Is World War 2 the most expensive era ?

[King Tiger]

when you come from a background of playing in a certain 41st millenium 28mm WWII is very cheap to start up, even with disposable heroes, and paying upto £25-30 for a amazingly detailed tank is nothing when you've had to pay for space man ones that cost more than that and look like toys from early learning centre.

yeah ok it still can be expensive, 3 bigger tank taking up maybe £75, but for £100-150, you can get quite allot of stuff these days, even in metals, certain space man systems £100-150 won't even buy you the basics almost

Napoleonics are certainly cheaper though, £20+ for 60 models from victrix?, need anyone say more

[Kieffer]

Playing with a wargame system is always cheaper when you can use generic figures or vehicles and are not limited to one supplier or distributor.

At the beginning Flames of War was a really expensive system for everyone. But since so many casters have produced their own ranges of a large part of the vehicles or miniatures required to play the game, the whole price of beginning to play with this ruleset have gone down.

The same exemple doesn't apply with WH40K or WHB. You are strictly limited to miniatures wich are trully expensive especially when compared to others suppliers. The quality is not better or worse, you are just paying for the trademark and for a certain marketing.
So many rulesets far better or superior in qualities and rules exists but they don't have the publicity of the large Games Workshop empire.

So, to play an interesting ruleset for a cheap price : try a large number of systems and privilege the one where you have a large choice of suppliers. At the end, even if you lack an opponent, two armies to play with your friends would cost you less than only one army to play with a popular but overrated system.

It's really strange that the price for junior wargamers to begin to play with WH40K and WHB is so huge especialy when they are studying and have no proper money of their own compared to the cheap price of many rulesets played by oldest wargamers who have plenty of hard-earned money. Strange nature of the universe or bad karma ?

[NTM]

Playing with a wargame system is always cheaper when you can use generic figures or vehicles and are not limited to one supplier or distributor.
At the beginning Flames of War was a really expensive system for everyone. But since so many casters have produced their own ranges of a large part of the vehicles or miniatures required to play the game, the whole price of beginning to play with this ruleset have gone down.

Funny I'm sure I had 15mm WWII miniatures before FoW came along.
True some of them were from an obscure NZ outfit called Military Miniatures but not all of them.
Don't remember the costs shooting up as soon as FoW was launched either. FoW/BF has had a major role in improving the quality and availability of 15mm WWII but did not invent it. There were several quality 15mm WWII ranges before FoW they have benefitted from it I'm sure but they've not jumped on some bandwagon.

[Parus Ater]

And BF have to be one of the exclusive club of most expensive miniature companies around at the minute.

[NTM]

And BF have to be one of the exclusive club of most expensive miniature companies around at the minute.

Have you seen the stuff from RPG Manufacturing £9.99 for a tank, £11.50 if it has schurzen!

[Parus Ater]

I hadn't but that's a bit nutty. You do get what you pay for most of the time in this hobby and tgey do look to be a quality product but very often BF can fall below par in QQ stakes. The fact that they're manufactured in "Cheaper Countries" where poverty is widespread accounts for the lower finish quality but really should reverse the pricing issue to being cheaper..... but they aint.

[Colonel White]

I think the younger ones get more money these days and everything they want. This is because as parents ( and lets all be honest here and includes myself) spoil them rotten ! The large companies ( GW and Battlefront) including the computer games companies know this and play on it.

[NTM]

That's assuming that the majority of BF's customer base are spotty youths, which I think we really all know is not the case.

[Parus Ater]

Perhaps not but their aiming from the hip at disenchanted 40K players perhaps around the tale end of their university careers who've never played anything but a full franchise single company game. They weren't aiming to get the more travelled historically interested gamer which perhaps has changed what with the WI regime.
In the grand scheme of things models are cheap, and I'm including BF and GW in this. I think model painting has reading books as a rival for a couple of quid keeping you busy for an entire weekend which doesn't include playing with them but the thing for me is the difference between paying the cost and being taken for a mug and BF try to take you as a mug.

[Parus Ater]

Perhaps not but their aiming from the hip at disenchanted 40K players perhaps around the tale end of their university careers who've never played anything but a full franchise single company game. They weren't aiming to get the more travelled historically interested gamer which perhaps has changed what with the WI regime.
In the grand scheme of things models are cheap, and I'm including BF and GW in this. I think model painting only has reading books as a rival for a couple of quid keeping you busy for an entire weekend which doesn't include playing with them but the thing for me is the difference between paying the cost and being taken for a mug and BF try to take you as a mug.