Barnestorming Episode IV- X-Wing in Review, Avengers, Battle Born Hot

THERE's that passion. And to think that I recommended against buying it.

Though jeez, not interested in dogfights at all, whether in space or in the air. That's like the least appealing part of Star Wars, from my perspective. And the price is a huge turnoff. So, not for me.

Those new Barks duck books are the absolute ideal presentation ever: in FLAT color (the last reprinting had tons of awful gradients, and the one before that was black-and-white), and REALLY affordable: they're $25 retail per hardcover book. To give you an idea as to how cheap that is...when this is all done (which is a long time from now), the complete Carl Barks (which you don't really need; they appear to be releasing the best volumes first), in hardcover, will cost around $500 MSRP. When the new editions were announced, I sold my shitty paperbacks with awful coloring, and I didn't even have the COMPLETE set, for $2000. Even disregarding how much they've cost in the past and just comparing to other kid's comics or other classic comic reprints, they're the best dollar-per-colored-page value in either arena.

Highly recommended. Of course, I am biased; my dad had the black-and-white set when I was a kid, and I quite literally learned to read with these comics (and Little Lulu and 60s Marvel).

Also, the scholarly articles at the back are significantly less bullshitty than the scholarly articles in past editions. Still kinda bullshitty, though: please do not go into these comics expecting depth, politics, or economics, as some have wrong-headedly done. Read these comics hoping for humor, adventure, *light* satire, and humanity.

FWIW, I never suggested anyone buy anything. All I noted was that it's expensive, and that several of my friends unanimously poo-poo'ed it.

I stand by the expensive part, and as I noted, I'll buy the whole set from you for 120 (since it's covered in drool, and from the read, likely other fluids, when you've had your fill in a month. :)

Quit dispensing bad advice, why do you keep trying to dissuade others from buying this game!

The set price would now be more like about $180, BTW. :-)

On Carl Barks...I wish I still had the collections I had when I was little...I just remember that they were wide format and there were two of them, I want to say one had a mountain look and the other jungle.

I guess you COULD read subtext into these books, like the "Lost Charts of Columbus" story about the ownership of North America...but really, don't. They're fun. They're incredibly charming and fun to read. The art is awesome. And he gets into lots of cool history, legend, and adventure stuff. You can definitely see the influence on Indiana Jones in some of this stuff.

Very explicitly, in the case of The Lost Cities of Cibola (Lucas has acknowledged that the scene in Raiders was an homage):

The new Barks editions I'm referring to are:
http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php? page=shop.browse&category_id=700&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=62

On X-Wing
Yeah, there is a little crow eating on this one. It does check all the boxes we railed against last year: over priced, endless expansions, made in china, etc.

I haven't bought in as I liked WoW just fine and find historical games to have more weight and stronger narrative than fantasy and sci-fi. _BUT_ the Battle of Yavin almost feels real at this point. Most know it more than they do historical dog fights and pilots.

Anyway, I bought Zooloretto on clearance last month at Target for $10 because $40 is apparently too much for the Target crowd. The count on X-wing starters hasn't gone down any at my local Target since it's been on the shelf. I'll keep an eye on the $10 clearance...

On Black Hole
Haven't bought a comic not named Groo or Conan in a decade. This Black Hole sounds interesting. Is it in TPB? Marvel, DC, or Indy?

On Avengers
Agreed, great movie. The aliens are are huge letdown. I mean, you've got all the heroes looking right in their bright colored costumes, yet the invading aliens are these grey, dull, generic, cgi videogame looking villains. It's like the director or studio lost their balls. Why not use bright green and purple skrulls? Sure they may not fit with Loki, but it's not like there's going to be a 100 of these movies. F it, go all in! Yeah, the aliens sucked. Thanos...I hope he isn't the big bad for #2. Where do you go after that? Hopefully, he's just the engineer and he isn't hit up til #3. Since we've had an alien invasion, how about Namor leading Atlanteans to war against the surface dwellers. Can even tie him into Cap's background. Yeah, Namor vs Earth is FF, but that line of films sucked. Do him justice in The Avengers.

On The Killers
I agree. Best mainstream rock band going. Spaceman off of Day & Age is probably my favorite radio single of the past 10 years. (EDIT: I actually like Gaslight Anthem albums better, but acknowledge that The Killers have better singles and I don't think Gaslight is at The Killers arena level yet. They are now on a major though so who knows.)

TPB and HC, individual issues originally published by Kitchen Sink->Fantagraphics, collected edition published by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, so I find it hard to call it "indy". Pantheon has probably the single highest hit rate of great comics of all time, though that's by poaching the best from the smaller publishers. But something like 80-90% of their comics are all-time greats. I am anticipating next week's BUILDING STORIES like nothing in almost a decade, in no small part due to the freaking design of the book, a big "fuck you, digital comics". I need to make sure I've finished everything else I'm reading so I can just wallow in the contents of the box/book.

My favourite toys as a kid were my Star Wars toys. I had the Millenium Falcon, an AT-AT, an AT-ST, a TIE Fighter... Everything about this game appeals to my childhood. Unfortunately, I've JUST (re)dedicated myself to getting debt free (not counting the mortgage) and to build up a bigger emergency savings fund, so this couldn't have been released at a worse time for me. This game is going to be a real test of my willpower.

Fucking love Dungeon! Such a weird, funny book.

My brother is part of the Salt Lake City music scene and one of his friends shared a practice space with an early version of the The Killers. They jokingly suggested he replace their missing bass player but he declined because he thought their music was "too gay."

I thought the Carl Barks thing was an elaborate ruse until I saw that Fantagraphics was reprinting them. Our library has the Peanuts reprints, so I hope these show up eventually.

Getting into NHS is like breaking into Fort Knox now.

Registering, wierd password sent to you, math problem to solve. Hell, I'm only a dumb Physicist

I think that is Barnes link, perhaps his door to writing articles?
Anyway the direct route worked for me.
http://www.nohighscores.com/2012/09/27/x-wing-miniatures-game-in-review/#more- 9333

Perhaps for you?

Sam

I picked up one of everything they have so far for X-Wing. Core set, X-Wing, TIE, TIE Advanced, and Y-Wing. Should be here today. Can't wait to check it out!

But will it sell?

It's an incredibly beautiful game but it's sitting on the shelf next to a wood-box edition of Risk that sells for $9. I think this one may stay firmly in the geek category. I hope not, because it's the kind of game that could get a kid's nose off of glass screens and into a real strategic alternative.

S.

While I agree that $40 is expensive ( not to mention what they are charging for the expansion minis ) , I wonder if their pricing is not so much a high/low to address the mail order channel, but more of a matter of:

- paying off the costs of the Star Wars license as fast as possible

- charging because people will pay it ? My FLGS seems to be selling the game pretty well and they charge retail. Putting aside the raw cost of the components, its priced the same as Netrunner, and in both cases people seem to have no problem buying multiple sets. My FLGS has been sold out the last three times I have been there, with many copies visible on the "hold" pile behind the counter. Wings of War had a similar pricing structure IIRC and did well. Maybe the mini customer has a higher pain threshold , price wise, than a boardgamer.

I do think they missed an opportunity to do a sort of deluxe version with a play mat, more pieces at a higher retail price, but at a better value per fig than the starter .

Wings of War was $30 for a starter set with no models, $70 for the Deluxe Set with four models. That's significantly more for the box that matches X-Wing regarding components. It sold well, but that's from a Geek-market perspective. WoW has no penetration into the general market even now.

$40 is a fine price for what you're getting and it's my opinion that they're charging as little as they can manage. The days of cheap oil and labor are behind us, these things simply cost more to manufacture now. But -- it's still a big chunk of allowance money for a kid, and a parent will look long and hard before dropping this much on a Christmas gift instead of something they're more familiar with at a fraction of the price.

The irony in all of this is that video games cost more but sell thousands or millions of copies. The price-expectation in the video market allows for kids and parents to drop the better part of a C-note without considering the game may suck (or caring that much when it does), but table-top games are held to a much higher standard for the same dollars. It's just the nature of the market.

S.

I bought that new Lost in the Andes hardcover, and it's amazingly good. I remember my dad reading this to me when I was a kid, and it's held up amazingly well. I gave it to my 6 y.o. and at first she didn't even want to look at it, but after a while she was sitting quietly in a corner, just eating it up. It feels good man.

On the other hand, my wife dislikes it because she thinks it's kinda racist.

X-Wing looks kinda expensive on a per piece basis, but even with expansions I don't think I'll be spending more than $200 on it in total, which puts it just par with the average miniatures game. Being able to switch various pilot and add-on cards lets the game squeeze out a lot of replayability out of the same X-Wing. Imagine if FFG had wanted you to buy separate X-Wing paint jobs for Red 3, Red 5, Red 6... it's already pretty friendly as it is.

Way to go Barnes! I was prepared to come in swingin' pipes defending The Avengers but you enjoyed it. Very cool. I figure you'd hate on this one like you did on all the lead in movies. With this and your positive review of the Mass Effect 3 ending I now believe there is hope for you, sir.

First of all, she'll be glad to hear that in the entirety of the hundreds of Barks stories, there are only TWO possibly racist stories, and yup, Lost in the Andes has the more famous one ("Voodoo Hoodoo"). This is actually the very first time since the original comics that it's been printed unaltered; the previous two reprintings had Barks' redrawn faces and changed the dialogue. At first I felt conflicted, because I want to be able to hand this to a kid without any reservations...but for myself, I'm certainly glad they did it, as the original face of Bombi the Zombie is way better than the redraw.

Also, story-wise, the Voodoo Hoodoo story I think pretty clearly depicts Scrooge as being a villain for having completely exploited the African labor; the witch doctor wanting to take revenge on Scrooge for what the duck did to his people is absolutely justified. Now, whether DONALD deserves to take Scrooge's place in that revenge...that should be an interesting discussion with your kid, about whether or not it's our responsibility to atone for our forefathers' sins!

Voodoo Hoodoo, is, btw, my favorite story in that collection, and is easily the most morally complicated (Bombi in particular and how others treat him is sad and interesting).

x-wing: If they would move this to be more in line with the CCGs, I can see the comparison there at Target box stores. You get what, 12-18 cards for $4? It's kind of in between CCGs and boardgames for position and perceived value--as all mini games are I suppose. Back in the day, at full retail you were paying $10 for 7 minis with the Star Wars Minis game at target. Having a row of them on top of my monitor right now, I can tell you that the sculpts and paint jobs are certainly sub-par, but not horrendous. That's the real kicker for average off the street person and this game's success--will they appreciate the value in the quality of the plastic and paint? At least they have that little window on the box.

Personally, we've got a room scheduled at work for a match-up every other week. I'm drooling over next release. I can't wait to field a barrage of (I hope) very cheap a-wings.

I'm thinking the A-Wings will be around 15 points with some kind of extra manuverability- maybe a speed boost or different kind of barrell roll. I really should get four of those instead of three...agh!

Yeah, it's actually kind of surprising that there ISN'T more racist stuff in those Barks books- not because of Barks, but because of where the culture was when they were being written. There is some mild insensitivity, that's the best way to put it, in ONE of the stories I read recently (DD in Ancient Persia) but even then it was more quaint than harmful.

GL, I didn't dislike all of them...really Iron Man 2 is the one that sticks out as the really bad one. The first one was bland, heartless, and had a horrible last act. Thor wasn't very good, but it's kind of grown on me- it feels like a bad 80s programmer with better effects. Hemsworth totally sells that film with his over-the-top performance. I haven't seen Incredible Hulk, but now I really, really want to. I loved Captain America. But truth be told, Avengers really kind of validates all of those movies as a preamble to what they were trying to accomplish.

Jeff, I think you would really like Black Hole. I'm not quite sure why because I barely know you and only as internet buddies, but for some reason I'm being told to persuade you to read it. You really should listen to Battle Born too..."Runaways" blows "Spaceman" away.

On the cost of X-Wing...the thing about it is, no matter how much complaining or calculating we do at the end of the day the game is selling well and it's apparently priced at a price the market will bear- at least through deep discounting. If it were ONLY available at a full retail $40, I think we'd see a different outcome.

I think some of the discontent does come from the product's crossover with board games. Miniature gamers will drop $30-50 on a single figure without batting an eye. They're used to buying parceled products. Boardgamers expect everything in the box including dice in every single game. Realistically, you really do get a lot in the box in terms of game materials, you just don't get a board or many ships. The expansions also come with cards, dials, and additional components so it's not really "$15 for one ship".

How different are the dials for the different ships?

I think there are some comparisons on BGG of the manuever dials. They are pretty different although the options remain straight, bank, and hard bank. A more manuverable ship might have access to the longer banks, a medium ship might be able to do them but they'll be marked as a red "difficult" move on their dial. Likewise, "easy" green manuevers that let you recover from stress are different for each ship type. Also, some ships can do a shorter or longer Koiogran (Immelmann).

I loved Iron Man and hate to hear it fell flat for you, and I agree that Iron Man 2 is the weakest of the films. I wouldn't bother with Incredible Hulk personally. It's nothing memorable and the Hulk you get in The Avengers isn't the same Hulk from the Norton film. In fact, if I had to pick between watching Iron Man 2 again or Incredible Hulk I would go with Iron Man.

I don't know, the ingredients were right for Iron Man- love RDJ, they couldn't have cast a better Tony Stark. Love that they made him very rock n' roll in that super safe, corporate way- makes total sense. The suit looks fucking phenomenal and when it's in action it's exciting. The message of corporate responsibility/accountability was timely (and still is timely). I really think the problem is that the film's antagonist is weak and the last act is so dull. If it had a stronger villain and more of an impact in the last third, I think I would have thought more highly of it. In the end, it just felt really plastic, impactless. I need to watch it again after seeing Avengers.

But yeah, hijacking a Quinjet's PA to blast "Shoot to Thrill" when you show up on the scene...how great is that.

Where are you getting these Donald Ducks, Barnes? If you don't have the new collections, pick them up, you'll be extra happy once your kids are old enough.

I'd like to see ship packs that bring extra maneuver templates so that you get more variety. And I think that's what will dig this game out of B+ territory for me. When you have to fight different ships in significantly different ways you'll have a level of complexity that will make the game more interesting. The good news is that with a game like this I can use my buddy's main set, meaning I can spend $40 on three ships packs and we'll have a good dose of variety between us.

S.

If you look at the price of resins between 2006 and 2012, there's not a whole hell of a lot of price hike. I was selling it back in 2006-2009 and the price increases were minimal. So, I'm not buying that, still, despite you repeating it ad infinitum. Labor costs in China have risen, maybe that's the driving factor. That makes sense more than oil costs especially since looking at the Baltic Exchange Dry index the price of shipping has never been lower.

That said, I still think this is egregious. 6 years ago, Wizards was making Star Wars Minatures: Starship battles that had a box loaded with 10 ships, 2 of which were capital ships, for 25$. But lets say that all the bits (cards, dials...) make up for the delta in going from 10 ships (2 capital...did I say that?) down to three ships, for more money. I mean, cards are expensive and shit, right?

But the boosters? 15$ for one ship? FFG can eat a dick. That's rapacious pricing. 4 years ago I could buy a seven-pack of ships for $12.99. And that's not counting the Coolstuff discounts.

It sounds like a great game, but seriously, looking apples to apples, this is the single most expensive game they've ever sold. I mean, Descent 1st ED was 80$ 2 years ago and it was LOADED with chits, cards, dice, and minis.

This is NOT ~REPEAT~ NOT a "price of oil and labor" thing. If it were, the MonPoc starters would be 80$ and boosters 30$ for the "content" you get in the box.

Could not agree more. The scene that sold me on Iron Man was his liberation of the village just before the towns people are to be executed. When he landed in the middle of that scene and started kicking ass I was all in. You are right though: the villain is weak and the third act never tops that scene. If a solid villain and ending had come together I think Iron Man would have easily been my favorite supers film to date, and I'm not even an Iron Man fanatic.

The X-Wing minis are NICE. I think the paint jobs are way above par for mass market pre-paint. The wash is a little much but that's nitpicking. It's harder plastic and they don't come in plastic bags so there is no wierd curling or warping. I spent a fair amount of time just looking at them.

There was actually more stuff in the box than I thought there would be - about 4 chit boards. So it's a little on the premium end for FFG but this is one quality product.

Look at this comparison pic. The other figs look like absolute shit.

See, the TIE on the left is the one Pete Ruth tried to talk me into buying.

A couple of the S-Foils on the X-wings have some crookedness, but that's the only complaint I have. The washes are pretty thick, especially on the Y-Wings. But man, they look freaking awesome on the table at arm's length. I am glad they didn't go with having different X-Wings (i.e. "Luke Skywalker's X-wing", "Biggs Darklighter's X-Wing", etc.) and handled all of that with cards. That's such a smart thing to do. Remember buying crap like Mechwarrior and there were three ranks of each figure? SCAAAROOO that!

Stout, sadly I only have some scans of OLD DD books...as in, I think they're actually of the original issues. Which is kind of cool because they almost have that texture that you can't really get on a screen. That said, I just ordered the Lost in the Andes book- you can pick it up used for under $10 on Amazon or Half.com. Those are books I definitely want on the shelf, especially with two kids that will hopefully be reading them in a few years.

Jesus, someone found the single worst Tie ever and the single best X-Wing model ever for comparison, right? The ones I saw had some flash on them, and weren't pristine showcase models. And I owned several of the entire set of SWM:SB and can say without any hope of a motherfucker contradicting me that the above left image is atypical.

That said, they are MUCH nicer, no doubt. The scale allows for finer detail, and they're likely using the cheaper PVC that everyone's moving to (it's better, AND cheaper) although I have no idea what plastic these new guys are.

But are they hmm...let's see.. 12.00/7=1.71 (Star Wars Starship Battles) vs. 15/1=15$...are $13.00 better EACH? I dunno, the Micro Machines look about as nice, and the Action Fleet ones are easily better, much larger, and were (and still are) cheaper per unit to buy.

I get that everyone wants to justify their spending by saying how awesome these new toys are. I'm the last guy to be a wet blanket...I'm 400$ deep in one recent game, 220$ deep in another, and probably 2 grand deep in Heroscape....

...but seriously, this shit is a fucking rip off. $15 to get ONE ship. ONE. ~una~

That's fucking ridiculous. And to get the most stripped down craptastic starter version of the game, it's a minimum of 40$. Want to get a REAL battle going? You're in for at least 100$, or as Barnes has shown, you can mortgage your grandkids' college funds and go balls deep for 300$ or so on 15 ships or so.

I'm just saying that these fuckers are crazy if they think this is a fair price. They're sticking it to guys who wear wookiee hats and can tell you who shot first. I mean, even the Wizkids dickweeds had the good sense not to rape the Trekkies over the Star Trek Clix game.

Just seems like the "new right way" to sell nerds shit: incrementally, and with maximum wallet emptying per unit. IT's like CCGs.

Make sure to pick up the "Uncle Scrooge: Only a Poor Old Man" too...and the upcoming "Donald Duck: Christmas for Shacktown" (though the title obscures the best story by far in it: The Golden Helmet!). In fact, I ordered both of those simultaneously from Fantagraphics and got some ridiculous price, I think $28 for the both of them? Call them and order it and tell them some jibba-jabba about the Classic Comics newsletter, see if you can get that sweet discount.

Thou speaketh with rash confidence. Still very early.

Dawn of World War II planes all look alike, so I've mixed them up with a few decals. That makes a nice addition. Finding decals that would make sense for Star Wars may be a little harder.

Oh yeah man, the Golden Helmet...great one! I'll have to see if I can skim it off Amazon as well. Hell, I may go by the Book Nook and see if they've got it on the shelf there today.

It's true that the "new right way" to sell games in geenral is incrementally. That's actually a larger cultural shift in ALL of game marketing, not just tabletop.

See, the thing is that I would totally stand by this game sold at $25.99 MSRP for the core, $9.99 per expansion ship (which also comes with a base, two pegs, 12-15 cards, two small punchboards including ID tokens and all game effect markers and the dial). At that price point, I'd say it was fair and reasonable. But $40 _is_ too much. Like I said, it almost feels like FFG is pricing it at tht point KNOWING that most of the sales are actually going to occur through deep discounters who are really given the mandate to knock $15 off the core price BECAUSE it's so inflated. I would be VERY interested to see how many copies of the core are actually sold at full, undiscounted MSRP and how many are bought at $25-$30 from discounters.

I saw the game in Target the other day with that $39.99 price tag on it and it stuck out like a sore thumb. It was right next to games like Axis and Allies and Settlers that are selling for about the same price. Hell, Star Trek Catan was right next to it and you get a big heavy box full of STUFF for $50. $40 is too high to scare off the curious, kids (read: parents), and those who might be casually interested in checking it out. Even a pair of buddies going $20 each into a set is too high.

So I do agree that it's priced way too high. And I do think that FFG would be pricing themselves out of the market if it weren't for the discounters. But what remains is that this is still a really, really fucking great game that is actually worth what I've paid for it. It's a Cadillac product, for sure. Not a half-assed filler that will rarely get played. It's one that is worth a small investment in if your group gets into it.

Something else to consider is that past games like the old Wizards game are hardly premium quality like this, nor were they games intended to compete in the more serious tabletop miniatures field.

And another thing to consider is that this is probably not the right game if you want to do the Battle of Endor. A table full of 50 ships would be unmanageable and not much fun. Battles with three or four ships are GREAT, fun, and feel complete once you add in some objectives or special rules. Tournament standard 100 point fights are epic and give you a chance to field some of the special equipment and do some squadron building. Go over that and you're getting into big fleets, but I do think it tops out. So if you're going into this thinking "I want 20 X-Wings", that's at least a $200 investment", you're doing it TOTALLY wrong. The scale isn't really at that level.

I went back and forth for a looooong time about x-wing, but in the end I thought that whatever enjoyment I would get just couldn't justify the cost I would spend. I know myself too well to think I would be any good at saying "when." It looks awfully good though.

On balance I think I actually preferred The Avengers to The Dark Knight Rises, at least as an individual movie. TDKR has a lot to recommend it, but it really works best as an end to the trilogy and not as much as an individual movie, I think. The Avengers does spectacle as well as any movie since Avatar, although Avengers is way better.

Incredible Hulk has some good points, but I feel like it overcorrected from the problems of Ang Lee's movie. They were so afraid of being boring and long that they just threw all introspection and depth out the window. So it's mostly a movie about a giant green man smashing things. That's not a waste of time, but The Avengers shows how much you can do with Hulk. I hope they revisit that character at some point, because the Hulk still hasn't gotten the movie he deserves, at least that focuses on him.

I really liked the first Killers album, but Sam's Town kind of lost me. It has that feeling of "sure why not" that I find admirable, but that also keeps it from really getting the constant listens that my favorite stuff gets. I never did catch up with Day and Age, so maybe I need to head to the spotify-mobile.

I'm glad you clarified the scale, but didn't you say you're in for 220$ so far?

If you had to guess, what would you say is production cost of this package? What's the cost to FFG's loading dock?

Incredible Hulk really isn't that good. I thought it was decent when it came out and the only other movie by Marvel for Marvel was Iron Man, so I liked it better than the Ang Lee Hulk. Rewatched it a couple of weeks ago with my wife and her friends who hadn't seen it. Rather boring.

Avengers is was good. But the Honest Trailer put out by Screen Junkies really shines the light on its flaws. But still, I liked it. Agreed the aliens are really generic. The rumor was that the Skrulls were tied up in the rights to Fantastic Four so they couldn't be used.

In the end, I think that's just a big problem with the Marvel universe, lack of quality villains. Granted all of DC's best villains are Batman villains. The best in Marvel is Magneto. I think Thanos will be cool though, but that's just because I'm partial to the Marvel galactic stuff. I loved the Infinity Guantlet saga when it came out and I was like 12.

X-Wing is sounding cool. Nice Techno Witches reference. Getting interested in this, as well as the upcoming Star Wars LCG for some reason.

Sounds like a challenge...alright, here are all the villains I would deem as 'top tier' or 'high quality'

FF: Dr. Doom, Namor
Avengers: Loki, Ultron
X-Men: Magneto, Phoenix
Spider-man: Green Goblin
Captain America: Red Skull

Threats to the Marvel universe as a whole: Thanos, Galactus, Skrulls

That's 11 good, unique villains from a cross section of titles. The second tier (sabretooth, sentinels, juggernaut, kraven, doc ock, manderin, etc) aren't too bad either.

As mentioned, most of DCs best villains all reside in the Batman gallery. Then again, I grew up a Marvel zombie, so perhaps my view is twisted.

Marvel has some of the best of all time, as villains go. Sandman is a bad ass, and cool. Dr. Doom is a bad ass. The Mandarin is a bad ass...get someone like Jet Li to play him in a film? Its curtains. But, all that said, there's really just The Joker, and Magneto. Dr Doom is in the mix, but those two are the most iconic villains of all time. Everyone else is just second rate.

Says the guy with a Dr. Doom avatar!

A poster at NHS directed me to this explanation of X-Wing's pricing by CP...it's worth reading through, but do take the comments about value with a grain of salt given the source. I still think the core should be $25-$30 and sold as a loss leader to get people into the game, but this puts the whole "$15 for one ship" grief in a new light. I don't think he'll mind if I just post the whole thing here:

orb wrote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are some interesting opinions on this, so I thought I would weigh in with some facts. I may post this in one or two other threads as well.

The X-Wing core set is one of the most price-competitive products FFG has ever released. The fact that we could add those components and ships for only $40 retail is, in fact, quite extraordinary (and the price of the Millennium Falcon is also exceptionally low for the value provided and our margins below average).

The primary misconceptions seem to be that:

a) Plastic is cheap
b) Painting and assembly is cheap
c) That X-Wing products consist only of a plastic ship(s).

Mythbuster One Fact: Plastic is, in fact, far from cheap.

Don't let the nonsense assertion of "how can they charge XX for a 10 cent (or such) piece of plastic" deceive you. Not only is most injected plastic more expensive than that, but the design and engineering process is very substantial and very expensive (not to speak of the assembly, painting, and other elements that make a final product, see later).

To achieve the type of models that we have done with X-Wing, first the entire ship will need to be exactingly created by an engineer in a high-end solid-shape 3D CAD program (such as what FFG uses, Solidworks, a $5K per seat software). It is not possible to use the cheaper mesh-based (i.e. soft shape) 3D programs to engineer these models, they do not contain the data required for tooling and the engineering process is very different.

After final design is approved, an experienced tooling engineer has to split the model into parts that are sensible for mold separation (sometimes, to achieve especially complex results, this will require a sliding mold––an even more complex and expensive process).

After that, negatives of the separated elements are drilled into a high-quality/high-density steel block by a precision C&C machine, usually supervised by a tooling engineer (a process that takes between 2-3 weeks).

There are a few other ways to achieve the above step, such as using copper positives that are slowly incremented against a electro-chemically coated steel block. Those other processes are slightly less expensive than digital tooling but will not have results that are as clean and precise. For non-biological miniatures such as tanks and ships, the digital C&C tooling achieve the best results.

Once a tool is finished, it is tested and adjusted by the tool/mold engineers, after which the tool is properly fitted with ejector-pins and a chassis for the injection equipment to grip (this can, in the case of a sliding tool, be very complex).

The tool is now finally ready for injection, taking about 1-2 minutes of machine-time per sprue (a sprue contains a number of plastic parts, held together by a lattice of thin plastic members). This sprue is then cooled.

Some tools can fit 1-2 instances of a ship, but most X-Wing ships require more than one tool. The X-Wing, for example, requires 2 tools for all its parts, and the Millennium Falcon is requiring 3 large tools (the larger the tool size, the more expensive).

For most miniatures games, the manufacturing process is now complete. Minis are usually sold by their sprues for the customer to assemble. As the above steps are extremely intensive, knowing the cost and effort required, I think virtually all miniatures games (a niche market) using this process, to frankly be very reasonably priced.

X-Wing, with its painted and assembled models, takes the manufacturing process further. Much further.

Mythbuster Two Fact: Assembly and painting of plastic figures, is all done by hand, and is very involved (and expensive).

The sprues are now hand-cut and the individual pieces are separated.

Most "cheap" plastic figures that you find in toys (and Mcdonalds Happy Meals, etc) are injected in one or two (or very few) pieces, and can go straight to (very basic, if any) painting. Advanced items like our X-Wing ships come in many pieces which are individually painted and later assembled by hand (there is no mythical machine that paints and assembles plastic game pieces, they are all done by hand).

Painting now begins. As mentioned, this is a handcrafted process in which each little bit of a ship is painted in a series of steps (depending of the piece, this may be done in batches, with many of the same piece clipped onto vacuum trays for consistent position.)

X-Wing uses a difficult process of washes (which is rare in mass-produced items, due to the difficulty of receiving consistent work. To achieve good results with X-Wing, each model is hand-inspected before packing).

After the bits are painted, they are assembled/glued by hand and placed in their shipping trays.

The actual amount of raw plastic material in each ship is, as some may mention, not terribly costly (but high-quality raw plastic pellets have become much more expensive in the past 7 years), but the various bits of assembly, handling, painting (especially painting), and set-up/engineering/concepting costs are very substantial.

I'm often asked why more of FFG's games do not come with pre-painted figures. Well, this is because it is exceptionally prohibitive, and usually garners concerns on cost among the customers, as is the case here. Our recent release "Descent: Journey's in the Dark 2nd ed", for example, would have been priced at retail for [edit] $300+ per game, should we have included painted figures instead of the non-painted (but assembled) ones. Instead, Descent 2nd Ed sells for $79.95, a great value.

The cost of painting alone is roughly 5-6 times that of injecting and assembling a plastic figure. In other words, an unpainted item that would sell for $10 retail, would likely sell for $40 painted (being not quite the multiple of 5-6, as the other bundled costs of the SKU, such as packaging and shipping, would not inure the same multiple).

Mythbuster Three Fact: The X-Wing items have a substantial number of components other than just the ships themselves.

All the above, of course, only pertains to the ships themselves, we also manufacture/design the shipping trays, plastic bases, elevation stands, custom dice, box, cartons, cardboard components, plastic dial connectors, cards, and rules booklets. In fact, for the manufacturing of the core set alone, we had to create 7 custom steel tools for all the parts, plus the copper tooling needed to keep the ships safe in vacuum trays.

On top of all these costs, obviously there is a costs of R&D development, testing, the Star Wars license, FFG's cost of capital, storage, handling, marketing, and so on.

To repeat myself, the X-Wing core set is one of the best values we've made, it is an incredible price for the quality of game and components.

A more "sane" publishing price for the Millennium Falcon would actually have been about $34.94 to $39.95. But dedicated FFG developers convinced me to bite into our margin and sell it for an amazing $29.95. For a model of this complexity, tooling, and size, it is -- in my experienced opinion, along with the other X-Wing SKU's, an unbelievable value.

Of course, you shouldn't take my biased word for it. Ask other manufacturers. Indeed, look in the marketplace for similar comparable products -- and I think you'll find that X-Wing is an incredibles value for the loving care, expense, and hard work that we put into these.

FFG never concerns itself with being the cheapest product on the market, but we do concern ourselves greatly with trying to be the best value. We think X-Wing is that.

We could have downgraded the quality and sold X-Wing at a lower (more typical mass-market) price, but that does not reconcile with FFG's core values. We don't need to make games that appeal to everyone, but we do want to provide a great experience to those that do invest in our games. I don't know how to make a great products at prices lower than those we fairly charge.

Respectfully,

Christian

That's very similar to what I've heard from the publisher of a somewhat similar game to this. The cost of production rose with the price of oil (the plastic CP refers to increasing in price by a factor of 7 is almost assuredly due to the price of its source material) and China's labor market has grown in price as well. China is in an inflation spiral and has rising electricity costs. I'm seeing kids toys with Viet Nam and India written on them now which was never the case in 2005. China is becoming less competitive.

I don't think they're giving this thing away, but I don't think the game has the $3 production costs that some people imagine. Keep in mind that the price essentially doubles at the wholesaler and doubles again to MSRP. My guess is that they need to deliver this product at $10 in order to come out on the right side of the line. Fixed Costs per unit (anyone want to guess number of units?) and license need to fit inside that ceiling as well. If their Fixed Costs are a mere $100,000 (likely quite low) and they sell 50,000 units (likely quite high) that's $2 per box.

S.

The average factory worker makes $1.36 an hour in China. They work 12 hour work days, on average. So, this 6x multiplier means that the actual cost per unit is 20 cents per unit? I mean, me painting an X-Wing model as it's painted would take me an hour, including priming and drying, and I don't do it on a production line or, really, for a living.

It seems to me that FFG knows nothing about factory automation and efficiency. Get a Six Sigma black belt in who has a background in factory automation and engineering. It's not like they're not all over the place looking for work.

I'm reading all of this, as a guy who used to DO 3D CAD, used to work in manufacturing in a prototype shop as an NC machine op. I'm thinking that the customer is paying for a lack of knowledge about manufacturing and rapid prototyping at FFG.

Yes, they are cool villains in the comics, but put them in a movie and all of a sudden their motivations feel silly and unrealistic. In comics most of the time it's to rob a bank, build a doomsday device or grab a mcguffin.

Dude, if you've got all the fucking answers go apply for a job at FFG. We'd all love to see their next big box game sell for $34.95.

S.

I was just at Target. Still the same number of $40 X-Wing sets.

Here's the problem. It's $40 for a game that essentially requires expansions. I know it says 'complete game' or some crap, but no kid is going to want to spend $40 to play one x-wing vs two ties. That's going to get old fast. Like Sag says though, right next to it are $10-40 boardgames that are complete.

Looking down the toy aisle, there's a Beyblade starter arena for $35. I know nothing about Beyblade, but it looks like it's a two player starter set-up. Additionally, there were $12 Beyblade xpansion toys/units/whatever hanging in blisters on pegs. Many pegs were bare. These look to be selling.

_That's_ where X-Wing needs to be. On the toy aisle near the star wars toys (where figs are $10+ as it is). If the game were there with the expansions hanging on pegs, I'd wager it would sell more. Like the Beyblades and Bakugons (sp?), which are really games as well, but sold in the toy aisle.

Anyway, if you aren't playing X-Wing like this, I'd wager you're doing it wrong. EDIT: The small plexi-sheet for movement over the trench is inspired.

With Beyblade, you're looking at exponentially different numbers in terms of production and sales volume as well as vastly different development and marketing costs. It's not realistic for FFG to compete at that level outside of corporate toy manufacturing..

You are correct. But I wouldn't suggest FFG to go head to head with Beyblade. There's a dozen and a half of other Star Wars toy varieties on the toy aisle, why couldn't this be added there as well? It's just breaking down the mental block that boardgames are contained, so this looks like so little for $40. Toys and such aren't thought of that way. Parents will drop $10+ multiple times on figs and such.

If, for whatever reason, that approach isn't taken why not stick them up front with the Magic and Pokemon cards. Again, in that section your customers are expecting starters and expansions.

Finally, lack of expansions anywhere near the game (much less in the store) is another barrier. If there were $10-15 a-wings, y-wings, tie bombers, etc hanging around the starters it would look like something worth getting into. A $40 box with three matchbox sized ships on the boardgame aisle doesn't add up.

Who says FFG designed the game with the Target customer in mind?

Dragonstout - are those the only three Donald Ducks out right now that have been rereleased?

(e.g., Lost in the Andes, Christmas for Shacktown, Only a Poor Old Man)

Just because you don't work in an industry that gives you insight into production and engineering, don't be a fucking dick. You want to be an FFG apologist, have at it, but don't think for a second it takes away from the fact that these folks can't seem to make a game for under 100$ no matter how hard they try. Sorry, but Space Hulk was 100$ and it puts X-Wing to ~SHAME~. So, for CP to tell me that it's all insurmountable production issues....he's full of shit.

I sold factory automation. I created tooling. I worked in a job shop as an NC operator. I worked in a 3D CAD environement making stainless steel products. I've been on hundreds of factory floors in dozens of industries. I've been in engineering and production environments for the last 17 years or so. What do you want from me? To pretend I don't know what I know? I don't have all the answers, but I at least have a basic understanding that there's better ways to do things than have a bunch of indentured servants hand-painting shit that can be painted in an automated environment.

Fuck them, and fuck you. And BTW: FFG couldn't afford me. Not remotely.

Fuck all this noise, the game is fun as hell. I'm happy I got into it. Certainly the best pre-painted minis game I've played, let alone it the best looking. I've tried so many spaceship combat games and this has been the only one that hasn't left me cold or going to the rule book every two minutes. Too rich for your blood? Don't play it. Play whatever shit show minis game you want, but something tells me I'll be having more fun with mine.

If it was fun we were after, Josh, we might as well be playing frisbee.

Christmas for Shacktown is not out yet, it comes out in November. Also, it's important to note that each of the books contains a whole bunch of stories, not just the title story (so, for example, Only a Poor Old Man contains the title story, "Back to the Klondike", "The Horseradish Treasure", "Tralla La", "The Secret of Atlantis", "The Menehune Mystery", and a bunch of shorter comics). Their release schedule appears to be a Donald Duck volume in the fall followed by an Uncle Scrooge volume in the spring, and they just started last fall. Their plan is to eventually release the entire Carl Barks, and in such a way that you can line up your books chronologically at the very end, but they're starting in the middle with his best stuff first. So far, the Donald Duck volumes have a hefty helping of the 10-page stories as well, while the Uncle Scrooge books are almost entirely "long" adventure stories.

BTW, for people who have no idea what we're all talking about and are a particular age: these are the comics that DuckTales was based on.

You're talking about the design and production of a niche product for a niche market; not exactly industrial scale. Volume matters. If there were more uses for precisely detailed models of an X-Wing, then there would be a greater, more diverse, and more consistent market demand, greater production to meet that demand, and lower costs. Trying to compare it to Space Hulk is a poor attempt at symmetry, since the latter did not go through either the assembly or painting steps that the X-Wing models did. Furthermore, if it was as simple as you say to assemble and paint 28mm models in an automated fashion (think of the changes to assembly, direction, and paint systems for every contortion of Orc and Skaven and the fine control required for delicate plastic...), GW would have done so years ago. You think they couldn't expand their market base with pre-painted models that people could just slap on the table and play? They've gone so far as to create snap-together models (like the ones in Space Hulk) to try to draw new players into the game, but have stopped prior to assembly and painting. Why do so if it's so easy and cheap? Because it isn't, of course.

Sorry. You definitely don't know shit about this.

I dunno about the production costs, etc but I still hold that if GW were to go pre-paints it would be the end of their hobby. The GW hobby involves customizing and painting to create your own unique models. Take that away and it becomes any one of a number of flash in the pan pre-painted minis games. The player base for GW and PP have bought into those systems (not just monetarily) in ways that other gamers haven't. It's a whole different scene.

Even if they could, I don't know if GW would start selling pre-paints.

Whatever, Jack. Its a matter of up front capital investment and forward planning versus simply subconning out to China and status quo. People used to hand build everything. Now they don't. I spent ten years automating factories, fuckwad. It's a matter of changing the status quo. If FFG can invest and make Midnight Chronicles: The Movie, they can develop a lean manufacturing cell in-house.

Look me up on Linkedin, bitch. I got the credentials.

Thanks for the info -- I surmised a little bit of that from Amazon's release schedule. I know absolutely shit about comics, but this Donald Duck business caught my eyes. Are there other classics of this nature that you would recommend? To this point, my comic readings have included: The Watchmen, The Far Side (complete collection), and Calvin & Hobbes (complete collection).

Or drinking beer and whiskey sans vomiting.

Quite right, Andy. Quite right.

I love how this keeps going and going.

Hey Andy, lighten up on the children. They look up to you and it hurts them when they think you're disappointed.

S.

In terms of classic all-ages comics:

The classic John Stanley Little Lulu books come close, though, and are definitely funnier than Barks (I laugh aloud throughout a Little Lulu, and pretty rarely in Barks): Dark Horse recently released a line of paperbacks collecting his whole run; the first 2/3 of the paperbacks are in B&W, the last 1/3 in color. Assuming you're not going to go hog-wild and buy all 30 of them, I'd recommend one of the "Giant-Sized Little Lulus".

Classic superhero comics that are very readable today (as long as you're expecting laffs and thrills, not something deeper): I actually think that the two best-WRITTEN superhero comics pre-1970 were the Spirit and Plastic Man. I don't even think it's a contest; like absolutely no other superhero comics pre-1980, they don't feel dated. "The Best of the Spirit" by Will Eisner covers that, and for Plastic Man pick up "Plastic Man Archives vol. 8", which is INCREDIBLY cheap on Amazon right now.

I know, most people who've read Golden Age comics think I'm pulling their leg, because Golden Age superhero comics are mostly insanely awful, but for real, check out that Plastic Man book. It is genuinely great, and an eye-opener.

Since you mentioned The Far Side and Calvin & Hobbes: my all-time favorite comic STRIP is Pogo. It is insane how dense and rich it is. You can pick up a beautiful hardcover of volume 1 right now; volume 2 comes out later this year. Modern readers of comic strips have grown accustomed to expecting a punchline at the end of a strip: Pogo doesn't do that. Pogo has punchlines in unpredictable places, and often tries for *a punchline in every panel*, sometimes more than one in a single panel.

That's a bunch of great lazy Sunday reading right there, all pre-1960 comics. NONE of the above feel like you're "doing your homework", "learning about the roots of comics" or any shit like that, they're just fun and good.

Links to all of the above:
Spirit
Plastic Man
Little Lulu
Pogo

lol @ Amazon's pull-quote algorithm: it pulled the following quote about "The Best of the Spirit":

"The writing was very dated and the stories very uninteresting."

So then I clicked on the review this was quoted from:

"I've read some comics from the Silver Age and they were not too good. The writing was very dated and the stories very uninteresting. Much to my surprise, this was not the case with The Spirit. Some of these stories are just as good if not better than the current or more recent comic book stories and the artwork is quite beautiful and would put to shame a lot of the more current renown artists."

Yeah? How long did the customers have to take to pry every fragile genestealer and marine from the sprues? How about painting? Storage?

Also as Barnes has pointed out, the 15 $ individual booster minis comme with a bunch of other stuff. I think they're priced just right.

Also regarding playing the Battle of Endor, that would be more suitable for a Battlefleet Gothic type game featuring capital ships/ships of the line where the fighters would be just really small blobs on a strip.

I have been buying the large Little Lulu collections for .50 at my library's used book sale for my kids and they pore over them for hours. This thread is pretty fascinating. Fantagraphics is a national treasure.

That is actually *the* best deal in comics, right there.

I don't understand how Fantagraphics makes money on some of the archival projects they publish, but god bless 'em.

BTW, next Spring's Barks collection has been announced, and is going to be another Donald Duck (not Scrooge, though Scrooge is in it) collection, collecting the comics immediately prior to the Lost in the Andes book, including Sheriff of Bullet Valley, The Old Castle's Secret, the *other* racist story In Darkest Africa, and a whole bunch of 10-pagers.

Can't find anything on this anywhere; where are you getting your inside scoops?

Heh, it was a stealth announcement. I've been following the Dave Sim negotiations like watching a car wreck, and someone begged for some *good* news about stuff that Fantagraphics *is* going to publish, and so voila, next Barks book. As well as the 5th and 6th EC books: Johnny Craig crime and Al Feldstein sci-fi. Now F:AT's got the inside scoop too!

Link:
http://www.tcj.com/dave-sim-responds-to-the-fantagraphics-offer/#comment-77817

BTW, to contrast to the "god bless Fanta" for doing all these probably marginally-profitable old reprints: DC is INFURIATINGLY bad at reprinting old comics. I am DYING to read the final few volumes of Plastic Man, but it looks like they decided it wasn't profitable enough and shut it down after volume 8. The stuff DC sees as unprofitable, I'm sure Fantagraphics would KILL to be able to do: "The Complete Jack Cole Plastic Man" would be a marquee title for them. Too bad...