Games Workshop Price Hikes and Paywalled Miniatures 

This is why I 3D print. 3D printers are not killing GW. GW are killing themselves

I started gardening last year. It's way less expensive.

I wish more time allocated to explore Murray mouse milking operation

The price hike shouldn't hit us Aussies too bad, GW needs to actually have product on the shelves to raise the price on to begin with!

The price hike is a symptom of companies being hog tied by their shareholders. Shareholders don’t care for the wider hobby community it would seem.

The sad and somewhat ironic thing is, if they actually reduced prices they’d probably sell a lot more. Not only would people be more inclined to buy, they might also buy more often rather than holding out for special occasions which is the case for many people now, and that’s only if they haven’t already been priced out of the hobby. Lower prices would also drive sales by reducing the financial barrier to entry to potential new players. All the constant price hikes only make the hobby that bit more inaccessible to more and more people. It’s easy to see why there has been such a boom in sales of OPR and 3D printers in recent years.

i use a 3d printer, the cheapest printer costs about 3 times as much as 1 GW kill team but after you buy it, each mini takes about 3 cents to 8 bucks depending on your resin and where you find your 3d files. meaning the printer pays for itself in like 4 or 5 prints depending on the miniature.

Resin 3d printers be looking good. 1L of expensive high quality resin or 1 box of Intersessors

This is why I 3D print. An LGS should offer catalogues of miniatures they can print for customers as a means of driving profit. More enterprising stores could even offer custom models.

Big fan of legit political discourse on the nature of inflation. I'm from the UK and 10 years (Strictly speaking, I'd argue 12, broken up by a brief period where *everyone* was fucked by a need to stay inside for a few years) of austerity policies haven't altered the economic state of the country. If those at the top keep making money while prices increase, we need to do better in asking why. Good on ya!

My printer died after several years of use, and when I was contemplating having to buy a replacement, I realized that if I only printed 8 characters, I'll already be saving money.

GW's pricing is hurting themselves. They could be making as much, if not more money if they priced themselves more accessibly. There was a time when it wasn't uncommon for people to have huge armies and multiples of them. It is no surprise that players started to specialize and churn their armies more as pricing increased. What the company would lose in profit per say, they would make up for in total volume of sales. Prices scare people away but give people a price they are happy with and they will gobble up your product.

As a "nordic" the conversion rate from the pound means that BEFORE these hikes, prices have gone up around 10% and now we're getting ANOTHER 14% price increase...

This is why 3D printing is SOOOOOOO much more cost effective in the long run. There are so many talented artists out there that make awesome, sometimes better, designs. It's a shame but it's time for people to cast their votes with their dollars.

Yeah the models were already too expensive as it was and as an example 34 usd just for 1 Castellon crowe of the grey knights, Like I get you have to pay the sculptors And have to pay for materials But they could have sold it for like 15 USD max And they still would have made plenty of profit And also 63 usd For a strike squad And it only comes with 5 units n a few extra parts Really glad my brother is printing my army For me because I'm not trying to spend 2 grand Same with my sisters of battle and my Eventual Dornian heresy iron warriors each.

This is probably the turning point for me to convince myself that resin is indeed worth the hassle.

Absolutely LOVED the deep dive into the different kind of box sets that have come out over the last decade or so, and with PICTURES! I'm personally really interested in different "sets" etc that have come out over the years and always find the research into "what actually happened" and prices etc quite hard to find. Thanks for doing such a thorough job. Really enjoying the new chatty theme of the weekly vids

_"GW is raising their prizes to their highest point yet! This comes as a complete shock!_ _In other news; water is wet, the sky is blue and corporations are not run by people, but spreadsheets."_

Would be sweet if content creators pushed other miniatures games. I know they don't get much views as Warhammer but I'm kinda over how expensive Warhammer is getting.. Frostgrave is pretty cool 🤷🏼

Ah yes, the army boxes, when you finally get your Astra Militarum codex but the official release is 3 months later and the new edition months after that. SO much fun.

I am fairly sure that the composition for the Jumpack Lord battalion box is entirely "We have to include Raptors with the jumplord, but we can't include anyone else with power armour or people will realise how out of scale they are so we'll just whack a bunch of cultists instead"

No point in buying GW miniatures when you can print and proxy for a fraction of the cost.

3D printer goes BRRRR!

This is why you should never trust a publically traded company. They believe their only obligation is to their shareholders, and they believe they have to always increase that profit margin over everything else.

I appreciate the time and effort put into this discussion. You all did a great job! You even worked hard to find positive points for each kind of box!

3D Printer goes brrrrrrrt :D

GW had special minis for big boxes since Warhammer Fantasy 6th ed. There was a Wood Elves and Warriors of Chaos army boxes. The battle standard bearers for those two boxes were exclusive from those boxes.

Just got a new Creality large FDM printer for terrain as well as a large Anycubic resin printer for figures ❤️❤️❤️

The Dread Talons box is actually perfect for me because the cultists, accursed cultists, and dark commune are the three kits you need to make a chaos cults kill team. That plus wanting to add a bunch of warp talons and raptors puts me in a unique position of wanting everything in the box. I doubt many people are with me on that.

This episode with the skit start and news segment absolutely reminded me of good game. Nailed it 10/10, no further comments.

I don't buy a lot from GW these days, trying to play and paint with other ranges. But the crazy Australian prices and double dipping on 'inflation' is just pricing me out of them altogether. I would have loved to get into Old World, but I tallied up what I would need to spend and it exceeded what I spent on every other range the year before. 😢

I'd love to hear your opinions about narrative campaigns, campaign systems. The thing that made me fall in love with wargaming was The Battle for Karak Eight Peaks campaign, the mix of story and hobbying and gaming, and it's my favorite thing about Warcry as well, the fantastic narrative content they put out, especially in first edition, and although I don't play 40k, Dawn of War: Dark Crusade is often reinstalled to scratch the itch with that campaign system it has. Then, there's the old General's Compendium, which is probably the best book GW ever released. Would be fun to hear if you have any memories, thoughts on this.

I miss the old Megaforces and Battleforces - they felt like epic sets when I saw them on the shelves and were just packed with minis.

Dawnbringers: Daughters of Khaine - Krethusa's Cronehost springs immediately to mind. One incredible new character mini that everyone wants to build and paint, lumped into a £65 box with 10 sisters of slaughter and 5 Doomfire Warlocks, both of which are units with models that are over ten years old now. It's arguable that the price means you're effectively getting the Warlocks for free, but they're very much showing their age when set next to a sculpt as striking as Krethusa.

They did the same thing with boxes back in the 90s - I got the start of my WHFB chaos army by buying the remnants of a couple of these kind of boxes after the new kits had been pulled out and sold separately to folks with existing armies

In the last 12 months I have seen my wholesale cost of MTG go up by about 13%, and have had to eat that cost as the online sellers in Australia cut the hell out of the price, Starwars legion up by 10%, GW well they are my only supplier that has increased my discount so my wholesale price in down 3% over the last 12 months.

Coming from the same general, I always found it so difficult to find a game store, between your store and one down in Bass coast (which is gone now too). It's awful to hear such finite havens in rural areas are starting to close 😢

Just play the edition you like now or switch to OPR now. Use any mini you want from any range and don't support them unless you can afford or can't live without that model (I was with 1st edition warcry). Hey guys make OPR collaborate with your space bears/drop bears and do another release . I'd definitely support you guys for one of those.

Definitely want to hear more topics like this. It would also be good to hear about companies with a more positive approach to market behaviour; good value for money, respect for customers, etc.

My wife just told me I can't drive to Gippsland and buy another (3) Kroot box.

The pricing thing is insane, but honestly, I'm a fan of the battalion boxes. I can freely ignore them if I have too many things that I don't want, but if there are things I want in there, I get a bunch of discounted models, causing the prices to go to 'unreasonably expensive' down from 'holy f***' expensive. and if there is an extra squad of stuff I don't want, using it for bits, or tossing it to a friend to get them into the game, or allowing me to do weird things with models I didn't really need is neat.

The only saving grace in the world of Warhammer is that the models don't devalue at the rate of other similar hobbies. Having said that, them sunsetting the AoS stuff may change my mind on this, as my concern that this "Anti-Bloat" tactic is actually just another way of bleeding people's wallets faster than they normally would obtain a new army.

love you guys for being so clear eyed about companies driving inflation while also talking like they're part of the community.

GW have not effectively taken action to keep prices down, they have taken action to keep revenue growth on track without additional supply. They expand their stock storage but not expanding manufacturing. They have a few factories in the uk but that’s pretty much it. They could open manufacturing branches other parts of the world (Mexico, Japan, Australia and so on), which could start out on a small scale focusing on limited releases/local preorders and high demand models in the local markets. For example when North America had no warhounds for months these smaller plants could have printed those models until additional supply could be allocated. It would also allow games workshop to avoid import fees to countries like Australia and New Zealand. Countries that have regularly experienced economic landscapes where it’s cheaper to buy directly from British retailers than to walk 15 minutes to the local discount game store. That’s simply because the mark up on warhammer in Australia not only covers import fees but generates profit. But they will never do this because that would mean investing money into a system that wouldn’t let them price gouge in demand models or the foreign markets. They don’t value the hobby supporters they value the consumers. It seems the company needs a complete change of leadership if it expects to continue growing or remaining profitable in the face of emerging technologies and competitors.

This is why I play systems where I pay around 1,5 usd for a miniature (and I'm from a mid-poor EU country). It's awesome to hear you talk about non-GW stuff.

It's the yearly price hike. Every year, around this time, the prices go a little bit higher. Games Workshop is upholding their fiduciary responsibility by gaining the most bang for their buck for their investors on the backs of their customers. Speaking of "tax models," my understanding of The Old World starter box is almost entirely tax models. Some of the designs are from way back. Thanks for talking about the Fallout minis game. I'd love for more people to hear about it. Thank you for putting something in the cups.

One of the problems with flyers this edition is the scaling down of the battlefield. We used to play on 6x4 tables, giving flyers room to maneuver and be interacted with. This edion came with a shrunk-down play area, and flyers go too damn fast to be useful on a smaller scaled battlefield. The scale of the game is too small to make aircraft work.

Here in Canada with the price increase a combat patrol will cost 200$ after the price increase and that's before taxes

What are your opinions on Conquest from Para Bellum? Got hooked into it this year and been having a good time! The only problem I have is with my country custom fees, that are ridiculously high

I remember when shadowspear came out, I was camping and saw the awesome chaos minis and decided I was gonna make my own Warhammer TTRPG for some reason because of it

One thing that went unmentioned in regards to the box set, is stuff like Dark Imperium which have exclusive sculpts for models. This is especially annoying as the standard pox walker kit still has half a Dark Imperium plague marine in it which is incompatible with the standard plague marines.

What’s worse than the price hikes is the fact that GW also charges 20% extra for Australian’s compared to getting them in the UK or anything

The Kroot pack alligned well with me. I started collecting when Farsight was more restrictive, and said no to all the auxulariies. I only had 1 box of the old Kroot, so the new is great additions to me!

Over the last few weeks they've also had a mass exodus of subscriptions. Its quite the coincidence their prices went up at the same time....They have completely disconnected from the community for profit, what a shame.

We a f***ed in Straya then. We already pay some of the highest prices in the world for GW products.

The Sunny coffee bit is peak 🔥

The crazy thing about the Soul forge box was literally a year later they dropped brand new Death Wing making these old ones obsolete

said this 15-20 years ago during the Tom Kirby era. Dropped 40k/WHFM and went to HH. Once Mr Bligh sadly passed away and mainline GW got their hands on HH I dropped it also. Stopped buying the HH novels and 40k books also. The only thing I want to get my hands on are the HH1.0 BBB's so I can play with a finish system and enjoy my admech and titans stomping stuff. GW sold their soul to the dividend's/ shareholds two decades ago. They weren't even subtle about it back then.

Another bigger box thing that GW did for a while was the odd side game boxes. Some like Deathwatch Overkill and Speed Freeks came out with all new models. Others were odd pairings. I remember a Knight v Knight box and a Hellions v Reavers box. These boxes seem like a way to move minis with odd rules thrown in. Shadowwar Armageddon was an odd one that had Scouts v Orks with new terrain. I don't know if anyone plays these side games. They seem like product tests.

I actually like the idea of the clash boxes, as standlone armies, the short narrative campaigns

Cadia Stands and the Astra Militarum update came out so late in 9th that I never got to play my guard with their codex rules that edition before 10th edition.

Aussies are already hit with a 50+% tariff on gw products comparing exchange rates on sale prices. I understand there are more costs to get them to Australia from the UK but the prices are already obscene on them.

What really frustrates me with the price changes is that they increase the prices in Norway where I live a lot more than in the rest of Europe. Regarding boxes I think boxes with just one new charcter is a big pain, and truely done just to get more profit. But I sot of like the boxes where you get one faction and all the new stuff like they did with the new Cadians and with the Leagues of Votann (and with Old World too, even though I had to wait quite a long time to get a box of Bretonnians).

After having watched : I agree with the fear! I'm definitly interested in new eldar and orks model, but I sure as hell won't put the money in a huge box just to get the one or two among the swarm of old kits --' However, following the confrontation boxes, I'm really happy with the recent Kill team megabox : Nightmare is really nice, you can stil resell the half you don't care about, plus you get some sweet terrain ^^ looking forward to Termination in a few month as well !

They've been doing army launch boxes for as long as I can remember! I know I had a 6th edition Fantasy Ogres and Brettonian boxes. But I do agree that paywalling, and the GW scalping and money grabbing is absolute bollocks

I have a few imperial knights and a large Guard army. I won't be getting any more knights from GW. Nearly all my Guard stuff is third party, and I'd rather be giving my money to someone like Victoria miniatures, Nefyma, Mortian or Anvil Industries. I like their asthetics more, and their pricing is less insane. I just feel sorry for people who collect factions that are less represented in the 3rd party community. I still support my local store, because they're also a bookshop. A really, really good bookshop.

I appreciate the less GW favourable discussion around the price hike. It's absurd. I don't know about your local area, but in my area of australia the 3d print and recast armies are just becoming more and more common. It sucks, especially for supporting local stores, but it's pricing people out of the game and they're going for any option that works for their wallets. With actual cost of living increases, I can't say I look at a $60 32mm character with anything less than disgust.

As someone whos been working on guard for a min though i have only joined the hobby recently i can see people being annoyed when they have one model and its in a expensive box set its why ive been focusing on models i know i can get in single boxes

I struggle to justify any purchase in a GW store, save for the odd pot of paint. A purchase from a discount store (even postal, in some cases) provides "free" paint or modelling supplies or actually models if spending a ton or so. It would be great if you could do a secret handshake in a GW store to get the discount.......

I love this new video format.

Bern collecting and playing CSM since 2e. The last new models I bought were big Abby and Harkon Worldclaimer and they're still sealed in their shrink wrap.

Once again, GW jump ahead of inflation FASTER than inflation! Lol, the vyper jetbike at 27 years is the oldest plastic kit they sell for 40k, and the falcon grav tank is only four months younger than that. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty certain no other army even has a model from last millenium!

I just went and looked it up... The Veterans of the long war box is on pre-order this weekend and GW wants $390AUD for it. I'm fairly new to this hobby as a break from my way more expensive main hobby and I was considering that as a base for my first army, but any interest in GW's games or their plastic has just evaporated. I'll finish off what I have and then I'll buy a 3d printer.

I can't really get people into Warhammer like I used to 10 years ago. Points costs of armies drop while the costs increase and it leads to a very exclusive customer base.

My solution to this is quite simply that I took stock of my pile of shame, realized I'll probably die with a backlog, and forever lost the desire to buy into GW's FOMO boxes. I have zero problems waiting a few months for a new character to be released on its own because chances are if I get the new army box, by the time I actually get around to painting that new model I really badly wanted, it's already available on its own anyway. Just ask yourself that - yeah, you want that one cool thing, but how long is it going to take for you to actually have it on the table?

GW aren't targeting you or I with these boxes, as you said we have most the models in them, it's all about bringing in the new customers,

There is a way to fix that to fix the problem of games workshop gouging you and taking all of your money. I guarantee you if you buy a 3-D printer and learn how to 3-D print and model and then go find the SDL files online and yes they are there. You can save a lot of money and that damn printer will pay for itself probably within a year or two, and that will send a message to workshop since they’re not getting any money from you.

This was a very nice discussion. It definitely opened my eyes to some things that I didn't realize. Because I'll be honest, I definitely subscribed to the "added value" principle you described in the video when it came to clash boxes. So I appreciate you mentioning how getting models you might not want want can remove that "added value". But I'm disappointed you talked about this *only* in the context of 40K. I really would have liked to hear you cover the history and value of these different boxes in the context of Age of Sigmar as well. Because I think the higher quantity of newer sculpts in most of its ranges helps rasie that "added value". But maybe thats just me, since I split alot of those 3rd edition clash boxes with friends and even had the stars align for me twice with armies I wanted. But, at least as a newer player in 2021, I really valued those clash boxes for helping me build up my collection for my other armies early on.

Barely 11am here in Denmark, package of terrain just arrived, and a fresh upload?! Damn good day. My last gw purchase was the Ashes of Faith box, probably also my last one for the foreseeable future if not ever. Only purchase gw from 2nd hand FB groups saving 30-50% on everything, never buy it new.

what's the chance that more hobby store start to propose a printing service to survive?

Miss the days when your characters came in their own box and this battlion/combat patrol boxs (of ever shrinking number of models btw) where battleforce boxs that had enough for a small 750pt army or where great expansion boxs examples like the chaos/space marine boxs would have 30 marines and a vehicle orks and eldar had similar that started at like £50 and you could see and feel the savings and were great for more niche formations like Ravenwing and Saim Hann. Its a shame they stopped it has these would of been great for all these new sub factions and such and would take away these demand issues and scalping of these new army boxs.

This is just really frustrating, im supposed to be going with my mom in july to grapevine texas where theres a warhammer cafe but now i feel like i should go buy a bunch now

A little tip for my french comrades ;) Pour ceux qui regarde en France : passez chez Leclerc culture, la plupart vendent tout Warhammer et 40k de 5 à 10 euros moins cher ^^ dans certains ils peuvent même commander ce qu'il vous faut et appliquer la réduc' quand mm !

I have collected a skaven since I started the hobby, I have a fantasy army and my bloodbowl team. I am very excited about them having some new releases but I do wonder if I am going to be able to afford them :(

I have plans to 3D print a Death Guard army because I just cant justify spending what id have to for all the official models. I’ll probably get Mortarian but used on ebay most likely. GW’s prices aren’t impossible to stomach for your first or even second army. It after that things get unbearable

We in norway will get a 8% to 14% increase in the same kits, sweden to. Tooth and claw was the 3th box i did buy after getting back in the hobby after a almost 20year break. And you just got to collect enough armys and then you will have use for both sides of the boxes 😂. And is it not both Spearhead boxes and Battleforce boxes now. But i love chaos and i getting both those chaos boxes, as i can always use the stuff in both, and add to my over 12k pt of chaos

I generally only print alternative models when I think they are cooler than the GW sculpts, which is not often....But I think it's time to make a shift.

Love this new format!

Gonna keep buying 3D prints and scratch bashing, and supporting my FLGS with table time for OPR.

fair play to you guys for the honest and scathing review of games workshop, hope they don't penalize you for it, good thing they are not petty and nasty for sake of it..... lol

I got Blood of the Phoenix, Prophecy of the Wolf, Piety and Pain, Hexfire (which came with two of the new sorcerer models but no Castellan Crowe), I bought the cults half of Shadow Throne for cheap on ebay. I liked the two army boxes especially if they didn't have space marines as you got two sample armies to paint and play. For the Army boxes, I got the Black Templar and retired my Space Wolves as they are mostly firstborn and used them with the Indomitus and Leviathan SMs. I've always liked Black Templars since 3rd edition when my 10 year old son painted all the marines as Ultras (heresy!). But, there are a lot of BT Army boxes at my local LGS! I usually look forward to the Christmas boxes. I'm hoping for a new Orruk one that 'ardboyz instead of the Kruleboyz.

I'm one of the suckers who's bought many many of these boxes, probably more than I should have. Don't regret the Kroot box though. I'd been planning an all Kroot meme army for a few years and was going to go almost exclusively 3D prints. So having a box just for me that gets me at least a nice little handful of legit GW plastic felt really cool. I also started a Skaven army last year with plans to base them to be compatible with movement trays for both AoS and Old World. I feel very catered to.

The Always Sunny references were top tier

When news like this is released, no matter what the industry, I always sarcastically wonder where the money goes.

Its funny because if the price of a box of cultists wasn’t so damn high, they wouldn’t have so many extra they’re trying to get rid of

ah and there's another great reason to get the spacebears STL packs and in general get into 3D printing

gonna be honest here, other than updated sculpts, chaos didnt really need anything new. the chaos lord and jump pack lord were released to keep closer to the "if it has a model it will have rules, if not its removed" theme they seem to be going with. the model releases are just a path to giving rules back into the codex the boxes are aimed at people who are new to the game and want to bulk out their army. if you have been playing for more than a few years, you have multiple chaos lords and jump pack lords. if you havent been playing for more than a few years its likely most of those models will find a place in your army. they have a current chaos lord sculpt as well as harken so neither model is out of reach for players who need an alternative to making something to use as their new models

man, the singular new units in boxes that are over 100 euros just make my go to a resin printer nearby and just buy the STL and print it for a fraction of the cost.

While I love these info/chatting to us video, I miss the painting videos from you guys, I love your painting style and wanna see more about all the armies you’ve been making up, either way, keep up the great work

For me it's simple: Vote with your wallet. Don't buy GW. I can excuse GW on other issues (like lack of stock or change in their portfolio) but price hike is unexcusable. So I decided to keep only Old World/MESBG from GW and sell my AoS and WH40K stuff.