Games Workshop pricing, just what are we paying for?

Well A huge amount of moaning is going on about GW pricing and yes people have a right to moan. We are paying a premium price for models. But as long as we continue to pay these prices then GW are going to continue to mark them up and push for more. its natural business.

But just lately GW pricing policy has been a bit to brash for peoples liking. For instance the Eldar release. 3 weeks ago you could buy 10 Dire Avengers for £23.50. And today you can buy the same Dire avengers just in a different box for £20.50. Only problem is that you are now only getting 5 in a box. So instead of paying £2.35 per model you are now paying £4.10 per model. For exactly the same model, no new sculpts or bits. just a different packaging box. there is no reason for the price hike at all. they have not had to pay any sculptors, or researchers or anything. just one guy at a computer designing new box art.

And then we have the release that has caused all the fuss and excitement. the WraithKnight A huge towering model much larger than the recent Tau Riptide release. And the Price £70. Now compared to some other GW pricing this could be considered a bargain. But lets look at it from a new prospective. What are we paying for. the plastic? The R&D?  No not any of them, although in GW own words the Wraith knight is a completely new concept for the 2013 Codex release. 

That's great if it wasn't for the fact it appeared to be a concept in 2006 :P. Now yes you could argue that that is merely just Eldar Titan in the back ground. But then all the WK is, is a scaled down Revenant Titan anyway. 
 So yes I suppose they have had to pay out for Sculptors, molds to be made etc But then the same things had to be done for these.

These are the Gunpla Models from Japan, The same amount of R&D and Sculpting went into these as the GW models. They are as big and in most cases bigger than the WK. Not to mention the fact they have 10 X the detail of any GW model. And you can purchase these Multi part Plastic kits for £15.
If it wasn't for GW's 75% policy on conversions and models I would be using Gunpla Models for my Tau army. they look amazing compared to the Crisis suits of the Tau, that lets face it, resemble kids dressed as robots using Cardboard boxes.

So if the £70 is not to cover the manufacturing of the WK what is it for. Well in all honestly all we are paying for is a Stat line in a Codex. They give us a Stat line that we want to use and hike the price up because they know players will buy into it, because they want a model with THAT stat line.   

White Dwarf classic #2

So as promised I am posting White Dwarf #2, in this copy of WD, it displays an on depth look at competitive D&D scoring. An un-boxing of sorts be it only written. And a review of the Green Planet Trilogy.

I'm not going to mention much about the Green Planet Trilogy, as today's feature is a review of its own. So all my work is done for me by the original writers of White Dwarf. It will be interesting to here if anybody actually did own or play any of the Green Planet trilogy. Leave a comment below.

Is Kickstarter being abused

I wanted to talk about kick starter, the site works absolute wonders to get people going into a business with a product to sell. The kick starter can fund all sorts of things from inventions to films. It's like Dragons Den, only the people on the World Wide Web are the Dragons. A lot of success has been made from kick starters. But I am having trouble figuring out why some company's are going back to it time and time again.

Company's like Mantic games who have already put 4 projects into Kickstarter and have drawn a total of $1,976,527, so far. Are they being greedy? Using Kickstarter to fund a project they could of easily funded them self's with the profits from the games they have already had Kickstarted. Now I have nothing against Mantic Games and I'm still debating about buying Dreadball or not. But are company's like this taking away from other people that really do need a Kickstarter, rather than an already established company that sells there products world wide. 

Today I saw a set of videos depicting the "tropes" towards women in computer games. Nothing wrong with what she is doing the YouTube videos are well made and informative if you buy into the feminist view of the videos. And wile very well done and edited they are at the end of the day just YouTube videos. I then found out that she got a kick starter for the videos. A kick starter for what is nothing more than a Vlog. She originally wanted $6000. And has some how managed to rake in $158,922................. for a YouTube video............ (So stay tuned for my YouTube Vlog about the constant brutal murders of male AI characters in video games)

Now what made this even more of a "how the hell moment", was the fact that Jason Mews, has been touring the US showing the new Jay and Silent Bob: Super Groovy Cartoon Movie. Now Jason and his wife Jordan, paid cartoonists, voice actors, advertising costs, editors, studio time, cinema time. Everything you would expect from a feature film. For £69000 less than half of what some one got to make a YouTube Vlog, on the same note as this, It cost Kevin Smith a mere £27,575 to make Clerks, one of if not the best theatrical comedy's. 

Is it going to get to the point where EA games are going to ask for kick starters every year for the same old Fifa or NFS game? 

We will have North Korea asking for a Kickstarter to increase the range of there missiles, the more you pledge the the further away they will target them from you.

In my honest opinion Kickstarter has a Pool of money. And people and company's a like are exploiting this pool of money so they have more in there back pocket. I keep a Kickstarter advertised here on the blog, but I will never advertise one for a company that is making multiple kick starters in order to line there pockets more and more, when they already have an established business that is successful. 

If it continues the way it is going, then I fear eventually the pool will dry up. 

Grumpy Old Wargamers Convention - 8th & 9th June 2013

As Grumpy Wargamer I feel I must try my hardest to get to this event, being as they where so kind to name it after me. (this could be a fabrication on my part. But Thanks again to TheJoeyBerry for informing me about the event)
And you guys should too. More info at the Jump

In Attendance

Joey Berry

Nick from Worthy Painting

The Great JoJo Man

Hazard Syndrome

Vulkans Champion

Warp Art Studios

Black Sun Art Studios

Beast of War

Mutant Chronicles RpG

Mutant Chronicles War Zone

Chuffy1976
Cha1nzz

Forgeworld: Legion Praetors and Luna wolfs

The legion Preators are now available on forge world. The Models Look Stunning and is a definite buy for me.

"Praetors are the mightiest warriors and battle-leaders of the Legiones Astartes, second only to the godlike Primarchs in their martial skill and generalship. Each is a vastly experienced warrior and warlord, unique in character, who has writ a legend for themselves in blood and slaughter.

These lords of the Imperium possess a panoply of the finest weapons and armour known to humanity and hold the power of life and death over worlds, with direct control over entire war fleets and great armies. In their ranks can be found Chapter Masters and Lord Commanders, Khans, Tribunes and First Captains as the traditions of the Legions dictate; regardless of title each is a master of war, and each has conquered worlds unnumbered in the glory of the Great Crusade.

The Legion Praetors set contains two incredibly detailed multi-part resin models, designed by Edgar Skomorowski. One Praetor is clad in artificer-modified Cataphractii armour, armed with an ornate paragon blade power sword and a Volkite Charger, while the other wears ornate artificer-modified MkIII ‘Iron’ armour and carries a fantastically-detailed archaeotech pistol, as well as a mighty paragon blade power sword. These two characters are fully compatible with Forge World’s Terminator and MkIV weapon sets, allowing for a great variety of wargear options."

From Forge World

Also available soon are the New Lunar wolfs etched brass and Transfer Sheets.

 

White Dwarf Classics #1

Well after a recent trip to an auction house I suddenly got a bug. This bug involved tracking down as many white dwarfs from the ages as I possibly could. Why? Well why not? It is good to get down to the history of our hobby and and see what it has evolved from. So I took the white dwarfs and got scanning. I have cleaned up some of the poor quality pages, and have at the moment white dwarf, 1-146, all scanned in and on my fruit based product so I can read them with out damaging. Also makes it easier to upload pics to the blog as well.

So where better place to start White Dwarf #1

So there we go issue number 1, 36 years old this month. Now cover art?  This is very interesting. Because I have all the covers lined up in iBooks, its great to see how the art on the covers have developed over the years. AND so will you, because I'm making this a new feature. A white dwarf cover and feature every day. 
If you are reading this and remember a great feature you want shown for tomorrow Issue 2. Then get commenting at the bottom.

Ok so the feature i have chosen from Issue 1 is  Metamorphasis Alpha. Its a D&D based game set in the 23rd Century on board a lost Star Ship, Starship Warden.
Star Ship Warden was created to overcome the over population on Old Terra (Yup Terra). The Ship flew through a large radiated cloud in  space, (oh i see where they are going with this) on its voyage to inhabitable worlds across space, and most of the inhabitants and live stock died. those who did survive are now occupied with day to day survival. Strange mutation have occurred to both the livestock and humans on board. Animals are gaining intelligence and hunting as man. posing more danger to the non mutated humans aboard. A classic Survival Horror.

Remember to Click on the pictures to bring up the larger version for reading.

Hope you enjoy this feature And remember to Comment your best Old School features that you would like to see here.

Worthy Painting.

So it's a sad time, but worthy LTD has just announced that the store and the painting side of worthy painting is no more, they are going out of business. Worthy LTD have provided some stunning painted models. And also gave away a fully painted Eldar Titan. But In the latest Video Nick states that they can no longer continue to run Worthy LTD due to cash flow problems.

Unfortunately it looks as though they are also unable to full fill previous orders. But has stated in there YouTube video that Shaun from Blue Table Painting, has agreed to full fill those orders. Shaun has also Posted a Video, stating his Support for Worthy LTD in these hard times.

A very sad day indeed for the war gaming community, it was only recently that posts sprung up on forums like Dakka Dakka slating the company for lack of communication and so called rush jobs. But in the light of there new YouTube Video we can see why the company may of been slipping in recent months, compared to the high quality service that they have been known for.


It's never good to see a company struggle, especially one that has brought a smile to many customers faces for there excellent painting services. The good news is that they are keeping the YouTube channel going, so we can still expect to see some excellent videos from then.

Good luck in the future.