For me, it is expensive. 40k isn't cheap for someone like me, going through college. It's hard to involve other people my age as they all have obligations they need to pay for. If it was more affordable, I think GW could bring in a lot larger of an audience.
Yeah, i agree with you. This is why we playing with army men and others cheap plastic toy. I know the rules set isn't great like warhammer but we enjoyed it😅
as a former alcoholic living in vegas getting back into wargaming i dont i have to worry about losing everything i own again buying a $49 box of space marines, AND no hangover!
RedBeardBoss/ Hahahaha no hangover & no guilt! I’m an addict and to spend my $$ on plastic soldiers is soooo much better than what I used to buy. Stay safe brother!
I was about to say the same about inflation. Are people retarded or what that they compare old prices to new ones? It's like saying that rent in 1940 had cost only a handful of bucks but now it costs hundreds!
Yeah no. Inflation hasn't went up enough to use as an excuse for how expensive Games Workshop products are. Going off of the original comment. 24 Warriors of Minas Tirith in Jan. 2000 = $25. In March of 2018, that is equal to $36.96. Not far off the box of the $35 he was talking about. So now you pay almost the same price as you did 18 years ago, but for 12 less miniatures. 10 Metal Witch Elves in 2000 = $30. $30 in Jan. 2000 = $44.45 10 Plastic Witch Elves in 2018 = $70. That's not inflation, that's market cornering and not caring about your consumers. Not to mention more efficient technology and production lines, and Warhammer is as popular as it's ever been. Prices should be cheaper by this logic, but they aren't.
@ Mannschaft Von Arschloch Right? I remember at the metal -> plastic conversion of models with 40K 3E, Tactical Squads of Space Marines were £10 in stores, dropping from £20 when they were still made of metal. Similarly, Devastators dropped from £25 to £12, Combat Squads were £6 and so on. It made the hobby a lot easier to get into at the time, because you could build a small, 1000-1500pt army for less than £100 When you account for inflation, the modern price for a Tactical squad should be about £16 when you account for inflation over the last 16 years, according to in2013dollars.com. Accounting for the extra pieces and higher quality molds you get now, maybe put that up to £18-20 per unit, at most when you consider the amount of plastic used is roughly the same. Heck, you may possibly be able to account for that with better manufacturing techniques that should bring the cost down. But Tactical Squads sit at £25 at the time of writing, never mind some of the more ridiculous stuff like £18 for a single SM Commander, when the blisters back during 3E were £6/7. A lot of GW's pricing is based on their monopoly of the hobby and pricing according to points. Like, some kits should not be more expensive than others based on how much plastic is used, but they are, because GW prices according to the in game rules. It's crazy. If they slashed prices by ~10-20%, I think the hobby would become a lot more viable for a lot more people. Not a crazy amount, but I think it'd be enough to encourage people to take up the hobby.
sadly games work shop is expensive to me, being a father home owner and on slightly above min wage, i still pay it i just cant afford to go out and buy a new model every week or two
I’ve set up and run several war games clubs in schools,where money is non existent and I don’t want kids breaking beautifully painted minis. The solution,download images of figures, laminate them and stick them onto cheap MDF bases and off you go, I created five different armies for Kings of War and ran a tournament. I know there are copyright issues but it’s a great way of trying out a game before committing to buying figures. There are some beautiful images of figures, some even show the back so your faces look decent to you as well as your opponent, or you can have unit stats on the back to help with gameplay.
You forget historical games. You can get 60 hard plastic 28mm napoleonic soldiers for £30/$40. Also 15mm scale is cheap too with usually each miniature costing 50p.
+xxCrapNamexx Price was one of the draws that has turned me into an almost exclusively historical miniature player. I got both sides for the American Revolution in 28mm (over 300 miniatures) for what it would cost me to start many Sci-fi games. The biggest issue I have is building and painting them all.
Actually on the topic price led me to go for books and videogames instead... and in regards to fantasy I have had so much joy with total war warhammer that gives you 5 almost full armies and a semifinished released later for free and countless battlefields and the big campaign map and beyond, they are also all beautifully painted/coloured in game and I paid about 32 sterlings for that. But thats the thing its not table top and its real time battles instead of turnbased dice rolling. But some do also do the more dice rolling ones. And you loose some of the social aspect with videogames. However I can argue that if youre into table top getting it might be worth it but yes its pricey but if you really love the idea it can be a fun hobby. On the other hand if you cant but still want to play it videogames gives you more for the sterling/pound or dollar. The prices led me into videogames that have some great attempts at Warhammer but I think honestly its really Total War that has created the best one in fantasy so far for me. And 40k has some neat ones like Dawn of War but the strategy ones tend to be very small scale in comparision to lore and how they are depicted that way. I think if you love or want to get into warhammer but prices stops you there are many ways you can either play some great videogame adaption that have great online communities behind them but also if you want to play alone. They offer you in most cases to fight against Ai aswell something thats a bonus, if you have lots of miniatures or you want to buy some but no one to play against it can get boring they solve this issue. Books can also be a fun medium for it but they are of course non interactive and you wont get to play the games in any form in that way either trough with miniatures or in let say videogames.
Yes, total war is 60 bucks, cheaper the na start collecting box. but to run it you need at least 800 dollar pc. I can make you 2 2000 point armies (for age of sigmar) and paint them plus get the generals handbook for that money.
@@bigbake132 Same here. There is a huge range of infantry and armour models and, as an added bonus, 1/72 fits reasonably well with HO scale model railway terrain. You can assemble 2 opposing armies for less than the cost of a single 40k squad
Battletech starter box is $60. All rules to run a Battlemech, 26 minis inside the box with excellent detail, 2 hexboards, and a ton of other stuff. How to play videos on my channel. You typically do not run more than 1 to 4 mechs in a force in a standard game.
Battletech! My gateway! We modded the rules though. Used a d20 for to hit rolls while keeping the other numbers that same. You hit about 30% more often. Makes the game so much faster and the conditions more realistic. I highly doubt a war machine with a piloting computer that reads your damn brainwave is gonna have you missing more than 50% of the time when within a weapon's effective range. Current, real-world technology is already better than that. After waaaaaaay too many scenarios that should have been accompanied by Yakkety Sax, we scrapped the piloting rolls too. Mecha shouldn't be falling all over the board constantly because they tried to walk up a gentle slope. That's (supposedly) the whole justification for mecha in most lore. Just those two tweaks accelerated gameplay like mad. It was awesome.
Expense is a very relative thing. GW lost me when I restarted the hobby after 15 years and I have way more money but less buying power. Now I'm playing xwing, malifaux, deadzone and dropzone. My two fantasy arms will likely get rebased as kings at some point and my imperial guard will rest on a shelf forever.
Expnsive? No. Overpriced? Yes. The thing is that you have to be patience or you can get bankrupt, if you decide to buy anything in a day. Brushes, Paints, Primer and ofcourse the Miniatures and the Codexes.
+SilverSkullGamer I agree with you but manufacturing price on small volume production are ridiculously high even if you go in a Chinese factory. Just cutting the metal for one good quality character (dynamic sculpt sharp details...) mold falls quick in the 10 thousand range and mold don't last for ever either. I think the companies producing war game product just don't have huge margin and enough volume to offer lower price.
PC gaming is a good example for what "expensive" actually means. After all, your calculation makes some very shaky assumptions. Let's say I want to get into PC gaming. I already own a PC for work reasons and/or to surf the internet. It's far from what one would call a gaming PC, but it would run some less demanding games. So I buy Master of Orion 2 from GOG since I like strategy. For about five bucks, I started getting into the hobby. I actually can play quite a bit for those 5 bucks. Hell, if your PC is a normal home PC, you most likely can play a few free to play games which aren't bad. In contrast, let's look at my experiences with wargaming. You defended Age of Sigmars entry costs which is where I'll base my calculation on. Let's say you buy a starter box and the learn to paint bones kit. Together, they are around 100 bucks. Of course, I could start with another game, but I tend to stick to what the people I know and like play since it is a multiplayer game. In both cases, you probably will spend more than that eventually. Specifically video gaming can be a bottomless hole when it comes to money. But when I say it is expensive, I generally am speaking of the entry costs. The higher this entry cost is, the less likely I will take the risk of trying it - and that applies to most people.
Alex Bermann Those PC thingies are kinda widespread. They're basically furniture. Assuming someone doesn't have a basic PC is like assuming he doesn't have a table for the tabletop game. And those workhorse PCs people often get to do some surfing and fooling around in an office suite can be transformed into an entry gaming rig by just adding a graphics card. That should be enough to play games that are not too demanding. Stuff like CS:GO, DOTA2 (or any other MOBA, i just mention this one because it's completely free except for cosmetic stuff) and whatever else you fancy.
I would note on the PC gaming prices, that didn't cover the budget end. This was made in 2016, virtually everyone had a PC by then even if it was just a basic work laptop. A basic work laptop can run plenty of games if you stick to older titles or even indy titles (Like the $8 pdf mentioned). You could competitively play League of Legends or Counter Strike: Source (both very big popular games that a toaster could run) without spending any money on hardware because you already have it. LoL is literally a free title, CS:S is maybe $20? Not to mention the fact that a PC does double duty when you're not playing games, it's also a media center, a communications center, it can be used in multiple hobbies (the aforementioned art hobby). Your minis however can only be used for that one purpose, and often for that one game. (Since many games don't appreciate proxies or outright require the use of minis from their own lines, GW I'm looking at you). If you want to swap from playing one video game to another you don't repurchase a whole new computer, you drop $40 on the game and go. Admittedly that's more literally comparable to the painting supplies than the miniatures, but the miniatures are the bigger investment so *shrug*. That all said, I was hoping you'd toss Model Railroading into the mix since a lot of the same skills are used hobby side (terrain, painting, etc) but model railroading is seen as being far more expensive still due to the budget options (like XWing, etc in wargaming) are often spoken down of in the community as "playing with toys" instead of actual modeling. Which I think you hinted at that happening in wargaming but didn't fully touch on. I think because it tends to be vocal exceptions in wargaming that do it. Model railroading though is another hobby that 'can' reach the $40,000 mark over time, though maybe not in a single day of purchases. Because of this I often find myself leaning more towards wargaming as my preferred hobby as it is actually cheaper, even going the GW route. Its downside is that it requires other people, railroading can be a solo endeavor instead.
honestly once my Orc army is hashed out to a reasonable level I think I will drop GW games, maybe make another bloodbowl team with third party models. infinity looks a lot better right now, and I can have a full game squad for like 150$. wargaming isn't expensive, GW is expensive
I honestly only find Games Workshop and Privateer Press to be too expensive, for the cost of 5 dudes for 40K I can get 40ish men for Bolt Action for example.
People say its expensive because they are little plastic, resin, or metal toys . it's because the companies pay pennies and charge numerous dollars per sprue .
Other hobbies I've had over the years: * Ice hockey (expensive) * Triathlon (very expensive) * PC gaming (semi expensive) * Mtg (very expensive) * Track and field / Football (cheap-ish) * Alcohol (cheap to expensive) I rate wargaming cheap-ish. Yes you need the utensils with paints and brushes and you do need miniatures to paint. But all this combined (utensils and army worth of 2000 points) did not cost as much as 1 year of MtG, 1 year of hockey expenses, a new mid-high tier PC or came even close to my triathlon bike. Also important to understand is the longevity of your purchase and usage. Most PC games have 10-50 hours of entertainment after you run out of content and need a new game. Hockey you need to pay rent to just go to practice in the ice hockey rink. Beer costs you money each time you go to bar with your buddies. With wargaming you are not only getting unlimited time with your purchase, but unlimited use. Nobody will take your minis away after a year, they don't wear out needing to be replaced. The fact of the matter is that wargaming is on the cheaper side of hobbies that are not free.
Unless the company that you play your game with decides every few years to change the rules thoroughly, bring out new models and units with out play yours, etc. Yes I am talking about GW/FW. Still agree with the argument, because going from 3rd all the way to 7th (didn't do 8th ed) probably still costed me less in terms of money than other hobbies, but it does take a toll emotionally; just some personal vendetta I have with the company over the years...
The most relevant comparison seems to be between miniatures and collectible card games, since these are the people usually being persuaded to play miniature games as they inhabit the same venues; game stores, conventions, etc. When they say Warhammer is "too expensive" they are usually referring to the start up price; to be able to play with the other Warhammer people it is gonna cost a fair amount ($400 or so ballpark), while you can playing with the Magic the Gathering crowd for around $150. The trade off, however, is that Warhammer's cost is mostly frontloaded, there's relatively low expense after you have an army, just a new codex and the new unit every few years. With Magic you're spending the same amount every year so I think card games end up being more expensive over time. The secondary market can have a lot of bearing here too, but that's another discussion entirely.
the difference is the millions of pounds that goes into making say a video game justifies the cost of a video game. 2 plastic sprues of 6 models doesn't justify 50 pounds/dollars. that's why it's expensive. the cost to manufacture over the retail cost.
How do you know what the cost to produce the miniatures is? Lets keep in mind that all of the GW miniatures are designed and produced in the UK where the cost of doing business isn't exactly cheap. Now they could probably have all the miniatures produced in China to bring the per unit cost down but if they did I suspect you would also see a drop in miniature quality as well. Additionally those "six" miniatures you make reference to will be miniatures that you can set your own unique poses too due to the fact that the torso, head, arms and equipment choices and poses are all adjustable and determined by you. I don't know of any other miniatures game that offers that. Even the WarMachine stuff is fairly static by comparison.
Your also cross comparing mediums. War gaming REALLY isnt that expensive, for your average joe gamer? not really for anyone with "decent" income. The "plastic sprues" are done in a CAD design and then pressed in plastic, a plastic mold? average cost is 10-20 grand depending on the cost of the kit. DOES gw overcharge? yes. do they over charge as much as we think they do? probably not. I remember reading some articles regarding the full industry from vets who had been in the wargaming industry for a long time. good quality plastic molds cost HUGE amounts of money to maintain.
lord pudrey of house Thomas what does the production budget have to do with how much the game costs ? if a game has a production budget of a 100 million and costs £50 new, does that mean if the production budget was £200 million they can charge £100 or if it was £1 million it should only be £5 ? almost all games that are produced in a hard format are priced between £40 to £50 in the UK regardless of production budget and some of the larger releases have sold in the multiple millions of units , grand theft auto 5 cost 170 million to produce and sold 70 million units and made over a billion dollars in three days, so if we use the same rules that you say doesnt justify GWs pricea then you can use the same argument here either
As a toolmaker that works on moulds every day. maintaining them is not hat expensive they last for a very long time. Games workshop models are ridiculously overpriced. for the cost of a dreadnight you can buy a 1/100 scale gundam model with waaaaaay more parts
"Being expensive" is objective. I do not consider that 40k is expensive, and I make less money (my wage per month is lower) than the average working person in Finland. I also live in a big-ish town home, I've two kids and a wife. And I still do not think that 40k is an expensive hobby. It's all about how much money you are willing to put into it. You can make anything expensive, or you can cut the expenses of a hobby (to a point, at least). It's all about your choices.
Hobbies are designed to turn your extra money and extra time into a thing you enjoy doing. They are inherently "too expensive" because you COULD spend that money on something practical. But let me ask you this, would you rather have a brand new car battery, or a brand new army box? Anyway now I have something fun to paint while I wait for AAA.
I mean I don't feel like your being completely fair here. Sure a starter box is 85 dollars but that isn't a full size list. When you play a game you want to play a full game, not a portion of a full game. That is why people often times buy doubles of starter boxes. It's the cheapest way to get a lot of models. Its also worth noting that console prices drop substantially as time goes on. They might have been $350-$400 dollars then but withing a year or two they drop a ton. For the past year you jave been able to consistently find the xbox amd playstation for $200. Another aspect to consider is time. When someone buys a game for $60 they are getting a product that has had substantially more time and money invested into it by the people making the product. For instance, you cam either buy a box of 5 miniatures for $50 which was probably made by a smaller team withing the entire company or you can buy a $60 game that has as much complexity as the entire game of 40k and was made by a development team of around 120 people over the past 3-4 years. I present this idea to support my argument that these games are very expensive. Do I enjoy playing these games? Yes, but I still find them to be extremely expensive for the product I am actually receiving. This has become even more abundantly clear to me with the ability of 3d printing. So many people can offer 3d models as extremely reasonable prices and I can print them for very little cost and they often times look just as good as a GW mini. Do I still buy models? Yes, even though they are expensive I am willing to pay the price (sometimes) to play with friends. I think the main issue with your argument is you want to compare the price with time you like to use it. I like to compare the price with how mich money and time is invested into making the product. If you use my standards, this hobby is expensive. If you use your method, the hobby is just as expensive as any other hobby. I understand using time of enjoyment as justification of a purchase because this is why I too have invested so mich into miniature games. But I still use my standards when comparing the price of this hobby to others.
the answer is no, it isnt too expensive, it may be too expensive for some people, but as a hobby it wouldnt exist if it were "too expensive" , also if GW was too expensive it would go under, but it is arguably the no1 wargames company in the world, it sells plastic toy soldiers, if they were too expensive the company would fold quickly, they have a product people want to buy and are willing to pay for. So the answer is no it isnt too expensive, if YOU think it is, then that is on YOU. GW do not make excessive profits, the people who work for them are not paid like rock stars, and the vast majority of its products are designed and manufactured in the UK, not in some Chinese sweatshop and GW are not tapping up its fan base for kickstarter money every other month, they invest there own money and take real risks and support the hobby with actual physical stores creating thousands of jobs worldwide. personally im happy to pay a little more for the quality and added value they bring to the hobby compared to companies who contribute very little and risk nothing and dont support home grown manufacturers and designers
Part of the problem of comparing wargaming to something like PC gaming or console gaming is that those devices can serve a purpose outside of just gaming. There is also the issue of how starters are not enough to play with most people. They are the beginning of your purchases.With your example of the computer that 800 dollars also gives you something to do work on, watch shows on, and game on (there are a myriad of other things you do with a pc as well). Now as steam has pretty much become standard for pc gaming you can reasonable use their prices and sales. I can get five games on sale for the price of one start collecting. Two issues that help with the view that it is expensive is the time investment and the issue of other players. For those that need to build and paint, you have the cost of equipment as you said but also the issue of the time needed to do all of that. Then there is the issue of player base. While it is nice to say just play cheaper wargames that isn't always an option for people. The local scene is what dictates what is played (and yes people can try to change it but that won't always work). The single biggest game to help fight these two issues has been x-wing as it is popular enough and you don't have to invest time building and painting. So in theory you can find people to play with and you don't need anything other than the models. Now there is still the issue of being "competitive" but anyone that is trying to do that at a serious level will need to actually shell out money pretty much no matter the hobby.
Something else that you didn't talk about is the lifespan of the games. You buy a video game, you finish it, how often do you go back to play it? I bought a GW dwarf army about 17 years ago and I still use it. Sure it was expensive at the time, but I still use it. The only video game that i've really gone back to playing that long after is FF7.
+David Law That's also very true. Many wargames are viable for years and years after release, and not all video games are, especially online multiplayer ones. Thanks for watching!
That depends, man. Some videogames, I've bought three times due to putting it down for a year, tossing the disk, and deciding I wanted to play it again. I played fallout 3 just last night (boy, I love that game) and this time, I needed a Windows patch for it to run at all. I'm playing it modded to heck and back, of course, but steam still sells it! Videogames with big followings get life in post. There are more Star Wars Galaxies (defunct mmo) servers now than when Sony ran the damn thing. Resources like good ole games and such still sell old 8 bit games (to run on an emulator). Skyrim is still in circulation! If you wargame anywhere aside from exclusively your buddies, you have to stay current. Sometimes the model backfires on the publisher, and you get things like Pathfinder (expanded DnD for people who loved a particular edition, which turns out was everybody). GW has seen this when 40kers started dropping out somewhere around 7th ed. At some point, one must simply support their product. Attempts to milk it eventually backfire. The hope is that there is enough turnover that new players subsidize players who no longer expand, but the fact that everyone knows 40k is the most expensive game to play by a large margin is starting to show.
I feel like this argument can be summed up with one sentence: a hobby is as expensive as you want it to be. Comparing starter kits across companies is a cool discussion to have though.
One game we usually compare wargaming to in terms of price is Magic the Gathering. You can of course go cheap with a starter box and a few packs of cards, but to stay competitive with even one branch of the game can run you more that getting a decent army ready to paint.
I see where you're coming from, and if tabletop models were way cheaper I might still be into tabletop games today. I used to play Warhammer 40k but got burnt out from the constant rules editions revisions (and associated costs of new rules books) and product prices. Add to that a declining community of players and terrible resell value of models, and I stopped seeing the value in investing in tabletop miniature games.
+D Green315 I generally don't see it as a financial investment (like I'm investing for my future or anything) but I see it as an investment in my enjoyment and stress relief. I enjoy that I don't need to buy all those books and such with Age of Sigmar. If 40k ever moved to a model like that, I could see myself maybe moving back into it. Thanks for watching!
I recently got into Warhammer 40k by buying into the Tau and I spent around $200. I got the citadel hobby starter kit, Fire warriors, pathfinders, and a riptide. I still have to get a codex and other fun things. I don't even think I have everything for a team yet! At this point I don't even care about playing the game as much as I did though. Miniature painting has became a new hobby of mine. :)
+Aj Jaramillo I love to play, but I love to sit in my basement and hobby (while listening to podcasts and audiobooks) even more. It's a great hobby. Thanks for watching!
Yeah my hobby is exclusively modelling and landscape since I no longer play. I've settled on 1/144 scale gundam (soooo many cool robots) and kitbashing contemporary military into sci fi. I love the 40k universe, but I can get an awesomely detailed, ridiculously articulated robot for 15-30 bucks. At most, that's half the price of five squaddies in 40k. Forget tanks and mecha and buildings, that's crazy money. Doing a small layout in 40k would cost me a semester of tuition in models alone. When your plastic army men are rivaling college tuition, you done effed up your pricing. Although when you consider the amount of people who won't let you field something you don't have the official model for (and it must be painted), maybe they tapped a particular market.
6:50 $40 retail, or $25 on Amazon. This is what people are generally complaining about when they say the game is expensive. A 35-40% markup above the markup that is already added by the manufacturer. We know that this is what keeps the LGS in business, but it is still hard to swallow sometimes.
+Wreqt Why? You generally pay higher mark-up with every other industry on the planet. Average mark up for furniture from any chain is store is 65%. Electronics - sometimes as high as 80%. Groceries - normally 50%. Some industries it's 100% or higher.
+Wreqt It's true, brick and mortar is usually more expensive than Amazon. However, I did a video about supporting your local game store ( ruclips.net/video/lL5x0gkYgKQ/видео.html ) and the idea is that if you play at your local game store but don't buy stuff there (because you get it all online), you're basically loitering and eventually they'll go out of business and you won't be able to play there anymore. If you only play at your house with you and your friends, then you're not using the brick and mortar store's resources, so you don't have to support them. I'm not saying that online buying is bad in all cases, but if you play at a store, you should support it. Thanks for watching!
Tabletop Minions I totally agree with you. It can still be hard at times, and I still think this is what people are complaining about when they say it is too expensive. Mind you, I don't personally complain about the price of things I voluntarily participate in. If a game were to get too expensive for me, I just wouldn't play it any more.
Great video. I was a warhammer 40k player for a while until 7th edition came way too fast. The cost of army upkeep was simply too much for the cost of books. That lead me to start with RPG's because while the monetary value of a rule book goes down with age, rules themselves can hold value for a group much longer than a game like 40k. I did finally bite the bullet and got Frostgrave and Dragon rampant from osprey games. With my RPG miniatures now pulling double duty I feel it adds value to my collection while being quite affordable.
War gaming is cheap As fuck. I play warhammer 40k and it his hands down my cheapest hobby. You have to look at like this... take the price you spent on the box of models, divide it by the ammount of hours it took you to complete. It works out to like 2$ per hour. In this day and age, find me entertainment that cheap, hell here in Toronto it costs 20$ to park somewhere for an hour
For me it's time of enjoyment vs cost, sure I've spent several hundred pounds on xwing but I've had probably 300+ games of it (and I'm still terrible ) Which makes it cost about £1 an hour which is great value in my opinion comparing it to other hobbies like movies or video games
+Michael Ormiston I actually use that standard on videogames, pays up most of the time. I dont really play wargames tho, so the painting will probably not make that standard, so i should start playing i guess.
I have 5 hobbies that I constantly am engaged in. Guitar, airsoft, board and mini games, magic the gathering and cooking. Initially my equipment for guitar, airsoft and cooking required $500 minimum and that was beginner grade or absolute bare bones stuff. I've decided that for that price I can enter and enjoy a hobby and begin to pursue more advanced stuff. It keeps me from feeling below the average or pressured to spend more soon. The expectation to get into, involved and compete for minimal spending is where a bitterness begins but if you know $500 will go into the hobby eventually before you start it's harder to feel betrayed.
I like to look at the time you can get out of what you spend on the hobby also. Also because I primarily enjoy the painting side of the hobby. So I don't see it always as this much $ for only 5 guys - but rather, that's how much its going to cost for me to get this many hours out of modelling, painting & possibly playing with some minis I like the look of and can see myself enjoying to paint :)
I have easily purchased $8-10k (and sold for various profits and losses since on ebay ) in Battletech minis since it was my introduction to wargaming back in 1989. You know, the 2014 starter box for Battletech could possibly be one of the best complete war games available...only costs 49 bucks on Amazon and includes 26 mechs, (paint able and 2 you assemble) two high quality maps, rules and dice. I'm surprised it didn't get a mention. great guide, regardless.
Tabletop Minions a lot of wargamer purists don't count it. They say it's more of a traditional board game. Some fash about the rule complexity. I think it's more related to the "what I do is the best, and the rest is for silly kids and girls" thing you see in insular communities. Fanboys ruin everything. ☹
I go to a game shop that most of the people there only really play magic. there are 2 other stores not far off that do more wargaming But you go into that store for a warhammer game or I take out my reaper D&D miniatures( I can't stand the bones almost all of my reaper minies are metal.). And I get the whole, Miniatures are expensive from these mouthbreathing cardfloppers. All while they come in and spend 300$ on a few boxes of magic cards. For 300$ I could get everything I would like to finish my Admech army as well as a starter set for Warmachine, and flames of war. But admittedly if I had 300$ I would be upgrading my computer because my current system can't play warmachine tactics, warhammer total war, Mordheim, or vermintide. Though right now my skaven warband for real Mordheim is lookin pretty good.
I remember getting this pretty solid plastic T34/85 model (Don't remember the scale, its been ages) in Lithuania for like 6 euros, about 5.90-ish USD, I believe, although some parts were lower quality, most of it was really solid and sturdy, the only really bad part was that the barrel was too flimsy, so I ended up bending it a bit. Still, a solid, sturdy T34/85 with a ton of detailing bits (Winch ropes, side baggage, turret hatch, turret rotation, vertical gun movement, so many more tiny little detailed bits) for about 5.90-ish USD is really good, because when I checked some Amazon prices on other T34/85 models, they cost like 20-30 USD for a single tank.
A counter point: Most of the examples you brought are things that have multiple uses while miniatures generally only have 2 uses (painting and playing with). This is neat video though and hopefully allows people to see a different perspective on the cost of war gaming.
I was thinking the same thing, with a 800 dollar PC+Monitor etc investment i can play, browse, work, listen to music watch movies etc And then there is the Point of who to play. In most of your examples you listed the Price for 1 Player. Ok X-Wing is for two, but if i want to expand my game i have to buy Imps und Rebs likewise. A PC is useable by the whole familiy. Then there is Terrain, it can be made very cheaply, yes, if you have the right tools but i would add another 100 bucks for the first table+ terrain pieces, tools, materials etc. So we have 100 for paints, 100 for terrain and then the price for the actual game. For me personally it is a joy per hour thing. I can get 100+ hours out of a 20bucks PC Game. On the other hand there are some armys on my shelf which are wainting for months and years to be played with. So, they where not worth. Considering i do not like painting that much a 2h game every couple of weeks is a pretty lousy deal....
Lurch Vater You make some great points that I totally missed. I don't want anyone to get me wrong though, I really do like tabletop gaming, I just wish it was more in my price range and I think I'm one of hundreds of thousands if not millions who feel that way.
A $500 computer would go in the trash... an $800 computer... would go in the trash. If you want to be able to have use of that computer beyond basic office functions... you're looking at around $2k (this isn't even accounting for the cost of a monitor, speakers, etc). Silly rabbits :P
not a bad paint kit choice, but one can get acrylic paint for $0.45-0.65 a tube and thin it 2:1 with Windex and have great miniature paint. then use some cheapo brushes to start. I still use acrylic hobby paint from Michael's, I tried velejo gw and a fee other paints but other than more color choices the end results are the same for me. I don't paint golden daemon standard, but it usually impresses. I would probably also add that if you own an air compressor an inexpensive air brush can be a great addition to a beginning painter for even coverage of base coats
When talking "expensive" you have to compare like with like. So let's take another wargame. Memoir '44. In the core box you have 2 full armies, a ton of terrain and plenty of variation of rules to keep you playing for a while. For a pricepoint of 50 euros, you're playing a fun wargame. Unfair comparison? I don't think so. After sinking too much money into other wargames, I found that Memoir '44 scratches that same itch at a price that I consider fair.
I agree there and agree to the point, a wise man once told me "Its not a real hobby if it does not have the potential to ruin you" ... the key word is potential, any hobby can be "too expensive" if you let it.
The phrase 'if you have imagination, you don't need money' is rarely totally true, but it's very nearly true in wargaming. There are loads of free wargaming resources online, and it's possible to produce very attractive tabletops and minis with next to no money. Of course, there will be other investments- both time and effort.
+Joe McLaren I generally don't count time as an investment if you're enjoying it. I enjoy painting and building, so I look at that as a bonus. Thanks for watching!
That's true if you have a personal group who will indulge you in your experimentation. If you don't, you're stuck with the condescending purists at the local shop who define their self-worth almost completely by their mastery of a specific game.
You're right wargaming need not be expensive and can be done very enjoyably really cheaply. I got my daughter into it by using lego figures and working out kinda D&D type rules for movement and hit points armour class etc. We had a lot of fun. Games Workshop is another story. In my opinion theyr'e just being short-sighted and making bad decisions. I know there's nothing new in either my opinion or GW's attitude, however as the father of an 11 year old who's very keen on Age of Sigmar I really do think they've missed the point. On the one hand they made a huge change that threw the doors wide open for kids (or those too young to earn a wage in general) to get into the game by simplifying the rules and making it much cheaper to get started (than 40K etc) - but on the other hand they still insist on pricing every box with a "how much can we possibly get away with?" policy as opposed to having the balls to drop their margins and go for MORE sales. We all want them to be a successful company with a healthy profit margin, but they seem to be clinging on to a pretty exclusive and relatively tiny potential sales demographic, when Age of Sigmar rules make it possible to get a really huge number of new people into the hobby. They wouldn't even have to change their per box pricing if they did what so many other companies do with special offers to drive sales - just simple stuff like "buy 3 get the cheapest half price" - that kind of deal. Pretty much everybody else does this kind of thing - because it works to drive sales and give customers that wonderful "I got a bargain" feeling. A happy customer comes back. Last time I took my daughter to a GW shop I left promising myself that I would do everything I possibly could to avoid spending money there, including alternative paint suppliers, eBay etc etc. I'm sure I won't be the only parent feeling that way and that's a huge missed opportunity for GW. sorry for the rant!
I think that they are trying to target the beginners with the 'Start Collecting!' boxes, which are actually really good values. Take a look at those. Many of them would retail for as much as $150 individually, but each kit is only $85. Thanks for watching!
I am happy that our biggest local game store has expanded they miniatures selection from GW only to having Frostgrave, Malifaux, WMH, Infinity and FoW as well. It really gives more options and maybe helps expanding player based of those games after so long of GW's monopoly.
"Painted with elbow" Ok...that was funny to imagine someone painting with elbow :D You made a good point in this video. In my case, i buy 1-2 miniatures every year (let's say 4-5 if i feel very good) so probably my purchase limit is kinda higher than most people that have to build an army... i just buy minis for painting so can spend 50$ for a single miniature, if it worth the costs P.S: i saw how Smaug costs on GW' website...and i can say...THAT'S EXPENSIVE. But ye, noone force you to buy it.
Good video. The answer I've found is that because some miniatures are dirt cheap, people feel all miniatures should be dirt cheap. Once there are miniatures that are not dirt cheap, people compare the two and say "thats too expensive because I can get these guys for real cheap, so those expensive guys shouldn't be that expensive."
+husk1184 Thanks! Yeah, I missed a bunch of milestones recently as I've been so busy: I hit 100 videos (a bit ago), I missed 15,000 subscribers (actually passed 16,000 this morning), and I missed my three-year anniversary. Thanks for watching!
I think a cool thing about Wargaming (talking from my experience with 40k) is that, unless a particular minature goes OOP or loses rules, they don't depreciate a lot in value compared to something like video games. I can buy a box of Necron Warriors and model them for around £20-£25 (taking supplies into account) and if I get bored I can sell them for pretty close to their original price, assuming they're built and painted well. If I buy a video game, I'm instantly losing somewhere between 20%-30% of their value, wait a few months and it's down to 40-50%.
+RegosAwesome Very true. Strangely, I've found that painted warjacks for Warmachine sell for less on eBay than unpainted ones. That was sort of weird. Thanks for watching!
Hi! Let me explain you my point of view, which complements your video. First, we should agree on what expensive means. I find your definition somewhat incomplete. When it comes to leisure, the price of something is the relation between the fun I have, and the time it lasts. Of course, for food, shelter, health it may be different. But for 'pleasure' things, I think the fun-time relation is the best measuring concept. So, first we have to set the basis of a 'fair' fun-time price. I suggest one of the most popular and accepted hobbies: cinema. In my city here in Spain, a regular cinema ticket costs about 8 euros. I don't know how much they ask for a cinema ticket in the UK or USA, 6 pounds?, 15 dollars? Anyway, just bear your regular cinema ticket price in mind. Don't add the pop corns and coke to the deal. Just the ticket price. OK? The cinema experience provides about 3 hours of fun time. Let's say 30 minutes of pre-talking with your friends, 2 hours of the actual movie, and 30 post-movie discussion. Fair enough so far? Well. People are happy to do that and it is considered mainstream, so nobody is going to tell you you're wasting your money. Now, how much does an hour of fun time cost? For me, 8 euros divided by 3... that's 2,6 euros. The figure may be rounded to 3 euros if you put the coke/beer you have in the cinema or during the post-movie chat with your friends. Now, a miniature priced 10 euros (let's say an Infinity miniature). You need to prepare it: you can go for a xacto blade, and some superglue for 3 euros both in one of these all-at-1-euro shops. You can have a can of primer for 12 euros, of which you would use... what? 10%? Ok, 1,2 euros. Some sand for the basing of 1 miniature... 0'30 cents? That makes 15,5 euros total. You will need paints, and brushes, which a decent set may cost what? 60 euros? OK, you're going to spoil/consume about 5% of the pots or life-time of the brush... so that's another 3 euros. So, how many hours of fun will I have with 18,5 euros? Using the cinema ticket reference, it should be 6 hours and a half or more to be considered 'fair'. Do you spend more that that time gluing, painting, and playing with the miniature? In my case, definitely yes. To paint a single miniature I need like 50-60 hours (I know you guys could do it in like 5 hours, I am really slow at painting lol). But anyway, just painting it covers the whole time of needed fun. Then put on top the hours you take building your list, the games in which you use the miniature, and time you spend watching your awesome mini at home just for your own satisfaction. You can argue that 'but you cannot play with a single miniature' Well, yes.... and I may have overlooked some issues here and there... but I think you can get the idea of how I roughly calculate if something is valuable for me or not. You may use a different reference instead of cinema. How many hours of fun time does it give a videogame nowdays? Netflix? RUclips? A football match ticket? A music CD? Pick the reference you prefer and apply the logic I followed. You may be surprised that that apparently expensive 85 euros Bloodthirster actually provides a better relation price-funtime than... that Starbucks coffee you happily pay.... or not! :) You decide. Set your reference and compare yourself.
One of the things that I thought about in my recent hiatus from gaming (about 5ish years, I think?) is that, for me, one of the drawbacks about gaming is that it doesn't necessarily produce anything other than enjoyment. Granted, enjoyment is important! But when I figured out how much freetime I had, I decided to put most of it towards growing my leatherworking skill and business, especially because leather can, theoretically, pay for itself when you sell something like a wallet or a belt, etc. Now though, I'm starting to feel a bit burned out on leather and I think its because most, if not all, of my free time goes to it. I think gaming definitely provides a nice break to come back refreshed to other hobbies (and vice versa with gaming), its inspiring, and its something that doesn't necessarily need a greater purpose than to look pretty and play a game with other people (social interaction, that bane of introverts everywhere). A bit late, but just my .02
I notice you permit the console gamer a TV on the expectation of owning one already; is it not also fair to permit the PC gamer a *simple* PC? My laptop with Intel HD4000 graphics surprised me dramatically in what it's actually capable of; because of the effect of console gaming retarding the progression of hardware demands, most games of the Xbox 360 era are quite playable, and a large portion of modern games aren't very demanding anyway. Discounting the cost of the PC (which one probably needs anyway), the PC gaming hobby can only cost $5 here and there when you find a neat game on Steam sale, with no "entry fee" per se. But I agree; in a similar ultra-cheap manner I'm trying to get into Kings of War, and $30 or so for a nice, hardcover rulebook and a few bucks for woodblocks to represent units and terrain (to start out) isn't too bad.
Games like Kings of War have really reasonably priced books, and other systems like Wrath of Kings and Dark Age and Age of Sigmar are free downloads. Thanks for watching!
Privateer Press also released the core rules for Warmachine/Hordes for free (sadly, no fluff from the factions, just the basic rules), and they also have their bundle packs twice a year, if I remember correctly (summer and winter), so that's a good place to start as well :)
+Drink Spin Run - An RPG Talk Show Podcast Absolutely! It's a great book at a surprisingly good price, and you can use whatever miniatures you want. I've built two warbands and they're on the table lineup to get painted so I can do battle reports soon. Thanks for watching!
The hobby I compare this to the most, is model railroading. There is a whole range of options, from buying pre-painted snap-together stuff, to scratchbuilding everything and painting it all. You have the models that move around, and the terrain base, and scenery that goes on the base. In my opinion, even (most) GW miniatures stack up pretty well price wise vs model trains.
I like your comparisons with PC and console gaming. I've bought a few decent spec gaming PCs, consoles and hardware over the years and one Warlord Titan. The PC hardware is worth very little after a few years (Thrustmaster flightsticks excepted) but that Warlord will still have a high resale value in years to come and when properly built and well painted even be worth more than the original price.
I've seen people play this at my local hobby shop, it definitely has peaked my interest. I'm happy I found your channel to learn a lot more. Thank you.
With Ebay now, people can no longer use GW's pricing as an excuse not to get into fantasy wargaming. There are numerous gaming dealers on Ebay who sell GW stuff new in shrinkwrap, often with like 10% or 20% discounted off retail, and often times they offer free shipping on top of it. So, between getting some stuff directly from GW and using Ebay to flesh out the rest, it's not as expensive as it is perceived to be. And, as TTM said, getting into PC or console gaming is EVERY BIT as expensive as getting into miniature wargaming, in some respects they're more expensive.
+Joe Moe I agree. I still like to buy stuff from my local store (to help support them, as I play there a lot) but online can certainly be a cheap way to go. Thanks for watching!
I think Wargaming might have a larger upfront cost compared to a lot of other hobbies. You first start a game and you'll need a rulebook, one or two units at least, brushes, glue, paints, potentially tools etc. That adds up to a substantial initial purchase, which if you're starting a game new then it can be quite daunting. Of course in time it levels out. You already have all your brushes and tools, and you'll only need to buy more glue or paints to refill or get new colours. You already have your rulebook, so unless you start a new army, need a new edition of supplemental material, you're set. New units will be the main expense at that point. So I think it's expensive to start, but not so bad once you're into it.
Any hobby comes with a buy in. The real bummer comes when you spend countless hours assembling and painting, only to find out that no one in your area plays the game.
Then you just have to build and paint a second force so you can teach other people to play with your models and try to get them interested enough to buy their own. Thanks for watching!
Excellent reasoned article: A quick recommend for three "low entry budget" systems. Song of Blades and Heroes (Mentioned in this vid'), Pulp Alley (Great characterful fun), Frostgrave. All produce a skirmish with between 6 and 10 figures per side (Though you can field more should you wish). But beware - skirmishes tend to require a lot of terrain - This can cost a lot, or can be scratchbuilt / improvised.
+spentfromnz That's why you have to become a game advocate for lesser-known games that you like and want others to play. Check my other video: ruclips.net/video/0burw0TGGkM/видео.html and thanks for watching!
+ChewySmokey I should actually try painting something with my elbow sometime. Maybe it's actually really awesome an we all currently scoff at it. Thanks for watching!
When people complain about wargaming being expensive compared to video games, the detractors often compare the full price of a wargame to the price of a full video game. When a wargamer purchases a new army, the gamer can only interact with a small portion of the mechanics. Buying a wargame rulebook, a single army is not pricey, but buying a new element of the game -- in the form a new army -- can be very expensive. I have no idea how much even a small wargame could cost if a player bought every model and book to be released. A market wargame cannot be fully formed game by it's very nature. On the other hand, a video game enthusiast will only need to purchase a single game and receive most, if not all, mechanical elements of the game. Most video games contain more than one viable mechanical path, but a wargame with a single starting army only allows a single method of play. In essence, the video game can contain a complete game. Even parts of the game a single player will not interact through a single play through. Tabletop wargames do not have this luxury. Of course, the price comes from having a material product needed to be crafted from tangible goods instead of digital resources. On the other hand, if we calculate value through the hours of enjoyment garnered, video games are usually a better value. A good wargame will provide countless hours of fun and exploration, through painting and modelling, but requires cash for more models and books to extend the life of the game. A good video game can provide many hours of fun and exploration through play, disregarding expansion packs and other expandable content, allows for more content for less cash invested. I think a better analogy would be comparing wargames to Magic the Gathering. Both only allow the players to buy a portion of the game.
Its probably the most expensive hobby I have. Too expensive is impossible to answer though. Depends on you, your income, what wargame you get into etc. Its not a cheap hobby though. I agree though that there are different levels of getting into wargaming and most often people look at how much it is to get into warhammer rather than how much it is to get into wargaming.
I remember a thing my friend said about Wargaming as well, if you're into games, new games come out all the time, expansions come out and stuff. For wargames, once you have all those units, you have them. They don't get outdated, you can use those minis for a ton of things. Also, on hero clix, I loved that game :P It can be fun, but even in hero clix, there are, expensive figures/cards. Some of them were collector pieces, but just like any TCG the figures come in booster packs and some of them are more rare than others, so you could spend like $100 on a team either from buying boosters or from buying team members 2nd hand. Food for thought.
One of the things I love about wargaming is that once I have the models painted, I have them and can use them forever, or just keep them in a display case. Thanks for watching!
They can most certainly become outdated, edition-nerfed or buffed, blah blah. Unless you play exclusively with personal friends (always the best bet, imo), you're stuck in the ecosystem. Some tourneys will give you crap if your minis sport a different loadout than your list shows. GW built an ecosystem of purists with 40k, and they make enough from them that screw you if you don't want to play the most expensive wargame on the market.
Infinity deserved a mention: $45 for a starter box with 6 figures, free rules, raid your recycling box for some terrain (cans and milk cartons). It also it well respected and you should be able to find players anywhere. Battletech has an introductory box set with dice, mounted maps, and ~25 mechs for $45 and that is an older design but a beautiful game (albeit not everyone's taste).
+Arthur Bugorski Infinity is starting to get more of a foothold around me, but it's still pretty few and far between, at least in my area. I'm glad to see them growing as a brand, though. Thanks for watching!
...Infinity was too small to mention but Malifaux wasn't? One of us is living in an atypical community... here Malifaux is something you have to Google whereas people play Infinity (considering that Battletech is almost as big as WarmaHordes here, it's probably me). I guess that's the strength of GW products: they are the only ones playable everywhere.
The point of the hobby isn't saving money. You can play bottle caps with downloaded pdf, the hobby isn't about this kind of people. Здарова, соотечественник))
Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes. 5 Games being run at GENCON 2017. I would be happy to show anyone the book and talk about it. Find us in the 19&One area. Games Plus will have it for sale in the vendor hall.
For very cheap Warhammer-license fun, take a look at Fantasy Flight's "Warhammer:Discwars". 4 complete armies in one box, with terrain,dice, & rulers. It even has expansions for 2 more armies.
I got into wargaming back in middle school with Heroscape. $40 for absolutely everything you needed to play. By the end of it I had probably spent $400-$500 on all the add-ons and extra figures and such, but that was over the course of a few years, so I never really felt it was expensive. Sure if that was 500 all at once it would have been a huge investment for a middle school/high schooler, but over time it really wasn't.
+Medi Lord Yeah, I didn't really touch on the 'over time' stuff because all hobbies generally get more expensive as you do it more. Eventually, that pencil you found is going to wear out, and then you'll need a new pencil. Thanks for watching!
+Ultradalek7 I have purchased tanks from them for my Flames of War army. They're nice and reasonably priced. Although, I find Battlefront's stuff to generally be reasonably priced, as well. Thanks for watching!
Production costs for a mini: Molds are made from a super expensive rubbery material for durability. They will wear out after about 20-30 uses needing to be replaced. Costing a few hundred each time. Shipping costs, Storage costs(these are astronomical), taxes, import costs, paying for the development of the lore, design of the models, sculpting of the models, concepts, art, paying rent for the stores, paying power/gas/water, paying for trade deals, paying for events, paying for websites/media/etc, researching new paints, opening new factories, opening new stores, researching new casting techniques AND then the biggest cost: Employees. All the staff in the stores, factories, logistics, customer support, administration, pr, designers, artists, marketeers, book writers, playtesters, rule makers, ect. ect. ect. I think I'm still missing at least 50% of the cost factors that go into production of mini's at GW scale and quality. That all said. GW is in a power position being market leader. You could estimate that on average they are overpricing the models by about 5-10% But it's a company making money. Just like all companies in the ever made. It's normal.
I'm getting back into the hobby and want to (finally) make my Space Wolves army. I plan on cutting costs by getting two of the new starter kits because they contain the max amount of the units I want to include in the army and then add-on from there (Dreads, Stormfang, etc.) Not only that, they're playable as-is right out of the box, which is even more exciting in army creation.
I'm with you man. I said this on Facebook recently but I've got three friends: one collects car audio equipment and camera gear, another flies model aircraft, and a guy I used to hang out with about 15 years ago spent all of his money on aquarium fish (and pot). All three of them would laugh at me complaining about a fifty dollar troops choice. Heck, if I want to run another Spartan those things are $90 for an afternoon of getting muddy and all I've got at the end of it is a medal & a t-shirt.
+Brooks Sligh If you enjoy wargaming as much as your friends enjoy their hobbies (which is impossible to quantify, but stick with me here) then yes, your hobby sounds like the cheapest. Thanks for watching!
Very interesting subject. You just showed you can get into AoS for about half of what you would need for a new console: 85$ start collecting + 60$ reaper paints + 40$ supplies= 185$ vs 400$ console. Thing is, no one sees that(which I think is why GW supplies also being expensive clearly does not play in their favor). They look at 40k and think: wow this is out of hand (basically a new 800$ PC at entry level). Even when presented with the lowest entry level(185$ AoS), most of the time the 13-17 yr-old demo would rather save that money for the next console...so to some extend GW is shutting potential clients out by being too expensive for their core market. I think they not only need to be cheaper(in this case half) but much cheaper at entry level then their competition for people to even consider it. I would say you'd need around a quarter of the price of console gaming at entry level for new clientele to emerge...ok maybe they can't, but it would work I promise! XD
+Hard-Edge Painting As I said in a previous comment, I don't think that the 13-17 crowd is really their current audience. I think they're trying to get there some, but I don't find younger kids playing wargames too much. I think it's more the people over 18 that start to get into it more. Thanks for watching!
Uncle Atom, I agree with your sentiments in this video. I have played miniatures wargames since I was in high school, but I always had other hobbies as well; hockey, paintball, bodyboarding. Bodyboarding is probably the cheapest; but you need to do a lot of driving to find the waves suitable for riding (gasoline costs money). I stopped playing paintball because it's at least $100 for a day at the field every weekend (food, gas, paintballs, field entry). Hockey is the best exercise but comes with a lot of injuries which get expensive. So miniature war gaming is the most ideal as you don't really have to leave the house, it's fun to do, and I don't get injured painting figures (and it's the least expensive overall of all my past hobbies). Still I find it hard to justify a $150 plastic greater daemon figure from GW, so I have abandoned them for Battlefront, Warlord, and Mantic which I find have better value. Keep producing awesome videos, your the best!
@tabletop First of all i want to complement you for several things. Video/audio quality. Its amazing. I mean there isn't alot of editing but this makes watching so easier. Also content is amazing regarding topics like how to paint that applies to every wargaming instead of just (for example) 40k.
Thanks for the compliments. I work hard on the channel and want it to look and sound as good as I can. Also, I find that generally the more topics that I do that apply to more players, the more views I get. Thanks for watching!
At the very least, lately GW has been pretty good about making the models really high quality for what you're paying in 8th edition. The 8thed Primaris Marines are LOADS better than the old 2000's 3rd or 5thed Space Marines. The mold lines are way less prominent, so less filing and sanding is needed. They're bigger, more detailed and I haven't seen finecast in ages. The citadel paints are still too pricey for what you get, but you can always make due with 3rd party paints with no change to quality if you shop smart. So yes, 40K can get pricey, but at least GW is trying to give you more value for your money nowadays.
Getting back in after a 10 year break. $200 just in paints and related tools. Luckily, I bought an obscene amount of Nids back when they were cheap, because I don't think I could bring myself to spend $500 on a new army of little plastic men. I see less and less new blood in 40k, kids just can't get their parents to fork over $50 for 5 plastic army men.
An argument can be made that time is money. So a person would have to ask how much their free time is actually worth. My best friend makes an argument that if he is willing to spend $20+ on a movie (driving out, possibly eating somewhere, snacks at the theater, ect), that spending $20+ on a Steam game for even a few hours of entertainment is worth it. Personally, I see the same thing for war gaming. It can be an investment. If you don't like that Steam game, you really can't return it. But a 40k bass boat or a 40k army can be sold back to recoup some of your investment (figure half). Unlike that bass boat, I have no insurance for my figs, but I also can't get a loan using those figs as collateral. But once you have that initial investment made, getting additions or upgrades can be seen as minor costs comparatively. Hey, you have $500+ sunk into that 40k army, but you are going to dump it because you are unwilling to buy a new codex or a new edition to keep playing? So you are going to go off, sell your $500+ worth of figs, recoup only $250 bucks because you wouldn't spend $60 or more? Sorry, but losing $250 is worse than $60 to me. Yeah, if you are 16 years old, it feels like a lot of money. But your folks may chip in and pay for some figs (Christmas, Birthday, allowance, ect). You are not probably paying rent, so for you, that 'dead end job' you are working is all pure income. Suddenly that $250 paycheck for one week of work (all subjectively speaking) doesn't make those prices seem that steep. You blow one week on vehicles and the other on troops and you are done. It is like buying that new bass boat but refusing to spend $20 a year on a fishing license or $100 a year on registration. Then there is the even cheaper route by just proxy-ing stuff. The number of times I have seen Styrofoam drop pods and the like is beyond count. Hey, as long as you and your friends have fun and accept it, it is cool, right? Sure, the rich old guys at the game store can act all snobbish and turn their noses up at you, but probably at some point and time as kids they used sticks for swords or phallic objects as guns. Everyone does it. Point is, if you enjoy the game, if your time is worth that cost, you will find a way to afford it and play it.
+blktom For those that care, you can definitely return Steam games if you don't like them, for full cost, if you haven't played it over two hours and owned it for less than two weeks.
It's expensive but compared to others wargames, they are certainly not the most expensive in the market (and I was really shocked by that). In fact the starter sets are some nice packs. 85$/€ for 49 minis, that's not terrible. 100$/€ for sigmar. But the quality is still there. In fact, the minis of Sigmar are really well done.
Totalt agree! As an avid console, handheld AND pc gamer with an average paycheck, being smart with my money is key. Maybe I hold back on something for a few months, wait on some sales, play something I haven't completed. And sure, I have spent a lot on aos, but I also have more models left to paint then I can get done soon, so I can basically stop buying stuff for a while and still do hobby for months. And that isn't even counting playing games with them once they are finished. I also have descent: journeys in the dark 2nd edition, with an expansion, which comes with a ton of models to paint for a cheap price overall. I notice when I want to play something, I often check storefronts on my machines. When I want to hobby, I just sit down at my kitchen table. One of those doesn't end up with my dumping money on an impulse. For me, the hobby is cheaper than most of my other gaming I do, and I love it for it :)
"if it's that expensive, maybe you should save your money" how patronising is that??? not everyone can save alot of money...some of us in the real world are barely scraping by, but still want entertainment like everyone else.
I do not believe it is weather or not YOU think war gaming is expensive. The determining factor is if your wife thinks war gaming is expensive..
Well, my wife is addicted to yarn (she's a knitter) so that gives me a good deal of leeway. Thanks for watching!
@@tabletopminions i wish my better half would knit... its chickens for me, much messier but probably a little more leeway for all that 😀
This is the most honest statement on the entire interweb.
This man does not lie.
Wife? Whay color schemes are good for the wife unit?
For me, it is expensive. 40k isn't cheap for someone like me, going through college. It's hard to involve other people my age as they all have obligations they need to pay for. If it was more affordable, I think GW could bring in a lot larger of an audience.
Yeah, i agree with you. This is why we playing with army men and others cheap plastic toy. I know the rules set isn't great like warhammer but we enjoyed it😅
as a former alcoholic living in vegas getting back into wargaming i dont i have to worry about losing everything i own again buying a $49 box of space marines, AND no hangover!
+redbeardboss Very true! Sometimes I glue my fingers together, but that's about the worst of it. Thanks for watching!
Good point, right there with ya
RedBeardBoss/ Hahahaha no hangover & no guilt! I’m an addict and to spend my $$ on plastic soldiers is soooo much better than what I used to buy. Stay safe brother!
@Bao Thuy lol so true damn prices keep going up
40 000 dollars? imagine the miniatures you could buy for that kind of money! You could almost buy a full age of sigmar army.. well almost
+Eisenwulf666 you mean a full 8th edition army. almost.
+badfox Orders 22 warlord titans...
22*1800=39,600
rulebook=$80
Paints for 22 warlord titans≈ 350
oh and glue... no idea...
$40k for a bass boat is cheap cheap. Most of them are $100k+, same for wakeboarding boats.
What about paint?.....thats alooooooooooooot of paint
psecody
a rhino troop carrier used to cost 9 euro's.
even with inflation that doesn't explain the 40 euro cost atm
Early 2000's, 24 Warriors of Minas Tirith cost $25. Today a box of 12 cost $35 cdn. Expensive?
10 metal Witch Elves = $30 back then, today 10 plastic Witch Elves $70.
Yeah expensive.
Demand I guess? Warhammer is the premium tabletop (imo). GW thought they owned the market. They treated the game like that.
Look up the Federal Reserve and Inflation ;)
I was about to say the same about inflation. Are people retarded or what that they compare old prices to new ones? It's like saying that rent in 1940 had cost only a handful of bucks but now it costs hundreds!
Yeah no. Inflation hasn't went up enough to use as an excuse for how expensive Games Workshop products are. Going off of the original comment. 24 Warriors of Minas Tirith in Jan. 2000 = $25. In March of 2018, that is equal to $36.96. Not far off the box of the $35 he was talking about. So now you pay almost the same price as you did 18 years ago, but for 12 less miniatures.
10 Metal Witch Elves in 2000 = $30.
$30 in Jan. 2000 = $44.45
10 Plastic Witch Elves in 2018 = $70.
That's not inflation, that's market cornering and not caring about your consumers.
Not to mention more efficient technology and production lines, and Warhammer is as popular as it's ever been. Prices should be cheaper by this logic, but they aren't.
@ Mannschaft Von Arschloch
Right? I remember at the metal -> plastic conversion of models with 40K 3E, Tactical Squads of Space Marines were £10 in stores, dropping from £20 when they were still made of metal. Similarly, Devastators dropped from £25 to £12, Combat Squads were £6 and so on. It made the hobby a lot easier to get into at the time, because you could build a small, 1000-1500pt army for less than £100
When you account for inflation, the modern price for a Tactical squad should be about £16 when you account for inflation over the last 16 years, according to in2013dollars.com. Accounting for the extra pieces and higher quality molds you get now, maybe put that up to £18-20 per unit, at most when you consider the amount of plastic used is roughly the same. Heck, you may possibly be able to account for that with better manufacturing techniques that should bring the cost down. But Tactical Squads sit at £25 at the time of writing, never mind some of the more ridiculous stuff like £18 for a single SM Commander, when the blisters back during 3E were £6/7.
A lot of GW's pricing is based on their monopoly of the hobby and pricing according to points. Like, some kits should not be more expensive than others based on how much plastic is used, but they are, because GW prices according to the in game rules. It's crazy. If they slashed prices by ~10-20%, I think the hobby would become a lot more viable for a lot more people. Not a crazy amount, but I think it'd be enough to encourage people to take up the hobby.
sadly games work shop is expensive to me, being a father home owner and on slightly above min wage, i still pay it i just cant afford to go out and buy a new model every week or two
I’ve set up and run several war games clubs in schools,where money is non existent and I don’t want kids breaking beautifully painted minis. The solution,download images of figures, laminate them and stick them onto cheap MDF bases and off you go, I created five different armies for Kings of War and ran a tournament. I know there are copyright issues but it’s a great way of trying out a game before committing to buying figures. There are some beautiful images of figures, some even show the back so your faces look decent to you as well as your opponent, or you can have unit stats on the back to help with gameplay.
You forget historical games. You can get 60 hard plastic 28mm napoleonic soldiers for £30/$40. Also 15mm scale is cheap too with usually each miniature costing 50p.
+xxCrapNamexx Price was one of the draws that has turned me into an almost exclusively historical miniature player. I got both sides for the American Revolution in 28mm (over 300 miniatures) for what it would cost me to start many Sci-fi games. The biggest issue I have is building and painting them all.
Actually on the topic price led me to go for books and videogames instead... and in regards to fantasy I have had so much joy with total war warhammer that gives you 5 almost full armies and a semifinished released later for free and countless battlefields and the big campaign map and beyond, they are also all beautifully painted/coloured in game and I paid about 32 sterlings for that. But thats the thing its not table top and its real time battles instead of turnbased dice rolling. But some do also do the more dice rolling ones. And you loose some of the social aspect with videogames. However I can argue that if youre into table top getting it might be worth it but yes its pricey but if you really love the idea it can be a fun hobby. On the other hand if you cant but still want to play it videogames gives you more for the sterling/pound or dollar.
The prices led me into videogames that have some great attempts at Warhammer but I think honestly its really Total War that has created the best one in fantasy so far for me. And 40k has some neat ones like Dawn of War but the strategy ones tend to be very small scale in comparision to lore and how they are depicted that way.
I think if you love or want to get into warhammer but prices stops you there are many ways you can either play some great videogame adaption that have great online communities behind them but also if you want to play alone. They offer you in most cases to fight against Ai aswell something thats a bonus, if you have lots of miniatures or you want to buy some but no one to play against it can get boring they solve this issue. Books can also be a fun medium for it but they are of course non interactive and you wont get to play the games in any form in that way either trough with miniatures or in let say videogames.
Yes, total war is 60 bucks, cheaper the na start collecting box. but to run it you need at least 800 dollar pc.
I can make you 2 2000 point armies (for age of sigmar) and paint them plus get the generals handbook for that money.
I play historical with 1/72 in plastic, even cheaper :)
@@bigbake132 Same here. There is a huge range of infantry and armour models and, as an added bonus, 1/72 fits reasonably well with HO scale model railway terrain.
You can assemble 2 opposing armies for less than the cost of a single 40k squad
You would almost swear GW is trying to price themselves out of business.
+Jaime Lannister I'm not sure why, but sometimes it seems like that. Thanks for watching!
Battletech starter box is $60. All rules to run a Battlemech, 26 minis inside the box with excellent detail, 2 hexboards, and a ton of other stuff. How to play videos on my channel. You typically do not run more than 1 to 4 mechs in a force in a standard game.
+Andrew J I played it years ago, as it was one of my earliest tabletop wargames. Thanks for watching!
And you get two companies of mechs which is like getting two 3000 point Warhammer 40K armies.
GW are dicks. I haven't bought any minis yet (I'm a fan of the games/lore ect.), but I see my new addiction will leave me broke.
Battletech! My gateway! We modded the rules though. Used a d20 for to hit rolls while keeping the other numbers that same. You hit about 30% more often. Makes the game so much faster and the conditions more realistic. I highly doubt a war machine with a piloting computer that reads your damn brainwave is gonna have you missing more than 50% of the time when within a weapon's effective range. Current, real-world technology is already better than that.
After waaaaaaay too many scenarios that should have been accompanied by Yakkety Sax, we scrapped the piloting rolls too. Mecha shouldn't be falling all over the board constantly because they tried to walk up a gentle slope. That's (supposedly) the whole justification for mecha in most lore.
Just those two tweaks accelerated gameplay like mad. It was awesome.
Expense is a very relative thing.
GW lost me when I restarted the hobby after 15 years and I have way more money but less buying power.
Now I'm playing xwing, malifaux, deadzone and dropzone.
My two fantasy arms will likely get rebased as kings at some point and my imperial guard will rest on a shelf forever.
Expensive should in this case mean that you can't afford it if it's not your only hobby.
Expnsive? No. Overpriced? Yes. The thing is that you have to be patience or you can get bankrupt, if you decide to buy anything in a day. Brushes, Paints, Primer and ofcourse the Miniatures and the Codexes.
+Васил Мирчев Bingo.
Plus I am a plastic hater.
+Васил Мирчев Very good point. It's not necessarily expensive but it can be outrageously overpriced for what you get.
+SilverSkullGamer I agree with you but manufacturing price on small volume production are ridiculously high even if you go in a Chinese factory. Just cutting the metal for one good quality character (dynamic sculpt sharp details...) mold falls quick in the 10 thousand range and mold don't last for ever either.
I think the companies producing war game product just don't have huge margin and enough volume to offer lower price.
when they were made of metal you thought you had something for your money now is all plastic meh.
PC gaming is a good example for what "expensive" actually means. After all, your calculation makes some very shaky assumptions.
Let's say I want to get into PC gaming. I already own a PC for work reasons and/or to surf the internet. It's far from what one would call a gaming PC, but it would run some less demanding games. So I buy Master of Orion 2 from GOG since I like strategy. For about five bucks, I started getting into the hobby. I actually can play quite a bit for those 5 bucks. Hell, if your PC is a normal home PC, you most likely can play a few free to play games which aren't bad.
In contrast, let's look at my experiences with wargaming. You defended Age of Sigmars entry costs which is where I'll base my calculation on. Let's say you buy a starter box and the learn to paint bones kit. Together, they are around 100 bucks. Of course, I could start with another game, but I tend to stick to what the people I know and like play since it is a multiplayer game.
In both cases, you probably will spend more than that eventually. Specifically video gaming can be a bottomless hole when it comes to money. But when I say it is expensive, I generally am speaking of the entry costs. The higher this entry cost is, the less likely I will take the risk of trying it - and that applies to most people.
Alex Bermann Those PC thingies are kinda widespread. They're basically furniture. Assuming someone doesn't have a basic PC is like assuming he doesn't have a table for the tabletop game.
And those workhorse PCs people often get to do some surfing and fooling around in an office suite can be transformed into an entry gaming rig by just adding a graphics card. That should be enough to play games that are not too demanding. Stuff like CS:GO, DOTA2 (or any other MOBA, i just mention this one because it's completely free except for cosmetic stuff) and whatever else you fancy.
I would note on the PC gaming prices, that didn't cover the budget end. This was made in 2016, virtually everyone had a PC by then even if it was just a basic work laptop. A basic work laptop can run plenty of games if you stick to older titles or even indy titles (Like the $8 pdf mentioned). You could competitively play League of Legends or Counter Strike: Source (both very big popular games that a toaster could run) without spending any money on hardware because you already have it. LoL is literally a free title, CS:S is maybe $20? Not to mention the fact that a PC does double duty when you're not playing games, it's also a media center, a communications center, it can be used in multiple hobbies (the aforementioned art hobby). Your minis however can only be used for that one purpose, and often for that one game. (Since many games don't appreciate proxies or outright require the use of minis from their own lines, GW I'm looking at you). If you want to swap from playing one video game to another you don't repurchase a whole new computer, you drop $40 on the game and go. Admittedly that's more literally comparable to the painting supplies than the miniatures, but the miniatures are the bigger investment so *shrug*.
That all said, I was hoping you'd toss Model Railroading into the mix since a lot of the same skills are used hobby side (terrain, painting, etc) but model railroading is seen as being far more expensive still due to the budget options (like XWing, etc in wargaming) are often spoken down of in the community as "playing with toys" instead of actual modeling. Which I think you hinted at that happening in wargaming but didn't fully touch on. I think because it tends to be vocal exceptions in wargaming that do it. Model railroading though is another hobby that 'can' reach the $40,000 mark over time, though maybe not in a single day of purchases. Because of this I often find myself leaning more towards wargaming as my preferred hobby as it is actually cheaper, even going the GW route. Its downside is that it requires other people, railroading can be a solo endeavor instead.
honestly once my Orc army is hashed out to a reasonable level I think I will drop GW games, maybe make another bloodbowl team with third party models. infinity looks a lot better right now, and I can have a full game squad for like 150$. wargaming isn't expensive, GW is expensive
"Expensive" to me is defined as: will I have to sleep on the couch or worse if my wife finds out how much I spent on gaming?
+HeadHunter I know several people with that same definition. Thanks for watching!
+HeadHunter Remind her of other hobbies like classic cars, drinking or shoe collecting.
+HeadHunter HA ha croms laughs at girlyman who sleeps on couch because wife is mad.....conan make woman sleep on couch.
I honestly only find Games Workshop and Privateer Press to be too expensive, for the cost of 5 dudes for 40K I can get 40ish men for Bolt Action for example.
Macca McMacca Love you
+Mojomancer Live in Japan getting a multi articulate robot with different colors for about 15$ and a static gw one cost about 10 times that
+Macca McMacca bro calm down
Macca's mah boi.
STFU fanboy
and stop using your papa's credit card , try working for your shit and you'l find out how it is son
People say its expensive because they are little plastic, resin, or metal toys . it's because the companies pay pennies and charge numerous dollars per sprue .
Other hobbies I've had over the years:
* Ice hockey (expensive)
* Triathlon (very expensive)
* PC gaming (semi expensive)
* Mtg (very expensive)
* Track and field / Football (cheap-ish)
* Alcohol (cheap to expensive)
I rate wargaming cheap-ish.
Yes you need the utensils with paints and brushes and you do need miniatures to paint. But all this combined (utensils and army worth of 2000 points) did not cost as much as 1 year of MtG, 1 year of hockey expenses, a new mid-high tier PC or came even close to my triathlon bike.
Also important to understand is the longevity of your purchase and usage.
Most PC games have 10-50 hours of entertainment after you run out of content and need a new game.
Hockey you need to pay rent to just go to practice in the ice hockey rink.
Beer costs you money each time you go to bar with your buddies.
With wargaming you are not only getting unlimited time with your purchase, but unlimited use. Nobody will take your minis away after a year, they don't wear out needing to be replaced.
The fact of the matter is that wargaming is on the cheaper side of hobbies that are not free.
Unless the company that you play your game with decides every few years to change the rules thoroughly, bring out new models and units with out play yours, etc. Yes I am talking about GW/FW. Still agree with the argument, because going from 3rd all the way to 7th (didn't do 8th ed) probably still costed me less in terms of money than other hobbies, but it does take a toll emotionally; just some personal vendetta I have with the company over the years...
The most relevant comparison seems to be between miniatures and collectible card games, since these are the people usually being persuaded to play miniature games as they inhabit the same venues; game stores, conventions, etc. When they say Warhammer is "too expensive" they are usually referring to the start up price; to be able to play with the other Warhammer people it is gonna cost a fair amount ($400 or so ballpark), while you can playing with the Magic the Gathering crowd for around $150. The trade off, however, is that Warhammer's cost is mostly frontloaded, there's relatively low expense after you have an army, just a new codex and the new unit every few years. With Magic you're spending the same amount every year so I think card games end up being more expensive over time. The secondary market can have a lot of bearing here too, but that's another discussion entirely.
the difference is the millions of pounds that goes into making say a video game justifies the cost of a video game. 2 plastic sprues of 6 models doesn't justify 50 pounds/dollars. that's why it's expensive. the cost to manufacture over the retail cost.
How do you know what the cost to produce the miniatures is? Lets keep in mind that all of the GW miniatures are designed and produced in the UK where the cost of doing business isn't exactly cheap. Now they could probably have all the miniatures produced in China to bring the per unit cost down but if they did I suspect you would also see a drop in miniature quality as well. Additionally those "six" miniatures you make reference to will be miniatures that you can set your own unique poses too due to the fact that the torso, head, arms and equipment choices and poses are all adjustable and determined by you. I don't know of any other miniatures game that offers that. Even the WarMachine stuff is fairly static by comparison.
+Red Horse i know for a fact that some games have a upto 100 million budget the miniatures haven't, no where near.
Your also cross comparing mediums.
War gaming REALLY isnt that expensive, for your average joe gamer? not really for anyone with "decent" income.
The "plastic sprues" are done in a CAD design and then pressed in plastic, a plastic mold? average cost is 10-20 grand depending on the cost of the kit.
DOES gw overcharge? yes. do they over charge as much as we think they do? probably not. I remember reading some articles regarding the full industry from vets who had been in the wargaming industry for a long time. good quality plastic molds cost HUGE amounts of money to maintain.
lord pudrey of house Thomas what does the production budget have to do with how much the game costs ? if a game has a production budget of a 100 million and costs £50 new, does that mean if the production budget was £200 million they can charge £100 or if it was £1 million it should only be £5 ? almost all games that are produced in a hard format are priced between £40 to £50 in the UK regardless of production budget and some of the larger releases have sold in the multiple millions of units , grand theft auto 5 cost 170 million to produce and sold 70 million units and made over a billion dollars in three days, so if we use the same rules that you say doesnt justify GWs pricea then you can use the same argument here either
As a toolmaker that works on moulds every day. maintaining them is not hat expensive they last for a very long time. Games workshop models are ridiculously overpriced. for the cost of a dreadnight you can buy a 1/100 scale gundam model with waaaaaay more parts
"Being expensive" is objective.
I do not consider that 40k is expensive, and I make less money (my wage per month is lower) than the average working person in Finland.
I also live in a big-ish town home, I've two kids and a wife.
And I still do not think that 40k is an expensive hobby.
It's all about how much money you are willing to put into it.
You can make anything expensive, or you can cut the expenses of a hobby (to a point, at least). It's all about your choices.
Hobbies are designed to turn your extra money and extra time into a thing you enjoy doing. They are inherently "too expensive" because you COULD spend that money on something practical. But let me ask you this, would you rather have a brand new car battery, or a brand new army box?
Anyway now I have something fun to paint while I wait for AAA.
What an absurd thing to say.
I mean I don't feel like your being completely fair here. Sure a starter box is 85 dollars but that isn't a full size list. When you play a game you want to play a full game, not a portion of a full game. That is why people often times buy doubles of starter boxes. It's the cheapest way to get a lot of models. Its also worth noting that console prices drop substantially as time goes on. They might have been $350-$400 dollars then but withing a year or two they drop a ton. For the past year you jave been able to consistently find the xbox amd playstation for $200. Another aspect to consider is time. When someone buys a game for $60 they are getting a product that has had substantially more time and money invested into it by the people making the product. For instance, you cam either buy a box of 5 miniatures for $50 which was probably made by a smaller team withing the entire company or you can buy a $60 game that has as much complexity as the entire game of 40k and was made by a development team of around 120 people over the past 3-4 years.
I present this idea to support my argument that these games are very expensive. Do I enjoy playing these games? Yes, but I still find them to be extremely expensive for the product I am actually receiving. This has become even more abundantly clear to me with the ability of 3d printing. So many people can offer 3d models as extremely reasonable prices and I can print them for very little cost and they often times look just as good as a GW mini. Do I still buy models? Yes, even though they are expensive I am willing to pay the price (sometimes) to play with friends.
I think the main issue with your argument is you want to compare the price with time you like to use it. I like to compare the price with how mich money and time is invested into making the product. If you use my standards, this hobby is expensive. If you use your method, the hobby is just as expensive as any other hobby. I understand using time of enjoyment as justification of a purchase because this is why I too have invested so mich into miniature games. But I still use my standards when comparing the price of this hobby to others.
haha the top recommended video from this is "Poorhammer 40k - What is it?"
Reminds of a guy i saw with an entire army made from Sprue.
I blew up a kleenex box in a tournament once. It was being played as a Tau devilfish XD
the answer is no, it isnt too expensive, it may be too expensive for some people, but as a hobby it wouldnt exist if it were "too expensive" , also if GW was too expensive it would go under, but it is arguably the no1 wargames company in the world, it sells plastic toy soldiers, if they were too expensive the company would fold quickly, they have a product people want to buy and are willing to pay for. So the answer is no it isnt too expensive, if YOU think it is, then that is on YOU.
GW do not make excessive profits, the people who work for them are not paid like rock stars, and the vast majority of its products are designed and manufactured in the UK, not in some Chinese sweatshop and GW are not tapping up its fan base for kickstarter money every other month, they invest there own money and take real risks and support the hobby with actual physical stores creating thousands of jobs worldwide.
personally im happy to pay a little more for the quality and added value they bring to the hobby compared to companies who contribute very little and risk nothing and dont support home grown manufacturers and designers
Agreed. 100%
Part of the problem of comparing wargaming to something like PC gaming or console gaming is that those devices can serve a purpose outside of just gaming. There is also the issue of how starters are not enough to play with most people. They are the beginning of your purchases.With your example of the computer that 800 dollars also gives you something to do work on, watch shows on, and game on (there are a myriad of other things you do with a pc as well). Now as steam has pretty much become standard for pc gaming you can reasonable use their prices and sales. I can get five games on sale for the price of one start collecting.
Two issues that help with the view that it is expensive is the time investment and the issue of other players. For those that need to build and paint, you have the cost of equipment as you said but also the issue of the time needed to do all of that. Then there is the issue of player base. While it is nice to say just play cheaper wargames that isn't always an option for people. The local scene is what dictates what is played (and yes people can try to change it but that won't always work). The single biggest game to help fight these two issues has been x-wing as it is popular enough and you don't have to invest time building and painting. So in theory you can find people to play with and you don't need anything other than the models. Now there is still the issue of being "competitive" but anyone that is trying to do that at a serious level will need to actually shell out money pretty much no matter the hobby.
Something else that you didn't talk about is the lifespan of the games. You buy a video game, you finish it, how often do you go back to play it? I bought a GW dwarf army about 17 years ago and I still use it. Sure it was expensive at the time, but I still use it. The only video game that i've really gone back to playing that long after is FF7.
+David Law That's also very true. Many wargames are viable for years and years after release, and not all video games are, especially online multiplayer ones. Thanks for watching!
That depends, man. Some videogames, I've bought three times due to putting it down for a year, tossing the disk, and deciding I wanted to play it again. I played fallout 3 just last night (boy, I love that game) and this time, I needed a Windows patch for it to run at all. I'm playing it modded to heck and back, of course, but steam still sells it! Videogames with big followings get life in post. There are more Star Wars Galaxies (defunct mmo) servers now than when Sony ran the damn thing. Resources like good ole games and such still sell old 8 bit games (to run on an emulator). Skyrim is still in circulation!
If you wargame anywhere aside from exclusively your buddies, you have to stay current. Sometimes the model backfires on the publisher, and you get things like Pathfinder (expanded DnD for people who loved a particular edition, which turns out was everybody). GW has seen this when 40kers started dropping out somewhere around 7th ed. At some point, one must simply support their product. Attempts to milk it eventually backfire. The hope is that there is enough turnover that new players subsidize players who no longer expand, but the fact that everyone knows 40k is the most expensive game to play by a large margin is starting to show.
I feel like this argument can be summed up with one sentence: a hobby is as expensive as you want it to be. Comparing starter kits across companies is a cool discussion to have though.
One game we usually compare wargaming to in terms of price is Magic the Gathering. You can of course go cheap with a starter box and a few packs of cards, but to stay competitive with even one branch of the game can run you more that getting a decent army ready to paint.
True, if you want to play competitively in nearly any of these games, you can spend a lot. Thanks for watching!
I see where you're coming from, and if tabletop models were way cheaper I might still be into tabletop games today.
I used to play Warhammer 40k but got burnt out from the constant rules editions revisions (and associated costs of new rules books) and product prices.
Add to that a declining community of players and terrible resell value of models, and I stopped seeing the value in investing in tabletop miniature games.
+D Green315 I generally don't see it as a financial investment (like I'm investing for my future or anything) but I see it as an investment in my enjoyment and stress relief. I enjoy that I don't need to buy all those books and such with Age of Sigmar. If 40k ever moved to a model like that, I could see myself maybe moving back into it. Thanks for watching!
I recently got into Warhammer 40k by buying into the Tau and I spent around $200. I got the citadel hobby starter kit, Fire warriors, pathfinders, and a riptide. I still have to get a codex and other fun things. I don't even think I have everything for a team yet! At this point I don't even care about playing the game as much as I did though. Miniature painting has became a new hobby of mine. :)
+Aj Jaramillo I love to play, but I love to sit in my basement and hobby (while listening to podcasts and audiobooks) even more. It's a great hobby. Thanks for watching!
Yeah my hobby is exclusively modelling and landscape since I no longer play. I've settled on 1/144 scale gundam (soooo many cool robots) and kitbashing contemporary military into sci fi. I love the 40k universe, but I can get an awesomely detailed, ridiculously articulated robot for 15-30 bucks. At most, that's half the price of five squaddies in 40k. Forget tanks and mecha and buildings, that's crazy money. Doing a small layout in 40k would cost me a semester of tuition in models alone. When your plastic army men are rivaling college tuition, you done effed up your pricing. Although when you consider the amount of people who won't let you field something you don't have the official model for (and it must be painted), maybe they tapped a particular market.
6:50 $40 retail, or $25 on Amazon. This is what people are generally complaining about when they say the game is expensive. A 35-40% markup above the markup that is already added by the manufacturer. We know that this is what keeps the LGS in business, but it is still hard to swallow sometimes.
+Wreqt Why? You generally pay higher mark-up with every other industry on the planet. Average mark up for furniture from any chain is store is 65%. Electronics - sometimes as high as 80%. Groceries - normally 50%. Some industries it's 100% or higher.
+Wreqt It's true, brick and mortar is usually more expensive than Amazon. However, I did a video about supporting your local game store ( ruclips.net/video/lL5x0gkYgKQ/видео.html ) and the idea is that if you play at your local game store but don't buy stuff there (because you get it all online), you're basically loitering and eventually they'll go out of business and you won't be able to play there anymore. If you only play at your house with you and your friends, then you're not using the brick and mortar store's resources, so you don't have to support them. I'm not saying that online buying is bad in all cases, but if you play at a store, you should support it. Thanks for watching!
+Derek Osborne FYI other commenters: this guy knows what he's talking about, he's worked in the industry. Hey, man. Thanks for watching!
Tabletop Minions I totally agree with you. It can still be hard at times, and I still think this is what people are complaining about when they say it is too expensive. Mind you, I don't personally complain about the price of things I voluntarily participate in. If a game were to get too expensive for me, I just wouldn't play it any more.
Derek Osborne I know that. I'm not saying I personally say that, or think it is a problem, but when the markup is so obvious, people don't like it.
This video was brought to us by the number 40.
+Dave R Kinda seems like it, doesn't it? Thanks for watching!
Great video.
I was a warhammer 40k player for a while until 7th edition came way too fast. The cost of army upkeep was simply too much for the cost of books.
That lead me to start with RPG's because while the monetary value of a rule book goes down with age, rules themselves can hold value for a group much longer than a game like 40k.
I did finally bite the bullet and got Frostgrave and Dragon rampant from osprey games. With my RPG miniatures now pulling double duty I feel it adds value to my collection while being quite affordable.
That "double-duty" idea is a good one. Thanks for watching!
War gaming is cheap As fuck. I play warhammer 40k and it his hands down my cheapest hobby. You have to look at like this... take the price you spent on the box of models, divide it by the ammount of hours it took you to complete. It works out to like 2$ per hour. In this day and age, find me entertainment that cheap, hell here in Toronto it costs 20$ to park somewhere for an hour
Gundam build is cheaper than but I left that to play with my minis when I'm done building n paint
For me it's time of enjoyment vs cost, sure I've spent several hundred pounds on xwing but I've had probably 300+ games of it (and I'm still terrible )
Which makes it cost about £1 an hour which is great value in my opinion comparing it to other hobbies like movies or video games
+Michael Ormiston I actually use that standard on videogames, pays up most of the time. I dont really play wargames tho, so the painting will probably not make that standard, so i should start playing i guess.
+Michael Ormiston I feel that's a very important way to look at it, as well. Thanks for watching!
I have 5 hobbies that I constantly am engaged in. Guitar, airsoft, board and mini games, magic the gathering and cooking. Initially my equipment for guitar, airsoft and cooking required $500 minimum and that was beginner grade or absolute bare bones stuff. I've decided that for that price I can enter and enjoy a hobby and begin to pursue more advanced stuff. It keeps me from feeling below the average or pressured to spend more soon. The expectation to get into, involved and compete for minimal spending is where a bitterness begins but if you know $500 will go into the hobby eventually before you start it's harder to feel betrayed.
I like to look at the time you can get out of what you spend on the hobby also. Also because I primarily enjoy the painting side of the hobby.
So I don't see it always as this much $ for only 5 guys - but rather, that's how much its going to cost for me to get this many hours out of modelling, painting & possibly playing with some minis I like the look of and can see myself enjoying to paint :)
+TheManAmongAll Same here.That's the value. Thanks for watching!
I have easily purchased $8-10k (and sold for various profits and losses since on ebay ) in Battletech minis since it was my introduction to wargaming back in 1989. You know, the 2014 starter box for Battletech could possibly be one of the best complete war games available...only costs 49 bucks on Amazon and includes 26 mechs, (paint able and 2 you assemble) two high quality maps, rules and dice. I'm surprised it didn't get a mention. great guide, regardless.
I so frequently forget about Battletech as I don't know anyone that plays it. Thanks for watching!
Tabletop Minions a lot of wargamer purists don't count it. They say it's more of a traditional board game. Some fash about the rule complexity. I think it's more related to the "what I do is the best, and the rest is for silly kids and girls" thing you see in insular communities. Fanboys ruin everything. ☹
I go to a game shop that most of the people there only really play magic. there are 2 other stores not far off that do more wargaming But you go into that store for a warhammer game or I take out my reaper D&D miniatures( I can't stand the bones almost all of my reaper minies are metal.). And I get the whole, Miniatures are expensive from these mouthbreathing cardfloppers. All while they come in and spend 300$ on a few boxes of magic cards. For 300$ I could get everything I would like to finish my Admech army as well as a starter set for Warmachine, and flames of war. But admittedly if I had 300$ I would be upgrading my computer because my current system can't play warmachine tactics, warhammer total war, Mordheim, or vermintide. Though right now my skaven warband for real Mordheim is lookin pretty good.
mordhiem is bad ass
Patrick Green
I really need to get back to making terrain pieces for it. I have a stack of foamboard a foot thick for making buildings and walls.
And the thing is, your minis aren't going to become outdated. Their cards will be out of meta, or out of the current set within a year.
I remember getting this pretty solid plastic T34/85 model (Don't remember the scale, its been ages) in Lithuania for like 6 euros, about 5.90-ish USD, I believe, although some parts were lower quality, most of it was really solid and sturdy, the only really bad part was that the barrel was too flimsy, so I ended up bending it a bit. Still, a solid, sturdy T34/85 with a ton of detailing bits (Winch ropes, side baggage, turret hatch, turret rotation, vertical gun movement, so many more tiny little detailed bits) for about 5.90-ish USD is really good, because when I checked some Amazon prices on other T34/85 models, they cost like 20-30 USD for a single tank.
A counter point: Most of the examples you brought are things that have multiple uses while miniatures generally only have 2 uses (painting and playing with).
This is neat video though and hopefully allows people to see a different perspective on the cost of war gaming.
I was thinking the same thing, with a 800 dollar PC+Monitor etc investment i can play, browse, work, listen to music watch movies etc
And then there is the Point of who to play.
In most of your examples you listed the Price for 1 Player. Ok X-Wing is for two, but if i want to expand my game i have to buy Imps und Rebs likewise. A PC is useable by the whole familiy.
Then there is Terrain, it can be made very cheaply, yes, if you have the right tools but i would add another 100 bucks for the first table+ terrain pieces, tools, materials etc.
So we have 100 for paints, 100 for terrain and then the price for the actual game.
For me personally it is a joy per hour thing. I can get 100+ hours out of a 20bucks PC Game.
On the other hand there are some armys on my shelf which are wainting for months and years to be played with.
So, they where not worth. Considering i do not like painting that much a 2h game every couple of weeks is a pretty lousy deal....
Lurch Vater You make some great points that I totally missed. I don't want anyone to get me wrong though, I really do like tabletop gaming, I just wish it was more in my price range and I think I'm one of hundreds of thousands if not millions who feel that way.
A $500 computer would go in the trash... an $800 computer... would go in the trash. If you want to be able to have use of that computer beyond basic office functions... you're looking at around $2k (this isn't even accounting for the cost of a monitor, speakers, etc).
Silly rabbits :P
John West IV If you buy Alienware I suppose :)
ARescueToaster Uh.. no. That costs more :P
not a bad paint kit choice, but one can get acrylic paint for $0.45-0.65 a tube and thin it 2:1 with Windex and have great miniature paint. then use some cheapo brushes to start. I still use acrylic hobby paint from Michael's, I tried velejo gw and a fee other paints but other than more color choices the end results are the same for me. I don't paint golden daemon standard, but it usually impresses. I would probably also add that if you own an air compressor an inexpensive air brush can be a great addition to a beginning painter for even coverage of base coats
I probably would have started collecting 40k in my late teens when I had a job and an ebay account, but never found anybody to play with.
When talking "expensive" you have to compare like with like.
So let's take another wargame. Memoir '44. In the core box you have 2 full armies, a ton of terrain and plenty of variation of rules to keep you playing for a while. For a pricepoint of 50 euros, you're playing a fun wargame.
Unfair comparison? I don't think so. After sinking too much money into other wargames, I found that Memoir '44 scratches that same itch at a price that I consider fair.
Great video, good points good listen really enjoyed thanks for making this.
+Luetin09 I'm glad you liked it. Thanks for watching!
I agree there and agree to the point, a wise man once told me "Its not a real hobby if it does not have the potential to ruin you" ... the key word is potential, any hobby can be "too expensive" if you let it.
Luetin09 daddy
The phrase 'if you have imagination, you don't need money' is rarely totally true, but it's very nearly true in wargaming. There are loads of free wargaming resources online, and it's possible to produce very attractive tabletops and minis with next to no money. Of course, there will be other investments- both time and effort.
+Joe McLaren I generally don't count time as an investment if you're enjoying it. I enjoy painting and building, so I look at that as a bonus. Thanks for watching!
That's true if you have a personal group who will indulge you in your experimentation. If you don't, you're stuck with the condescending purists at the local shop who define their self-worth almost completely by their mastery of a specific game.
You're right wargaming need not be expensive and can be done very enjoyably really cheaply. I got my daughter into it by using lego figures and working out kinda D&D type rules for movement and hit points armour class etc. We had a lot of fun.
Games Workshop is another story. In my opinion theyr'e just being short-sighted and making bad decisions. I know there's nothing new in either my opinion or GW's attitude, however as the father of an 11 year old who's very keen on Age of Sigmar I really do think they've missed the point. On the one hand they made a huge change that threw the doors wide open for kids (or those too young to earn a wage in general) to get into the game by simplifying the rules and making it much cheaper to get started (than 40K etc) - but on the other hand they still insist on pricing every box with a "how much can we possibly get away with?" policy as opposed to having the balls to drop their margins and go for MORE sales.
We all want them to be a successful company with a healthy profit margin, but they seem to be clinging on to a pretty exclusive and relatively tiny potential sales demographic, when Age of Sigmar rules make it possible to get a really huge number of new people into the hobby. They wouldn't even have to change their per box pricing if they did what so many other companies do with special offers to drive sales - just simple stuff like "buy 3 get the cheapest half price" - that kind of deal.
Pretty much everybody else does this kind of thing - because it works to drive sales and give customers that wonderful "I got a bargain" feeling. A happy customer comes back.
Last time I took my daughter to a GW shop I left promising myself that I would do everything I possibly could to avoid spending money there, including alternative paint suppliers, eBay etc etc. I'm sure I won't be the only parent feeling that way and that's a huge missed opportunity for GW.
sorry for the rant!
I think that they are trying to target the beginners with the 'Start Collecting!' boxes, which are actually really good values. Take a look at those. Many of them would retail for as much as $150 individually, but each kit is only $85. Thanks for watching!
I am happy that our biggest local game store has expanded they miniatures selection from GW only to having Frostgrave, Malifaux, WMH, Infinity and FoW as well. It really gives more options and maybe helps expanding player based of those games after so long of GW's monopoly.
It's great to hear that they're stocking other lines. Thanks for watching!
"Painted with elbow"
Ok...that was funny to imagine someone painting with elbow :D
You made a good point in this video. In my case, i buy 1-2 miniatures every year (let's say 4-5 if i feel very good) so probably my purchase limit is kinda higher than most people that have to build an army... i just buy minis for painting so can spend 50$ for a single miniature, if it worth the costs
P.S: i saw how Smaug costs on GW' website...and i can say...THAT'S EXPENSIVE. But ye, noone force you to buy it.
Good video.
The answer I've found is that because some miniatures are dirt cheap, people feel all miniatures should be dirt cheap. Once there are miniatures that are not dirt cheap, people compare the two and say "thats too expensive because I can get these guys for real cheap, so those expensive guys shouldn't be that expensive."
Also Happy belated 3ed year Anniversary of your channel! Keep up the great work.
+husk1184 Thanks! Yeah, I missed a bunch of milestones recently as I've been so busy: I hit 100 videos (a bit ago), I missed 15,000 subscribers (actually passed 16,000 this morning), and I missed my three-year anniversary. Thanks for watching!
I think a cool thing about Wargaming (talking from my experience with 40k) is that, unless a particular minature goes OOP or loses rules, they don't depreciate a lot in value compared to something like video games. I can buy a box of Necron Warriors and model them for around £20-£25 (taking supplies into account) and if I get bored I can sell them for pretty close to their original price, assuming they're built and painted well. If I buy a video game, I'm instantly losing somewhere between 20%-30% of their value, wait a few months and it's down to 40-50%.
+RegosAwesome Very true. Strangely, I've found that painted warjacks for Warmachine sell for less on eBay than unpainted ones. That was sort of weird. Thanks for watching!
Hi! Let me explain you my point of view, which complements your video. First, we should agree on what expensive means. I find your definition somewhat incomplete. When it comes to leisure, the price of something is the relation between the fun I have, and the time it lasts. Of course, for food, shelter, health it may be different. But for 'pleasure' things, I think the fun-time relation is the best measuring concept. So, first we have to set the basis of a 'fair' fun-time price. I suggest one of the most popular and accepted hobbies: cinema. In my city here in Spain, a regular cinema ticket costs about 8 euros. I don't know how much they ask for a cinema ticket in the UK or USA, 6 pounds?, 15 dollars? Anyway, just bear your regular cinema ticket price in mind. Don't add the pop corns and coke to the deal. Just the ticket price. OK? The cinema experience provides about 3 hours of fun time. Let's say 30 minutes of pre-talking with your friends, 2 hours of the actual movie, and 30 post-movie discussion. Fair enough so far? Well. People are happy to do that and it is considered mainstream, so nobody is going to tell you you're wasting your money.
Now, how much does an hour of fun time cost? For me, 8 euros divided by 3... that's 2,6 euros. The figure may be rounded to 3 euros if you put the coke/beer you have in the cinema or during the post-movie chat with your friends.
Now, a miniature priced 10 euros (let's say an Infinity miniature). You need to prepare it: you can go for a xacto blade, and some superglue for 3 euros both in one of these all-at-1-euro shops. You can have a can of primer for 12 euros, of which you would use... what? 10%? Ok, 1,2 euros. Some sand for the basing of 1 miniature... 0'30 cents? That makes 15,5 euros total.
You will need paints, and brushes, which a decent set may cost what? 60 euros? OK, you're going to spoil/consume about 5% of the pots or life-time of the brush... so that's another 3 euros.
So, how many hours of fun will I have with 18,5 euros? Using the cinema ticket reference, it should be 6 hours and a half or more to be considered 'fair'.
Do you spend more that that time gluing, painting, and playing with the miniature? In my case, definitely yes. To paint a single miniature I need like 50-60 hours (I know you guys could do it in like 5 hours, I am really slow at painting lol). But anyway, just painting it covers the whole time of needed fun. Then put on top the hours you take building your list, the games in which you use the miniature, and time you spend watching your awesome mini at home just for your own satisfaction.
You can argue that 'but you cannot play with a single miniature' Well, yes.... and I may have overlooked some issues here and there... but I think you can get the idea of how I roughly calculate if something is valuable for me or not.
You may use a different reference instead of cinema. How many hours of fun time does it give a videogame nowdays? Netflix? RUclips? A football match ticket? A music CD? Pick the reference you prefer and apply the logic I followed. You may be surprised that that apparently expensive 85 euros Bloodthirster actually provides a better relation price-funtime than... that Starbucks coffee you happily pay.... or not! :) You decide. Set your reference and compare yourself.
One of the things that I thought about in my recent hiatus from gaming (about 5ish years, I think?) is that, for me, one of the drawbacks about gaming is that it doesn't necessarily produce anything other than enjoyment. Granted, enjoyment is important! But when I figured out how much freetime I had, I decided to put most of it towards growing my leatherworking skill and business, especially because leather can, theoretically, pay for itself when you sell something like a wallet or a belt, etc.
Now though, I'm starting to feel a bit burned out on leather and I think its because most, if not all, of my free time goes to it. I think gaming definitely provides a nice break to come back refreshed to other hobbies (and vice versa with gaming), its inspiring, and its something that doesn't necessarily need a greater purpose than to look pretty and play a game with other people (social interaction, that bane of introverts everywhere).
A bit late, but just my .02
Sometimes using your free time for a skill that's kind of a job can turn that into more job and less free time. Thanks for watching!
I notice you permit the console gamer a TV on the expectation of owning one already; is it not also fair to permit the PC gamer a *simple* PC? My laptop with Intel HD4000 graphics surprised me dramatically in what it's actually capable of; because of the effect of console gaming retarding the progression of hardware demands, most games of the Xbox 360 era are quite playable, and a large portion of modern games aren't very demanding anyway. Discounting the cost of the PC (which one probably needs anyway), the PC gaming hobby can only cost $5 here and there when you find a neat game on Steam sale, with no "entry fee" per se.
But I agree; in a similar ultra-cheap manner I'm trying to get into Kings of War, and $30 or so for a nice, hardcover rulebook and a few bucks for woodblocks to represent units and terrain (to start out) isn't too bad.
Games like Kings of War have really reasonably priced books, and other systems like Wrath of Kings and Dark Age and Age of Sigmar are free downloads. Thanks for watching!
Privateer Press also released the core rules for Warmachine/Hordes for free (sadly, no fluff from the factions, just the basic rules), and they also have their bundle packs twice a year, if I remember correctly (summer and winter), so that's a good place to start as well :)
+ArchArturo Infinity is free as well isn't it? And you don't seem to need a lot of models for that either.
I'd also recommend Frostgrave for an inexpensive game to get started with.
+Drink Spin Run - An RPG Talk Show Podcast Absolutely! It's a great book at a surprisingly good price, and you can use whatever miniatures you want. I've built two warbands and they're on the table lineup to get painted so I can do battle reports soon. Thanks for watching!
The hobby I compare this to the most, is model railroading. There is a whole range of options, from buying pre-painted snap-together stuff, to scratchbuilding everything and painting it all.
You have the models that move around, and the terrain base, and scenery that goes on the base.
In my opinion, even (most) GW miniatures stack up pretty well price wise vs model trains.
I like your comparisons with PC and console gaming. I've bought a few decent spec gaming PCs, consoles and hardware over the years and one Warlord Titan. The PC hardware is worth very little after a few years (Thrustmaster flightsticks excepted) but that Warlord will still have a high resale value in years to come and when properly built and well painted even be worth more than the original price.
+leakycheese Yes, potentially true. Thanks for watching!
I've seen people play this at my local hobby shop, it definitely has peaked my interest. I'm happy I found your channel to learn a lot more. Thank you.
Glad to help. I hope you can try out a demo of a game or two someday. Thanks for watching!
We're going to need a bigger boat.
With Ebay now, people can no longer use GW's pricing as an excuse not to get into fantasy wargaming. There are numerous gaming dealers on Ebay who sell GW stuff new in shrinkwrap, often with like 10% or 20% discounted off retail, and often times they offer free shipping on top of it.
So, between getting some stuff directly from GW and using Ebay to flesh out the rest, it's not as expensive as it is perceived to be.
And, as TTM said, getting into PC or console gaming is EVERY BIT as expensive as getting into miniature wargaming, in some respects they're more expensive.
+Joe Moe I agree. I still like to buy stuff from my local store (to help support them, as I play there a lot) but online can certainly be a cheap way to go. Thanks for watching!
"did I just rap" Actually made me laugh, I love your videos Atom :)
Sometimes it sneaks up on you. Thanks for watching!
I think Wargaming might have a larger upfront cost compared to a lot of other hobbies. You first start a game and you'll need a rulebook, one or two units at least, brushes, glue, paints, potentially tools etc. That adds up to a substantial initial purchase, which if you're starting a game new then it can be quite daunting. Of course in time it levels out. You already have all your brushes and tools, and you'll only need to buy more glue or paints to refill or get new colours. You already have your rulebook, so unless you start a new army, need a new edition of supplemental material, you're set. New units will be the main expense at that point. So I think it's expensive to start, but not so bad once you're into it.
Any hobby comes with a buy in. The real bummer comes when you spend countless hours assembling and painting, only to find out that no one in your area plays the game.
Then you just have to build and paint a second force so you can teach other people to play with your models and try to get them interested enough to buy their own. Thanks for watching!
+Tabletop Minions i havent done that with seven people i promise
Excellent reasoned article: A quick recommend for three "low entry budget" systems. Song of Blades and Heroes (Mentioned in this vid'), Pulp Alley (Great characterful fun), Frostgrave.
All produce a skirmish with between 6 and 10 figures per side (Though you can field more should you wish).
But beware - skirmishes tend to require a lot of terrain - This can cost a lot, or can be scratchbuilt / improvised.
GW are price gouging like crazy, but there's other game systems out there, just good luck finding an opponent.
+spentfromnz That's why you have to become a game advocate for lesser-known games that you like and want others to play. Check my other video: ruclips.net/video/0burw0TGGkM/видео.html and thanks for watching!
Love the atat walker on the shelf in the back drop just chillin 👍 love the channel btw, you got me back into wargaming!
"painted with their elbows", well said :D
+ChewySmokey I should actually try painting something with my elbow sometime. Maybe it's actually really awesome an we all currently scoff at it. Thanks for watching!
When people complain about wargaming being expensive compared to video games, the detractors often compare the full price of a wargame to the price of a full video game.
When a wargamer purchases a new army, the gamer can only interact with a small portion of the mechanics. Buying a wargame rulebook, a single army is not pricey, but buying a new element of the game -- in the form a new army -- can be very expensive. I have no idea how much even a small wargame could cost if a player bought every model and book to be released. A market wargame cannot be fully formed game by it's very nature.
On the other hand, a video game enthusiast will only need to purchase a single game and receive most, if not all, mechanical elements of the game. Most video games contain more than one viable mechanical path, but a wargame with a single starting army only allows a single method of play. In essence, the video game can contain a complete game. Even parts of the game a single player will not interact through a single play through. Tabletop wargames do not have this luxury.
Of course, the price comes from having a material product needed to be crafted from tangible goods instead of digital resources. On the other hand, if we calculate value through the hours of enjoyment garnered, video games are usually a better value. A good wargame will provide countless hours of fun and exploration, through painting and modelling, but requires cash for more models and books to extend the life of the game. A good video game can provide many hours of fun and exploration through play, disregarding expansion packs and other expandable content, allows for more content for less cash invested.
I think a better analogy would be comparing wargames to Magic the Gathering. Both only allow the players to buy a portion of the game.
There's always frost grave.
***** um wat?
***** Why? 0.o
+Geran Arthy
I was going to mention the same thing.
Luis Nin But why? is it because not many people play frost grave or what?
Saga can be cheap, a box of plastics and a blister of metal characters.
Its probably the most expensive hobby I have. Too expensive is impossible to answer though. Depends on you, your income, what wargame you get into etc. Its not a cheap hobby though.
I agree though that there are different levels of getting into wargaming and most often people look at how much it is to get into warhammer rather than how much it is to get into wargaming.
Wargaming isn't expensive... There are more games out there than what Games Workshop sell.
+Two Plus Two Very true. Thanks for watching!
I remember a thing my friend said about Wargaming as well, if you're into games, new games come out all the time, expansions come out and stuff. For wargames, once you have all those units, you have them. They don't get outdated, you can use those minis for a ton of things.
Also, on hero clix, I loved that game :P It can be fun, but even in hero clix, there are, expensive figures/cards. Some of them were collector pieces, but just like any TCG the figures come in booster packs and some of them are more rare than others, so you could spend like $100 on a team either from buying boosters or from buying team members 2nd hand. Food for thought.
One of the things I love about wargaming is that once I have the models painted, I have them and can use them forever, or just keep them in a display case. Thanks for watching!
They can most certainly become outdated, edition-nerfed or buffed, blah blah. Unless you play exclusively with personal friends (always the best bet, imo), you're stuck in the ecosystem. Some tourneys will give you crap if your minis sport a different loadout than your list shows. GW built an ecosystem of purists with 40k, and they make enough from them that screw you if you don't want to play the most expensive wargame on the market.
Its all relevant to your own personal level of disposable income.
As a entrepreneur and economists that is false. 100 dollars is 100 dollars regardless who carries it
Infinity deserved a mention: $45 for a starter box with 6 figures, free rules, raid your recycling box for some terrain (cans and milk cartons). It also it well respected and you should be able to find players anywhere. Battletech has an introductory box set with dice, mounted maps, and ~25 mechs for $45 and that is an older design but a beautiful game (albeit not everyone's taste).
+Arthur Bugorski Infinity is starting to get more of a foothold around me, but it's still pretty few and far between, at least in my area. I'm glad to see them growing as a brand, though. Thanks for watching!
...Infinity was too small to mention but Malifaux wasn't? One of us is living in an atypical community... here Malifaux is something you have to Google whereas people play Infinity (considering that Battletech is almost as big as WarmaHordes here, it's probably me).
I guess that's the strength of GW products: they are the only ones playable everywhere.
I've got myaself an 25 point warmachine army for less than 100$. Yar har be pirates!
+Игорь Костоев There are always ways to save some money in wargaming. Thanks for watching!
The point of the hobby isn't saving money. You can play bottle caps with downloaded pdf, the hobby isn't about this kind of people. Здарова, соотечественник))
Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes. 5 Games being run at GENCON 2017. I would be happy to show anyone the book and talk about it. Find us in the 19&One area. Games Plus will have it for sale in the vendor hall.
I miss playing Heroscape. That was a pretty cheap older game.
+MiniGamePainter With the plastic hexes? I know a guy who played it a lot with his kids. I've never tried it. Thanks for watching!
For very cheap Warhammer-license fun, take a look at Fantasy Flight's "Warhammer:Discwars". 4 complete armies in one box, with terrain,dice, & rulers. It even has expansions for 2 more armies.
>spends 6 min talking about how expensive other things are
+Alexander Stanfield I enjoyed that. It put things into perspective and helped him make an excllent point.
Omair Iqbal Well I didnt need that because I have a basic grasp of economics
I got into wargaming back in middle school with Heroscape. $40 for absolutely everything you needed to play. By the end of it I had probably spent $400-$500 on all the add-ons and extra figures and such, but that was over the course of a few years, so I never really felt it was expensive. Sure if that was 500 all at once it would have been a huge investment for a middle school/high schooler, but over time it really wasn't.
+Medi Lord Yeah, I didn't really touch on the 'over time' stuff because all hobbies generally get more expensive as you do it more. Eventually, that pencil you found is going to wear out, and then you'll need a new pencil. Thanks for watching!
Three words; Plastic Soldier Company.
+Ultradalek7 I have purchased tanks from them for my Flames of War army. They're nice and reasonably priced. Although, I find Battlefront's stuff to generally be reasonably priced, as well. Thanks for watching!
Production costs for a mini:
Molds are made from a super expensive rubbery material for durability. They will wear out after about 20-30 uses needing to be replaced. Costing a few hundred each time.
Shipping costs, Storage costs(these are astronomical), taxes, import costs, paying for the development of the lore, design of the models, sculpting of the models, concepts, art, paying rent for the stores, paying power/gas/water, paying for trade deals, paying for events, paying for websites/media/etc, researching new paints, opening new factories, opening new stores, researching new casting techniques AND then the biggest cost: Employees. All the staff in the stores, factories, logistics, customer support, administration, pr, designers, artists, marketeers, book writers, playtesters, rule makers, ect. ect. ect.
I think I'm still missing at least 50% of the cost factors that go into production of mini's at GW scale and quality.
That all said. GW is in a power position being market leader. You could estimate that on average they are overpricing the models by about 5-10% But it's a company making money. Just like all companies in the ever made. It's normal.
The answer is a big fat YES!
I'm getting back into the hobby and want to (finally) make my Space Wolves army. I plan on cutting costs by getting two of the new starter kits because they contain the max amount of the units I want to include in the army and then add-on from there (Dreads, Stormfang, etc.) Not only that, they're playable as-is right out of the box, which is even more exciting in army creation.
+PhantomRonin Those kits are really sweet, and help people out when they're trying to get into the game. Thanks for watching!
I'm with you man. I said this on Facebook recently but I've got three friends: one collects car audio equipment and camera gear, another flies model aircraft, and a guy I used to hang out with about 15 years ago spent all of his money on aquarium fish (and pot). All three of them would laugh at me complaining about a fifty dollar troops choice. Heck, if I want to run another Spartan those things are $90 for an afternoon of getting muddy and all I've got at the end of it is a medal & a t-shirt.
+Brooks Sligh If you enjoy wargaming as much as your friends enjoy their hobbies (which is impossible to quantify, but stick with me here) then yes, your hobby sounds like the cheapest. Thanks for watching!
Very interesting subject.
You just showed you can get into AoS for about half of what you would need for a new console: 85$ start collecting + 60$ reaper paints + 40$ supplies= 185$ vs 400$ console.
Thing is, no one sees that(which I think is why GW supplies also being expensive clearly does not play in their favor).
They look at 40k and think: wow this is out of hand (basically a new 800$ PC at entry level).
Even when presented with the lowest entry level(185$ AoS), most of the time the 13-17 yr-old demo would rather save that money for the next console...so to some extend GW is shutting potential clients out by being too expensive for their core market.
I think they not only need to be cheaper(in this case half) but much cheaper at entry level then their competition for people to even consider it.
I would say you'd need around a quarter of the price of console gaming at entry level for new clientele to emerge...ok maybe they can't, but it would work I promise! XD
+Hard-Edge Painting As I said in a previous comment, I don't think that the 13-17 crowd is really their current audience. I think they're trying to get there some, but I don't find younger kids playing wargames too much. I think it's more the people over 18 that start to get into it more. Thanks for watching!
+Hard-Edge Painting
You can also do AoS with dollar store figures and paints. ;)
Uncle Atom,
I agree with your sentiments in this video. I have played miniatures wargames since I was in high school, but I always had other hobbies as well; hockey, paintball, bodyboarding. Bodyboarding is probably the cheapest; but you need to do a lot of driving to find the waves suitable for riding (gasoline costs money). I stopped playing paintball because it's at least $100 for a day at the field every weekend (food, gas, paintballs, field entry). Hockey is the best exercise but comes with a lot of injuries which get expensive. So miniature war gaming is the most ideal as you don't really have to leave the house, it's fun to do, and I don't get injured painting figures (and it's the least expensive overall of all my past hobbies). Still I find it hard to justify a $150 plastic greater daemon figure from GW, so I have abandoned them for Battlefront, Warlord, and Mantic which I find have better value. Keep producing awesome videos, your the best!
+Bretonnian If you don't get injured while painting miniatures, you're doing it wrong! Thanks for watching!
@tabletop First of all i want to complement you for several things. Video/audio quality. Its amazing. I mean there isn't alot of editing but this makes watching so easier. Also content is amazing regarding topics like how to paint that applies to every wargaming instead of just (for example) 40k.
Thanks for the compliments. I work hard on the channel and want it to look and sound as good as I can. Also, I find that generally the more topics that I do that apply to more players, the more views I get. Thanks for watching!
At the very least, lately GW has been pretty good about making the models really high quality for what you're paying in 8th edition.
The 8thed Primaris Marines are LOADS better than the old 2000's 3rd or 5thed Space Marines. The mold lines are way less prominent, so less filing and sanding is needed. They're bigger, more detailed and I haven't seen finecast in ages. The citadel paints are still too pricey for what you get, but you can always make due with 3rd party paints with no change to quality if you shop smart.
So yes, 40K can get pricey, but at least GW is trying to give you more value for your money nowadays.
Getting back in after a 10 year break. $200 just in paints and related tools. Luckily, I bought an obscene amount of Nids back when they were cheap, because I don't think I could bring myself to spend $500 on a new army of little plastic men. I see less and less new blood in 40k, kids just can't get their parents to fork over $50 for 5 plastic army men.
An argument can be made that time is money. So a person would have to ask how much their free time is actually worth. My best friend makes an argument that if he is willing to spend $20+ on a movie (driving out, possibly eating somewhere, snacks at the theater, ect), that spending $20+ on a Steam game for even a few hours of entertainment is worth it.
Personally, I see the same thing for war gaming. It can be an investment. If you don't like that Steam game, you really can't return it. But a 40k bass boat or a 40k army can be sold back to recoup some of your investment (figure half). Unlike that bass boat, I have no insurance for my figs, but I also can't get a loan using those figs as collateral. But once you have that initial investment made, getting additions or upgrades can be seen as minor costs comparatively.
Hey, you have $500+ sunk into that 40k army, but you are going to dump it because you are unwilling to buy a new codex or a new edition to keep playing? So you are going to go off, sell your $500+ worth of figs, recoup only $250 bucks because you wouldn't spend $60 or more? Sorry, but losing $250 is worse than $60 to me.
Yeah, if you are 16 years old, it feels like a lot of money. But your folks may chip in and pay for some figs (Christmas, Birthday, allowance, ect). You are not probably paying rent, so for you, that 'dead end job' you are working is all pure income. Suddenly that $250 paycheck for one week of work (all subjectively speaking) doesn't make those prices seem that steep. You blow one week on vehicles and the other on troops and you are done. It is like buying that new bass boat but refusing to spend $20 a year on a fishing license or $100 a year on registration.
Then there is the even cheaper route by just proxy-ing stuff. The number of times I have seen Styrofoam drop pods and the like is beyond count. Hey, as long as you and your friends have fun and accept it, it is cool, right? Sure, the rich old guys at the game store can act all snobbish and turn their noses up at you, but probably at some point and time as kids they used sticks for swords or phallic objects as guns. Everyone does it.
Point is, if you enjoy the game, if your time is worth that cost, you will find a way to afford it and play it.
+blktom For those that care, you can definitely return Steam games if you don't like them, for full cost, if you haven't played it over two hours and owned it for less than two weeks.
It's expensive but compared to others wargames, they are certainly not the most expensive in the market (and I was really shocked by that).
In fact the starter sets are some nice packs. 85$/€ for 49 minis, that's not terrible. 100$/€ for sigmar. But the quality is still there. In fact, the minis of Sigmar are really well done.
Totalt agree! As an avid console, handheld AND pc gamer with an average paycheck, being smart with my money is key. Maybe I hold back on something for a few months, wait on some sales, play something I haven't completed. And sure, I have spent a lot on aos, but I also have more models left to paint then I can get done soon, so I can basically stop buying stuff for a while and still do hobby for months. And that isn't even counting playing games with them once they are finished. I also have descent: journeys in the dark 2nd edition, with an expansion, which comes with a ton of models to paint for a cheap price overall. I notice when I want to play something, I often check storefronts on my machines. When I want to hobby, I just sit down at my kitchen table. One of those doesn't end up with my dumping money on an impulse. For me, the hobby is cheaper than most of my other gaming I do, and I love it for it :)
+Marius Mikkelsen Very good points. Thanks for watching!
"if it's that expensive, maybe you should save your money" how patronising is that??? not everyone can save alot of money...some of us in the real world are barely scraping by, but still want entertainment like everyone else.