Well well its been a week and a half in the wargaming world with 3 bigs pieces of news coming out of Games Workshop. A lot of people have had a lot to say on these and this is just meant to be my view and is not meant to insult anyone else or anyone elses opinion, I'm going to take each of the 3 items in turn.
1. Finecast
OK lets start with what may possibly be the only good news, the introduction of the citadel finecast range. A selection of new and classic pieces from the citadel range recast in a new resin material and not the usual metal. Inveitably this also comes with a price increase. I popped into my local GW today and had a chat to the manager about the new material, hes seen and held a model and he couldn't stop praising it for painting (obviously he would do though, but I know the guy as a hobbyist), but what I did find interesting was that he said it wasn't forgeworld resin and it wasn't like the resin used by either mantic or privatier press, apparently it's something new developed by GW alone. Weather this turns out to be the revolution he was preaching or just another money grabbing gimmick time alone will tell, but whatever I think of some of their pricing and business decisions I do think they do the best range of fantasy and sci-fi models on the market and I'm hoping this introduces some stonking models, if they do manage to reproduce forgeworld quality on them I think the price increase may be stomachable for characters, £61.50 for 5 blood knights however.... no, i wouldn't pay £50 and converted my own and thats just plainly ridiculous.
2. Price Rises
Now for the biggy. Yet again GW have raised their prices, this time by a lot. Now clearly nobody is happy about this, why would any hobbyist be happy about having to pay more for the same stuff. Now price rises are inevitable, its called inflation, however that doesn't mean the scale of the rises are justified, but unfortunately GW are out to make money and they can charge what they like, I don't like that but its the way that it is. The only thing you can do is not buy from them. My purchases from GW have already been declining over the last 2 years due to the prices and there is some stuff that I just won't pay for (the new phoniex guard for exmaple, great models but £25 for 10 plastic elves, no way), I see this trend in my pruchases continuing. I will be looking on ebay and continuting to explore alternative manufactures (mantic, avatars of war etc..) I also think I'll be heading more along the historical gaming line, I won't stop buying from them entirely, but i will buy and cruically spend less.
3. EU only Sales
I live in the UK and the embargo preventing internet retailers in the EU selling outside doesn't really affect me. Having said that it seems really petty and not indictive of pleasing your customer/fan base in a week already full of bad news. Surely if an internet retailer sells to the UK or Australia they've still bought the stock off GW in the first place and GW still have made the same profit per item, surely you want the internet sellers to sell more stock as they then buy more stock to sell. I just don't get it. I work in retail and sell things on ebay, and in both situations I'm not bothered who or where I'm selling to, its the sale that matters, I just don't understand this decision at all.
Sorry about the ranting rambling post, more pics of painted models soon.
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