Necromunda The Sump: General hobby venting thread (Beware: old men shouting at clouds)

[ntw3001]

I've come around to thinking 3d printing may actually become an issue for GW. It's no longer particularly expensive or difficult (it's not 'a hobby in itself' any more than owning a car), and influencers seem to have taken them on board as a thing to have.

The same happened with airbrushes, and GW got away with not producing one (although they did start producing paints for them), but I think the difference is the cost savings. With an airbrush, maybe you save a little on paint, I don't know. Who cares. With a 3d printer, you can save a *lot*, extremely fast. If someone starts selling expert-level golf clubs for $10, the people selling beginner clubs for $100 maybe have a problem. Like, maybe beginners can't get the clubs at first, maybe they need some kind of special storage or whatever. But it's gonna feel real bad to be stuck paying for them.

 

[Raven Morpheus]

I've come around to thinking 3d printing may actually become an issue for GW. It's no longer particularly expensive or difficult (it's not 'a hobby in itself' any more than owning a car), and influencers seem to have taken them on board as a thing to have.

The same happened with airbrushes, and GW got away with not producing one (although they did start producing paints for them), but I think the difference is the cost savings. With an airbrush, maybe you save a little on paint, I don't know. Who cares. With a 3d printer, you can save a *lot*, extremely fast. If someone starts selling expert-level golf clubs for $10, the people selling beginner clubs for $100 maybe have a problem. Like, maybe beginners can't get the clubs at first, maybe they need some kind of special storage or whatever. But it's gonna feel real bad to be stuck paying for them.

3d printing won't become an issue for GW.

Two things I think older gamers (even those in their 30s) need to realise - Kids are GW's main customers and they don't stay in the hobby for long. Now, bearing that in mind...

Sure you can save money in the very long run with 3d printing, if you never buy GW stuff ever again, if you're willing to sacrifice a little quality in sculpts over GW figures, if none of your prints fail, and if you print an absolute ton of stuff. Also, you need a well ventilated space, especially for resin, along with wash and curing spaces, and the learning curve is still high, despite what influencers would have you think - for example, Pat from The Painting Phase had to get "an expert" in to get started! Start up cost is anywhere between £200 and £1000s depending on the quality of 3d printer you want.

However, lets say, like Pat from The Painting Phase, I have never 3d printed, and I want to print 10 knock-off Space Marine squads, lets say Intercessors, 100 figures. I've spent £500 on a "midrange"ish 3d printer (they were given £1000+ of equipment), I've got it in a well ventilated room, I've made my own curing and wash stations. STL file cost me £20 lets say.

That's a total of £520 + whatever it cost me to make my own curer/washer, cost of resin, cost of alcohol for washing, the small amount on the leccy bill, and time to learn what I'm doing. And that's if no print fails, and the sculpt quality may or may not be as good as GW.

In the meantime I could have gone to GW and bought 10 actual Space Marine squads for £375 + shipping or travel costs. Or less from 3rd party discounters.

I'd have to print roughly 161 Intercessors just to break even. So, from scratch, where would I be saving money exactly...

Sorry, but that's the reality, if you don't already own a 3d print setup, different matter perhaps if you're starting by printing large stuff like tanks.

The majority of gamers do not own a 3d printer - again, they're kids, and mummy and daddy won't buy them one. It's those gamers GW aim their product at. For those gamers to suddenly start 3d printing it would have to become as plug and play and non-toxic as having an inkjet printer, it's not and is unlikely to be given the products used (resin, alcohol etc.), and as those gamers want GW figures, not "close enough" figures, GW would start selling stl files.

Possibly a different matter if we talk about people selling their 3d prints as a business or "side hustle", but they aren't selling to the masses, so unlikely to dent GW.

Your golf club analogy is nonsense, airbrushes are a good example of that. Iwata and Harder & Steenbeck, two of the "top" brands sell their airbrushes, your expert golf clubs, for upwards of £100, many north of £200. Cheap Chinese clones, your £10 golf club, have barely made a dent in "top" brand airbrush sales. What the cheap £10 golf clubs, in this case Chinese airbrushes, have done is make golf, airbrushing, more accessible.

GW haven't made an airbrush (the flamer spray gun doesn't count) because, again, they're not aiming at that end of the hobby trumpet. 99.9% of gamers don't use an airbrush, and other companies already make airbrushes, so GW wouldn't be able to compete on price - no-one in their right mind is going to pay a GW "added value, i.e. GW branding" price for a decent entry level airbrush (Iwata Neo or H&S Ultra for example) when they can buy the original for less elsewhere.

Seriously, y'all, again, go watch on youtube The Painting Phase's two videos with ex-GW product dev Tom Hibbard, and do yourself a favour, realise you're thinking myopic nonsense.

 

[ClockworkOrange]

I think the point of the video is that it may reach a tipping point where GW stuff becomes too expensive, which for me and the YouTuber it has, and I’m quite a bit better off £££ than most of GW‘s punters.

3D printing IS really easy and you can get into it for about £300 which is significantly less than one new GW army. Further once you pull the cord it changes the hobby, you have an infinite supply of models, conversion parts and you can even design your own stuff failed prints and fumes are overblown issues.

Do I think 3D printing will kill grey plastic for ease? no I dont, but if Warlord and others can chuck out a complete Army box for £90, I’ll spend my money there instead and print the expensive units like tanks.

I have another Sumpy 3D printing point to make, people need to be discouraged from creating massive piles of grey plastic shame especially if they can’t afford it. People buy these things in case they can’t get them later due to GW’s shoddy practices, and then the next thing, and the next. There’s no way it’s all getting put together. With 3D printing? If you must get it just in case you save the file when you see it, although I just search for something suitable as and when I need it.

 

[Raven Morpheus]

I think the point of the video is that it may reach a tipping point where GW stuff becomes too expensive, which for me and the YouTuber it has, and I’m quite a bit better off £££ than most of GW‘s punters.

3D printing IS really easy and you can get into it for about £300 which is significantly less than one new GW army. Further once you pull the cord it changes the hobby, you have an infinite supply of models, conversion parts and you can even design your own stuff failed prints and fumes are overblown issues.

Do I think 3D printing will kill grey plastic for ease? no I dont, but if Warlord and others can chuck out a complete Army box for £90, I’ll spend my money there instead and print the expensive units like tanks.

I have another Sumpy 3D printing point to make, people need to be discouraged from creating massive piles of grey plastic shame especially if they can’t afford it. People buy these things in case they can’t get them later due to GW’s shoddy practices, and then the next thing, and the next. There’s no way it’s all getting put together. With 3D printing? If you must get it just in case you save the file when you see it, although I just search for something suitable as and when I need it.

Nope, the point of Adam Loper's video was to have an uninformed rant to satisfy the youtube algorithm. He's frequently made GW pricing videos, he's still buying GW stuff (as well as being on their influencer program), he completed 4 "combat patrols" for 10th edition 40k last year and has been talking about doing more, so, hasn't become too expensive for him...

With all due respect, ClockworkOrange, you're in a minority and, not GWs target demographic. I doubt any of us here are, seeing as we're not Johnny or Jemima with a bank of mummy & daddy...

I completely agree with you on the point of cost when using examples like Warlord vs GW. However to say it will reach a tipping point for GW is nonsense, can you get Space Marines from Warlord, nope. Again, GW are making £100+ million a year profit, even their CEO recently stated they're in "rude health". That will continue so long as there is a core of very wealthy gamers buying GW stuff, and there is and will be because those customers don't care about the price hikes, like those who buy Ferraris, it will never be too expensive for them.

Too expensive for you, sure, but there's always someone better off to take your place. You are at best one in a handful of "malcontents", for want of a better word.

3D printing might well be "really easy" in your experience, but your experience is not everyone else's. Again, it needs to be like using an inkjet printer before it qualifies as "really easy" for the masses, currently it's a niche hobbyists tool that is actually quite expensive at startup. The idea that it will impact on GW is predicated on the (wrong) idea that the majority of gamers will pick it up, they aren't and aren't likely to, for reasons already stated.

Again with all due respect, people like yourself are in a bubble, you're only seeing your experience and myopically assuming it (wrongly) to be that of the majority. It's a common thing, we all do it at some point on some issue or other.

Feels like I'm repeating myself and banging my head against a brick wall when I see discussions like this, everyone thinks they know better despite someone (Tom Hibbard) who worked at GW in a prominent-ish position effectively stating that what you all believe is wrong.


/ihavespoken /rant


Totally agree with your last point though, wealthy or not, if you've got a pile of shame, stop buying. I saw a piece on BBC news last year about a GW-centric club in NI. They interviewed one of the gamers, he showed them a 6ft tall cupboard full of GW AoS stuff, he could have opened an flgs! Given that he was late teens I suppose he could get through it all, if he stopped buying. Similar thing happens in scale modelling, only it's old men with garages full of model kits! However when they pass away, the family then have to deal with it, and stuff inevitably goes to landfill, where it could go to other less well off modellers, or to charities like Help for Heroes (?) who then give them out to armed forces veterans for therapy.

Personally I've decided to get on with what I've got, Talisman metal dragon for example, before I buy more and add to my pile of shame. I don't have room for a start!

 

[ClockworkOrange]

Lol I always love the “you are in a bubble“ argument said with no sense of self awareness. Like being part of this community stops you being a member of others and using different social media.

Do myself and Adam think they may have reached a tipping point price wise? it’s a yes from me and it is what his whole video is about clicks or not.

This bubble goer also watched the video about the hobby trumpet or whatever, yep fair enough I’m not target, but Id also argue his attitude took for granted that the market will always work the same way and that new customers will always be there

In the meantime you are perfectly entitled to continue to keep paying silly money for a product you have to fight to buy, in fact I encourage you to do so, so that the company is still there for the odd thing I want.

And 3D printing is as easy as setting up a PC and using an inkjet printer, it’s certainly no harder than learning to paint a model or assembling a kit. I also encourage you to get one, if you haven’t already, and prove me wrong

 

[Raven Morpheus]

Lol I always love the “you are in a bubble“ argument said with no sense of self awareness. Like being part of this community stops you being a member of others and using different social media.

Do myself and Adam think they may have reached a tipping point price wise? it’s a yes from me and it is what his whole video is about clicks or not.

This bubble goer also watched the video about the hobby trumpet or whatever, yep fair enough I’m not target, but Id also argue his attitude took for granted that the market will always work the same way and that new customers will always be there

In the meantime you are perfectly entitled to continue to keep paying silly money for a product you have to fight to buy, in fact I encourage you to do so, so that the company is still there for the odd thing I want.

And 3D printing is as easy as setting up a PC and using an inkjet printer, it’s certainly no harder than learning to paint a model or assembling a kit. I also encourage you to get one, if you haven’t already, and prove me wrong

Whatever ClockworkOrange. Being in a bubble doesn't mean being part of this community stops you being a member of others and using different social media. Of course not. It simply means you associate with other like minded individuals.

Don't take umbrage at it, it's an observation that can be made of a lot of people, many communities, regardless of platform type or number of, are quite insular.

So, an ex-GW product dev who had access to all the financials and clearly knows more about GWs inner workings than most internet opinionators, is wrong, and customers are going to vanish and the sky is going to fall in. Give me strength!

As for me buying GW stuff, I don't have many purchases planned, and again I agree with you about their silly pricing and stock issues, so I'm not the one to keep GW ticking over for you, I'd go see Henry Cavill for that...

As for getting a 3d printer, if you'd be kind enough to come down from the lead belt and clear my late father's shed for me, otherwise I have no room, help me set everything up and show me the basics, I might well obtain a 3d printer. I've wanted one for a while, but due to disability need help putting it all somewhere, and I also know that even by doing so I'm not going to affect GW.

Budget is a concern though, just watched a Midwinter Minis video about 3d printing Warhammer, and he started by saying that at first he absolutely failed at it, he wasted £400, and was using an Anycubic Photon - which is about my budget level were I to buy a 3d printer! Of course he then goes on to say some years later having given up on 3d printing he's been given the same £1000+ equipment The Painting Phase got, and had "expert" Fauxhammer come along and tutor him and now it's easy, well duh! £1000 worth of equipment and tutoring is bound to make life easier than £400 of equipment and self-learning!

BTW Pat from The Painting Phase's closing on their 3d printing video was - "is the sky falling in for GW, for the majority no. Whilst the process is remarkably straight forward it's still several extra layers and time."

Rather refreshing hearing an objective view, instead of the usual subjective "3d printing is great for me so it must be for everyone and GW are boned" internet nonsense.

 

[ntw3001]

3d printing won't become an issue for GW.

Two things I think older gamers (even those in their 30s) need to realise - Kids are GW's main customers and they don't stay in the hobby for long. Now, bearing that in mind...

Sure you can save money in the very long run with 3d printing, if you never buy GW stuff ever again, if you're willing to sacrifice a little quality in sculpts over GW figures, if none of your prints fail, and if you print an absolute ton of stuff. Also, you need a well ventilated space, especially for resin, along with wash and curing spaces, and the learning curve is still high, despite what influencers would have you think - for example, Pat from The Painting Phase had to get "an expert" in to get started! Start up cost is anywhere between £200 and £1000s depending on the quality of 3d printer you want.

However, lets say, like Pat from The Painting Phase, I have never 3d printed, and I want to print 10 knock-off Space Marine squads, lets say Intercessors, 100 figures. I've spent £500 on a "midrange"ish 3d printer (they were given £1000+ of equipment), I've got it in a well ventilated room, I've made my own curing and wash stations. STL file cost me £20 lets say.

That's a total of £520 + whatever it cost me to make my own curer/washer, cost of resin, cost of alcohol for washing, the small amount on the leccy bill, and time to learn what I'm doing. And that's if no print fails, and the sculpt quality may or may not be as good as GW.

In the meantime I could have gone to GW and bought 10 actual Space Marine squads for £375 + shipping or travel costs. Or less from 3rd party discounters.

I'd have to print roughly 161 Intercessors just to break even. So, from scratch, where would I be saving money exactly...

Sorry, but that's the reality, if you don't already own a 3d print setup, different matter perhaps if you're starting by printing large stuff like tanks.

The majority of gamers do not own a 3d printer - again, they're kids, and mummy and daddy won't buy them one. It's those gamers GW aim their product at. For those gamers to suddenly start 3d printing it would have to become as plug and play and non-toxic as having an inkjet printer, it's not and is unlikely to be given the products used (resin, alcohol etc.), and as those gamers want GW figures, not "close enough" figures, GW would start selling stl files.

Possibly a different matter if we talk about people selling their 3d prints as a business or "side hustle", but they aren't selling to the masses, so unlikely to dent GW.

Your golf club analogy is nonsense, airbrushes are a good example of that. Iwata and Harder & Steenbeck, two of the "top" brands sell their airbrushes, your expert golf clubs, for upwards of £100, many north of £200. Cheap Chinese clones, your £10 golf club, have barely made a dent in "top" brand airbrush sales. What the cheap £10 golf clubs, in this case Chinese airbrushes, have done is make golf, airbrushing, more accessible.

GW haven't made an airbrush (the flamer spray gun doesn't count) because, again, they're not aiming at that end of the hobby trumpet. 99.9% of gamers don't use an airbrush, and other companies already make airbrushes, so GW wouldn't be able to compete on price - no-one in their right mind is going to pay a GW "added value, i.e. GW branding" price for a decent entry level airbrush (Iwata Neo or H&S Ultra for example) when they can buy the original for less elsewhere.

Seriously, y'all, again, go watch on youtube The Painting Phase's two videos with ex-GW product dev Tom Hibbard, and do yourself a favour, realise you're thinking myopic nonsense.

I own a 3d printer so I don't need you to tell me what 'the reality' is (particularly when the 'reality' in question is a fictional scenario?). I can share my experience of  actual reality. I spent about $175 for the printer and curing station in mid 2022 (an Elegoo Mars 2 pro, on sale), and the resin and alcohol per item cost several times less than you'd spend on petrol taking yourself to the shops to buy a box of space marines. Yes, the savings are enormous. And for quality, uh sure? If you make up a manufacturer with worse quality, the quality will be worse. I'm gonna make up a manufacturer with better quality, and it's better!

I didn't need an expert to help me set up because the printer came with instructions, although if I'd had a friend who knew the ropes I'd probably ask them for advice why not. IIRC the expert in question ran a 3d printing channel. He didn't actually  need an expert, he took the opportunity to give exposure to a fellow content creator. And his previous bad experience was several years prior; the technology is moving fast. A few years ago I thought home 3d printers would never take off because the use case was limited to, well, minis. But it turns out that market is actually enough (and from the marketing, it certainly seems that we're the main customers for these devices).

You got the golf club analogy backwards. The £10 golf club isn't the knockoff; it's the advanced item. It's the beginners who are paying through the nose for beginner gear. For the companies whose business model depends on people not feeling incentivised to move out of the beginner zone, I think it's fairly easy to see a potential issue on the horizon.

Now, GW do target the wide end of the hobby trumpet. But if you take a quick look at their website, you'll notice that they're not selling at child-friendly prices. The current Big Scandal is scalpers buying up £50 special edition books and reselling them for £300... to twelve year-olds? No. They bring in teenagers, and they rake in the money when those teenagers become affluent young adults. Look at their 'starter sets'. The fake starter set is an absolute standard for GW; a box that's nominally marketed to beginners, but designed solely for invested players. It'll contain two new factions which are actually terrible to learn the game with (that's you, Necromunda and Blood Bowl), or be the only source of some specific new unit (40k).

The broad end of the hobby trumpet isn't just beginners buying their first paint set; it's people who started with GW and aren't interested in the alternatives. Which has always been fine for GW, because the competition have never been able to pull people away from 40k anyway. People start with GW and stay there, and those people are the ones spending the money. I know the Youtubers said the main customer in the shop is a teenager's mum, but that story comes from an older GW with a lot more of its sales coming from the high street. When every new release is selling out online in ten seconds, is that all teenagers' mums queueing up on the website on release day or creating profit for scalpers? Probably not.

In any case, the hobby trumpet isn't naturally-occurring. GW don't cater to the broad end; they created it for themselves. At GW's start, the entry point to the hobby was TTRPGs and Warhammer was a game designed to jump on the D&D miniautres market. Now, TTRPGs are bigger than ever, and the range of miniature-agnostic rulesets to move on to with larger collections has some much more well-known names.

Maybe I'm just being myopic! I don't think so though. To look at a device that allows people to manufacture items easily in their own homes for pennies, and say 'I see no way this could impact industrial manufacturers of those same items', though, seems  cartoonishly myopic. Until quite recently, my take was that it's a niche enough thing not to worry GW much. I'd also seen the hobby trumpet discussion. I think it was generally assumed that that side of the hobby would pretty much stay in its lane. But with a little more thought, I'm not sure that's the case. I don't think everyone will just suddenly hop from 40k to One Page Rules, but I'd not be surprised if the trumpet becomes more of a soprano sax. There's more incentive to move out of GW's walled garden and OPR seems to be closer to being adopted as a standard for non-40k rulesets. One takeaway from those Painting Phase interviews that seems to have been missed is that GW aren't an invulnerable juggernaut. They've been in trouble before, and a shakeup in miniature manufacturing could be a big deal for them.

 

[ClockworkOrange]

I’ll add @Raven Morpheus you seem to be confusing terms like “objective view” with “views that accord with my own” a frequently seen internet nonsense.

I stopped watching Midwinter Minis after the infamous if you play ze Germans you must be a Nazi video, to be honest I think he’s a bit of a wet wipe.

 

[Raven Morpheus]

I own a 3d printer so I don't need you to tell me what 'the reality' is (particularly when the 'reality' in question is a fictional scenario?). I can share my experience of  actual reality. I spent about $175 for the printer and curing station in mid 2022 (an Elegoo Mars 2 pro, on sale), and the resin and alcohol per item cost several times less than you'd spend on petrol taking yourself to the shops to buy a box of space marines. Yes, the savings are enormous. And for quality, uh sure? If you make up a manufacturer with worse quality, the quality will be worse. I'm gonna make up a manufacturer with better quality, and it's better!

I didn't need an expert to help me set up because the printer came with instructions, although if I'd had a friend who knew the ropes I'd probably ask them for advice why not. IIRC the expert in question ran a 3d printing channel. He didn't actually  need an expert, he took the opportunity to give exposure to a fellow content creator. And his previous bad experience was several years prior; the technology is moving fast. A few years ago I thought home 3d printers would never take off because the use case was limited to, well, minis. But it turns out that market is actually enough (and from the marketing, it certainly seems that we're the main customers for these devices).

You got the golf club analogy backwards. The £10 golf club isn't the knockoff; it's the advanced item. It's the beginners who are paying through the nose for beginner gear. For the companies whose business model depends on people not feeling incentivised to move out of the beginner zone, I think it's fairly easy to see a potential issue on the horizon.

Now, GW do target the wide end of the hobby trumpet. But if you take a quick look at their website, you'll notice that they're not selling at child-friendly prices. The current Big Scandal is scalpers buying up £50 special edition books and reselling them for £300... to twelve year-olds? No. They bring in teenagers, and they rake in the money when those teenagers become affluent young adults. Look at their 'starter sets'. The fake starter set is an absolute standard for GW; a box that's nominally marketed to beginners, but designed solely for invested players. It'll contain two new factions which are actually terrible to learn the game with (that's you, Necromunda and Blood Bowl), or be the only source of some specific new unit (40k).

The broad end of the hobby trumpet isn't just beginners buying their first paint set; it's people who started with GW and aren't interested in the alternatives. Which has always been fine for GW, because the competition have never been able to pull people away from 40k anyway. People start with GW and stay there, and those people are the ones spending the money. I know the Youtubers said the main customer in the shop is a teenager's mum, but that story comes from an older GW with a lot more of its sales coming from the high street. When every new release is selling out online in ten seconds, is that all teenagers' mums queueing up on the website on release day or creating profit for scalpers? Probably not.

In any case, the hobby trumpet isn't naturally-occurring. GW don't cater to the broad end; they created it for themselves. At GW's start, the entry point to the hobby was TTRPGs and Warhammer was a game designed to jump on the D&D miniautres market. Now, TTRPGs are bigger than ever, and the range of miniature-agnostic rulesets to move on to with larger collections has some much more well-known names.

Maybe I'm just being myopic! I don't think so though. To look at a device that allows people to manufacture items easily in their own homes for pennies, and say 'I see no way this could impact industrial manufacturers of those same items', though, seems  cartoonishly myopic. Until quite recently, my take was that it's a niche enough thing not to worry GW much. I'd also seen the hobby trumpet discussion. I think it was generally assumed that that side of the hobby would pretty much stay in its lane. But with a little more thought, I'm not sure that's the case. I don't think everyone will just suddenly hop from 40k to One Page Rules, but I'd not be surprised if the trumpet becomes more of a soprano sax. There's more incentive to move out of GW's walled garden and OPR seems to be closer to being adopted as a standard for non-40k rulesets. One takeaway from those Painting Phase interviews that seems to have been missed is that GW aren't an invulnerable juggernaut. They've been in trouble before, and a shakeup in miniature manufacturing could be a big deal for them.

Wow, I thought I was making long posts. You found it cheap and easy, good for you. Until recently Midwinter Minis wouldn't have shared your experience, he's not an isolated example either, even today with advances in tech. Like I keep stating, your experience is just that.

Nope GWs previous woes haven't been overlooked, I mentioned the hole they were in 10yrs ago or so in a previous post.

However I'll take former GW employees views over anyone else on the internet. Because they know more about what they're talking about, and don't make unprovable statements on what they think or believe.

I’ll add @Raven Morpheus you seem to be confusing terms like “objective view” with “views that accord with my own" a frequently seen internet nonsense.

Nope, no confusion here, I don't really have a view either way, I care for neither side, perhaps if "the sky fell in" for GW it might help the hobby, or not. I'm merely stating the realities as they appear to be to me having listened to both sides. I do however understand how much of a loud minority online the 3d printing crowd are. If anyone is guilty of a "views that accord with my own" stance it's the 3d printing crowd who can't accept they are a minority of hobbyists and as such are unlikely to effect a "shakeup in miniature manufacturing" - it's a fantasy, wishful thinking at best.

I'm going to step away from this discussion, it's getting circular, I've already repeated myself several times and it's quite clear those who promote the "we're 3d printing, GW are boned" narrative are quite intractable. You clearly know more than ex-GW staff...

 

[Gunkaiser]

Now mix the grey pile of shame (so much shrink-wrapping!) with my existential dread in my 40th year...

 

[Greyhart]

@Gunkaiser wait until you hit 60.

 

[Space Truckin]

Hey halfway in between.

Anyways. I find this discussion very interesting and see there are many facets to it and sidebar discussions from the quality of YouTube creators (dont get me started on this) and their true intentions and the validity of 3d Printing in the hobby.

Essentially here to contribute nothing of value to the discussion other than support for both sides.
I have owned a filament printer for 4 years now. Find it ridiculously easy to use. I have no local LGS or GW. GW will not even ship here efficiently. I've had to travel to another country and have a package rerouted in order to fetch my order. Yet I'm still on the fence of getting a 3d resin printer, for the simple reason - its not what I signed up for to be my hobby.
One day I'd like to run a massive MESBG game involving 60 Gundabad Orcs which are Resin only from GW at 75 USD for 12 so that alone would justify the expense in my mind.
Yet... all this just to get to play a game I barely have free time for makes me reconsider everything.

Is it worth it. Maybe time for a new hobby.

All this to say - there are barriers on both ends.

Despite the "warhammer is for everyone" GW's pricing model, false scarcity tactics and quite frankly Games Workshop's horrible website make it very hard to continue. Its ok. I have a backlog of plastic like everyone else. I can dial back my 'aspirations'.

3d Printing - while the FDM has been great, I'm not sure I want to go thru this whole thing again with another printer. I can run the FDM night and day (while working), but not sure I want to juggle another "thing" that will eventually need my attention when time is the most precious commodity. Time I'd rather spend painting or playing.

so yeah.
another long post.
nothing really to contribute here but an increased post count

 

[Tiny]

You don’t need £500-1000 worth of equipment for resin 3D printing.

A refurbished Mars 2 pro is £110 and a bottle of water washable resin is £22. That’s literally all you need if you already own a computer for £132.

Round it up to £200 and you get 3 litres of resin, a few spare FEPs and a box of gloves if you’re that way inclined.

With that you can print more than one army’s worth of miniatures.

 

[ClockworkOrange]

I’d get some decent gloves, I’d also buy a curing machine but @Tiny manages just fine with a windowsill.

 

[MedMos]

Re: 3d-printing. I'm sure other avenues will open up for getting access to a good enough printer. You don't need many hobbyists with a printer in a community, as long as at least one is willing to "sell their services". My local library has a maker space, with various tools like laser cutters and 3d-printers, as well as a dedicated nerd-base willing to help out. According to their site, you just have to pay for materials, ie. the resin you use. I probably wouldn't be able to print a full army, but I plan to go see them, hear what the deal is.
The point is, it'll be more commonplace, even if you don't invest yourself. Will it affect gw? No clue. It might, either short or long term. Blockbuster was a pretty solid company until streaming became common.
/2cents

 

[Stoof]

You don't need many hobbyists with a printer in a community, as long as at least one is willing to "sell their services".

I have benefited greatly from fellow Yaks with printers sending me bits and bobs as needed. My not-so-local-FLGS runs a similar deal to your library with paying for materials & a small cover charge to use their printers, both resin and filament, so it's something you don't really have to get into yourself if you find the outlay or new skill set daunting.

Will it threaten GW? Maybe a little. It comes down to whether we think the people who started printing instead were going to keep buying at GW's super premium/scarcity business model. I'm not so sure they would - my gut feeling is they would be buying other manufacturers models instead.

So the people buying from GW were going to anyway, and the people doing things differently were going to anyway, and in the middle there's me who when I want to buy something from GW can't because their website =][= REDACTED FOR OBSCENITY AND POSSIBLY ALSO THOUGHT CRIME =][=

 

[JayTee]

3d printing your army to play a GW game relies on legally-questionable "proxies", outright IP-theft replicas, or actually-new-IP models that may or may not actually fit the "theme" of the game. If you're happy with the morally questionable activity some of this entails, then good for you, but this is not for me.

Or just play a mini-agnostic game, but GW is such a dominant force in the community there is simply not a lot of people in any of my local clubs who aren't a GW-regular.

Where I have used 3d-printing services (both commercial and friends) is in the bits market for items that GW only provides for obnoxious money (Tau CIBs are the most egregious example off-hand), items GW simply doesn't produce like nameplates, terrain, and two long-OOP models that might reappear on MTO but are just as likely to never see the light of day again.

 

[Punktaku]

Not to be Pessimist Punktaku, but GW’s prices have put me out. And my current life situation prevents me from even considering any type of printer or other game system. I have one remaining set of primed minis left, and partial boxes of a couple things. But after that, I may be out of the hobby for awhile. Except maybe terrain, as I have large hordes of broken things. But new glue, paint, and polystyrene bits will be rare purchases.

One thing I never knew about when it comes to resin printing is that you can develop allergic reactions to the resin. One of the guys on Guilders Ford Radio (I’m pretty sure it was this podcast) talks about developing one.

 

[Tiny]

3d printing your army to play a GW game relies on legally-questionable "proxies", outright IP-theft replicas, or actually-new-IP models that may or may not actually fit the "theme" of the game. If you're happy with the morally questionable activity some of this entails, then good for you, but this is not for me.

Most of GW's entire IP is based on legally questionable proxies and borderline outright IP theft.

I don't see anything morally questionable as long as you're not distributing exact duplicates of their models. We all have our own boundaries though.

Where I have used 3d-printing services (both commercial and friends) is in the bits market for items that GW only provides for obnoxious money (Tau CIBs are the most egregious example off-hand),

Why is it morally questionable to procure whole models inspired by GW designs, but not to procure exact replicas of parts of models? Would you recast a melta gun? Why not a whole Space Marine? (I'm just playing devil's advocate, no judgement on how other people feel about these grey areas).

 

[Tiny]

One thing I never knew about when it comes to resin printing is that you can develop allergic reactions to the resin. One of the guys on Guilders Ford Radio (I’m pretty sure it was this podcast) talks about developing one.

Yeah, this is a thing with a lot of chemicals. The resin can build up an allergy over time. You can start not allergic and gradually end up allergic to it. My bro has handled printer resin every day for a good while and has had no issues though, as have I with casting resin, so likely depends on your own personal allergy susceptibility.