The price of pain

Well it seems as though there's really only one topic stretching across the Astronomicon at the moment - MONEY! and our favorite hobby suppliers desire for more. There's not a whole lot I can add to the debate but I'd be remiss not to acknowledge it at least. There seems to be three parts to GW's business shift:

1. The introduction of Finecast - stopping metal miniatures because the price is too high and making saving by this new resin, although apparently the raw materials will be cheaper and were hinted at bringing the costs of those figures down when in fact in most cases the costs have gone up.
2. A new raft of prices, a lot of them UP, the majority staying the same and a very few going down. "Who wants a Pyrovore? Anyone? Even if we drop the price? Damn!"
3. The change in terms and Condistions stopping discount resellers from selling to the Rest of the World. Of course they can't get away with this malarkey in Europe, there are trade rules preventing this from happening but for those in the New World and the colonies, well they're screwed, Royally, and not the new face of the monarchy one of those old school "off with their heads Royals" with gout and an eye for conquest.

The Back40k has an interesting open letter that covers a lot of what can be said of which there's little to disagree with from most hobbyists views. For me personally I knew this was an expensive past time in 1997 when I finally gave up the hobby because I could see the greed involved. Fast forward to today and I'm still aware of the costs and this prompted most of my purchases to be via ebay. There's a considerable amount of satisfaction to gain from getting a bargain, but even more so when you know how expensive they are direct from their source.

Unless it's through vouchers, or paint [which hasn't gone up in price] there's little chance I'll be shopping direct at GW. I also had thought hard about offloading some old miniature but actually feel that the cost of replacing anything would be too much and so it's best to keep what I've got.

In GW's defence though they have practically a monopoly on what they do, like Apple they can push that envelope of customer loyalty and price. Maybe Nintendo might be a better comparison as they make a proprietary system and games can cost up to £40, not too far from what a starter box can cost, but they also have cheaper games and this is one thing GW doesn't do very well - cheaper options. I talked in the past about the Skeleton box sets and the original plastic Imperial Guard. You used to get a lot in those days and as you can see above there used to be vouchers to make savings on all sorts of purchases, not just at store openings but summer sales and other events.

Sadly with the lack of blister packs available you can't get a figure for a 'quid' anymore. Even the snapfit Tyranids are over a fiver [current price, and I think subject to change], that's just beyond what I'd call pocket-money priced but at least you get 5, whereas you get only 3 marines for the similar set and 4 Eldar or Orks.

On the plus side it's great for a British company, if increasing prices and stopping sellers selling abroad increases profits. Not sure how much of a silver lining that is though, what with all the ill-feeling engendered.

UPDATE: and if you want some real good advice check out A Year of Frugal Gaming it may help you decide your own future in the hobby.

40K Resin bike bases

daemonscape1 resin bike bases

Over the course of a few receipts of GW Gift Vouchers last year I picked up a couple of bikes. They're quite cheap and with the Ravenwing being a big part of the Dark Angels I thought I had to entertain the idea of having some even if they were bobbins.

So I had the two bikes and needed one more for the squad. In another post I'll show you what I got but suffice to say by the time I'd finished I needed some extra bike bases.

There was a set by dark-arts-miniatures on ebay that looked really cool with a fair bit of detail but they were too varied as a group. Here's what they were like:

and I was really looking for some as cheap as chips, although these weren't too bad at £5.45 for the 5. So in the end I ended up with these resin bases by daemonscape1 £2.99 for 5 is a bargain and they're spot on.

The real article in all it's nudity.

It's the first resin stuff I've bought but I was aware the could be a bit 'wiffy' and boy do they stink. I've given them a quick wash in soapy water and when the bikes are ready I'll show you how I get on with basing up with them.

Anyways, thought I'd give everyone a heads up to the ebay page.

WFB - Odd knights

More of my Marauder Miniatures Heroes of the Empire. The Morrisons clearly liked tall Heroes, this Halberdier is massive. I used gold and silver, with some white/silver mix highlights. His Helmet was randomly 'enamled' in red with my red to white highlights picked up also on his gloves [what was I thinking?]

This Hero was my favorite of the three but originally he had a really feeble looking Warhammer so I chopped it off. I had quite a nice Greatsword, impressive looking if a little lacking in detail that fit perfectly but sadly the superglue did not last and I'm sure it's knocking around in a bits box somewhere waiting to be reunited with it's wielder.

Lastly our old friend the low level champion from a small squad of Swordsmen. This fella's using some magical flame sword. Altogether these were fantastic miniature, the Morrisons really could lay down some fantastic sculpts.

WFB - Empire Knights Panther

Given the choice of the Empire Knightly Orders, Knights of the White Wolf were my favorites but I didn't like how they played on the battlefield. Actualy I should say how they would play because I'm still not sure if I ever got to play a WFB game with my Empire army. So next up on my list were Knights Panther. In particular the knight with the 'portcullis' helm, with Panther pelt on top. Below is the painted unit of five, in actual fat I had eight and at some point I'll do a full shot of them.

As you can see my exagerated highlights were put to good use, I think they work well from a distance. I also struggled with the idea behind the Panthers crest so simplified it with the slashing claw motif on the shield.

A close-up of their Panther claw slashed shields.

From the back you can see the Panther markings on their ceremonial pelts.

And a close-up of their ceremonial pelts.

WFB - Homemade Hellblaster volley gun

Another one of my home made Empire artillery pieces, a Hellblaster Volley gun. All that was needed was some copper tubing, some Milliput and some balsa wood. The copper tube was cut into nine equal pieces. The pieces were glued to a balsa triangle and Milliput was wrapped around the end and the middle to hold the pipes together.

A box was constructed for the breach [I think that's the correct term] and a Milliput cog was made. Although not in this picture this had a sprue crosspiece from between four slotta bases as a handle and a skull was positioned in the centre.

One of the plans for this was that GW ran some rules in White Dwarf to mount a Hellblaster Volley Gun on the back of a wagon and with my success creating the Empire War Wagon I thought I'd have a go at that, though ultimately never got round to it. If I ever find the rules to it I'll pop them online.

Drop poding (again) - Drop pod update

Just a little update on my Dark Angels drop pod. As previously mentioned in my post on the fabulous Tin Bitz I'd tried to approximate Michal Gmitrasiuk's tutorial on CoolMiniOrNot [that I found after this] on battered metals. Pretty much doing so without reading the tutorial, I just went with a lot of stippling. Here we have the cleaned up version of the pod, I've set up using Black on all the bits that will eventually be Dark Angel Green.

Here you can see the nice effect of the stippling, both under flash and slightly shadowed.

Another shot of the interior under different lighting conditions.

Next up is the green [oh G.O.D. not green again?!] and I've got myself some Orkhide Shade, the Dark Angel debate and painting genesis has reached a new stage and Orkhide Shade is my new starting point.

++ Dark Angel insertion ++ Purge xenos ++ End ++

And that is it folks. I thought we would get in a full game but Tyler is bored now and the wife has just got back from work. Don't think I could have saved the Imperium today but there were some good moments and although the blogging slowed things down at least we played, if only for a little bit. It was Capture and Control so it was a technical win for me but I don't think I would have survived.

Here's how it stood.