"Where is the dumping?" Topic

I think a number of people on here promised, or at least said, that people would be dumping their WHFB stuff on ebay or elsewhere with the advent of Age of Sigmar.

I've been watching ebay and it isn't being dumped on there. There are a few things here and there (a couple of big armies that it looks like people gave up on, but no more so than any other time I've looked) but most of it is stuff being sold new at a price not far enough bellow retail as to convince me to buy it on-line vs. at my FLGS.

Are they dumping it somewhere else? It sure isn't showing up in the market place here.

Where are my predicted Warhammer bargains?

I also think Games Workshop was to file for bankruptcy by now also.

Not sure but AOS made me sell my Menoth Army. Really a shame.

JH

I gather it is being funneled into better rulesets like Kings of War and such.

I figure it would be 6-12 months before this happens. Time enough for some to try other rules or old sets of WHFB and make a final decision on moving their armies.

Just switched to Kings of War.

Where's that Mayan Calendar when you need it?

Yes, I have been watching for dumping as well, and while deals can be made, it's not the flood I was hoping for either. I just bought the Wood Elf Army book for slightly above MSRP. I have a feeling these army books will only go up in price as rarity becomes an issue, so IMHO buy now.

Damon.

I believe the comments previously made were observations that dumping was occurring…not that dumping was a surety. You already missed what rage dumping did occur, followed as has been mentioned, by a lull.

We are now in a "..if I dump this now my spouse/significant other will never trust my ridiculous hobby spending habitats again…..there must be something else I can do with it" time period. Lads and lasses will consider growing beards…. or looking to try another rules set.

I have not used my Skaven army in years as it was. I doubt I will ever play AOS but that won't effect my rat collection.

I haven't played WFB for several years & several editions – but keeping my minis – looking pretty seriously at KOW

"You already missed what rage dumping did occur, followed as has been mentioned, by a lull."

I didn't miss crap. I've been watching for cheap models on ebay for months now. I scoured Historicon's flea market and aside from a couple of decent deals on Slaaneshi stuff there really wasn't much WHFB going.

I did see some set his collection on fire but that was about it.

Just more talk. I knew it was never going to happen.

Outside the GW customer circle the ratio is 80% hatred and 20% "interesting", inside the GW customer circle the ratio is 80% "Love it !" and 20% "Wait and see"

It might change in the future, if GW really goes bust, but at the moment old GW armies are a kind of investment ;)
When I started getting old models of dwarfs for my collection I could get a marauder or pre-marauder era dwarf for ca.2-2.5 pounds. Now it is closer to 6 and even higher.
So, even that I also was hoping that there will be a flood of, say, old bretonnians on ebay, it is very unlikely to happen. I've invested so much time in painting my 5 armies and I have such nice memories going with them, that I'm not planning to part with them. Ever. ;)

I don't think the dump happens for 6-12months at the earliest, if it ever truly happens.

Couple reasons.
First are the people that probably are still hanging on to playing WHFB with their current group. These holdouts will play as long as possible as friends drift off to other games. Eventually the 2 or 3 mates left will either continue or abort. Even then, when I quite playing it often takes 6months to 2 years to eliminate excess models.

Next is the group searching for new rules KOW, or other. They won't sell off till they become disappointed with the alternates, if that happens.

Finally is the AoS group. They will do what all you GW fanbois do, and play GW till their last dying breath. (SARCASM…. mostly ;) )

All is just theory, I really dont believe dumping will be massed enough to be evident.

re: dumping, I tracked down a dumped Skaven army, about $100 USD for a Battalion and two Isle of Blood sets of skaven, plus a few extra metal characters.

Outside the GW customer circle the ratio is 80% hatred and 20% "interesting", inside the GW customer circle the ratio is 80% "Love it !" and 20% "Wait and see"

I've witnessed the opposite, in my local area AoS has revitalized fantasy, no one was playing WHFB and now a bunch of new people are playing AOS along with the normal GW crowd. It's the reason I want to give it a try now, because so many of my pals are playing it and loving it, just have to finish up a WW2 project I'm working on right now.

Anecdotes being what they are, it would seem that AoS completely killed the local fantasy community, as small as it was. On the local game store FB page, I don't see anyone organizing games or announcing gamedays for AoS OR WHFB, so it seems like both games are dead in the water around here…

Damon.

Don't forget that GW see's their customer base as the 12 year old. At 13, he probably gave away his armies to his little brother or cousin? Like a typical 13 YO, some are probably broken or parts missing and the recipient uses them in their own imaginary world!

Just where are your toys you played with as a kid now?………

It's a shame that the business model for GW does not seem to recognise that the older gamers are more lucrative market base for their products than little Johnny.

"Just where are your toys you played with as a kid now?………"

In my sons hands. Well he is sleeping. But still he has all my Star Wars and GI Joe. MyNephew some how snagged my Legos though…

If you know you're not going to get squat for them, why sell them? There's no risk in keeping them boxed up for the day something else takes it's place or in case some Oldhammer players move in.

I'm going to dump an army I spent $800 USD on for what- a platoon of Flames of War tanks? I don't think so.

I am sitting on every WFB army since 3rd edition including a bunch of alternative armies I adapted from Warhammer Ancients back in 5th edition. None of them are going anywhere for less than retail.

A buddy of mine has 3 armies & is talking about dumping. He's the same guy who has dumped his armies twice before when he was "through with Fantasy" only to come back & completely rebuild the army for twice the price 2 years later.

So the bright sparks who predicted WHFB eBay dumping have gone a little quiet.

I'd have thought the reason for that was glaringly obvious.

They are too upset because they are no longer "allowed" to play their favourite music CDs………….well, not since 'One Direction' split up.

Haters and ragers are always all talk.

Okay, there was that one tool who set his Dark Elf army on fire.

Don't forget that GW see's their customer base as the 12 year old.

False. GW's target audience are males in their 20's and 30's. These unmarried/no-kids types have the huge amount of disposable incoming that kids and older/retired gamers don't have.

This is why GW is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and produces greater dividends on their shares that other major corporations. If they catered to the "older gamers" they'd make less money.

But mid 30's is about half the average age of a TMP user so I guess that seems like 12 to such eldsters.

AoS seems to be doing well. I'm not playing it (yet), but some of my friends are. It drew in even a few people who weren't playing fantasy previously. After all the Internet rage and hate, this makes me LOL.

And also, I still haven't seen a 12 year old play a GW game around here in the past 20 years. (except my son playing Kill Team with me in my basement). Another thing that makes me LOL about these high post count people.

Oh but I'm sure the crash is coming any minute now.

I'm using my Warhammer miniatures for many other games mostly DBA 3.0. I never intended to sell them and fully intend for my son to inherit them. I'm sure the vast majority of people with Warhammer miniatures are doing the same.

I'm certainly not buying the crappy Age of Silly stuff.

TomT

After all the time and money, I'm keeping the armies for show if nothing else. Checking out Kings of War.

Definitely check out Kings of War, it's a better mass combat game than any edition of Warhammer, hands down.

But Age of Sigmar is not Warhammer Fantasy Battles, so both AoS and KoW can happily co-exist as they are not trying to be the same style of game at all (skirmish versus mass battles)

Pictors, what eBay have you been watching? I've see a TON of eBay armies lately. Doesn't help me one bit because they are all junky plastic! I can't imagine why people spent money on that stuff in the first place…

To be honest outside of the older collectible stuff the market for second hand GW models is glutted and has been for some time now. It's very much a buyer's market and if you don't mind doing some paint stripping you can get figures for the more recent editions for pennies on the dollar off Ebay. This is probably the reason that there has not been an increase of army dumping. Would you sell in that environment?

Me?
I am hanging on to my stuff and using it for Kings of War and older editions of WFB. (I'm fond of 3rd edition) I've actually been fleshing out some of my fantasy armies by taking advantage of the glut on Ebay. If you look for stuff with terrible little kid paint jobs, but is otherwise complete you can often get amazing deals.

"Pictors, what eBay have you been watching? "

I've been watching the ebay here in the states. The armies and figures I see on there are either new things that are selling at just below retail or used things that aren't selling for much less than retail either. The odd figure here and there might be cheap.

But look at dryads. The best deal on there right now is the 26 of them for $52. USD

There are a few of the old crappy metal dryads but if you want the plastic you are pretty much going to have to pay $34.99 USD a box for them. Hardly what I would call dumping.

I do not understand your criteria (nor how you could possibly prefer those spikey pieces of soulless plastic with no recognizable faces over classic Marauder Trish Morrison sculpts). I'm not going to bother posting endless links to WFB armies up for sale *right now* on eBay, but I will point out that an eBay search for "warhammer fantasy army lot" comes in with a whopping 350 results in the US, while "warhammer 40k army lot" comes up with a meager 230. Of course, the 150% more auctions for WFB armies is stunning when you consider there are probably three times more 40k players than WFB ever had.

And if you have some of those "old crappy metal dryads," feel free to send them my way!

My criteria for dumping would be people getting rid of their stuff to the point of market saturation.

If you look at the prices of the stuff in your search, most of them are not bargains.

4 metal orcs: $24 USD
10 metal black guard: $45 USD
8 wolf riders: $40 USD
5 zombies: $35 USD
11 plastic empire guys: $25 USD

Besides of the 350 results for "Warhammer fantasy army lots" 285 of them are from the same person.

You don't see this stuff showing up in the market place. I barely saw any of the stuff at the flea market at Historicon.

I went to the FLGS last night and they usually have a ton of WHFB stuff in the used bin, there was a dark elf riding a manticore and a lizard man and that was about it yesterday. There was way more 40K stuff.

The dumping is just not happening.

I don't have any of the old metal dryads. I wasn't interested in the dryads until the new plastics came out. They are great.

I did see one guy at Historicon with a table and many bins full of bags of plastic WHFB stuff, plus some AT-43. Got all kinds of good stuff! But other than him and a fellow with some Dogs of War and another guy with an Empire army, there wasn't very much.

I did see a huge amount of Flames of War and lots of Bolt Action in the flea market, much more than WHFB.

There was some dumping on Bartertown, but it hasn't been endless outrageously super deals or anything.

285 lots are from the same seller? I'd be curious to see who that is.

If you're really waiting for prices to drop, then I wouldn't hold your breath. Market saturation doesn't enter into it, as eBay doesn't obey market forces. eBay sellers (in the gaming category especially, but in other categories as well) tend to think of eBay as a collectors market. No matter how broken, incomplete or used something is, they believe someone, somewhere is willing to pay a mint for it. Sometimes they are right, but the overriding reality is that eBay has always been a buyers' market. Have some patience and you'll get things for a steal (yes, even your plastic dryads!).

eBay sellers rarely come to realize this. I can link you to an auction that I made a reasonable offer on years ago. The seller claimed that he was confident someone would pay full price (which was well above its real value). It's still up and hasn't sold.

Burnt out GW fans are no different. They are hoping against hope to somehow make back the outrageous sums of money they spent on GW over the years. The truth is, we have seen a huge increase of Warhammer armies for sale on eBay recently. You may eventually see prices come down, but reason and rationality is slow to take on eBay.

I don't think there is any noticeable increase. Ebay seems to have the same crap on it that it has for the last 5 years or so since it went from people selling stuff themselves to having stores do most of the selling.

Most of the items I see when I search "Nurgle" "Dryads" "Tzeentch" "Wood elf" or "Khorne" and exclude 40K are stores selling brand new boxes at about 20% off.

The fact that prices haven't dropped means that people aren't dumping this stuff.

In the search you had us look up we only had 67 results that weren't from one guy.

The vast majority of them were not armies at all. Many of them were lots of army books. Catching both "lot" and "army."

And you are then telling us that a lot of those things have been listed on there for years because people have unrealistic expectations. So of that 67 we can whittle a few more people out who aren't dumping because of Age of Sigmar.

So maybe 50 items from people dumping stuff?

That doesn't seem like a problem.

And where else are they dumping it?

On the one hand I'm trying to make a point, but on the other hand I'd really like to know where people are dumping all this new Fantasy stuff they just bought because they feel sold out by AoS.

I want it for pennies on the dollar as I was told. I want some Blightkings for $20. USD I want a partially painted Glotkin for $40. USD

Achtung Minen: I have some of those old metal Dryads to move (I changed over to the plastic ones because I liked the sculpts better). Email me & we can work out an arrangement!

Todcolby at yahoo dot com

Cheers!

I have been using Ebay for GW products for about 15 years. During that time I've purchased numerous GW products there, many vintage still shrink-wrapped, as well as loose bits and part of other GW kits/sprues.

Honestly, I do not see any signs on Ebay of the dumping that is being discussed here. Certainly not the supposed massive anticipated dumping where disgusted veteran Warhammer players were so outraged by Age of Sigmar that they decided to sell off all their expensive armies for pennies on the dollar.

As a matter of fact, as a whole I have seen practically NO difference in the listings for GW since AOS came out. As far as fully painted armies go, I have not seen one army being "dumped" at a bargain basement price. Every painted army I have seen listed is from the usual professional painters/dealers selling Warhammer armies as they always have. And the prices are not indicative of "dumping". They are priced out for the cost of the minis with a determined amount of labor added. The cheapest painted army I've seen in recent weeks was about $1,000 USD and the rest went up from there.

By contrast, there has been a huge surge of dealers buying up new, sealed AOS products and selling them at a small discount, some combined with free shipping. The AOS starter box set is still widely available for as little as $75 USD to $85 USD with free or minimal shipping. Same goes for the new AOS terrain. And it's selling. Selling really well, as are the new releases on GW's own retail site.

I truly think what happened is that at the end of day, those Warhammer players who, despite how they felt about AOS, realized that they were also collectors whether they realized it or not. What I mean is, those Warhammer players who had spent a long time collecting and painting armies and spending hundreds and thousands of dollars to do so simply kept those armies and realized that they had personal value and meaning despite what GW did to the lore and to the game they knew for so long.

I think that what dumping is taking place is from that mass of players who own unpainted/partially painted or unassembled or partially assembled armies that for whatever circumstances never finished their armies or never had the interest or inclination to finish them. You see those kinds of lots all over Ebay, from complete sprues to fully assembled units primed but not painted or assembled but partially broken, etc.

And that brings up an interesting point. There has ALWAYS been a glut of that partially finished GW stuff on Ebay since the beginning. Nothing new whatsoever, and those listings are right along side those listings in which you see random miniatures that were obviously painted by kids or by a complete painting novice.

So to be blunt, I don't think the great Ebay "AOS rage dumping" ever took place, and I don't think it will. With the rare exception of people like that guy who burned his army and publicly shared his insantiy, I am sure there were others out there like him who simply took their entire GW collection and gave it a good heave into a dumpster or took a sledgehammer to their army and squashed them flat. But I think those people are in the great minority.

As I see it, GW stuff on Ebay has been the same as it ever was. People know what they have, and they're not about to give it away for free.