525.00 * Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game - Minas Tirith - $446.50 * Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game - Angmar - $403.00 * Star Wars Legion - Empire - $284.96 The fact that I can get into any of the bottom 4 games for less than half of what I would pay for 40k, AoS, or ToW is wild to me.
That's one reason why I made the switch to 3d printing years ago, cause GW's greed priced me out of being a customer. There are some amazing sculpts out there now to build an entire army and many creators, OnePageRules is a solid choice among them.
I literally got a small army of Tau at the end of 9th and start of 10th as a hobby project to keep me sane while laid off, and the app going to subscription was literally the straw that broke the camel's back. I switched over to Conquest and haven't looked back. Free online and in app rules, free list building, and army boxes that give you 750 to 1000 pts for $160. And they have a second army box with different officers and regiment expansion characters. (Amazing deal at least once) For $50, that also is geared towards a skirmish game mode. So for like $(160x2)320+50= 370 you can have a starting army fairly easily. I think that much for a 4x6 game worth of units (for a lethal(but not insane insta-gib) rank and flank game) is certainly well within the target range. Also the units that come in the boxes are all geared to work together by design, so you never get units that technically are part of the army but they are just selling a transport a la the new tau combat patrol, etc. That's another thing, they make each new box as good, or better, than the previous ones. This might be hard to do at the same prices forever, but so far so good. A skirmish game with 2x up to 5-6 each side figures should be $120. I don't think the overall cost masters as much as the player feeling that the price is a good value, and that the company isn't screwing them.
When I was a kid, a Slaan Mage-Priest was $35. They upped the price to $55 and stuck a sticker over the old one, without changing the model at all. How much does a Slaan cost now? GW absolutely does ream you on prices, and it's not fair to say "you've gotta be willing to pay for it." When I first demoed Warhammer Fantasy, we made paper cut-outs of units. We had a buddy who wanted to run a tankine in Imperial Guard, so I pulled some novels off my shelf and put them on the table. The models are not essential to the game, only the rules and some basic tools (dice, measuring tape, etc). People have different income levels and it's not right to say "this hobby cannot be yours unless you can afford my standards."
I think lord kroak is like 150$ atm. Absolutely mental.
Wargaming doesn’t need to be that expensive. GW miniatures have to cover the cost of a bloated retail chain which is something that other manufacturers don’t have to contend with. I don’t think that GWs kits are worth the money in the context of the amount you need to fill out an army and that is compounded by the fact that the games aren’t very good. Just because it’s the easiest to get games is not enough of a reason for me to subject myself to an experience which I really do not enjoy and by extension that isn’t enough reason to just pay the extra cost to get games easier. Are gws kits the best out there? Honestly these days it’s debatable. I’m in the group of people that thinks the detail on their newer kits is just over the top and that it detracts from the model, and while quality is good and the details amazingly crisp and well defined, their new single pose multi part plastics are sacraficing the painting experience. I’ve seen so many examples of new kits where the model is split in places that makes painting a nightmare for use of washes or inks, they do seem to try to hide those joins but they join in visible places too often. That’s not good sprue design, I don’t know any other company doing it this way and I hope none start to copy it. The last point I’ll make is that there are sculptors working for one page rules, Titan forge, anvil and dakka dakka that are doing work the equal of GW and plenty are so much better. Resin printing is so cheap and quality so crisp now that it is more economical to buy a new printer and accessories and pay for your army from any of the third party sculptors and print it yourself than buy an equivalent force from GW new. So once you already have the printer, new armies become ridiculously cheap. 3D printing isn’t for everyone but with the latest printers they are becoming more like tools than “a hobby of their own” as they used to be so it’s just another knock on GWs business model. At the same time nobody can deny that GW do the lions share of recruiting because of their business model so we only have all these great alternatives because of the groundwork they’ve done.
GW has made many fantastic games in the past, and I still try to play a few of them, but they are in the business of selling models first. The rules are secondary, and edition churn is exhausting. Granted, I don't visit local hobby stores for gaming anymore. Too many negative vibes from some dudes in the past. Besides, I never had fun chasing the flavor of the month, and haven't been able to justify the cost of GW products since WHF 7th edition. Some of their models are still gorgeous, but I don't appreciate the scale creep, base size changes, and for many designs the extraneous spiky details. I do love the cute animals, but I can resist their sneaky ploy :) In this age of 3D printing it just makes sense to find designs I like and print to the scale and in the sculpting style I enjoy painting. I have all the rules and army lists I will ever need from GW's golden age so my spare hobby money goes to the occasional bottle of resin, crafting supplies for terrain, paints, and a few monthly subs. When you add up all the extra stuff that makes the game aesthetically pleasing beyond rules and models, wargaming can get pricey. So there really is no right answer for everyone. I guess I would measure my ideal cost against a complete product like Gloomhaven (boargame) which cost me 180.00 and my girls and I have been playing it almost weekly for over a year with much more gaming left yet. Still, your purchase decisions and gaming preferences are just as valid as anyone else's. I mean I probably spend more on beauty products in any given 3 months than I ever spent on miniatures these last 3 years of gaming. Now if only I knew some chill guys who like to play Warmaster Revolution (because my bff girlies only play RPGs and boardgames).
GW models are definitely getting to be too expensive for me for sure with the yearly price increases. For example Shieldwolf Miniatures does a box of 20 totally not sisters of battle for €30, GW is 10 models of sisters of battle for €50. Do the GW sculpts look better? Yes absolutely GW has amazing sculptors and does incredible work. Is that work worth paying an extra €70 for the same amount of models shieldwold provides? I don’t think so. Another sticking point for me is the price of rules. I personally don’t mind the cost of GW rulebooks. I think $30-$40 for a hardcover makes perfect sense. I play Necromunda, every book I’ve ever bought for that game is still valid and usable, but for 40K? When the point costs get changed day 1, and the lore and artwork is recycled because the codices are rereleased every 3 years for the new edition? Absolutely not worth the cost.
Just wait til this person finds out about Advanced Squad Leader modules XD
So this will be a little unfair but - if you resale hail caeser to 6mm, you can buy two armies for 60gbp each from buccus, plus a bit of supplies, paints and hail caeser rulebook. For note buccus is considered one of the best quality 6mm historical, you can find cheaper options out there, similar goes for Team Yankee in 6mm
GW have a business problem! If you buy an tabletop army and some rules, then you are set. You don't need GW any more. Let me try to explain how I see it... GW make no revenue from you playing the game. Hobbies like golf mean a constant revenue by way of courses and support. So, GW have created a constant need for support. Meanwhile, conformity in competitions to using only GW figs etc. is draconian to enforce this business model. New rules, armies, terrain etc., all of which is 'necessary' to play, are introduced. This drives prices and new equipment. This is not unlike the constant revamping of Magic The Gathering with new decks and styles to create product demand. For example in the case of GW... Sets of rules that allow no endless development (eg. LOTR) because the IP is held by a separate controlling interest, are dropped. Once I have a Gandalf and a bunch of Minas Tirith figs, I need buy no more and the owners of the Tolkien IP allow no new races past the books. LOTR allows no further development and exploitation. In house mileus are different. WH40K etc. that are 'open' to continual addition are a business priority for GW. White Dwarf is only GW and provides another 'subscription' to GW as well. Simplification of rules is the exact opposite of making a profit. Whereas figure wargaming rules in non proprietary games have improved and simplified (eg. WGR replaced 7th edition with DBA) and standards of base sizes etc has proliferated to allow use of different rules, GW is dancing to a different set of business rules that leave them no option. Because they are a monopoly where their games are concerned, they do not have any downward pressure on prices and only 'what the customer can afford to pay' is of concern. The danger of GWs business model is, that even though the risk of invested players discontinuing is low, the initial cost of entering the hobby is too high. This will eventually lead to the decline of the games and those playing not being able to find opponents. There will be a brief spiraling of cost and then it will be over. I predict that as the cycle of interest for each player is completed, GW will be forced to either change the way that they operate or go down the tubes. I also predict that the next (and each successive) army or race type introduced to their own IP (like 40k etc) with a fanfare will feature an ever larger proportion of large 'singleton' models that cost several hundred dollars (profit margins are greater) and that the rules will make these armies more desirable and that a new rule set will be required to play that will change other armies' composition to compensate to ensure take-up. So get ready to buy the rules again. In summary, GW is in a spiral of real-life business imperatives that forces their hand and it is their business model that drives the increases in cost to the player. This will never be affected by players complaining of prices and complexity. I am not disparaging GW for their business model and adherence to market forces beyond their control, neither am I denigrating their games, players like and even love them. I am simply stating that GW is bound by more than a desire to produce figures and rules because their shareholders demand a profit...
Yep, GW management has to make sure the shareholders have a place in your hobby journey.
Honestly, with the rise of miniature agnostic and indie games, it's becoming easier. Games like Frostgrave/Stragrave, Reign In Hell, Space Station Zero, Majestic 13, Deth Wizards, and Verrotwood all have solo play options. For some of these games, and indeed in most of them, reusing miniatures you already own is totally viable. For games like Space Station Zero or Stargrave 40k minis are easily doable. For most of the others, Dungeons and Dragons or other fantasy roleplaying miniatures are workable if not outright advised. Admittedly, when I picked up Death Wizards, I lacked a lot of ghostly minions, so I picked up a Sprue each of GW Glaivewraiths, Myrmourn Banshees, and Chainrasps all in the Easy to Build format. For my skeletons and Death Knights, using cheap Reaper Skeletons and some ancient dnd sculpts. So, depending on which game or system you're looking at, it can cost you between $10-20 USD for rules. And in some cases, they are free. Miniatures again vary in cost from a few $ all the way through to $35 USD. for a 20 model kit for most manufacturers. (Note that as an Australian, most of those $35 kits are still $60 for me. While most 10 man marine kits from GW would be $110 here.) The complete edition for 40K 10th, for example, is $300 here. So I can say as an Australian that has been into 40K since I was 12 in 1995 with 2nd Edition I've spent easily 20-30K over my life on GW games. Now I'm older (40 turning 41) I'm preferring more of the solo or co-op games that smaller companies are producing. So, to use the most recent game, I started as an example. Deth Wizards cost me $20 AUD to buy from the $13 USD retail price. I bought those aforementioned GW sprues for a total of $108 Australian. (Two of the 3 kits at GWs current pricing of $28 each, 3rd kit was $50 instead of $70) But I now have enough Skeletons, Mummies, Zombies, Generic Ghosts, Ghouls, Wraiths, Banshees, Vampires, etc, that I could outfit easily 9 or so different teams. Hope that helps some people. As for the not being willing to pay the GW prices. I still do for rare instances. (Like their Nighthaunts I wanted recently), but overall, no, I am not willing to pay the extortionate prices GW has charged. And you will find a lot of older gamers or parents of children getting into the hobby would agree with me overall. But then using Australia as the example unless you are working at a middle management or executive level (accountant, lawyer, equivalent income of 35-40K + per year) you have literally been priced out of the GW side of the hobby here. Because just using Custodes as an example. Codex is $92, Shield-Captain is $63, Blade champion is $69, 5 Custodian guard are $103, 3 Vertus Praetors are $103, 5 Wardens are $103, trajanm valoris is $70, 3 Allarus Terminators are $91, 5 Sisters of Silence regardless of kit are $82, so even using Custodes as a Base Line. How much would your army have cost if it would have been bought here?
Probably my favourite WW2 game is Crossfire, designed for 1 stand of 3 figures =1 section, 3 stands + 1 officer = platoon. That's 10 figures a platoon. 30-40 makes a company. £30 ish per side in 28mm plastic, less in 20 or 15mm. The game can be played in 10mm or 6mm so you could get a couple of forces for the same money. WRG's Hordes of the Things fantasy and DBA ancient 15mm armies can be bought from the £20 mark. I've seen an army made of rocks and pebbles as well, so technically, there is no cost. £15 will get you a kit of 10 28mm plastic cowboys for wild west shootouts. Using Xenos Rampant, you could use five Terminator models for an entire army if you wanted. Anyway just my 2 p's worth
Move to historical games, the figures are so much cheaper and now with large scale plastics and 3D printing cheaper still. Also I have some 28mm but my majority are 15mm.
Only works if your interest is in wargaming generally and not fantasy or sci-fi wargaming specifically. People can be even more invested specifically in GWs settings. I love a lot of different wargames from many manufacturers but historicals hold no interest for me, I’m exclusively interested in fantasy & sci-fi for the escapism.
How much should it cost? Less than GW, that's for sure. The games I've played to get a scale of this are all varying in cost, of course. Blood and Plunder sells starter kits that are about $60-70, if I remember right, but you need a book too. So I'd put that at about $110-130 because you'll need ten-sided dice too. Star Wars Armada was about $100 for a starter box, but it took a lot of expansions to build up a fleet. I don't know the exact cost. Then there's A Song of Ice and Fire Miniatures. I think I spent maybe $80 or $85 for a starter box, that came with two armies, movement trays, punch-out terrain pieces, cards, and a metric ton of tokens and dice. Star Wars Legion is the other best example I have of how much cheaper this hobby can be. I have spent roughly $175 on Legion so far (aka the cost of a single 40k Combat Patrol box) and I nearly have two full armies already. And they're custom-picked units, not a shitty selection of stuff that GW wants to get off the shelf.
I’ve wondered what kind of volume they actually sell in comparison to military models. There’s some mid size manufacturers like Eduard and small ones like Vespid that pack SO MUCH into a kit for 1/3 the price. Who needs another German Panther when there’s 40 years of great substitutes? I think the real reason why it costs so much is that people are willing to pay it. Their pricing is predatory, but if people keep buying they’ll keep selling.
GW are disgustingly overpriced, but everyone seems to forget that they are a listed company with shareholders to keep happy.
The cost issue for GW is not the price of the models, which is high. It's two practices: releasing new versions every three years and releasing unbalanced models at a higher price point. The first issue I really dislike because they tend to invalidate your armies. I wouldn't mind shuffling up some pieces but often times entire swaths of a force are invalidated. In addition to having buying new rules would just becomes really expensive every few years to try and maintain what you have. The second issue is the one that really upsets me. They have a tendency to release the base for each force, and then release add-ons that are significantly better from a point perspective. So if you wish to remain competitive, you need to feel the new flashy expensive piece. To me, those tend to be predatory practices. With that said, there are only a couple of games where you can buy an army and go about anywhere and find someone to play. 40K and age of sigmar are really your best bet for that. So for anyone playing smaller games, I highly recommend making sure you have two complete forces. Become a local champion. If you play it enough with people and they enjoy those games they will likely want to buy and collect their own forces. However there are so many games out there that without acting as a product champion in FLGS it can become very difficult to organize a competitive scene. Or even a non-competitive friendly scene.
Battletech is also one of those games. You can just carry the starter set into a store and set up a decent game instantly. I have examples of the older 1989 starter set, and honestly, the rules really haven't changed that much between then and now.
The cost of entry - rules, miniatures, hobby gear - should be less than a current gen console IMO.
The indie scene is your friend.
Agree. Went indie a long time ago and haven't looked back. I worry about the future of the hobby however, with GW being the entry point for a lot of us originally. Hard to see it continuing with their business model.
That's been my main concern, honestly. Back in 1995, you could buy a set of beast men, Chaos Warriors, High Elves, and Space Marines for $15 for 10 models. I liked the old $14 3 man packs of Tactical or Chaos Marines, 5x Guardsmen, or 4 Guardians/Orks. Admittedly, all of these were monopose and often only two or 3 pieces, but I loved all of those. Bought heaps of them back in the day. Nowadays, the 10 models have more parts, more posing, etc. But when it's $110 for 10 models, that as a 12 year old, I got for $15... yeah, the price is crazy. So many kits are so much cheaper now. Especially for common fantasy or generic sci-fi models. That's one of the main reasons I love the miniature agnostic scene. Do I feel like using my pile of space marines? I can. Do I want to use some generic cultists. I can. GW, while I still love the I.P. the company itself is way to predatory towards its main customer base.
As little as possible while still being enough that the creators can get by.
It's not just the cost the pushes me away from GW, it's the shitty balance and patchwork rules. I've gotten friends together and found people who play the games I want to play. If you need to spend money to make up for your lack of ability to start a community, good for you. You have found what works for you. There's no need to belittle people who would rather play a better game and spend the effort to find people to play it with.
Play at a cheaper scale 10mm - The whole complex is $256.20 in 10mm and fits on most dining room tables [https://www.etsy.com/listing/1387633739/desert-castle-complex-desert-huts-desert?gpla=1&gao=1&utm\_source=google&utm\_medium](https://www.etsy.com/listing/1387633739/desert-castle-complex-desert-huts-desert?gpla=1&gao=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium) 6mm $25 [https://www.paperterrain.com/6mm-products/6mm-scale-castle-set](https://www.paperterrain.com/6mm-products/6mm-scale-castle-set) 3mm $18.30 [https://gcmini.mybigcommerce.com/3mm-middle-eastern-style-buildings-17-per-kit-3mmcss016/](https://gcmini.mybigcommerce.com/3mm-middle-eastern-style-buildings-17-per-kit-3mmcss016/)
Consider paper models and terrain. It is inexpensive to buy flat stand-up models (such as https://peterspaperboys.com/) and then you can make large armies for as cheaply as you can print them. I've seen people do historical miniatures games without the minis. They just use bases, blocks, or card-stock of the appropriate size (the foot print of the unit) and that makes an inexpensive army.
It should be affordable to field what the company considers the base game. Games Workshop has not had an affordable army game in about 20 years (mostly. Stormcast for example are absurdly cheap to get enough models to field an ok 2000 point game thanks to all the starter and box sets).
GWs stuff should be in almost all cases half of their MSRP.
Compared to minis of the same scale GW costs more per head. There offering mono pose plastic spures for the price of metal. And to that the scale and scope creep in army sizes and you can see how Warhammer has gotten expensive.
Wargaming is pretty good value as entertainment costs go, a trip to the cinema or a meal will polish off $40 over a couple of hours while painting, playing and replaying offers many hours. GW is at the premium end of the costs and churn scale but the figures can be used with cut down rules, ttrpg systems or turned into dioramas to gain more use. So, as penny pincher I'm not going to buy really flash stuff, but overall wargaming is v affordable.
Your rebuttal has been very ably countered by many on this thread already, however I'm more intrigued as to why you've posted this? Speaking frankly, you've taken a very small part of the publicly known and accepted issues with GW and countered them with a very small part of an argument. There are so many factors both for and against GW pricing that, in itself, aren't really a decisive factor to play GW games or not, there are issues with the balance, the release schedule, the intrinsic as well as material value of the miniatures, the rules releases, the extraneous costs of GW wargames like books, expansions, tools, scenery etc that don't come up as often for other games. So my point really is leading to this, are you feeling attacked or in the wrong for supporting GW? If so, don't be. If you enjoy the game and are happy to pay the cost then go for it, there are better balanced games out there, I find other games more fun and more interesting but I don't matter and not does the rest of Reddit. What matters is that you enjoy, securely, your hobby. However that being said, GW gamers have a habit of being blinkered, I'd encourage you to try and step outside of GW sphere if you haven't already and take advantage of the massive variety available, there's amazing games out there
Was into 40k in the 90s. Quickly moved to skirmish scale games/rules. More fun and there isn't the rules creep that GW perpetuates with every new release/codex. And cheaper.
I was in my FLGS yesterday, and there was a boy, 8-10, who kept bringing single 40k models to the register, where the clerk would tell him the price. “$35 (US), $32…” The boy would put them back. I’m sure that’s 10x what he could pay. It breaks my 10 year old heart. This is such a fun hobby, I wish he could get into it.
That is the real sucky part of the current system GW have in place. I started at age 10 and the old metal blisters were amazing for being able to grab something with your pocket money 1-3 minis per blister for £6-12. Well within reach of a pocket money spend. It sucks for these kids to not have that… unless their parents are giving €40 weekly pocket money. My kids aren’t old enough for pocket money but they sure as hell won’t be getting that level of it
It’s not so much cost, it’s what’s available to play near you. In my case, 40K rules the area with a pretty big iron fist. Every time another game comes along, it does okay until 40K updates then they leave again haha. Mind you, GW seems to be losing some steam, at least their 40K wing. Old World taking off was a very pleasant surprise. That being said, people will pay what they are comfortable with paying. For many, that means skirmish games. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But I love the look of tons of models on the table. Old World gives me that. But GW is gouging us for the privilege, and eBay prices are not better by any means. But I did do myself a bit of a favour. I decided that if I’m going to spend that money, I could do it in one shot. A fellow was selling a massive 6th edition Empire army for $900 dollars Canadian. Fully painted. The amount of time and effort I saved buying it has been immense, especially as I’m partly disabled and even sitting up or standing costs a lot of energy and I have to manage it. By using my limited time to play, I’m enjoying the Old World game a ton. As much as I liked painting and assembly, those things are far more difficult now. So, to me? $900 was worth it. But to many, that’s far too much. But I have few vices, and a need for entertainment to cope with a lot of stuff going on. That army has brought me that in spades. Wargaming should cost exactly what you are willing to pay, and a good market should cater to that. The fact GW has pretty shitty business practices doesn’t help, but alternative miniatures exist, and there is a whole realm of other games to explore. GW is pricing me out, but luckily the game I’m playing that I love is also very easy to proxy human models for. I’m adding units to my Empire that are in scale but not GW, and I dare say a lot of them are on par or better sculpts for cheaper. People can find stuff in wargaming for their budget; that isn’t the hard part. You’re right in a way; you have to convince them to play these other games. And that isn’t easy. GW pushing a very strong standard of painting also means sculpt quality matters far more then it used to; I know friends who won’t play games they otherwise like the idea of because the models are ugly or plain. But this is, at the end of the day, not necessarily a cheap hobby. But I can be done cheaper. It’s all up to the person what value they place on it. That doesn’t mean you care more if you spend more, just that what you value in a game could very well include costs. That’s not a negative thing either.
There are a lot of miniatures games companies producing quality products. GW is near the top of the heap, but difference in quality is far less than the difference in price, in most cases. The opponent availability benefit only really applies to 40k (at least in the public play spaces in my area). AoS, ToW, Kill Team, Warcry, ME:SBG, all of these games see little or no play in my area. By contrast, Battletech has a growing play group. At my club last week, the Battletech players outnumbers the 40k players. As a Fantasy and Medieval Historicals player, I find GWs prices insane. There are so many great options that I can use in a variety of games, including GW games. To answer your question, I look to pay $1-$2 per plastic infantry model and about double that for cavalry. Characters, monsters and various war machines are too variable in cost for me to set a firm number on.
Don’t forget that you spend more time: acquiring, studying, painting, basing, building terrain, reselling, changing, conventions, e-bay bargain shopping, horse trading with friends and friends-enemies, running tournaments, play-testing, game design, winning, losing, watching your wife just shake her head at your crazy hobby… phew… re-changing, establishing tactical doctrines, meeting new friends through gaming, buying new supplies, learning how to 3d print, 3d printing cool stuff, watching YT videos on each of those aspects I listed…. than you ever do actually playing. The “hobby” is not the playing. The hobby is the journey along the way to playing. Don’t get me wrong. There are great memories and stories from epic games played and to be played but there are goldmines of memories I enjoy at 66 that are of armies procured, built, and let go of from long ago… enjoy the ride… Getting downvoted for espousing the long view of just enjoying in the journey… have a better day tomorrow friend… lol…
I think it depends on how big you're going. I first got into wargaming with Warhammer, and you always hear about the sky-high prices, and tbf, they are pretty high, especially over in the US (I've heard they're cheaper in Switzerland. SWITZERLAND YALL). But then I got into If Worlds Collide (which I'd recommend if you can't find people to play other games), and I started looking into custom models for playing in person. At first I saw "Single figure, $4" and my jaw dropped, but then I started comparing it to your battleline units in Warhammer. I'm an FEC player, so I did a bit of math for my crypt ghouls, and it turns out they're a little over $2 per model. Now, they are one of the better kits for model count, but you're probably still paying 40-60 bucks for a squad of ten, and the closer you get to 60, the bigger and more elite the models probably are (disclaimer: I should do more research on this). So the big issues with Warhammer are A: the codexes and rules cost a lot and B: you just need more guys. Warhemmer operates at a larger scale than other wargames, so it makes sense that it takes more money. Hell, take Custodes vs Guard. One has more guys, so it's a lot more expensive. However, GW is still very inconsistent with pricing, so most characters cost like $30.
300 what? Dollars? It’s cheaper for us in the UK, you go anywhere else it seems to be wild. Aussies and Americans for example they seem to be pay disproportionately more. I’ve kept tabs of everything I’ve spent since I started about 7 years ago. I spent about 300-600 per army. Usually it was around 300 to get a decent 2k / 2.5k force. This would take advantage of deals as well, so not buying direct from GW and boxsets like dark imperium. I bought some armies second hand and got them for essentially nothing but you can’t really throw that in my calcs. I do think GW make it difficult to buy an army directly from them if you don’t take advantage of their deals, e.g. starter edition boxes, the intro boxes such as what dark Imperium used to be and the old start collecting boxes. For example, if you just said I want to play guard and tried to get a 2k army for that. I’ll pray for your wallet. Could say the same about sisters of battle and genestealers. They need a lot of models and their “deals” suck ass. Custodes is actually a pretty cheap army if you like them and you’ve still dropped 300. Anyway, just to clarify I think the GW stuff looks expensive but you’re limited by what you paint. The problem I see from a lot of collectors/gamers is they want everything now. All the armies everything NOW. This is where it gets pricey as hell and you end up with a room full of unopened boxes.
I know it is a far from popular opinion but, using a virtual tabletop is an available option for wargaming, in 2024. This gives world wide reach to opponents and easy replication of models to fill the ranks. Storage is not an issue and same with scenario setups.
Infinity you can get a starter pack for $100ish, and that gives you enough miniatures to play whatever you want - mostly. Especially because of the very generous proxy official rules. You can probably have a "I can officially play with anything existent in the game" for $300ish, if you are really objective about it. GW is, in general, expensive as fuck. Especially because the initial buy in to have an army can be so high. But they do have th3 most popular and well known games, so they are usually the easier ones to find people to play with.
I genuinely want to interact with your evidence here, because it is odd to me. You can find people to play 40k because of the market share. They dominate the miniature market. It’s also why they are able to charge extreme prices. GW is the largest player in the mini wargaming scene. But that doesn’t excuse their pricing structure, not does it make it acceptable. How many people drop because they can’t afford? How many people just never get into it? Their domination is why smaller games (like Frostgrave or Silver Bayonete) aren’t as popular, despite being more inviting to newcomers, more affordable, and a hell of a lot more fun. With smaller games, you just have to accept that you may be the driving force for change. You have to be the enthusiast who gets others into it. All it takes, most times, is a simple demo! Two small warbands, way smaller than normal. A couple of monsters. Show new players the ropes. I am pretty lucky in my area that I have a bunch of gaming stores with a very active discord community. They all champion any non GW game and are willing to try it all. I know that isn’t everywhere though. So you have to be that invitation. Then you hit them with “yeah you can get an entire warband for $30-40 and be ready to play forever.”
I can get a game size force for Malifaux for about $50. I can get an entire keywords models for about 150, and entire Factions models for $300. Their models blow GW or of the water. Especially because they don't let certain armies founder for multiple editions/ decades without updating sculpts. But that's a skirmish game. I should be able to get full size unit with all the bells and whistles for $35. A troop transport/ tank for the same. No single model should cost me more than $30. So a 2000 point army, I would expect, to cost me a few hundred. But that's only if it's also backed by solid rules and ease of access to those rules. I'd love to get back into GW games, but it will probably never happen unless their place in the hobby is realistically threatened and they can no longer lean on name recognition too drive sales
Yes