I heard that at some point GW tried to stop the selling of armies on eBay because it is really undermining their business. When they found out they couldn't, they made sure to release huge 150$ sets that you would need to make the army competitive and also Nerf the old units down and make then less desirable.
Sold off my tau that I got in 2009, but hanging onto my marines that I got 2 years ago because I spent a lot of time customizing them and painting them.
Here is something that really fits the thread. Enjoy! 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zSxQnZ3TM8&index=7&list=UUNnKprAG-MWLsk-GsbsC2BA
i think GW's treatment to their competitive, internet, customers and FLGs are enough reasons alone for me to not spend a penny again on their products.
I only disagree with the treatment of LGS's. The owner of our local store raves about GW's support. Prompt and reliable service, very forgiving exchange policies, and they even send free (albeit low quality) shelving and racks.
I think this all may have been different when they were running a lot of their own brick and mortars, but they've definitely turned a new leaf with regard to independent retailers.
Not that this justifies their other absurd practices, mind you, but I'll give them credit where it's due.
"Warhammer Will Never Be The Same"
*sees £100 book*
*puts entire Warhammer collection on eBay*
Yeah, you're not wrong, GW. You're not wrong.
I was going to complain about the price of the book you mentioned BUT then I remembered I bout a SW three book set for more than the above price LOL. That and I bought Mega Man world 5 and Mega Man for gamegear each well over $100 at this point in time. Both r rare too the mm gg is the only Mega Man game made by Capcom America. World 5 may be the most fun Mega Man game ever and rare until it come to the 3DS.
You can't afford to start playing any system GW has out from scratch now. Only way to do it is through eBay or something to pick up a used army and even then, tack on another couple $100 for a rule book, army book and other stuff like dice, templates, magic decks, etc.. that you may not want to get from the box game set because you don't want either army in it. I have tried 4 armies over the 20 or so years I've played 40k(since 2nd edition) and I have just the Space Marines left with a small Sisters army as an ally. Picked up a couple Tau kits to see about using them as an ally, a gun line while the Marines run up to get into CC, but not so sure I want to keep at it atm. I'm thankful fantasy play around me is practically nil or I could have gotten into that so dodged that bullet.
The biggest problem is the completely insane pricing of their digital products most notably the army books and codices costing like $5 less than a psychical copy with 1/3 or less of the production cost. I saw a graph on FB someone posted from the GW report showing overall revenue down by 10% since January this year or something to that effect. I'm tempted to buy a single stock so I can grip to them legitimately. Some pointed out that they think that since GW went public, they've just been spiraling down.
I have 2 of each ship for X-wing, not quite true but I have multiples of some while only 1 of others so it balances out in the end and have spent about $500-$600 total, including storage cases. Compared to the $1000's on GW that almost doesn't seem to be fun anymore over the years. At this point, it's more fun painting stuff I still haven't gotten around to than playing 40K where every new release seems to just be about one-upsmenship over the last release.
"Warhammer Will Never Be The Same"
*sees £100 book*
*puts entire Warhammer collection on eBay*
Yeah, you're not wrong, GW. You're not wrong.
I was going to complain about the price of the book you mentioned BUT then I remembered I bout a SW three book set for more than the above price LOL. That and I bought Mega Man world 5 and Mega Man for gamegear each well over $100 at this point in time. Both r rare too the mm gg is the only Mega Man game made by Capcom America. World 5 may be the most fun Mega Man game ever and rare until it come to the 3DS.
Keep in mind, that's three books for the price of one.
i think GW's treatment to their competitive, internet, customers and FLGs are enough reasons alone for me to not spend a penny again on their products.
I only disagree with the treatment of LGS's. The owner of our local store raves about GW's support. Prompt and reliable service, very forgiving exchange policies, and they even send free (albeit low quality) shelving and racks.
I think this all may have been different when they were running a lot of their own brick and mortars, but they've definitely turned a new leaf with regard to independent retailers.
Not that this justifies their other absurd practices, mind you, but I'll give them credit where it's due.
Hmmm. Well, the four stores around here are pretty vocal about their policies and how much they hate them.. Mind you, but most of them are forced to sell whatever GWs wants to sell. Just check at all the "online-only" stuff to see how much it sucks for FLGs when stuff like serpents are online order only.
Edited by DreadStarI had this conversation with a friend earlier, but seriously, can you imagine trying to get into the Warhammer hobby from scratch now?
Yeah, because I looked into it. A couple of months before I got into X-wing, I started looking around seriously at minis games, and of course 40k is (or was, at any rate) a major player. And then I started working out what it would cost to even start putting together a single army--without knowing what I was doing, or whether I'd really like the game.
Warmachine/Hordes was less than half the cost to field a force at that time, and it turned out even that was more than I wanted to invest in a minis game. And then it turned out X-wing was less expensive still, and--unlike 40k or Warmahordes--had list-building as a solid an interesting component of the game. Haven't really looked back.
GW are crapping themselves right now they went down 54% in terms of year on year profits and the morons in charge have now admitted they do no customer research so they don't know why.
All they know how to do is keep upping prices but there are not enough people left to keep them afloat much longer, they threw all their biggest selling lines out last year and still had half the profit.
WFB isnt 40k not as many play it and it wont bring in as much money so GW will have an even worse year this year.
GW are crapping themselves right now they went down 54% in terms of year on year profits and the morons in charge have now admitted they do no customer research so they don't know why.
Here's why: they raised their prices so high that not even their more dedicated fans can afford the game any more! Boom, market research done. 
How GW could possibly be so obtuse really boggles the mind.
GW are crapping themselves right now they went down 54% in terms of year on year profits and the morons in charge have now admitted they do no customer research so they don't know why.
You're kidding, right?
GW are crapping themselves right now they went down 54% in terms of year on year profits and the morons in charge have now admitted they do no customer research so they don't know why.
You're kidding, right?
http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Chairmans-Preamble-2014.pdf
Read it by yourself. It's almost comical.
GW are crapping themselves right now they went down 54% in terms of year on year profits and the morons in charge have now admitted they do no customer research so they don't know why.
You're kidding, right?
Oh VS my friend i wish i was, for years on warseer i've been saying they don't do this kind of research and no one believed me until this year.
GW are crapping themselves right now they went down 54% in terms of year on year profits and the morons in charge have now admitted they do no customer research so they don't know why.
You're kidding, right?
Oh VS my friend i wish i was, for years on warseer i've been saying they don't do this kind of research and no one believed me until this year.
Warseer has always been in denial. I am actually surprised how much things have changed this year. In a good way.
I spent like $500 on an Ork army a few weeks before 40K 7th edition came out. I played one game of it the night the rulebook was released, and it was rather awful. A little while after that I started X-Wing, and I haven't had the slightest urge to play a Warhammer game since. Haven't even bought the new Ork codex, and really wish I'd hung onto my money.
For all the eBay talk, Warhammer is actually a very frustrating thing to try to sell second-hand. Either you list an entire massive army and consider yourself lucky to get 15% of what you paid for it, or you sell off the components one at a time (usually getting around ~60% of MSRP depending on condition) and run the risk of being left with a piecemeal collection you can't get rid of.
I've sold three armies in the past; a huge Vampire Counts army that I had to accept around 40-50% MSRP for, but sold to a single buyer; an even bigger Dark Angel army that I had to part out over the course of 4 months (I think I still have one or two Marines and Bikes I can't get rid of); and a small Necron army that I got a decent price for and sold to a single person.
I'd gladly sell my Orks, leaving me with one remaining large army for 40K (Tyranids) and one for Fantasy (Skaven) but it's such a hustle to pull it off that I'm almost as content to just let it lie fallow in my basement as a reminder not to ever do something that dumb again.
I've been out of 40 since 4th edition, simply because I couldn't justify the amount of money I was spending. Even back then 50 bucks for the main rulebook and 30 bucks on a codex for every new edition was getting to be too much. X-wing is so much more manageable and you get more bang for your buck.
So what actually happened? That detail was somehow missing.
I think it started around the time GW released the Lord of the Rings game. I never bothered with the game as it didn't interest me, but it probably had a number of good ideas. I did notice however how much of the game that was focused on specific events from the movies/books and that each such event seemed to get its own set of models. Like it was more important to sell models to collectors than supporting the game. From what I've heard over the years, it didn't do terribly well.
Although GW did try to sell to the "collectors" as well as the gamers, actually LOTR did quite well, If you look at GW's Financial Reports during the time frame of the 3 LOTR movies, it sold very well. Well enough for GW to make it a Core Game. While it was released originally as a scenario game, GW quicly realized that the majority of players wanted a "Army" style, points build game similar to Fantasy and 40K. So they released the "Legions of Middle-earth" Rulebook with Army Lists to convert the game, and utilize larger (30 - 75) model armies. This was followed by Army books for each major power in Middle-earth. A series ot Grand Tournements across the U.S (and Britain and Europe) sprang up and people attended in quite decent numbers
After the 3rd movie, GW released the "One Rulebook to rule them all" that combined all three sets of "movie" rulesets into one Master rulebook. Things stlll sold well for another year or two, but GW slowed down signifigantly on LOTR Releases (probably because they didn't have the free advertising being generated by new movies)... But LOTR still did well enough that GW decided to push LOTR into the "Mass Battles" arena, with several hundred models a side.
The result was "War of the Ring" (WOTR), a mass battles system for LOTR. The problem was that the game had great ideas, but was rushed into production with out adequate playtesting. So when the LOTR Tournement Players got ahold of it, they quickly discovered just how broken it could be. The game faltered after a year or two.
Then "The Hobbit" movies were announced, and GW was still making enough money on LOTR/WOTR to re-up the license. After all, there would be plenty of free advertising while the new movies were forthcoming. But when they did, the released a new rulebook, and completely new army books that cost approximately double what the old rulebooks had cost.
They also changed the content of the boxes of miniatures drastically. Where before, you got 24 infantry models for about $24.99, now you got 12 models for $35.99. (This was done because now each Hero in an army could command 12 troops, just like Thorin Oakenshield and the 12 Dwarves. This was seen as a blatant money grab. Now you had to buy more boxes to build an army.) Cavalry also increased in price as well, you stil got 6 models, but now, they cost $36.00 - $50.00 instead of $18.00 - $24.00.
One of the big draws of LOTR was that it was more affordable than Warhammer Fantasy or Warhammer 40K. Once that was gone, in a blatant "**** the License while we can" move by GW, many of the LOTR Community just moved to other games. My group went from 22 players who all played regularly, to just 6 players who meet infrequently. The rest moved to Warmachine/Hordes, Flames of War, Bolt Action, Dropzone Commander, Malifuex (sp?), etc.
I continue to play LOTR, but also picked up X-Wing and Bolt Action. I also continue to play SFB and Federation Commander and have dabbled in Star Trek Attack Wing and Star Fleet: A Call to Arms. GW has not seen any of my money for the Hobbit game after my initial purhase of the new Rulebook and 5 new Army Books.
Well, I diid buy two $50.00 boxes of Elven Knights (6 Knights per box) back when they came out in 2012... But that was only because I had been waiting for official High Elven Knights since they had been announced in "Legions of Midle-earth" back in 2003. I wanted official models, instead of my converted Elven Knights. Then after I bought them I liked my converted Knights better
Sorry for the long post, but I have loved LOTR since I first read the books at age 8. I am 49 now so, its been a long love story. I was very sad when GW priced the game out of its market.
Thanks,
LTJGBeam
You can see the faded glory of my LOTR Hobby at my Blog: http://www.nangiliath.blogspot.com
Edited by LTJGBeamSo what actually happened? That detail was somehow missing.
$60 army books, for one.
I think it started around the time GW released the Lord of the Rings game. I never bothered with the game as it didn't interest me, but it probably had a number of good ideas. I did notice however how much of the game that was focused on specific events from the movies/books and that each such event seemed to get its own set of models. Like it was more important to sell models to collectors than supporting the game. From what I've heard over the years, it didn't do terribly well.
Although GW did try to sell to the "collectors" as well as the gamers, actually LOTR did quite well, If you look at GW's Financial Reports during the time frame of the 3 LOTR movies, it sold very well. Well enough for GW to make it a Core Game. While it was released originally as a scenario game, GW quicly realized that the majority of players wanted a "Army" style, points build game similar to Fantasy and 40K. So they released the "Legions of Middle-earth" Rulebook with Army Lists to convert the game, and utilize larger (30 - 75) model armies. This was followed by Army books for each major power in Middle-earth. A series ot Grand Tournements across the U.S (and Britain and Europe) sprang up and people attended in quite decent numbers
After the 3rd movie, GW released the "One Rulebook to rule them all" that combined all three sets of "movie" rulesets into one Master rulebook. Things stlll sold well for another year or two, but GW slowed down signifigantly on LOTR Releases (probably because they didn't have the free advertising being generated by new movies)... But LOTR still did well enough that GW decided to push LOTR into the "Mass Battles" arena, with several hundred models a side.
The result was "War of the Ring" (WOTR), a mass battles system for LOTR. The problem was that the game had great ideas, but was rushed into production with out adequate playtesting. So when the LOTR Tournement Players got ahold of it, they quickly discovered just how broken it could be. The game faltered after a year or two.
Then "The Hobbit" movies were announced, and GW was still making enough money on LOTR/WOTR to re-up the license. After all, there would be plenty of free advertising while the new movies were forthcoming. But when they did, the released a new rulebook, and completely new army books that cost approximately double what the old rulebooks had cost.
They also changed the content of the boxes of miniatures drastically. Where before, you got 24 infantry models for about $24.99, now you got 12 models for $35.99. (This was done because now each Hero in an army could command 12 troops, just like Thorin Oakenshield and the 12 Dwarves. This was seen as a blatant money grab. Now you had to buy more boxes to build an army.) Cavalry also increased in price as well, you stil got 6 models, but now, they cost $36.00 - $50.00 instead of $18.00 - $24.00.
One of the big draws of LOTR was that it was more affordable than Warhammer Fantasy or Warhammer 40K. Once that was gone, in a blatant "**** the License while we can" move by GW, many of the LOTR Community just moved to other games. My group went from 22 players who all played regularly, to just 6 players who meet infrequently. The rest moved to Warmachine/Hordes, Flames of War, Bolt Action, Dropzone Commander, Malifuex (sp?), etc.
I continue to play LOTR, but also picked up X-Wing and Bolt Action. I also continue to play SFB and Federation Commander and have dabbled in Star Trek Attack Wing and Star Fleet: A Call to Arms. GW has not seen any of my money for the Hobbit game after my initial purhase of the new Rulebook and 5 new Army Books.
Well, I diid buy two $50.00 boxes of Elven Knights (6 Knights per box) back when they came out in 2012... But that was only because I had been waiting for official High Elven Knights since they had been announced in "Legions of Midle-earth" back in 2003. I wanted official models, instead of my converted Elven Knights. Then after I bought them I liked my converted Knights better
Sorry for the long post, but I have loved LOTR since I first read the books at age 8. I am 49 now so, its been a long love story. I was very sad when GW priced the game out of its market.
Thanks,
LTJGBeam
You can see the faded glory of my LOTR Hobby at my Blog: http://www.nangiliath.blogspot.com
LotR was a fantastic game! Best of the mainline GW systems, easily. Very affordable, incredible sculpts, and both fun tactics and dice rolling. Of course, GW had to go and ruin all that by making gamers pay more for half the models. GW is its own worst enemy. They keep jacking prices up, and there'll be nobody left a year from now.
Huh, so maybe I was a bit wrong about how the LotR games fared. I will however still claim that it was around that time that I was starting to see things go downhill. Interestingly this also coincides with Kirby becoming CEO.
I'm not one for hyperbole... but GW is officially bat sh*t crazy. The IKs were one thing and I could barely stomach the $140 price tag but it was a mini titan which is kinda cool. But Nagash is ridiculous at that price point.
http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Chairmans-Preamble-2014.pdfGW are crapping themselves right now they went down 54% in terms of year on year profits and the morons in charge have now admitted they do no customer research so they don't know why.
You're kidding, right?
Read it by yourself. It's almost comical.
[facepalm]
LotR did well while the movies were out but that bubble burst after the return of the king came out.
It was 2004 when they abandoned specialist games and started to ignore vets in favour of kids it all started to go wrong, because as any burk knows kids don't have money their parents do and trying to convince mommy you need a £50 tank is a very hard sell.
of late its gotten worse as each new release is more expensive than the last like 3 terminator sized meganobz for the same price as 5 terminators.
I sold my gw stuff on eBay back in 2000... never looked back either.
FUGW!
