Marauder Giant apparently makes a return

GW got a lot going on and naturally this causes expenses, that I can't deny. However I see their prices generally very inflated simply because GW is The household name in miniature wargaming. Like buying a hoodie; one with logo of some well known company is bound to cost more than one with no logo, and yet they are likely both made in the same sweatshops that exploit their workers.

I believe companies like North Star show that you don't have to keep raising your prices yearly to make a profit. In GW's defense, they truly are the monolith of this hobby and have much more expenses, but clearly they must see things like having stores profitable enough to keep them running; an entry point for new customers, a place for players to game only using miniatures they sell, thus further pushing their products.
And the fact is GW keeps making bigger and bigger profits year to year, and they're doing this in the current economic situation we are living in, says something.

MichaelStockin said:
THOUGH... Since GW started charging more for models that have the same production costs as other ones simply because their game stats are better, that does not make them a balanced/fair company in terms of pricing.
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I think this has been a thing for a very long time by now. Reaper miniatures, for example, are not cheap, but if you look at their prices it's clearly affected by miniature's size and thus cost of materials.
 
I'll continue a bit. I agree that £6 is not terrible price for miniature you really want, and on ebay standards that might actually be a bargain.
In case of imperial dwarfs it's that you don't get to buy that one miniature for £6 but rather have to bulk buy them and pay accordingly.
I know it's useless of me to moan about things that don't exist anymore, but there was a time you could buy just that one miniature.

Also I don't think one is going to get away with buying just 10 miniatures if they plan to play with them and want a regiment of just offical imperial dwarfs from GW. If you want a decent sized regiment you're likely looking to pay for 20 or more of these miniatures and suddenly the price of £6 a pop turns into quite hefty sum.
 
A mould with those Marauder dwarfs in is going to have 12 models in. Let's assume they have two production moulds, each with four copies of three of the sculpts in. They spin those moulds once and get three (allowing for miscasts) full sets of dwarves, £111.60 retail price of product. That's taken the caster 5 minutes if they're taking their time, so in an hour that's £1339.2 of product. They're losing 20% VAT so £1071.36, paying maybe £5 per spin metal weight so £951.36, paying the casting staff above minimum wage maybe so £936.36 profit. Of course it's taken a couple of hours to make the moulds and there's an inherent cost there plus packaging so let's say £800 profit (though likely more than that) off an hour's casting. Granted that has to pay staff wages, store rental, rates etc. etc. as well but that's one single, niche product in one hour's work. The production costs of plastics is waaaaaaaay less than that in the volume they are producing and that's the mainstay of GW's sales. Hence I think £6 per model is too much.
 
Yeah there's no doubt they moved to plastic for reason of cost efficiency. Would be interesting to know how much finecast-fiasco affected that decision, if at all. And in general how they handled the situation of knowing they were effectively selling faulty product, trying to solve the issue and deflect backlash from customers.

No one asked for this but, since I indirectly brought up cost of metal as somewhat mitigating factor for higher prices, I should maybe correct myself a bit.
I took a photo of scale comparison between some GW/Citadel minis and some chunky boys sold by Ral Partha Europe, from which snow troll on the far right is most expensive; it costs whopping £9.95, which is less than what GW asks for a plastic necromancer.

Skaala.jpg

I don't know a thing about casting but would assume that more complex the miniature is, more likely it is also to be miscast and it wouldn't be surprising if GW took this in consideration with pricing of their metal miniatures. Their miniatures not containing lead must also add to total cost of casting. Quality of cast affects each and every miniature ever made but quality of sculpt itself is up to us to decide and depends on our own preferences on both miniatures and the hobby in general.

All in all, I'm happy for everyone who gets a chance to buy miniatures they've wanted to buy but have not been able to until now.
I'll keep my eyes open for what old empire miniatures GW brings back but am not expecting to actually buy anything if these are the prices going forward.

This shall be my final off-topic input for this thread. ;)
 
Geroak II said:
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And the fact is GW keeps making bigger and bigger profits year to year, and they're doing this in the current economic situation we are living in, says something.
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Agree with alot of what you say. GWs biggest risk, is a massive drop in support.

As a luxury brand expense, GW can go from massive profits to losses in one year. Alot of luxury brands suffer this.

If they keep allowing bloat, customers see that, and eventually relate their overpriced minis to company bloat and waste.


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metal miscasts don't really create a problem (unless the mould is always miscasting) cause you just pop the figure back into the .. and I've forgotten the name of the metal pot that you heat up.. damn.. but anyway, any miscasts you just re-melt. you would lose a tiny bit over time with impurities but not really a thing. Non-lead or limited lead metals don't seam hugely more pricey then leaded metals but i think there is a tiny bit of price difference.

side note: I remember.. well, I don't remember the late 70s cause I wasn't born but.. you wanna look say.. 1978 to about 1986 I believe, where stuff was made in Metal cause it was cheaper then plastic.. yep, here is a bit of trivia for you all, some of the early transformers (and toys which became transformers) often had larger sections cast in metal because it was cheaper then doing it in plastic.. For a good example, Optimus Prime's lower legs, and chest were metal because of being large areas. The reason the metal was cheaper is something to do with some kinda middle east oil crisis... somehow, when people keep talking about modern oil crisises, metal never seams to become cheaper.. (seriously, I can explain that but you DON'T want things to go into that route. Just remember when people moan about how old Toys used to have diecast metal parts and it's a lost art and companies are just cheaping out these days, those metal diecast parts were mostly to save money).

I'm gonna say again, I wish they would hire an Website designer who can put there shop into order. There is no reason NOT to advertise the reissues and make them easy to find.
 
Lead-free alloy is about 50% more expensive than lead/tin alloy. The main problem with it is that because it's harder and has a higher melting point it eats the moulds a lot quicker. You might get 500 spins from a black rubber mould using lead/tin but only 200 from lead free alloy. The switch to lead free in the 90s was a much bigger problem than expected at GW as stuff wore out so much faster. That does make miscasts a problem as it not only eats time but mould capacity.
 
As ever in trading it's the balance between what something actually costs and what someone is wiling to pay for it. £6+ is a bit steep for my dwarves tastes, but for human sized models I guess it's getting closer to par for the course. One reason I've not (yet) bought any of the Colony87 minis was the cost. I guess I start getting twitchy on 28mm minis once they go past about £5 and I guess a quid or so less for my half sized minis. I suspect a lot of GW pricing is based on where they think their "price point" is rather than actual costs these days, although given the slayers worked out at £4.30 a mini I'm still surprised at the pike prices.

I do think it was silly of GW to sell those pikemen in a set of 5 and only 5 and to limit purchases to just one. I'd have thought offering a unit sized set would have been sensible. Not that I know quite what the solution to their scalping problem is. I've put off ordering the cart yet (although out of stock right now), until I see what the Prince's gang are going to come in at.

Still on happier news, my Giant's missing barrel arrived today, along with the rest of a giant ... so I'll have to do something interesting with the spare bits at some point. Guess it was cheaper effort wise for GW to just send the whole model out again than to faff about with finding a barrel. Lucky me.
 
According to a poster on Lead Adventure Forum (LAF), the limitation of one pack per order has been lifted, so maybe it was an initial pre-order thing? :|
 
of course, selling a whole unit and with the whole no way to really tell the difference between old and new castings, means people can buy a unit of 30, wait a year, then sell them off at profit.. which... isn't that what people do with anything that exists anyway?

I'm kinda thinking the limited edition nature is probably "we don't think it's gonna be worth it so we are only making up 1 mould so we will run it till death" kinda makes sense, but would surely also make sense to bring back the ones more popular after a little while (too soon and... ugh, bit of a legal issue with the 'limited edition' bit.
 
Since imperial dwarfs are not limited edition GW likely wanted to ensure that each and every single miniature initially cast didn't go to scalpers.
Or perhaps they just expected them to sell better.
Ulther's company and some other dwarfs, like queen Helgar and runesmiths that are coming later on in another wave(s) of releases, will however be MTO and as such available for limited time. I've been trying to figure out what those "Lord, Thane, and Standard Bearer in resin" mentioned in warhammer community article might be. Does anyone have any clue on them?
Also, mildly interesting that Ulther & his pals come with shields from 6th edition dwarf regiment rather than original ones.

ManicMan said:
...no way to really tell the difference between old and new castings...
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Personally I'd take new castings over original 80's ones any day. Just piece of mind knowing there's no risk of lead rot is enough for me.
It's the sculpt that matters, not the age of casting IMO.

ManicMan said:
I'm kinda thinking the limited edition nature is probably "we don't think it's gonna be worth it so we are only making up 1 mould so we will run it till death" kinda makes sense, but would surely also make sense to bring back the ones more popular after a little while (too soon and... ugh, bit of a legal issue with the 'limited edition' bit.
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MTO miniatures could be seen as fan service if you're a 'glass half full' -person. I'm more inclined to see this as their usual FOMO tactics and getting people impulse buying rather than giving them time to think or chance to buy later.
 
Hah, true. They are unlikely to care whether it's old, new or recasts cranked out in someones garage they are selling, price will remain obnoxiously high.

I think I got figured out those upcoming resin dwarfs, they are likely these:
Dwarfs.jpg
Was hoping they'd be something older. Though lord could perhaps be that from 6th edition instead of this one in picture.
 
The nostalgia was what almost got me. I've a set of v2 Bugmans' dwarves myself in the lead pile so did wonder about getting the cart to go with them. I didn't in the end deciding to wait until the Prince's models were released, but given they were as pricey as the pikemen I've so far opted not to add to the pile (yet) - my willpower may well collapse if I need anything else actually from GW at some point.
 
If it's a mail order project is it not just made up of pre-existing bits? There's a list there I just haven't checked to see what kits they came from. Also, the painted model doesn't seem to be the same as the b+w catalogue image? Barrels are different.
 
The barrels in both versions are those from the later Flame Cannon although the catalogue ID doesn't match, the holes covered at the ends and little dwarf faces match. MM12/10 is the screw from the organ gun, which you'd assume are those taps on top, but they are different pieces so ...? 020501603 is the standard top for the Hammerers and has been used to cover the hole in the end of the barrel (shields used in the painted version). Not figured out the other parts yet (well obviously plastic horse and solid wheels). There is a very blurry pic of some parts here. which shows the cart base, but I don't immediately know which model it's from.
 
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