The prices are obscene. I want to game Tolkein, but I will use other manufacturers' products, both fantasy ranges and Dark Age historicals. I have been using Gripping Beast for years and think they are excellent.

I now hope that GW goes under. I really do. They desrve to and the space they will leave will be better filled by someone else. All it needs is an alternative ruleset (and I noted the suggetstions made on this thread for both skirmish and battle rules) and a generic fantasy hard plastic range of the quality and value for money of Perry or Warlord standards and there will cease to be any point to the existence of GW.

I consider myself comfortably off, but I work bloody hard for my money and I have a sense of value. Nothing GW produces is worth what they want for it.

You've echoed my sentiment exactly.

Seeing as you're open to using alternative miniatures and you refuse to be ripped off by GW, you might want to chip in with your opinion in this thread.

Alternatives to GW miniatures?

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My (more regularly updated) painting blog:
https://www.facebook.com/Pindergorn/

As an interesting aside, one of the reasons that the wheels did not come off GW's bike (so to speak) when they stopped indie retailers doing online orders is that GW is not the only distributor of GW material. The big nerd multiple distribution chains like Alliance also distribute GW stuff. And from what I know about Alliance, the normal relationship is reversed. GW can't leverage the relationship as well. So retailers had some options. Drove the prices up, I'd imagine.

I have no idea what has changed, but maybe GW just doesn't do out-of-house distribution anymore...

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Dreaming of getting back to painting...any month now.

Yes, I will. Thank you for that.

Had an interesting conversation yesterday with someone in GW, they said the price difference is due to import taxes. Australia being the biggest offender. Which makes sense because when my friend moved there he had to fork over his laptop or $1000 for it. It was custom built by himself for $4000,but he gave it up rather than pay the luxury taxes.

I understand what GW is trying to do here. Like normal they have the best intentions but their warped view of the universe makes it come off wrong.

From the people I have talked to, they are trying to entice more smaller hobby shops to become GW suppliers. The numbers reflect that its not profitable enough (to be worth the hassle) for an established hobby store to take on GW products. The thought process being, if you eliminated all online sales, then those numbers directly transfer into physical sales, increasing the profit for retail store. (Which they obvious won't but accounting often has very little to do with real economics)

The problem with this in Canada is that our country is "Huge" and underpopulated. If you live outside the major centers you can be hours and hours of travel to reach a GW retailer. Miniature war-gaming is also not large hobby here, so it doesn't make sense to open stores to support a player base of a couple people. If those people lose the ability to easily order their models, they will just move on to another game.

It is unfortunate, but I think that GW is struggling to find a way to market its own product. As the company has grown I am sure there overhead cost have grown with it. But in there rush to maintain the shareholders profits they have forgotten what made them big in the first place, "having a fun game, at a decent price". It is sad that they cannot see that the largest problem holding them back is the price point.

Recently my wife and were talking about games we could play with some of the kids we take care of. Sadly I vetoed my own games, because the price point is too expensive kids 8 - 12. Instead we are going to start playing MTG (Magic card game) and X-wing (Fantasy Flight Games).

If a few of them really like playing with miniatures, then I am not sure what I will push; I'm thinking Flames of War or Warmachine. I do want them to play GW games with me, but until they have full time jobs its just to expensive.

Try Saga, Bolt action, Hail Caesar (the new supplement has skirmish games) to name a few. All of these are excellent miniatures games and I have played them with kids of 8 to 10 years old. The miniatures start from just a few GBP for metal characters and £18-20 for boxes bristling with plastic minis. With Saga and Hail Caesar you have over 2 thousand years of historical eras to choose from, and plastic sets out now for most major eras.

Bolt Action is excellent for beginner games with simple mechanics and very dramatic games, the level abstraction and lose rule writing may annoy more experienced gamers, but my Kids love it (We have adapted it to play Daleks vs UNIT) And you can buy one box of figures for each side and play a decent game.

Guessing that 8-10 year olds will be much more interested in fantasy wargames than historical wargames (I certainly was at that age), you could try Mantic's Kings of War with them. I personally haven't played it, and don't own any of their minis, but I have read the rules and they're very straightforward. From what I can tell, the miniatures are also much more affordable than GW. Or, if those rules don't interest you, you could just use them as a cheaper source of miniatures (at least for some armies).

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Well, that's my 2 cents.

You would be surprised, I was. Nearly all the kids I know (I have two sons that age and they have friends and cousins who have all seen my miniatures collection) really love the Romans, Vikings and Medieval stuff. I also sent a vikings dioram into my youngests school and the kids were bonkers for it. In fact in a totally unscientific survey (my observation) I would say Vikings win out, then romans a very close second, then interest in the LotR stuff. And they were distinctly unimpressed with Warhammer fantasy, which they describe as 'too cartoony'. But this is all conjecture based on my own observations.

But you are right, Kings of War is a much more affordable fantasy ranges, and if you get them before they have been in a GW and been indoctrinated you are on to a winner.

It is sad because LoTR is great entrance game for the kids. Easier rules, well known lore, movies to help drive imagination....

I am strong believer in that the gaming portion is really one of the smaller aspects of the hobby. Picking your army, doing the math on the points, building, painting, speculating with friends, These are the things that make up the rest of the hobby, and that requires the kids to build their own forces. The price range for that age group (in my mind) is 20-30 dollars. You will always save up for the big items, but you should be able to take your allowance and go add to your army. $60.00 for Knights of Rivendell???

This is the next generation of gamer and I don't see them coming up with GW. Its such a shame

Thanks for the ideas guys, I will definitely go it out.

You can find the forums for Gripping Beast's Dark Age skirmish ruleset SAGA (written by Studio Tomahawk) here.

Have a look at the Battle Reports, they should give you an idea of what the game is like.

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My (more regularly updated) painting blog:
https://www.facebook.com/Pindergorn/

If the kiddos are into mythology, then plastic historical minis (Vikings, Romans, Greeks, Celts) would also work well, and all you'd need are some monsters for them to fight.

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Well, that's my 2 cents.

Agreed for the most part. The building/painting of the models is a 50/50 with many people I speak with. Even people that enjoy that part of the hobby find a certain appeal in a pick-up-and-go game that comes with (at least mostly) built and painted models. But the rest of your points are pretty consistent.




And here you nailed it IMO. I may have spent $25/month on the hobby in the past, for example, and would have spent all that on GW in my LGS. Because that $25 would get me a box full of 24 warriors or a Hero and some paints. Now it's either half the models or, in more and more cases, not enough for a single purchase. So I'd have to wait a second month for actual gratification. But now I can go to another shelf at my LGS and grab a different set of models for that price.

I also used to try to bring new players into SBG and even WotR. But now I wouldn't think of suggesting anyone new look at this particular system. I may still invite new people to play using our existing forces, but I'd tell them up front that it's over priced in my opinion and suggest they really consider their options. Meanwhile I'm pushing some other game systems at people like cheap crack because they are fun and affordable to play...just absolutely unrelated to Middle Earth.

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Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

Nope. Not import taxes. Unless you are buying more than $1000 worth of miniatures at a time. There is no import tax under $1000.

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My LotR and 40k blog, Realm of Battle board, dwarves, gobs, space wolves and battle reports. http://simbattleboard.blogspot.com/

For you. But wouldn't the GW's have to pay import taxes on their shipments? (Or is there a GW factory in Australia? I thought their figures were shipped from GB...)

For small businesses you would be better off only importing in small batches. Any larger business making bigger orders will pay, but it's only 5% (you can see all the tariffs etc. online if you want).

So I don't see how we pay double (essentially a +100% tariff) when it's nowhere near that due to "import tax" of +5%.

It's not just GW, there's starting to be political pressure put on a lot of companies to drop the "Australia tax". I've heard just about every excuse from them now, often it sounds reasonable until you look at the actual figures.

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My LotR and 40k blog, Realm of Battle board, dwarves, gobs, space wolves and battle reports. http://simbattleboard.blogspot.com/

Ah, so it's not just GW that has wonky converison rates. That's good, in a way. At least they're not the only ones doing it. Of course that's all the worse for you, having to pay extra on most things, not just GW stuff! We have a little of that here in Canada, with the US having better prices on most things, even though the dollar has been right around par for a while now...Though no where near 100% more.

Eh, you may have noticed my absence.

GW is too expensive for me. *shrugs*

They just keep getting worse. o_O

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Namarie

Seems to me that they're testing the barriers as to what is an acceptable amount to pay... probably against the costs of buying a computer game.

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The problem is that there are other options now besides video games. I recently met some guys who have a small club in town who are playing Warmachine and... I'm picking up my army this weekend.

There was a time when I bought at least a box a month from GW. The price point for me now, has crept up so high, that I only buy when I have a specific purpose for it. In past years by now I would own every hobbit release, but instead I have only purchased one box outside EFGT. (I'm not going to bother commenting on my feelings about how they've promoted the Hobbit / LoTR line and kept excitement alive...)

I have been a GW fan boy for a long time and this weekend will mark the first time I have bought a gaming miniature that wasn't GW.