Victory at Sea Understanding the Price

[lupa15 11253xp 1]

The Victory at Sea miniatures look great and I am super excited for this but one thing I am perplexed by is the price point.  The boxed sets at $128 are roughly $10 per ship/flight base. And at $24 for the famous Battleships a rough estimate would indicate that these vessels are approximately 5 inches to 6 inches long and about 3/4 of an inch wide.

Is my assessment of the size of the miniatures accurate and how does this price point compare to other similar miniatures in the market?

PS This would be my first foray into World War 2 naval combat outside of high level strategy games.

[torros 23816xp 2]

GHQ’s  1/2400 ships like the Bismarck  sell for about  $17 each so the Warlord  ones seems  about a similar price for slightly  bigger ships

[captainventanusParticipant 4936xp 2]

It’s not cheap, but its not completely out there either for what it is. The problem is you can’t make a direct comparison because there is nothing out there in this scale. The closest in size, as @torros says are GHQ Micronauts at 1/2400 which come in at about the same price if in the US, they can end up being a lot more in Europe for obvious reasons. The old Axis & Allies plastic models are similar in size, but its irrelevant because they are long out of production. When you go down to 1/3000 it does get a lot cheaper.

From what I remember the old Mongoose Victory at Sea ship – which are these ones – were roughly the same price adjusted for a bit of infliction etc.. I posted up some a few weeks back:

https://www.beastsofwar.com/forums/topic/original-mongoose-victory-at-sea-ship-models/

 

 

[soulman 2945xp 0]

How about MDF ships….?

http://www.luxlu.eu/admiral-en.html

 

 

 

[phaidknott 7023xp 1]

I’d take the GHQ offerings over any of the upcoming Warlord ones if they are about the same price. GHQ is the “GW” of historicals in offering the best detail at expensive prices. Sorry, but Warlord just aren’t there (yet) in the level of detail they have with their casts (in any range). Where Warlord shine is the sheer range of stuff they do offer across all their product lines.

The new Victory at Sea castings come one piece, with a simple ugly as hell basing scheme (which although does has the benefit of having the ship name embossed on it, so it’s quicker to do and get on the table). But I just don’t feel they are worth the premium prices Warlord are attempting to charge for them.

Warlord do seem to be on a Naval glut atm, with the Coastal Game, Napoleonics, and now larger scale WW2 (I’d expect to see a WW1 variant of Victory at Sea coming next). The sheer amount of the Coastal ships they have released is crazy (do we need that many for the game?). They do seem to be doing a lot of “fire and forget” launches at the moment (and then supporting what sticks). This along with the expense of Victory at Sea this time around make me very wary of taking the plunge (I already have the Mongoose Edition of the rules)

 

[tacticalgenius 3815xp 1]

will get the rules but have enough 1/2400 miniatures to last a lifetime.

[beccasParticipant 1146xp 1]

I have preordered the main box.  I have a massive amount of ships in 1/3000 scale.  I’ll probably end up using these little guys.

I’m a massive fan of the original Victory at Sea rules but I’ve heard these are not a V2.  The rules are a total rewrite so I’m expecting them to be similar to Black Seas?

I am excited.  I love naval wargaming.

[lupa15 11253xp 0]

Interesting, seems like 1/2400 is the most popular size for naval wargaming in this era. Certainly does seem like there is quite a few ranges that already exist.  I do like the name and year on the bases though!

It will certainly be interesting to see the rules for this! I didn’t know this was based on an older rules set and I watched several videos on it. I am curious what the reviews will be once people start getting their hands on the Warlord rules.

[captainventanusParticipant 4936xp 0]

I doubt that the rules are a total rewrite of the draft and playlists Victory at Sea 2.0. That would just be a waste of effort and no need to then actually use the name. We don’t know how much has been changed until we find out.

[slayerofworldsParticipant 3449xp 1]

Warlord could be an awesome company, but they are always held back just a little by their pricing structure.

Its one thing to produce premium products, then you can charge higher prices.  That’s just common sense.  But when you only think youre producing premium products, then it makes it harder for the consumer to “by it”.

Warlords quality has always been, just good.   Ive never once thought it was exceptional.   A lot of their games are held back by costs of entry only.  Gates of Anteres  is a pretty awesome game,  just not quite cost effect to fit into the “pick up” as a side wargame price range though. And that’s where sci fi wargames have to be to compete with 40k.

These miniatures just seem too expensive to me.  This isn’t a game Id just pick up to give a try, the price just isn’t there.  The ugly bases aren’t helping sell anything either.

[fightcitymayorParticipant 2104xp 0]

My thoughts exactly on Warlord’s prices these days.  I’ll gladly pay them $25-$30 for a box of sprues, but with every new Warlord release for the last few years their prices keep creeping up and up.  They’re certainly not alone though (Mantic are selling a resin Kings Of War rhino for $79.99 which blows my mind) but the problem is all of these miniatures companies want to charge Games Workshop prices for miniatures that are not nearly best-in-class efforts.

[tankkommanderParticipant 6424xp 0]

These companies will charge what they can get away with. Only when people stop buying will drop prices. FFG price rises on the Star Wars Legion game are making my future purchases unlikely.

[beccasParticipant 1146xp 0]

The rewrite comment is from Warlord on a discussion on their Facebook page.  The other hint is the original did not use D10’s.  I think the only thing we will see the same are the ship stats.

[soulman 2945xp 0]

saw a brief unboxing….. its a 30 page rulebook..!!!  not alot…

[torros 23816xp 0]

Is that too many?.

Not enough?

Or just right?

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