The Warforge Miniature Modelling and Conversion

Off their rockers

Now, I'm not usually one to jump ontop of posting Warhammer-related news, since I think other sites like Bell of Lost Souls and Warseer do (and will always do) a much better job of providing bleeding edge updates about the hobby.

Still, I feel compelled to throw a little discussion up here about something I dug up from Warseer regarding Forgeworld's sneak peeks at future releases. There's a couple new models that actually aren't Imperial Guard tanks coming down the line; specifically an Ultramarines-specific Venerable Dreadnought, a Chaos Terminator character, and a three-pack of Ork Nob Bikers. It's the bikers in particular I'd like to discuss for now, seeing as my primary interest in the hobby is everyone's favorite greenskins.

Now, I want to preface this by first saying that I am very happy that Forgeworld is actually starting to make new Ork items. The ridiculous amount of stuff coming out for Guard this past year has been fun to watch, but certainly in some ways dissapointing for those of us without any pinkskins in their army cases.

That said, I need to voice my complaints at the absurdity of Forgeworld pricing. I can understand they charge a premium for some of their items based on the detail they produce, but in the case of these ork nobz it is just unreasonable. The preliminary pricing stated at Warseer is 52 BRITISH POUNDS - 90 US DOLLARS - FOR THREE BIKERS. This breaks down to just about thirty dollars per nob biker. Let's compare that to the plastic boxed set GW produces, which retails for 35 dollars, and contains enough to make three ork bikers, one of whom can be made into a Nob. This means that, in retail terms, for five dollars more you can get two extra ork bikers.

Let's further suppose that you purchase the bikers from thewarstore, or any other online distributor who sells GW stock for 20% off. That's 28 dollars - plus three dollars shipping or so, and you still end up with a nearly equivalent cost to what Forgeworld is wanting to charge for these bikers. (And that's not even considering the cost of shipping Forgeworld would level at you if you wanted to buy their 90 dollar bikers!)

I think this is an exercise in insanity. They're wonderful models, don't get me wrong, but there is no universe in which I would ever consider purchasing these models over buying the normal plastic boxed set. Not to mention the incredible amounts of negativity I have been reading over Forgeworld's quality control as of late - botched and warped casts, awful moldlines, models impossible to clean up.

I'm very dissapointed. We'll see if this price pans out to be the actual value of the final product.