GW News: BIG N' SMALL WAAAGH! COMIN'

Honestly, only 10-20. But I have run lists where I try a big block of 30. So, I could do it, I'm just cheap.

 

He is 35,- euro, which is pretty normal for a new-ish foot hero nowaways who you'll only need 1 off.
Plenty of stuff that's more expensive (a freaking changecaster is 42.5 for some reason)

But yeah.. the prize inflation is getting rather absurd.

 

I'm not surprised at the cost of most of those, the Slann is a big monster-sized model so was always going to be around £40- £60, the Saurus are now priced as seems to be standard for boxes of 10 infantry, the Krox have the same pricing as the Gloomspite Stone Trolls, and the dull-Jurassic-World-Velociraptor riders are Monstrous Cavalry so were certainly going to cost over £30.

I honestly thought the Salamander was the worst offender, £32.50 for one squat, middling-size Monstrous Beast and three small handlers is far too much, especially without options for a Razordon, though I will also agree the Battle Standard Bearer is also too much. It was already too much of a price hike to see character models reach £20 when the very first plastic characters only cost half that when they arrived on the GW model scene, and now they're approaching £30. GW are taking the mickey ever more nowadays.

I'll have to see if I can convert a BSB from the bitz left over from the Oldblood on Carnosaur. I'm not paying what was once the cost for 10-20 troop box sets for a single foot character. As for the other models I was interested in, the Slann and Kroxigors, I will have to see if I can find those on discount to at least do as much as I can to ease the pain on the wallet.

 

I remember the days of characters in blister packs going for 10-15 US dollars..

 

Now you've done it, you've made me go all nostalgic...

Boxes of 24 plastic Middle Earth minis going for £15 (when they now cost double that), character blisters costing around £7-£9, Fantasy and 40K unit boxes of 10-20 minis costing £20 or less...

That was the real GW. The current one may be miles more successful and have much more community interaction, but I'd still trade that for better value models for the money.

 

A great new Deathleaper model, which explains why GW created the Von Ryan's Leapers. Lictors are getting sized-up to monster-level, so they wanted to make a replacement for the original Monstrous Infantry-sized Lictors.

 

Really cool model, but I'm not sure about the cape/kilt/skirt.

 

Anyone else find this to be insanely expensive?...


I dug up the a sealed copy of the lower left skink priest that I had lying around and it still has its original price tag... $12 . Admittedly it is from a while ago, so there would be some inflation but not to this level. GW is selling it for 3.2 times the original cost. Another brilliant GW tactic, discontinue older models (that aren't selling that well) and wait for scarcity to set in. Then re-release it at a heavily amplified price.

 

IDK... this seems expensive even by GW standards. Nearly $40 for a tiny decades old Skink sculpt.

 

It's actually kind of sad that I seem to remember that the chiefs all used to be in the same metal blister pack as the priest with the Cloak of Feathers, and for roughly the amount now listed for them individually.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if in this particular case it has to do with the fact that they're expecting to only sell a handfull of them.
Skink chief's no longer exist & skink priests are easy enough to kitbash. So noone really needs these, not even as proxies.
On top of that, these aren't exactly the most interesting models, nor do they even look that different from the current skinks.

I'm honestly not sure who they're supposed to be for.
I get the appeal of the slann for collectors, or to stick on a larger base as an alternative for the current slann. Similarly the saurus on carno seems like it could work as a proxy for an aggradon or something.
But the skinks don't really seem to have much value.


Having said that; the inflation is still awefull, you'd think it'd slow down a little bit now that we're past covid, but literally everyone just keeps inflating their prices...

 

I agree with @Killer Angel that it's more 'typically expensive' - over here in Britain they're being priced at £19, which is certainly too expensive for a character model in my eyes but pretty much standard for the New GW (and in fact it's still cheaper than some of the plastic character models, which can exceed £25 or more).

But then, maybe they've priced it higher on the Canadian site because of having to distribute it further afield? I certainly know GW stuff is particularly expensive in Australia and New Zealand because of that, and that it's annoying Antipodean gamers no end.

 

At those prices, they might only sell a handful of them!

Whenever models becomes scarce, demand for them usually increases. During the WHFB days, Bretonnia and Tomb Kings sold pretty poorly. However, once GW scrapped them, they were selling pretty quickly on Ebay for huge sums of money.

GW's price increase on these models (320% compared to the same model I found in my collection) is so far removed from the rate of inflation, that I don't think it would be fair to describe it as such. I think GW just found another sales tactic.

Those old sculpts have no business costing so much. All the upfront costs (design/sculpt and plastic molds) have long been paid for. Increasing the cost by a factor of 3.2X is completely unjustified. Compare the Skink models to the classic Carnosaur; the Carnosaur cost went up a little, but nowhere near to the level of the Skinks. The Carno probably cost somewhere in the vicinity of $60CAD (compared to $75 today). So we're looking at a comparative cost of 125% (for the Carno) and 320% for the Skinks.

6% seems pretty insignificant when considering the 320% comparative cost for the Skinks.



Maybe its just me, but I feel that it's getting harder and harder to justify. Thank god that my collection, outside of a single missing model, is essentially complete.

 

Sure, but TK & Bretonnia actually have some interesting aspects and had dedicated fans. And it's not like there's an easy alternative. So of course collectors flock to ebay now that it's discontinued.

But skink priest model #3 isn't exactly something you'd expect to have dedicated fans who are desperate to add it to their collection.
It's simply not a particularly unique or interesting model. On top of that it's also easy to find alternative skinks.

Minor skink heroes are just an odd choice for a made to order run.

I mean, do you honestly think the skinks will be popular regardless of prize?
I can see collectors wanting the slann, Tehenhauin, Kroak or the carnosaur.
But the minor skinks just don't seem like they would have a strong appeal regardless.

I mean, inflation is basicly always just a scapegoat. It's not like GW is exceptional in that sense. Plenty of random things that went up in prize 50-150% or more in the past year or two for no real reason.

 

I don't disagree.

If they were priced fairly, there would be a fair number of people who would pick them up. They won't be gangbuster sellers like the models you mentioned, but they are decent little models... just not $38 models.