Even for those with money, the prices are still obnoxious. Value is relative and regardless of the “special powers” or function in your army, a few grams of mass produced plastic is a few grams of plastic.

You’re not getting high-end bespoke craftsmanship for the price point or some technical marvel.

Piracy only exits, because of greediness....

Friendship ended with James Workshop. Now Warlord James is my new best friend.

once upon a time GW was a tabletop gaming company, but a couple decades ago they pivoted to become a 'premium collector's toy' company

It's especially funny how they keep looking for "hurdles" preventing new players from joining the game, like the complexity of the rules, loadout options, and units without model when the biggest thing preventing the average person from joining the hobby is their outrageous prices. I was going trough my pile of shame recently and came across the Apocalypse boxes they released back in 2019 and $180 CAD got you 3 Leman Russ, 1 chimera, 1 cadian command squad and 1 cadian heavy weapon squad. That's 7 years ago not even looking back the the 1994 prices when I started the hobby. At least back then they had the excuse of using white metal for most of the models.

I just had this talk with my son, he got the free mini a stormcast eternal and asked for more for his birthday. I had to tell him no it's too expensive we can get other minis from other stores, and if he really wanted it he would have to wait for Christmas and have a minimal birthday. He decided against waiting and opted for other minis, standard medieval knights instead, he understood once I showed him the price for a 40k miniscule force could get him 3x more army guys elsewhere. Good kid.

Completely agree! It's killing the future generations of teenagers, who are priced out. So sad so many teens can't play this woderful hobby.

Went into a warhammer shop this week, saw the price for a single model, put it down and left. I also do airfix, I can get a decent size model with far more to do to it for the same or less

I mean, look at the new starcraft game. They're in Poland and still their models are half the price of what they would be under GW. Its like $49 for 18 zerglings, compared to $110 or 20 gaunts. Bruh! Its not even funny ngl

Im pretty much done with warhammer, its filled with cultists, stockholm syndrome

I think you got it backwards. Living is just too damn expensive. The models themselves aren't too bad. I mean, you get 10 intecessors out of the box and you need 3-5 hours to paint one model. Therefore you get 30 of 50 hours of entertainment out of these 41 pounds. Thats a pretty good ratio if you ask me. The problem is that spending a dollar an hour for entertainment is still too expensive if you live paycheck to paycheck. Characters are single models but often people spend more time on them. I spend 50€ on Ghazghkull and built and painted him for 25ish hours. Still a pretty good ratio. But again, if you only have 100€ left after all your expenses, even 50€ is just not enough. Especially if you try to invest a bit for retirement and other expenses that are more important.
Edit: One more thing. If you are working fulltime and you spend 40 hours painting a box of intercessors, thats quite the time commitment for the month. I feel like people get caught up with FOMO and new releases and want to buy the newest hotness, every time something gets released. Then you go to tournament winning list and stuff from years back is winning (kill rigs from 2021 and battle wagons from 2009). You dont need to buy stuff for 500€ to start out the hobby. Work your way up instead of collecting a huge pile of grey plastic.

FGW. Recast, 3d print, gatekeep, and Don't buy their fuckin plasics unless GW puts them on sale for a reasonable price.

It has now been over 3 years since I've bought a plastic GW kit anywhere but Ebay.

I almost bought Titus when he came out. I thought, okay, this'll be cool maybe 60-70 bucks, I could stomach that, its high, but GW always is.

They rang up for $109 after tax. I laughed in my LGS owner's face, put it back, and picked up some paints.

Got home ordered the recast. - $23

I've been enjoying working on the stl armies for Warmachine MKIV
3D printer go BRRRRRRR

Haha. 3d printer go brrr

Here in Australia/Singapore  I do well with my job but these modern days prices vs quality of system is WAY overpriced. I am a 40k vet from Rogue trader days and it makes me weep what has happened to the hobby. The solution - as is all economic problems - is substitutes like Tortuga Bay etc . There is a reason warband style games long out of support are still so popular - Mordheim Bloodbowl etc.

When i 1st got into 40k when i was a young lad, you could get 30 mk6 space marines for £12 and a rhino was a £5 😂 to put that in perspective, with inflation those 30 mk6 marines would cost today £25.67 and a rhino would cost 13.74 !

basic core units used to be a lot cheaper even taking into account inflation, elite units and vehicles were always expensive but with elite units you could buy them in blisters etc to make it easier to manage the prices, plus in older editions you didn;t have as many elite or heavy units in your army anyways as core units were still fairly effective and you had a proper force org etc. Intercessors squad should be 25 quid not 40 something.

The cheapest army to buy in to is custodes.if l wanted a warhammer 40k 11ed custodes army. Trajan, 3 allarus terminators, 1 captin with shield, 5 custodes sodality guards, 1 telamon dreadnought, 1 caladus anihilator tank, 3 venetari with lances, 15 sisters of silence. It would cost me 790$ or 630$ with discounts . People here make 550-600$ monthly on the avarge. No boy or teen can afford this army (still no paints, glue etc in the army cost) , an adult dude with avarge income has to work 6 weeks to buy it. The army has 0 resiliance to nerfs , rules changes or "wanting to try something else out". This is the cheapest GW can do. If the same dude decides to go in to Ad Mecha, IG or similar , he will work cloae to half a year to get his army . Now no adult l know of can spend 100% of his income on a hobby. Which means the 6 weeks-half a year , are more like a years to three years of buying, building etc adjust this for codex rules changes, edition changes, legends etc and the hobbist from my part of the world is f'ed. No wonder we are 3d printing central.

I remember getting my warhammer as a kid on just a £13 a week paper round. Eldar Jet bike for £7, as Blister pack for £3-£5 great, I still had money for paints or going to the cinema. Now the prices are insane, especially for characters.

They are taking the Disney pricing model. Keep raising price even though fewer people are buying but the average purchase per person higher