Weekly Update plus Thoughts on Games Workshop's Price Increase and Embargo

Last Week at Wargaming Tradecraft

I wrote up a post on how to save money, time and convenience, so take a look. Also, slow news day critical attention to detailing all facets of the hobby led me to post about rolling tubes.

ForgeWorld also released the Eldar Wraithseer... hawt.

Also, I've begun a test to see what benefit there is to adding NON OBTRUSIVE ads to my blog. Feedback is much welcome, but I'll be doing a blog-fu post later for everyone on the topic.

IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT AIRBRUSHING
anything at all - now is the time to ask it. Either post a comment, or hop on the website and use the email link.

Coming up, to a Wargaming Tradecraft near you, quite soon, is a highly detailed post on all things airbrushing. I've been typing up a storm this weekend and have over 17 pages done already. I still need to add pictures, format everything and turn it all into blog posts, but get ready to strap in for some highly detailed information.

Last Week in the Community

So the big news, of course, are two moves by Games Workshop that has rocked the community.

Does this directly impact me? No. I've got all the models I'll need to paint for a lonnnnng time. If I were to buy more models, would they be Games Workshop? Before, I would have said new Eldar just out of the fun of painting. Now? Well, to be honest, I'd be more apt to branch out and try painting models from other designers now than before. As a painter, not a player, I still share a certain nostalgic interest in my space elves, but all this is another reason to look into the painting challenges other brands can offer me.

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First, GW is getting rid of all their pewter product and replacing it with resin. We'll have to see what the quality is like, but hopefully it's nothing like Forge World's terrible quality. Along with the resin switch is a 10-25% price hike on all their product. Wow.

Resin is, supposedly, a cheaper product. Yes, this means they'll actually save money while charging us more. Some people have pointed out that it costs a lot to switch all the molds and processes over - while this is true, think of anything else you purchase. If I buy a car model that cost $15,000 last year, the new model will cost roughly the same. (plus normal inflation) They have to invest a lot of money in designing the new car, building new machines, so on and so on. It's the price of business and could be said about anything we buy year to year - products change, but things stay roughly the same. A cheap $50 printer this year will have a new model come out next year that also costs $50.
What GW has done is pass the price of business on to the consumer. Once they make back the investment it took to switch to resin they'll be making 20% extra PLUS their savings for switching to resin. Will they drop their prices at that time? No. At best we can hope that they'll skip the next 10 years of price raises for inflation. Doubtful.

Also, resin is a carcinogen.

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Second, is the embargo. We're not just talking about smaller countries.. if you don't live in Europe, you're basically screwed. Australia, which according to my blog stats consists the 4th most number of readers for my site, suffers the most with reportedly 200% markups... why shouldn't they be allowed to order internationally? The list of countries European online retailers are now allowed to sell to are as follows: "Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom" (according to Maelstrom Games)

Will this help local stores build communities and fend off large online retailers? Sure. But it occured to me - the odds and ends of GW products I've bought online weren't from retailers... they were from people selling broken down kits on eBay, just like I'm sure many, MANY people. Will this affect eBay sales? No, so what is Games Workshop really doing? Next our minis will come with little license terms so they can have eBay pull all Games Workshop products - "This product is not yours, but you may use it. You may not resell it. You may not even make a mold of it for personal use or try to figure out how it was built. If you don't agree, return for a refund immediately." Think that sounds far-fetched or foolish? That's how software licensing works AND holds up in court. Even certain hardware devices have warranties like this - iPhones, VOIP phones, etc.

GW's CEO just said that the only way they get their investment into the community back is if we buy from them. Well, guess what? Canada knows exactly what GW's commitment is to us - As of last year there is no more Canadian Games Day.. only a North American one that's going to tour America. One Games Day for all of North America while Europe still gets a bunch for all their close together countries.

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MWC has posted a roundup of some of Internet's chatter on the topics. Also, SandWyrm has an interesting solution regarding contacting the investors to share your concerns. Von also talks about deciding how to leave your gaming community. I shared Thor's "the sky is falling" attitude earlier, but after time to think it over and read other responses, this whole thing has soured my attitude about Games Workshop for the reasons I've described above.

If you're interested in keeping up with some of this stuff AS IT HAPPENS, then you should hop over to the public Facebook group: GW Australian and New Zealand Prices Petition. There's some good discussion going on over there and links to GW and store responses as well as letters people are getting from GW in response to their inquiries.
GW's CEO has released a statement that says (regarding the effort they goto to promote the hobby) "We only recover this investment if customers then buy products from us." Well duh, but it sounds like they also consider independent retailers a problem. He goes on to talk about how they're trying to ensure you shop at your local store and vilifies online retailers as businesses that don't give anything back to the gaming community. (ignoring the stores that both have retail locations AND sell online) As many people have pointed out - they don't have local stores and simply can't purchase GW products at all now.
Wayland Games just released their reaction to the CEO's response.

Tutorials

CVinton has a simple barbed wire vid http://darkfuturegaming.blogspot.com/2011/05/quick-and-easy-barbed-wire-tutorial.html

Another excellent magnetizing tutorial from Karitas: http://excommunicatetratoris.blogspot.com/2011/05/magnetising-made-easy-leman-russ.html

Ron's got a great freehanding tutorial, which has given me some good ideas.. http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2011/05/two-methods-for-mapping-out-your.html

Tips

Drew gives some excellent advice on painting and washing skin tones http://gardenninjastudios.blogspot.com/2011/05/complex-flesh-tones.html

The Dark Workshop has another perspective on bits http://darkworkshop.blogspot.com/2011/05/tools-organization.html

Gallery

Nice looking Dark Eldar http://eyeoferror.blogspot.com/2011/05/urien-rakarth-and-haemonculi-coven.html

Incredible WIP from Les, showing some great flesh and black leather http://awesomepaintjob.blogspot.com/2011/05/uncle-meat-wip-10.html

An awesome and impressive project completed: http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.com/2011/05/frutti-di-mare-finished.html (with tentacles!)