"Overheard GW News/Rumors" Topic

This was from a rather interesting, brief conversation between a retailer and one of the upper level GW people in So. Cal.

Item 1: GW has bought a rather expensive piece of CAD diemaking equipment that should allow them to cast the ForgeWorld line in injection molded plastic rather than resin. It should allow them to make more of the smaller figures in plastic as well. This is supposed to result in Forgeworld items becoming cheaper to produce. It is also supposed to have the same results with the main GW line.

Item 2: GW has finished negotiating with Christopher Tolkien who owns the rights to The Silmarillion. The Tolkien Estate, which owns the rest of the LotR rights granted GW licensing for 10 years. Now, GW can produce figures based on the characters within The Silmarillion.

Item 3: Apparently, GW factors in around two years' of operating expenses up front when opening a new store. These costs are charged against income in the year that the store is opened.

Wyatt

I actually heard rumors about GW spending a large chunk of change in upgrading their manufacturing processes as well.

Interesting. :) I'd totally pay standard GW prices for units of elysian drop troopers. ;)

It would certainly be nice if the Forgeworld models dropped in price.

Item 1: [This is supposed to result in Forgeworld items becoming cheaper to produce.] Ain't gonna happen.

Item 2: Why… can't… I… get… blood… from… this.. turnip!?

Item 3: *holds enveloped to his head*

"Dad on a Sunday afternoon, a body builder, and half of the GW stores that opened in the last five years."

*opens envelope*

"Dozing, posing, and closing!"

Heyy-oooooo!

I don't believe item 2, since the Lotrbubble is all but over and they probably don't invest another penny in it until there will be a new "Hobbit" movie.

Did you notice the fact that every two months they release the next supplement, just to get the most out of this waning interest from us customers?

Also, BGIME, you don't hear anything about it any more, and – at least over here in Holland – the community is rapidly getting smaller, and the market's flushed with plastics from gamers who quitted.

Lordofdane – Can ya wrangle up all that plastic and ship it my way then? ;)

I actually really like the new expansions for LotR and like playing the fantasy battles without named heroes (so using generic captains and the like) for giant games.

$25 USD for 24 plastic infantrymen isn't bad at all, and the LotR models are pretty nice (Plus they are closer to 25 and fit in really well with the 25mm fantasy some of the Ancient Grognards i play with have.

Hmm, if those drop troops come out at say £2.00 GBP a figure like normal IG then I will get them – not as much 'GW' iconography on them which makes them better suited for other games :-)

"This is supposed to result in Forgeworld items becoming cheaper to produce"

So they say that forgeworld items will be cheaper to produce. Unfortunately they donīt say that they will become cheaper, too.

So instead of making more sales, they will make a big percentage

@Saintrigger:

I agree, they're reasonably cheap and the Lotr diehards most certainly keep on playing the game with the new expansion sets.
My only point was that since the interest is dwindling fast I don't think they will invest lots of money in the liscense and new miniatures…economically it wouldn't be wise.

I do feel like the LoTR releases come a little too quickly. I want enough time to paint my armies in between releases!

-Alex

I have to admit I too like the LOTR plastics, I cannot justify the cost of the character figures (yes I know you only need one!) I'll probably buy a load of the plastics at some stage – even if just to paint for fun, or use them in other games.

I think Ghostdog nailed it. Cheaper to produce does not mean cheaper prices. Probably the opposite. I could se Forgeworld raising prices and using their 'new & improved' production process as a justifiction. Assuming there's any truth to this rumor.

"Item 1: GW has bought a rather expensive piece of CAD diemaking equipment that should allow them to cast the ForgeWorld line in injection molded plastic rather than resin. It should allow them to make more of the smaller figures in plastic as well. This is supposed to result in Forgeworld items becoming cheaper to produce. It is also supposed to have the same results with the main GW line."

in March's issue of WD here in Italy there's an article reagarding the new Tau Codex..and actually one of the new Tau vehicle is a ForgeWorld one made in plastic instead of resin. The aricle clearly states that's been used a new technology that's likely to be used again in the future for other ForgeWorld products as well as for new GW's miniatures (as it allows a higher level of detail)

The GW UK site already has some of the previously Forge World Tau vehicles up in the preorder section. I think the rumor is confirmed.

This is what actually will happen.

In the White Dwarf – "GW has bought a rather expensive piece of CAD diemaking equipment. Due to the high cost of Evy Metal or is that plastic in the CAD diemaking equipment, prices in all GW lines will have to increase. The increase in price will be effective April 2006. Don't wait to take advantage of the cheaper prices. After April prices will never be this low again."

When dreadnoughts went plastic, I saw no price lowering. Probably a different issue, though. Do people really pay $55 USD Cdn. for those tiny things? Hell, use Mechwarrior mechs!

This is supposed to result in Forgeworld items becoming cheaper to produce. It is also supposed to have the same results with the main GW line

Great! But that doesn't mean prices will be lower. This is an effort to make profits higher.

Cheaper to produce, same high price. Welcome to the Games Workshop Hobby!

"Interesting. :) I'd totally pay standard GW prices for units of elysian drop troopers. ;)"

Yeah. I love those guys.

Just because the bubble burst on the LOTR, doesn't mean they aren't committed to going thru with all of it (ie: contractually…). They have been saying for awhile now that there are more and more items coming for the LOTR. I love the new stuff and the Khands and Easterlings have reignited my interest…..

I'm really curious how these FWfigs in plastic will look.
Normally I'm not that keen on plastic figs, I prefer ( leadcontaining ) metal and, if there's no alternative, resin.
Some of them I really like, but there's so much to buy and collect I havne't placed an order with them…yet.

I like the ahrder plastics for conversions and the like – especially since so many of the regiment boxed sets match up so neatly, one can just mix and match parts to come up with completely new units.

What I do like about the metals are the heft of the figure, for the most part – but I find that the GW plastics, and the forgeworld resins have just as much if not more (In the case of the resin) detail than the metal.

What gets me is that even with the plastics there are some serious mold half misalignments creating horrible plastic casts which should be nearly perfect and flash free if the injection molding machines are run correctly.

I've never had one GW plastic figure that has had more than the usual light mold line on it. But perhaps I'm just lucky…

1) I beleive totoally because they were demonstrating a little cart made on CAD/CAM at Salute last year ;)

"I've never had one GW plastic figure that has had more than the usual light mold line on it. But perhaps I'm just lucky…"

Same here. And I have a ton of their plastics.

I can see the red top headlines now:

"Games Workshop to make cheaper models shocker!"

…hang on, I woke up…

Well, are the Tau tanks cheaper than when they were Forgeworld? If so, they ARE producing cheaper figures now.

As someone who runs injection molders for a living, if you have severe flash on your sprues it is likely either a temperature issue or, more likely, a pressure issue. Considering how many sprues a modern injection molder can kick out in an hour, they operator likely noticed the problem and adjusted it…of course, he SHOULD have pulled the bad sprues out though!

"I've never had one GW plastic figure that has had more than the usual light mold line on it. But perhaps I'm just lucky…"

Same here. And I have a ton of their plastics.

I'll ditto that, and I've got several hundred sitting around me currently, in various stages of construction. Hell, they've become my favored medium to work with, truth be told.

- Monk

I have yet to see a bad sprue in any of the GW plastic boxed sets that I own (and I have a ton of them.)

Never seen bad match ups on GW plastics, I've always been amazed that such a small company can keep their prices so competitve with equivalent size models from major model manufacturers that have been around for decades, and still have great details that keep improving.

I've never had bad GW plastic either. Now I wish I could say the same for many of their metal models *cough*Hell Cannon*cough*

1. – I'd like to think their prices will come down, but they won't, they already know what the market will bear, so they're only working only increasing their currently waning profits with cheaper manufacturing costs.

2. – LOTR is a failing range, the bubble has burst, they will be simply throwing good mony after bad with this, good luck to them. My suspicion is that they might be trying to stop anyone else manufacturing LOTR models and thus corner the market.

"I've always been amazed that such a small company can keep their prices so competitve with equivalent size models from major model manufacturers that have been around for decades, and still have great details that keep improving."

Really? In my neck of the woods GW plastic kits generally are about double the price of an equivelantly sized military model kit. And the military model kits always have better detail. I wish the GW stuff was competitive.

You sould try putting a regiment of skaven clanrats together. Talk about a lesson in frustration. These have got to be the most poorly designed plastics ever.

FalconDuMais the Tau Piranha by FW is Ģ 28 while the one by GW is Ģ 15 so GW are producing these items cheaper so we may see some FW items at a more "affordabl" level but what other FW items we will see in plastic I don't know but I would love a Baneblade, Titan or Thunderhawk.

You sould try putting a regiment of skaven clanrats together.

I did a unit of 30 recently. It wasn't much of a problem.

Or, more accurately: they're not a problem individually. If you don't take care, you'll end up with a unit that doesn't fit together properly — but I have that problem with most of the minis I have that go into units, and not just GW's.

I have a ton of Skaven, and I haven't had a problem. Well, when people drop them it's hard on the tales, but no probs otherwise. (I use an accelerant to make the glue dry faster because I am very impatient – that may help).

"You should try putting a regiment of skaven clanrats together. Talk about a lesson in frustration. These have got to be the most poorly designed plastics ever."

I feel your pain. I've done a number of Skaven regiments as well, and once I got the hang of it and built them AS A UNIT I had no problems at all. If you try to build each figure and then rank them up into a unit, it'll never work. But regardless what your experience has been, I would agree thaqt they are some of the weaker plastics for Warhammer. But NOT as weak as the original "taking a dump" Chaos Warriors. Those could barely be fit together at all!

I might have cared if they had done this 5 years ago. An Eldar nightwing, vampire raider or cobra would have been tempting at a lower price. But I agree, they wouldn't lower the price by much to reflect the more streamlined costs of production. The plastic dreadnaught cost the same as the metal one, some improvement.

I can only see this as their excuse for the next price hike. Going up.

I heard a rumor once that GW executives eat babies.

Interesting thread and considering I just got back into playing 40K it would be nice to see the Forge world stuff expanded into plastic. Which BTW they have done in the past and yes it was cheaper; anyone remember that years ago that the only way to have an Eldar Wave Serpent (other than doing a difficult converstion) was to buy a Forge World model of it? Same thing for the Prizim Cannon for the Eldar Falcon tank if memory serves here.

That's an interesting point Howard Treesong. To my knowledge, Mithril has always had those rights and I believe the rights to the trilogy books (which are separate from the rights to the movies,) so I wonder now if they'll have to go out of production. Corner the market indeed.

I may not go into GW any more or buy anything of theirs other than the occasional tub of paint or a brush, but there plastics have always been consistently good. When I was a kid, you could get a little blister pack of three plastic dwarves for something like 75pence. Back then (this was in '86) a single metal Citadel Dwarf cost about 60 pence, so you can see the difference in the pricing and production costs back then.

The thing about those plastic dwarves was, they were multi part models but they were well moulded. I built up a 30 dwarf regiment in next to no time at all, and for under a tenner, which for a 13 year old schoolboy in 1986 was a lot of money!

I've always loved FW stuff as well, but like GW, it's the pricing policies that have made me turn my back on them. Oh well GW/FW, your pricing got me into historicals, and for that I cannot thank either of you enough!

LoTR is my favorite ruleset. It's fun to play and is still pretty popular. The new Easterling is nicely done and has me looking forward to buying the mini's for it. Heck, whenever I get the time, I may even build a hobbit house or two.

TB

I think the use of the term "LOTR Bubble" is inaccurate. The LOTR franchise made GW tens of millions of dollars. They knew that after the movies were out sales would plummet just like any other movie franchise. Now it's a specialist game that will most likely go the way of the other specialist games.

Nobody refers to the Foundry bubble, or the Star Wars bubble.

My reactions-
Item 1: New equipment is good for GW. Personally, I'd have to see a substantial pricing shift in product to buy though.

Item 2: There can never be enough LotR figures produced. I hope they produce as many as they can, flooding the market. I'd like to see LotR box sets in my local dollar store :-)

Item 3: Interesting information if true. I'm not a GW stockholder, but from a stockholder point of view would that be a legitimate way to report expenses and earnings?

Shaloop:

are you comparing prices on similarly scaled models? GW is closest to 1/48th and 1/35th, so comparing them to 1/60th or 1/72nd is grossly unfair. I have always modelled in 1/48th since childhood and the cost is the same.

Example: Revell P38 Lightning 30 bucks; GW Rhino APC 30 bucks. Price of GW has been steadily rising, while Revell prices are more stable, but GW prices were less than Revell back then.

I have an unopened Revell P38 right here and the detailing is equivalent to the GW stuff. Unless you discuss models that GW produced 5-10 years ago you cant point ot a poorly detailed model. And that has to take into account GW's age in terms of plastic models. Given that the Revelle P38 has remained unchanged since my childhood {my only frame of reference} and the GW Rhino has been worked on for 15 years I would say the competition is fair.

I also still have models of unknown manufacture that my father made in the late 50s, a PT boat among them. In those cases, the detail level falls off drastically to the level that one would find in the first run of GW models.

Where do you live that you cannot access internet or mail order, and your prices for GW stuff is higher than Revell and other model companies equivalent scale plastic models?

"Nobody refers to the Foundry bubble, or the Star Wars bubble."

No-one invested as much in that ;-)

Sigh…Foundry :-(

"Example: Revell P38 Lightning 30 bucks; GW Rhino APC 30 bucks. Price of GW has been steadily rising, while Revell prices are more stable, but GW prices were less than Revell back then."

Rising, were, back then.

>>I've never had bad GW plastic either. <<

Obviously never tried to assemble a Marine Land Speeder, then, and the new Dwarves are also not the greatest set of fits.