Brood Brother |
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Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2003 4:23 pm Posts: 789 Location: Tampa, Florida
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Hi guys,
I have been giving the whole cost of GW minis some thought but I realized the other day how confusing GW's prices are.
When it comes right down to it, plastic is freakin cheap as hell, and sometimes the packaging can cost more that the contents (take food for example). ?Another cost increase is that these are manufactured and packaged in the US and UK, and not Taiwan or something. ?That alone can be a huge factor.
Then I realized something when I was thinking about buying Warhammer Fantasy. ?I am NOT paying full price, so I was hunting around for a deal, I was checking on what came in the box, and was kind of satisfied with the minis I was going to get.
I also checked into how I could expand on the Orcs and Empire armies, and couldn't believe it, although I should have expected it, when I found the Empire Regiments box set game with 8 hand gunners and 8 spearmen, WHEN YOU NEED AT LEAST 10 TO FORM THEIR OWN REGIMENTS! Wow, that's great.
Anyway, if you look at the contents in the Warhammer Fantasy set and break down what it would cost to get the contents individually, it is amazing:
Rulebook (At least $30 by itself) Empire General (At least $10) Two Empire Regiments (16 Handgunners, 16 Spearmen - $50 total) Cannon ($20) Ork Warboss (At least $10) Ork Chariot ($25) Ork Arrer Boys (At least $30) Ork Boyz ($30)
Add a few more bucks for a box, templates, dice, terrain, and measuring sticks- actually I'll leave that out, so the total comes to about $205 USD. GW sells the Warhammer box set for $75.
GW DOES NOT GIVE OUT GREAT PRICE DEALS. ?As a matter of fact, a new army deal is simply the box set plus the army book, with no percentage off for getting everything bundled.
Now, is GW bending itself over and taking it in the ass just to get us into the hobby, or are they making a profit off of the box set as well? I can't imagine that there isn't some profit off of the sale of the box set, as it would really be stupid not to do that. ?Even if it were a small profit, it doesn't seem like GW to give great discounts.
So that leaves me to believe that GW poorly manages costs of operating, individual box sets are extremely expensive to produce, and maybe they are selling the main box set as a way to promote the sale of other items (expecting that you will buy a lot more), or they are just screwing us.
I mean, are 16 plastic Dark Eldar Warriors really worth $30? ??? NO. ?So I buy them 20 of them for $11 on ebay. 
That is my take on it.
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