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Post by mcdermott on Feb 6, 2019 0:20:08 GMT
Are you in europe? If so, please read the first line VERY CAREFULLY.
Tac marines are 40 dollars in america off the GW site A full unit of primaris intercessors is 51 on amazon
30 bucks gets you half a squad.
What are YOU on, other than probably being in UROP
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Post by michael on Feb 6, 2019 0:38:50 GMT
It would be difficult for me to disagree more with challenger’s assessment of battlegroup boxes.
But I am tired of this merry-go-round, as this “battlegroup boxes suck!!1!” refrain plays about once a quarter, and the discussion has been had and had and had again.
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Post by Charistoph on Feb 6, 2019 2:18:00 GMT
I'm not going to neccesarily talk price of systems, but i have a rant in me about the dogganm battleboxes
Honestly i think battleboxes are one of the worst miniature game entry points that i am aware of. Which is certainly a bold claim, but let me explain why: battlebox size games are actually pretty miserable affairs. i've played multiple battlebox introductory games and also in multiple journeyman leagues. While battleboxes are good at introducing someone to the rules in a simple way, they are very bad at introducing someone to the gameplay of warmachine and why people like it. You get basically none of the actual interest and depth of the game, what you get is a silly dance where your heavy tries to one round their heavy and if it does you win.
While I won't disagree on the balance points (Trollbloods and Legion start at somewhat anemic entries in relation to the others and Khador and Human Mercenaries are down, allowing one to be outmanuevered to say nothing of Theme integration for JML), I rather disagree on the battlebox being a poor entry.
The most unique aspects to WarmaHordes are the Warcaster/Warlock dynamics and the combat resolution aspects. These can also be the most difficult to develop outside of realizing the synergies to develop between your main Battelgroup, units, and solos. In this, the Battleboxes succeed in this approach. Starting out with units alone is quite pointless because of the impact the main Battlegroup brings to the army, especially in Hordes with its aspect of building a spell list for the Warlock. Now, what a Battlebox doesn't do is a good job of introducing a person to Steamroller. Guess what? WarmaHordes is NOT a Steamroller-only game. There are many different aspects to play in its options. If Steamroller is your only consideration for WarmaHordes, then the biggest controllable problem in your meta stares back at you in the mirror.
Then let's talk quality. I have heard bad things about the models. The templates are an actual joke. They are paper cutouts. Like it's not that hard to include some nice cardboard templates that will be more resiliant than a little bit of paper. The missions to teach the player are dry and boring. the map that comes with it is also some absolutely cheap papery thing. Now you might be wondering why i'm banging on about the quality - i'll get to that soon.
Then as you mention, your lists get no overlap as you expand. you can't just take "generically good" models and apply them to multiple lists.
I have built two of the Battleboxes so far, helped my brother-in-law to build a third, and just acquired two more, all different factions. Materially, they are perfectly fine and while not quite as good as the formula that GW uses, I have found it easier to use then GW's Finecast or the restic of the new heavy kits. I can't say much to its survivability in the trunk of an Arizona summer all day, but it has lasted long enough to get to a store an hour away.
The templates (read ruler and wall, I didn't get a spray template in my Protectorate box) are higher-quality paper. No, they aren't cardboard, but I wouldn't want them to be. The ruler is more flexible than GW's rule whip that I got in Assault on Black Reach and Dark Vengeance (and much easier to fit in a box, those have to go in diagonally to those big boxes), and cardboard doesn't bend very well and maintain any capacity of accurate measurement. The wall is the same paperboard that the cards are made of and perfectly strong enough with a spot of scotch tape. The tokens and dice are decent, even if boring (seriously, why couldn't they divert a few spot items from the tokens bag?).
The map is not cheap paper, and is actually of better quality than the map sheets I got for Battletech ages past. It's actually not bad for everything else you get in that box. If you want to see an example of cheap paper, go down to your local copy store and see what they have in their self-serve copiers, that's cheap. Besides, unlike Battletech, there is little reason to use it if you don't want to mess with it (admittedly, it does hold the bends better than my old BT sheets, dang it).
The training missions may be dry and boring, but I hope your driving instructions were equally dry and boring before you got in to traffic. If you reference how exciting it is to go through all the classes any soldier or marine has before they get up to a firing line, to say nothing of everything they go through AT the firing line, the WarmaHordes tutorial has the gracefulness of being brief.
As to the quality of the models when applying them to the tabletop, those vary greatly and at least they aren't doubling up on the Lights any more so that it is easy to have an excess of really mediocre models (Hi, Savage, I'm glad I sold 1 of the three I got in two Battlebox purchases!). They may not be useful in every single list, but expecting them all to shine in everything is setting an unreasonable bar when standards change based on Theme and Warcaster/lock.
First off let's talk guild ball: The guild ball introductory experience is the Kick off! box. In it you have two full teams, captain, mascot, and 4 players each. It's the full experience right from the start with a quick start manual to teach you teach you the game.
Those teams are well balanced against each other. you get a full set of cardboard templates for measuring, you even get cardboard health dials for each individual player.
you get a beautiful double sided board game style pitch that can be configured for a 2x3 experience or the full 3x3 and some cardboard 2d terrain themed around the teams you get. This is something a single player can buy, or a pair of players can split and be very happy with, it gives them everything they need to play the game with zero other purchases. Future expansions let the player get enough players to have a draft and to bring in the gameplans, but the essence of the game is captured. Not only that, but it looks great! the models barrelling down the pitch at each other is awesome
Why didn't you bring up Blood Bowl or Soccer as well? The only relationship that WarmaHordes has to GuildBall is hobby time and money. They are completely separate game types with Guild Ball being more of a sports board game than a tabletop miniature war game when looked at a grand overview. Secondly: lets talk about Infinity
The Infinity operation boxes are pretty amazing. They come with a mat (paper, like the battlebox) but then they come with 7 models to each side of metal miniatures with great detail. they also come with a full set of 3d terrain and buildings so you can actually create quite a cinematic, vertical battleground for the troops to skirmish in. These terrain are very elegantly designed to even fit your old empty boxes inside them to make them more sturdy.
These operation boxes go a step further and offer expansion boxes later with another 3 very high quality models for each side that bring you up towards a standard army size. These are designed to work with the existing models very well, whereas if you were to try to plug a battlebox into a theme box for warmachine you would get... mixed results at best. So despite getting a smaller force than makes up a standard army, you get the full experience. You get cool models skirmishing in 3d terrain and scaling rooftops. I am sorry, the battleboxes cannot even come close to the cinematic experience the operation boxes offer This is a better comparison. And while the base mechanics of Infinity are often a bit wonky to read through and understand on your own in comparison to WMH, their starters are good for providing a good starting core.
Unfortunately, the Operation boxes are NOT a good comparison to the Battleboxes. The actual starter sets are a more accurate comparison. The Operation boxes are closer to the 2 Player Battle Boxes or the All-In-One Box Sets. The Operation boxes provide more of that larger kit to access, just like the AIO and 2PBBs. So, why are you comparing a completely different price set item with something that has a different goal set?
Even if we disregard how great these experiences are and just compare to 40k or age of sigmar, the Start Collecting! boxes sell at a large discount from retail price of the models inside them, have great quality, and make up a playable small force where you have multiple elements of an army from vehicles to giant monsters (the Trygon is in the tyranids box... seriously its nuts) to standard troop choices.
So to reiterate all of this, i completely agree price in WMH is a big problem, but i think just as big or bigger is how terrible the new player experience is. I think many players have lost sight of this because they are not new players, they are experience veterans with big collections so none of that matters to them. But new blood is desperately needed for a game to prosper. When you combine the price problem with the fact you can't even offer them an attractive entry point, why bother? at least Games Workshop offers a deeply discounted entry point before any price gouging begins.
Battleboxes need to be just chucked out and something more closely resembling Start Collecting! boxes that would be a functional 25pts army sold at a discount would be a huge step forwards in the new player experience because at least 25pt games can have a basic scenario and multiple model types and some synergies. Or just damnit go all out and make the experience deluxe like Infinity and Guild ball get. Battleboxes are a terrible entry point
GW's Start Collecting Boxes can be better deals, but can equally contain some stinkers as well, just like the Battleboxes. They also have twice the price point and do not contain the rules of the game or any other gameplay accoutrements that a new player may want or need (though, they are largely self-contained in "Theme" for AoS).
From there, if you do a price point for the average Warcaster/lock and 2-3 'Jacks/Beasts, you do see a nice discount there, even if you only stick to two of the 4 models that it comes with. Try pricing out any of the lists of the Alternate Battleboxes in the JML packet, and you'll see a hefty price difference. While the Variants have yet to be released in Blisters, you can easily get the 'Jacks or 'Beasts alone, and you'll be seeing that you get basically get a discount on a second model after the Heavy, and get the rest of the stuff (including the maps, tokens, dice, etc) for free.
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Post by zorrobard47 on Feb 6, 2019 6:47:42 GMT
For me I find two key problems with Battle Boxes:
1. They aren't balanced with each other. 2. They don't contain many models you would keep using.
It seems the Battle Boxes contains models that are intended to be abandoned soon after a player gets into the game, particularly the Warlocks and Warcasters. With the Battle Boxes so unbalanced, it can lead to a negative play experience.
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Post by Gamingdevil on Feb 6, 2019 7:07:58 GMT
Funfact. In europe legion raptors and northkin raiders have now passed the 100 dollar mark, chosen are 135. That's with a 10% discount (as are all of the above prices btw) I just checked Wayland Games: Northkin Raiders before discount are $107.45 (€94.20), Raptors are $112.63 (€98.75). As far as I remember, euro prices have always been a 1 to 1 conversion instead of accounting for the currency exchange rate, to cover for import and shipping fees I assume, for both GW and PP, which is fair. New models are indeed pretty expensive, and even then there are large variations, but I'm really surprised by Raptors to be honest. Isn't that even a pretty old sculpt? What are YOU on, other than probably being in UROP Very helpful. Privateer Press sells their product outside of the US, I assume they want people to buy it and I assume people buying it is good for their bottom line. I don't know why their prices are higher (probably mostly taxes), but availability is spotty at best as well. Both of these things are hurting metas across the world (yes, yes, outside the US) and if they want to expand to a larger market share, it is an area they should look at. It's not because you on your island don't have a problem, that other people can't have legitimate issues and snarky comments don't help the discussion at all.
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Post by dirtyharrypotter on Feb 6, 2019 8:05:33 GMT
I usually buy at element games, they are more reliable as to when they ship in my experience (ones had to wait for over a year at waylanfs to get my farrow brigand warlord, the lastbit of a big order, and am still waiting for my grymkin softcover). Also a bit more expensove even before discounts, have to remember that.
For the sake of the argument I checked prices at minature market, based in the US (which I'm familiar withnow because it just had a mad sale. Buying big would set us back 21% in taxes, and for orders over 150 dollars 4-13% import on top of that, but for people living in the US a unit of chosen will still cost you a 110 dollars before discounts. Which is more or less the tax+import difference, in europe they cost 140-150.
At that same site the goblin units that just came out and cost 38 or 42 dollars in europe cost 45 and 50 dollars in the US respectively. All of this is before 10-20% discounts, which all of these sites have. Miniature market sits at 15 for these GW models.
So not only do you in the US pay less taxes over foreign products, I still don't see how GW is just as expensive even for those in the US.
Also, in a fair comparison you'd compare european GW prices to US PP prices. In that comparison 110 dollars for 5 cavalry models is still insane. Not even the outliers of GW products match that.
And don't get me started on the hoochhauler. What were they thinking on that one.
Having said that, I enjoy the characterfull style of many PP models a lot more then GWs slick design of today. And I have more money to spend then when I actively played warhammer, so PP doesn't feel expensive. But that's purely subjective, it doesn't really matterin this discussion.
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Post by mcdermott on Feb 6, 2019 8:10:54 GMT
I'm not from the UK, im from the US.
The reality of the situation is that europe has a VAT. You're going to pay more for product from america than you are for product from europe, there's no getting around it. You also very likely pay less for GW product than we do here (at least til brexit). Which is why, again, if you read what i posted...IF YOU ARE IN THE US their prices are equivalent.
Also, 5 thunderwolf cavalry will cost you over 100 dollars, it only looks cheap cause you only get 3 per box.
Edit: and thats not a fair comparison, people aren't going to pay one nations prices for one game and another nations prices for a different one. Thats whats known as a stupid comparison, that people try to make because they didn't read "if you're in the US" and decided to continue beating the drum of how much more expensive PP is than GW.
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unded
Junior Strategist
Posts: 760
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Post by unded on Feb 6, 2019 8:39:31 GMT
While I take your point, McDermott (the producer country will obviously be advantaged if that's where you buy), it doesn't account for the discrepency when buying in a neutral country (like I was buying in RSA, or others buying in Australia) where PP comes out significantly more expensive. Those are much "fairer" comparisons (honestly "fair" isn't truly relevant - if you buy in the UK it doesn't matter if it's fair or not, it's still your real-world experience and forms one facet of the choice you are going to make of where to spend your hobby money) since both companies will face the same extra taxes, shipping costs etc, and in those cases PP is just indefensibly expensive.
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snoozer
Junior Strategist
Posts: 467
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Post by snoozer on Feb 6, 2019 8:57:31 GMT
I think the Battle Boxes are fine. Don't compare them to skirmish games, that is not reasonable because the game uses more miniatures in SR. You get a cheap entry point and it's a nice package for that. You can then add the army Boxes for "fuller" armies.
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Post by dirtyharrypotter on Feb 6, 2019 9:11:40 GMT
I'm not from the UK, im from the US. The reality of the situation is that europe has a VAT. You're going to pay more for product from america than you are for product from europe, there's no getting around it. You also very likely pay less for GW product than we do here (at least til brexit). Which is why, again, if you read what i posted...IF YOU ARE IN THE US their prices are equivalent. Also, 5 thunderwolf cavalry will cost you over 100 dollars, it only looks cheap cause you only get 3 per box. Edit: and thats not a fair comparison, people aren't going to pay one nations prices for one game and another nations prices for a different one. Thats whats known as a stupid comparison, that people try to make because they didn't read "if you're in the US" and decided to continue beating the drum of how much more expensive PP is than GW. I don't understand why we are disagreeing, did you read my post? I have made comparisons on US sites, made the same comparisons on european sites, and drew the same conclusion you just did in your edit and which was just polished by Unded. Who is right, it would be fairer for the sake of this argument to compare companies in a "neutral" country. Also, the very first thing I said going i to this, is that GW also has it's outliers. I allready named two, you now added a third, that doesn't change the fact that 10 chaos knights for instance cost half that of any PP cavalry, and there's many more boxes priced like that. Add to that that GW has some very sweet armydeals (it's been a while, but the skittari box, and the tauboxes were great value for money) whereas with PP only the starters are priced that well... Yet not that usefull to some on this forum. Some GW deals are terrible though, I think you actually pay more for the nigjt goblin deal then for the seperate boxes. GW logic ><
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Post by mcdermott on Feb 6, 2019 15:24:22 GMT
The chaos knight box are models that havent been changed since like...7th ed fantasy? They're priced to move because its repackaged overstock. Its like finding a deal on assault kommandos.
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Post by dirtyharrypotter on Feb 6, 2019 16:09:22 GMT
..... PP cavalry is supernew or something? Missed out on that memo.
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Post by mcdermott on Feb 6, 2019 16:31:23 GMT
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Post by slaughtersun on Feb 6, 2019 16:38:54 GMT
I think you mean 85 bucks..
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Post by dirtyharrypotter on Feb 6, 2019 16:59:40 GMT
Jup that's rediculous, and every warhamster player will attest to that. It's also not the norm for that game.
I remember I stopped collecting when infantry got repackages into ten model boxes, which half a year later got bumped from 22,50€ to 27,50€. I think many players thought the same. GWs answer to our hesitance was to release witchelves for 65€ per ten or something rediculous like that. Couple of years later all the people thay decided on that were replaced and the grand majority of boxes got released at that older pricepoint again.
Of course GW will be GW and there's still silly stuff like the things we have been mentioning, but again it's not the norm and especially if you consider the prices for most armydeals there is no question as to which company has the better prices overall.
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