"FFG's Runewars pricing: Don't single out GW please!" Topic

This post is part product review/rant against Fantasy Flight's games and part defense of Games Workshop.

Fantasy Flight's games have been widely praised for their supposed "low barrier to entry" and ease of "playing straight out of the box".

At the same time there has been the well-known and nearly universal condemnation of Games Workshop's pricing, which has led many gamers to make a principled life decision to purposely avoid GW products in favor of other companies' "cheaper" mini. ranges.

Now, there is no disputing that there are many mini. companies out there that are cheaper than GW, no denying that. What is up for dispute however is what do you sacrifice in detail for paying cheaper prices. Mantic comes to mind – really great value, economical way to play fantasy games – and their miniatures are borderline garbage compared to the detail of GW's plastics. They just are.

So why am I upset about all of this? It's not about Fantasy Flight perse – I'm upset at the PERCEPTION that is brought about when certain sort of consumer-based psychological patterns cause people to ignore reality in favor of how they feel about something. Such is the case I believe with FFG and also with GW.

So let's look at Runewars and its amazing low cost and its "low barrier to entry"!

Ok. So FFG has their Runewars basic boxed game: You get rules, 48 miniatures, cards, tokens, etc. It's $99.00 USD. Now on its face this seems pretty decent. However, 48 miniatures is hardly generous. That's 24 miniatures per side. And that is for a game that is pitching itself as a MASS BATTLE GAME. NOT a skirmish game. Keep that in mind when I talk about the upgrade and expansion packs. GW routinely had upwards of 70-80 miniatures in its various editions of its boxed sets of Warhammer. So in this regard FFG is hardly offering anything that is a spectacular new relief that allows for low barrier to entry, not even close.

But that's not where the real fun begins with Runewars. The real shenanigans begins with the EXPANSIONS and UPGRADES.

Right after you've spent $99.00 USD on "everything you need to play the game", FFG then shows you an additional boxed set for $24.95 USD, which has all the "non-miniature essentials" of MORE of "everything you need" for the game! Additional upgrade cards, additional tokens, etc. So in reality FFG has divided all the essentials of the actual game into two separate products which means that in reality getting the ACTUAL full game will cost you $125.00 USD which they are hoping you don't notice.

But it gets worse with the actual miniature expansions. This is where FFG really reveals the sham that their games are low barrier to entry. X-Wing is even worse in this regard with their single fighter miniature "expansion" boxes selling for $14.95 USD each, but Runewars isn't much better.

Like X-Wing, FFG knows darn well that players aren't going to want to just play the starter game, everyone will want to expand and make their battles much bigger.

So FFG fills that role by offering you upgrades that feel more like booster packs for Magic: The Gathering.

Here's an upgrade for crossbowmen. You get EIGHT plastic miniatures for $24.95 USD. EIGHT.

Here's an upgrade for Daqan Infantry. You get – ready? – FOUR plastic miniatures for $24.95 USD. FOUR.

Here's an upgrade for Waiqar undead infantry. You get FOUR plastic miniatures for yes again, $24.95 USD. FOUR.

…and so on and so on. None of the booster packs have more than eight miniatures, some have four, and some of the bigger, more heroic type characterish and monstrous-sized have two miniatures. And FFG set an identical price for all the expansions at $24.95 USD, with one exception being $34.95 USD

Now, the point is this. If the universal complaint against GW was that their starter boxed sets were only teasers in which you had to spend hundreds more dollars in order to really play decently sized battle with decently sized armies, then NOT complaining about what FFG is doing here is totally hypocritical.

Furthermore, GW's boxed sets for 6th – 8th Edition were specifically geared towards playing the scenario they give you in the boxed set. The complaints that the miniatures weren't a "legal army" in the standard/competitive world makes no sense because GW TOLD YOU that you were getting essentially two scenario-based armies which you could expand on later to play bigger games. There was no mystery there.

But here with FFG it's just flat-out blatant because they price their upgrades and expansion like magic card booster packs. You get SKIRMISH-sized miniature counts in boxes that are supposed to be upgrades for a MASS-BATTLE game.

There are no boxed regiments here like GW offers. No true regimental-sized boxes giving you 16, 20, or 24 miniatures. Nope. Here you get 4, 8, 2. No battalion boxes like GW offered where you got several units for one boxed price. Nope. Here you get literally a command upgrade of four figures for the price of what GW charges for an ENTIRE regiment of 20 models.

If you were to buy every one of FFG's expansions in addition to the standard game, you would spend – ready? – $449 USD…

…and that would net you a miniature grand total of – ready? – 154 mediocre to adequate-quality plastic miniatures, or roughly 75 miniatures per side per army. For $449. USD And you still don't have terrain, or a gaming table or mat to play on.

If Runewars was pitched as a skirmish game this wouldn't be so bad. But it's pitched as a mass-battle fantasy game, which is outrageous given how they structured their products that support it.

You could get pretty much the same amount of plastic miniatures (of much higher quality) by buying two Warhammer starter sets which retailed for about $75 USD-$80 each for 7th and 8th Edition. So that would be $160 USD for the same amount of miniatures and all the accessories that came with GW's boxed sets.

Please tell me who the price villain here is. Please tell me who the bigger gimmick is. Please tell me who the bigger scammer is. Please tell me who is more abusing the "everything you need right out of the box". Please tell me who has the higher barrier to entry.

I posted this not so I could have something random to rant about. I posted this to point out that GW isn't the only "expensive, high barrier to entry" gaming company out there. That phrase has been thrown around too much and without enough critical thought behind it.

FFG is an example of a company that has managed to fool us into THINKING their games are low barrier to entry, which means everything in a consumer market. Even if you are paying MORE, the PERCEPTION is that you are paying LESS, and so you literally will praise FFG games as being easy and cheap to get into, and will condemn GW games as supposedly being horrific, high barrier to entry cash eaters.

Sometimes we all need a reminder about the reality of things.

I'm sorry, boo-hoo, GW still sucks. And FF sucks with them. They are just different versions of the same suck. But, if you feelz better after this rant, more power to you. You go Boy!

So don't play. Easy.

Don't you get it, Baranovich? Every game someone thinks is too expensive sucks. Just like every sports car or luxury sedan sucks. Or big houses I cannot afford suck. Attractive women who won't date me suck as well. Notice a theme? Sad but true.

In some ways X-Wing is even more ridiculous and outrageous, because it's so popular and it's one of the new generation type of games geared towards younger players where you don't have to paint anything, you can start playing out of the box. It really satisfies the instant-gratification part of the gaming world.

So yeah! X-Wing is a really low barrier to entry game! If, that is you are content to play for the rest of your life with two TIE Fighters and one X-Wing, lol.

Go and expand your fleets and then come back to me and tell me how cheap and easy the game is to get into.

If you want a simple 8 vs. 8 X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter game you will need to spend an additional $195 USD on top of the cost of the starter set. And that's to have a battle with 16 tiny fighters and nothing else. Add some frigates and bigger ships and tell me how out-of-the-box cheap the game is.

If you want to do some of the actual, fleet-type epic battles that so many Star Wars fans will want to recreate, X-Wing will cost you $500 USD-$700 before you've even blinked.

X-Wing is a really cool game don't me wrong. But PLEASE do not tell me it's a low barrier of entry game.

Mantic comes to mind – really great value, economical way to play fantasy games – and their miniatures are borderline garbage compared to the detail of GW's plastics. They just are.

There was a time when wargaming miniatures were meant to be playing pieces, not tiny, exquisite works of art that most gamers can't do justice to with a brush, anyway.

Also, I don't have enough fingers on one had to count the times when GW said they were going to make minis in plastic, and it'd make things cheap as dirt.

And, the above guys have the right of it. I have since come to think of any of FFG's "collectible" offerings as really snazzy gateway drugs. A "stater set" is really only ever "the start" of something, but with FFG, it is REALLY the precipice to a black hole of spending. I picked up SW: Armada dirt cheap. But it sat on my gaming table for AGES, because I knew if I opened it, that was it. So I sold it at a FGS market day, made a few bucks, and went home happier fo it.

This looked pretty darned cool, but I never REALLY looked at it too closely. When the guy with the trenchcoat calls out to you, just keep walking.

GW's isn't overpriced because look another company is even more overpriced!

I'd agree that in general FFGs stuff is overpriced, so like GW, FFG became to me another 'that's nice, how much, , loses interest' company.

The Runewars stuff is particularly laughably overpriced though and killed any interest I had in the range about five seconds after finding out about its existence.

GW is always going to be overpriced to me since I remember the regular price hikes before they killed my interest and coming back after a few years reminded me why I quit.

Have you ever thought that everything else is just underpriced (-:

But, as others have said, you don't have to play the games – plenty of people do….

Mike

Compelling argument there, Baranovich.

And from a personal standpoint, a game had better be *pretty damn awesome* for me to put up with all the silly little chits, counters, tokens, stat cards and clicky movement trays that tend to clutter up the battlefield in games such as RuneWars.

FWIW, I think Fantasy Flight has become an absolute master at extracting a set amount of money from gamers for each of their game lines. They have structured their products so that no matter what you choose, you are looking at a couple hundred buck, on average, to buy into the game. In a way, this is brilliant marketing. They have a certain amount of money they require from each customer, and they set up their product lines to reach that goal.

Hi, I'm Phil and I'm addicted to buying FFG games.

I'm an X-Wing and Imperial Assault addict. I have multiple core sets and multiples of each ship. I'm even building a Death Star table using Lego. And it all started with a single core set. Sigh. I'm hopeless, but am so happy spending money on the games and playing them. It's my money, I can afford it, so who cares. ;-)

BTW So far I've been able to resist Armada, but my will is weakening!

Thankfully I prefer 15mm for fantasy gaming, so RW has no influence on my FFG addiction! :-)

Hi Phil.

I'm Joe and I'm also addicted to FFG games (X-Wing and Armada). I have no idea how much I have invested in both, nor do I really care. I use my 20% off coupon from Barnes & Noble to buy something from FFG every month. [this is a lesson I learned from the wife – things bought on sale are actually savings and not expenditures].

If the game is to expensive for you, then find substitutes, friends who have the figures, or simply play something else. I guess there are limits to what one is entitled to.

This article is much too long to read. Can somebody give me a four sentence summary?

So, if I split two boxes with a buddy, and then bought all the expansion boxes out… that'd be

$99 USD for the base game
$24.95 USD X 3 for the expansions

so $173.85 USD plus shipping/minus discounts.

I can think of a lot of miniature games with a much higher price point of entry. Sure, there are cheaper games, but many are more expensive. For example, I've spent way more for a 1/72 WWII army for Flames of War and I've spent way more on Conquest 28mm minis for French & Indian Wars (which I still need to do something with…)

I bought the base set, because I enjoyed playing a full game demo, and I'm looking forward to play this game a bunch.

So, you're saying that GW offers reasonable value for money?
link
Horses for courses I suppose but way beyond my budget.

Great argument, Baronovich. But you missed two key points:

(1) I (and many other players) find Fantasy Flight games way more fun than GW games of late.
(2) People shilling for GW, both paid and unpaid really turn me off to the whole brand. It's why I won't step foot in their stores anymore.

I'll continue giving my money to FFG as long as they continue to put out better games than GW. But I am curious why you care what other people do so much. Buy GW. Have fun. What's the issue?

"X-Wing is a really cool game don't me wrong. But PLEASE do not tell me it's a low barrier of entry game."

FWIW you can buy a starter set for the templates, then download the various ships cards that FFG put on their website and use Micromachines ships. So if you don't mind a bit of DIY it can be extremely cheap to play :)

This thread is too expensive!

Fantasy stuff general is overpriced or historical stuff is under-priced. A lot of people pointing out pricings will be coming from a historical gaming perspective where you can get say 30 fine plastic miniatures sculpted by the Perry twins for £20.00 GBP in comparison 5 plastic miniatures from GW or FFG for £25.00 GBP is going to look overpriced.

There are some misleading statements in this smear-review.

1) The $25 USD "essentials" box is not intended or necessary for folks who already have the game box. It's for folks who choose an army not in the core box. EVERYTHING in the Essentials box is already in the game box.

2) The term "Mass Battle" is a meaningless marketing term. The packs of figs are lower in figures, but you don't need nearly as many for a 200 point game which is what FFG bills a standard game as being.

3) The suggestion of buying every one of Runewars packs makes no sense when they are for different armies and not every player will want every unit upgrade.

3) In figuring "barriers to entry" you also fail to note the difference between completely free Runewars rules and the $130 USD+ cost just for the rulebook anda codex needed for 40k.

A few points on which we agree include that Runewars is not a "Bargain" game, the figures aren't as nice as GW and the unit boxes are not either bargain. However, that does not change the fact that it has a much lower entry cost.

Consider this, $200 USD ( $180 USD at online prices) will get you 2 starter boxes. If 2 players split the cost and trade armies, each will end up spending $90. USD Both will get a set of the printed rules all necessary game tokens/dice/cards/terrain/etc and enough miniatures to comfortably field 140 points (200 is a standard game) even before stacking on a bunch of upgrade cards. That's a pretty low cost for acquiring everything one needs to play and 3/4 of a standard Army.

For two 40k players, $180 USD will get you ONE copy of the rulebook and 2 codicies and you still have to buy miniatures.

This is all before considering the great gameplay of Runewars. When I tell folks about Runewars, it's not the cost emphasize but the great gameplay. That's the best reason to choose Runewars.

Actually there are some straight up fallacies or at least misleading statements in your refutation.

"3) In figuring "barriers to entry" you also fail to note the difference between completely free Runewars rules and the $130 USD USD+ cost just for the rulebook anda codex needed for 40k."

why are we comparing it to 40K and not AoS? AoS and Rune Wars are the fantasy games going head-to-head.

The rules for AoS are completely free as are the army lists. If you want points it will cost you $25. USD

"Consider this, $200 USD USD ( $180 USD USD at online prices) will get you 2 starter boxes. If 2 players split the cost and trade armies, each will end up spending $90. USD USD Both will get a set of the printed rules all necessary game tokens/dice/cards/terrain/etc and enough miniatures to comfortably field 140 points (200 is a standard game) even before stacking on a bunch of upgrade cards. That's a pretty low cost for acquiring everything one needs to play and 3/4 of a standard Army."

Consider this, buying two boxes of the AoS starter set will be $125 USD each for two people and has enough miniatures to field a pretty standard force for two armies in AoS.

Also a low cost for starting a pretty standard army and, as you point out, with better sculpted figures.

"For two 40k players, $180 USD USD will get you ONE copy of the rulebook and 2 codicies and you still have to buy miniatures."

Only if you buy them a la carte now. $109 USD will get you two (small) starter forces and a copy of the rulebook. In three weeks $160 USD will get you two decent sized forces and a full colour 280 pgs hardback rulebook with fluff and all kinds of other stuff in it.

The core rules will be free, codicies will be $25 USD and usually contain about 4 army lists.

I don't think that Baranovich is slagging FFG, he is just stating that if you are going to complain about GW for pricing you might as well complain about FFG too.

Pictors,
Good point about AoS. I'll admit that I know very little about AoS. I read the rules when first relased, took one look at the flagship Sigmarian space marine figs and haven't looked back since. My real GW experience is just 40k and Necromunda. Sounds like you're saying AoS is a true skirmish game? Runewars falls somewhere between platoon and Company.

As for editorial slant, I think it's pretty clear that despite his disclaimers Baranovich is slagging FFG, and white-knighting GW. That's neither here nor there as both companies have plenty of metaphorical blood on their hands, but it's pretty clear in his writing.

As for GW starters in general, they do have more minis, but for 40k I can't recall a starter that got you more than halfway to an 1800 point army and you still have to buy a pair of codices. That's a $100 USD charge on top of whatever the game costs.

As for the new 40k. I'll judge it when it appears. I've heard about free rules but my suspicion is that we'll get teaser lists and rules and to really play the game you'll need to buy books. Still I'm hoping to be proven wrong.

As it stands, I'd like to read a head-to-head review of the two rulesystems. As I said above, what grabs me about Runewars is the system itself. It's brilliant, and quite unlike any other fantasy system out there. The way the hidden commands system is paired with a variable activation based on the chosen command adds a kind of strategy that is just not present in most other games. And all that is present in a a rules set that actually qualifies as "Light".

And lastly, I stand by my assessment that $90 USD for 3/4 of a standard army and Everything you need to play (even terrain templates) is a darn good deal.

I agree with your last sentiment. I'm not slagging FFG at all. Runewars seems like a very decent product.

Star Wars stuff seems brilliant.

You will get the core rules. You will still have to buy books with the army lists, it looks like. For any two armies that will be at most $50 USD retail, if you play the right two armies, like Dark Eldar and Eldar or one of those and Necrons you might get away with $25. USD

"As for GW starters in general, they do have more minis, but for 40k I can't recall a starter that got you more than halfway to an 1800 point army and you still have to buy a pair of codices. That's a $100 USD USD charge on top of whatever the game costs."

This is true, but you typically get two sides and you can trade one for more of the same as often as not. With that, depending on the force, you typically had about 1000-1200 pts of useable models (so counting out doubled up characters.)

The last edition of 40K had ridiculously expensive codicies, which is why I only bought 3 of them and all of them were for armies that were new.

That seems to be changing and it seems like you will get 4 armies for $25. USD

What mad monkey 1 said….
Luckily there are lots of less expensive and just as (or more) fun options out there NOT defined by the corporate greed and marketing schemes of GW and FFG and others. Buy what makes sense to you…
I will say that I am perceiving a general movement toward lots of 'collectable', heavily-packaged, specialized-components, oversized boxes, etc… in board-gaming and war-gaming as the 'hobby' is becoming a little more mainstream… this is bound to happen, unfortunately, especially as folks keep buying at higher price points… So I guess a certain class of consumer is just as guilty as certain companies.
Vote with your wallet (but don't expect to change anything, so liberate yourself from corporate gaming and start building, writing, and 'making your own movie'…)

Who's up for a game of Dragon Rampant, using whatever figures you want?

I'm always up for Dragon Rampant, Kings of War of Song of Blades with whatever figures you want.

Runewars just scratches an itch for a different kind of game.

That said, I fully expect to use my Runewars figs for those games also. Probably will do so even before the game dies the death that comes to all miniature games not called Warhammer 40k. I just purchased 2 more boxed-set portions of the Daqan (humans) because the deal was too good to pass up and it'll get me very close to a 2000 point KoW army.

You get EIGHT plastic miniatures for $24.95 USD USD. EIGHT.

First off you are getting more than just miniatures and I would love for them to just sell a brunch of those unit Command dials.

Second Runewars is a far better game than Age of Sigmar.

X-Wing is even worse in this regard with their single fighter miniature "expansion" boxes selling for $14.95 USD USD each.

Painted miniatures and if you just wanted X-Wings and Tie Fighters than just get the starter box set.

If you were to buy every one of FFG's expansions in addition to the standard game, you would spend – ready? – $449. USD

Still cheaper than getting a decent army for Warhammer Fantasy Battle these days.

But yes I have noticed that these expansions are more than they should be.

But all I need are those command dials.

Mantic comes to mind – really great value, economical way to play fantasy games – and their miniatures are borderline garbage compared to the detail of GW's plastics. They just are.

I prefer their Dwarves over GW and frankly I do not like the new GW miniatures since they are all multi-piece models and I do not want to waste my time putting 100 of them together since that will take hours.

Plus I hate the way most of them look these days.

This is not a Treeman

These are Space Marines and not Fantasy at all.

I will expect that FFG will see the error of their ways when those expansions do not sell as well as the Starter.

GW would just try and think of ways of selling them for more like if you want 30 Dire Avengers you better be prepared to shell out around $230 USD for them.

I don't understand why people feel the need to bag on someone else's game in the first place. If you don't like GW or FFG then don't play them. Simple as that. I prefer skirmish cause I can play whatever figs I want and it costs under 50 dollars to get into a skirmish system. If you like mass combat great. It's a hobby people, get over yourselves already.

If you think that $14.95 USD is too much to pay for a Tie fighter you shouldn't move to the UK. With the current exchange rate they are for sale on eBay at £13.50 GBP approx. That equates to around $17.30 USD at todays exchange rate.Funny thing is, UK gamers will happily buy them at that price and not think twice about it. The same goes for WoW planes and AoS ships which are priced at similar levels.Perhaps we are less price conscious in this country, I don't know?