Warpath - Marauder Pricing

The release of pictures of the plastic orx marauders by Mantic games has caused a bit of a stir this week, and I'm afraid I'm going to add to it with a look at the pricing of the new marauders.

The new plastic Marauders with a Raptor

The smallest box of grunts avaliable comes in at £12.50 for 10 (I'm ignoring the 0.99 or 0.49 in this post as it makes the maths tidier and doesn't effect the point) and contains 2 three orc sprues and 2 two orc sprues including a heavy weapon.  The sprues are based on the sprues for the Kings of War orcs (not an iusse to me, although I can understand why some poeple are disappointed), so you would expect the prices to be similar.  The Kings of War orc ax comes in at £14 for 15 (or the equilent of £2.80 per sprue) and the greatax box comes in at £10 for 10 (or £2 a sprue).  The equilent warpath sprues at the smallest box level therefore should cost (2 x 2.80) + (2 x 2) = £9.60, or to be fair a tenner (like the cost of 10 greatax actually).  £2.50 seems a steep difference for models that are more than half the same and just have different plastic arms.

Marauder Concept Art

Considering that Mantic have reused parts from the Kings of War range to presumably save money, how come the models cost more? Do round bases cost a lot more than square ones maybe?  No and I think its a shame, I'm on the fence about starting Warpath at the moment, and I was never going to get marauders (the Forgefathers do appeal to me though), and this isn't going to encourage me.  One of Mantics biggest selling points to me is the price, and what looks like a 'Warpath surcharge' is very disapointing.

So no marauders for me and maybe no forgefathers either if they share the same pricing structure and reusing of parts.  If you want to sell me Warpaths minis Mantic I suggest you get Jake to write a Dwarf Kings Hold: In Space.

Images copyright Mantic Games, used without permission