I don't understand why the expansions are so much more expensive than the base box?

Here are the base set figures priced out as expansions.

Two large figures (one siege box) $35

Six unit boxes $150

two hero figures (one hero box) $25

I understand that there would be more cardboard in the unit boxes but I'm wondering if FFG and players would not be better served if FFG offered larger products.

For example the elves starter box feels like a pretty acceptable value.

fewer larger purchases means FFG saves on packaging and we get more for our money. What say you?

also I think it's fine to offer smaller products but compilation products down the line would be welcomed. Like the aces packs from x-wing

The core set is meant to get you to make an initial investment of time and money into the game. Once you are to the point of buying expansions they know they've got your money and don't need to be as aggressive with the value.

Once you set the value of a thing it's very hard to get people to see it as suddenly more valuable when in difrent packaging.

The X-Wing core is a great balance. Five bucks cheaper than buying the ships alone and totally different pilots and card board.

As for now I feel like I'm going to double up on core sets and proxy upgrade cards.

It is meant to get you started. They typically sell the cores at a loss similar to video consoles, to push expansions to make their money.

Yeah but the core and any units in the core are the same product. It's not a console, it's not a razor blade handle, it's the same thing. Once you set a price for a thing it's very hard to change customer perception. Expansions cost twice as much as the core set? That's a little crazy.

The core set is cheaper yes, but they get you with upgrade cards you will need in expansions, it's a business model. Then it's the fact that if you buy multiple core boxes you kind of lose value by getting cardboard that's not usable, unique cards and heroes that you can't really use. (except for converting or ebay it).

I do however agree that the expansions price did suprise me for the amount of plastic you get. The command upgrade box is just one tray worth. It did make me change from 2 of everyhing to maybe 2 of reanimates and 1 of the other two.

Core set is usually sold at a value though in my experience, that is why so many FFG games are often buy 2-3 core set games.

Upgrade cards, new sculpts on golem and lancer. These are reasonably priced, though I wish the infantry upgrades and heroes were $5 less then they are. I'm ok with it though.

Because that's how they get ya.

13 minutes ago, Darthain said:

Because that's how they get ya.

Unless I refuse? I guess that's why i don't understand. If the ploy backfires and I don't buy them then it's a bad plan.

And not buying core set expansions is curently my plan. Other things I will pick up here n there for sure. I will just be proxying upgrade cards.

The extra poses on siege units are cool.

11 minutes ago, TylerTT said:

Unless I refuse? I guess that's why i don't understand. If the ploy backfires and I don't buy them then it's a bad plan.

And not buying core set expansions is curently my plan. Other things I will pick up here n there for sure. I will just be proxying upgrade cards.

The extra poses on siege units are cool.

All good, but events are fun, and you can't proxy at them.

We have talked about this quite a bit on the forums before and there is one aspect of this that personally chaps my hide.

My main beef is that for competitive players you will have to effectively replace your core set miniatures with expansions anyway and it actually has turned out that competitive players should have skipped the core set entirely and waited for the expansion.

The reason is simple. You CAN buy all of the upgrades from the core set separately without models, but you can't buy the upgrade cards from the expansions separately. So if you want to give your core set 2x1 archers combat ingenuity, you will have to buy the expansion, but if you do, now you have 2 2x1 Archers and one is still missing combat ingenuity. As a competitive players this is of course not acceptable, so you'll end up getting a second and maybe even a third set, effectively making your original archer purchase largely obsolete.

Really this model is far worse then the previous system where you had to collect multiple factions because at least in the other model you would have the other faction to play with. now we still can't get all the cards we need without buying unnecessary expansions but to make matters worse, we don't even get access to the other factions and if we choose to pursue the other factions we have to buy unnecessary expansions there as well.

Its actually an even bigger F-U then with X-Wing and Armada.

The smart players will wait for the Runewars Game Essentials Pack, then pick up the expansions. Its more expensive, but you cut some cost in buy the essentials pack and at least you won't have to purchase a bunch of units you don't need with missing upgrades you want.

.

8 hours ago, Darthain said:

All good, but events are fun, and you can't proxy at them.

Exactly but I think this is where FFG has really hurt themselves. I've already purchase 3 core sets... Now I'm missing a ton of upgrades. I can either shell out stupid amounts of money just to get a small hand of cards, or I can proxy everything and skip events. While I could certainly afford it, on principle alone there is no way I'm doing that so basically it means as far as Runewars goes, competitive play is out. At least until they make the cards I need available somehow.

@BigKahuna How is it different from X-Wing? If you bought a couple TFA core sets, you had a few T-70s. Then the T-70 expansion was released with Integrated Astromech. No matter how many of those you purchased, you didn't have enough Integrated Astromechs for your T-70s. Eventually, they released Heroes of the Resistance with 2 copies of Integrated Astromech, but by then, some people already bought more T-70 expansions than they needed. Plus, it is still more cost effective to buy T-70s instead of Heroes of the Resistance because that's $30 for two copies instead of $40 for two copies.

The same is true with TIE/fo Fighters and Comm Relay. X-Wing screwed people just the same as Runewars. The only difference is the price of expansions.

Does that make it okay? No. Do I wish expansions were $20 instead of $25? Absolutely. But I'll deal with it by buying less product than I otherwise would.

47 minutes ago, Budgernaut said:

@BigKahuna How is it different from X-Wing? If you bought a couple TFA core sets, you had a few T-70s. Then the T-70 expansion was released with Integrated Astromech. No matter how many of those you purchased, you didn't have enough Integrated Astromechs for your T-70s. Eventually, they released Heroes of the Resistance with 2 copies of Integrated Astromech, but by then, some people already bought more T-70 expansions than they needed. Plus, it is still more cost effective to buy T-70s instead of Heroes of the Resistance because that's $30 for two copies instead of $40 for two copies.

The same is true with TIE/fo Fighters and Comm Relay. X-Wing screwed people just the same as Runewars. The only difference is the price of expansions.

Does that make it okay? No. Do I wish expansions were $20 instead of $25? Absolutely. But I'll deal with it by buying less product than I otherwise would.

I was thinking of this same example. I actually think that Runewars isn't quite as bad as X-Wing because in a lot of instances you won't be running minimum size units so won't actually need one upgrade card for every two bases that you include. Hopefully, Combat Ingenuity + Reanimate Archers will be an exception of a unit and upgrade combo that benefits from being used on multiple small units.

Hey I think a 2x2 Reanimate archers will be pretty useful with how many upgrades you can stick on it with Ardus.

Well the particulars of upgrade card distribution is still sort of unknown right?

Like there could be combat ingenuity in lots of other sets like the command set right?

2 minutes ago, TylerTT said:

Well the particulars of upgrade card distribution is still sort of unknown right?

Like there could be combat ingenuity in lots of other sets like the command set right?

It could very well end up in other expansions as well but we know that it's not in the command set. All of the cards from that expansion were posted in another thread just recently.

Yeah just saw that. Are any of those cards in other products?

Once you understand FFG sells plastic crack, everything they do makes sense. The first hit is always cheap and wonderful and the best high ever. After that, you are just feeding the beast.

9 minutes ago, Mep said:

Once you understand FFG sells plastic crack, everything they do makes sense. The first hit is always cheap and wonderful and the best high ever. After that, you are just feeding the beast.

Yeah, except it's not really a plastic addiction. When it comes down to it, it's the same cardboard crack that's been around since the 90s, just packaged differently.

@Budgernaut Oh, for sure, FFG does the cardboard crack too.

1 hour ago, TylerTT said:

Well the particulars of upgrade card distribution is still sort of unknown right?

Like there could be combat ingenuity in lots of other sets like the command set right?

Remember it is Waiqar only. I doubt it will be in the other packs unfortunately.

22 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

We have talked about this quite a bit on the forums before and there is one aspect of this that personally chaps my hide.

My main beef is that for competitive players you will have to effectively replace your core set miniatures with expansions anyway and it actually has turned out that competitive players should have skipped the core set entirely and waited for the expansion.

The reason is simple. You CAN buy all of the upgrades from the core set separately without models, but you can't buy the upgrade cards from the expansions separately. So if you want to give your core set 2x1 archers combat ingenuity, you will have to buy the expansion, but if you do, now you have 2 2x1 Archers and one is still missing combat ingenuity. As a competitive players this is of course not acceptable, so you'll end up getting a second and maybe even a third set, effectively making your original archer purchase largely obsolete.

Really this model is far worse then the previous system where you had to collect multiple factions because at least in the other model you would have the other faction to play with. now we still can't get all the cards we need without buying unnecessary expansions but to make matters worse, we don't even get access to the other factions and if we choose to pursue the other factions we have to buy unnecessary expansions there as well.

Its actually an even bigger F-U then with X-Wing and Armada.

The smart players will wait for the Runewars Game Essentials Pack, then pick up the expansions. Its more expensive, but you cut some cost in buy the essentials pack and at least you won't have to purchase a bunch of units you don't need with missing upgrades you want.

.

The only current example where I see this being true is if you plan on only ever running 2x1 Archers.

However for every other unit in the game I don´t really see the same problem as the normal way of running them will be in larger formations than how they come in the expansions.