Spikeybits (spikeybits.com) is a great website and chap; but this article felt a little fallacious when it came to the estimated value and pricing regarding the new Warhammer: The Old World launch boxes. In this article I felt the need to deep-dive into the pricing and figure out just how good the Tomb Kings starter set really was.
The Price Point of the Tomb Kings Working out the value of the box is indeed a pain, given comparison of like-for-like is pretty tough. These models are not rarities or antiques: they’re very, very old sculpts which have lost value, not gained it. That’s why babbling about “inflation” is illegitimate: especially since Games Workshop, since the 2000s, have pushed their prices ever upwards - often well over inflation - with sometimes multiple price hikes in a single year (whilst their competitors have only just started to raise their prices as a direct result of recent global events).
Games Workshop killed off Warhammer Fantasy Battles in 2015 and replaced it with “Age of Sigmar” – an act which coincided with the company's exponential jump in plastic quality. This was actually reflected by Games Workshop’s restraint in subjecting their older plastic kits to annual price hiking - it’s because of this that we can roughly estimate the cost of the new Old World army boxes.
The Soulblight undead faction for AoS still sold 20-model boxes of 1999 Zombies in 2021 for £25 / $40.00 (incidentally, the same price for 20 Tomb King warriors in 2015). So we have a recent post-covid price point of £1.25 for a single Tomb King Warrior (the main sprue dates from 1998, whilst the Egyptian upgrade sprue is from 2002).
Likewise the Forest Goblin Spider Riders from 2006 are still available for AoS as “Grot-Spider-Riders” and are priced at £24 / $38 for 10. The Tomb King Cavalry was produced around 2002 so we have a reasonable analogue. This puts each TK mounted model at £2.40 each.
For the chariots, the 2010 (£30 / $50 for 3) Bullgors / Minotaurs box seems appropriate as the TK chariots have a pretty low amount of plastic/bulk to them and date from 2002. So £10 per chariot. It would be bizarre to compare these rather flimsy chariots to the far more bulkier Chaos or Dark Elf chariots which have a massive range of options and are each, indeed, duel-kits. So what is the cost of the Warhammer Tomb Kings Starter set using modern GW prices of older models?
– 72x Skeleton Warriors/Archers = £90
– 16x Skeleton Horsemen = £38.40
– 3x Skeleton Chariots = £30
Which gives us a total of £158.40 for the core models. So we can conclude the TK’s Launch Box is offering you both the £42.50 Rulebook and the new Bone Dragon model for £16.60. The Dragon is a sizeable model which once upon a time would have been priced at £40 - £52.50ish but will more than likely be released at a £90 price point (Cities of Sigmar’s Tahlia Vedra price).
So all in all the savings amount to around £115.90 if you use GW’s appraisal of what their retail costs should be. But is that really good? How much are these old 2002 kits really worth? They are not collectables or antiques. If you applied the far more reasonable £0.50 price tag per warrior, £1 per cavalry, and £6 for each chariot you end up with a £70 price tag for the old sculpts that are included here. This means GW would be charging you £105 for the Dragon and Rulebook…. Good Value? Or perhaps, in some warped way, this Starter Box is priced EXACTLY how much it’s worth and the value is pure illusion. Then again, the "fair price" of anything is exactly what people are willing to pay, and as of this moment these starter sets are sold out everywhere (though we have no idea how many of them were produced - very few seems likely). A Further Note on Inflation
Whilst some of the “new” Tomb King releases have technically gone “down” in price such as the 2011 Tomb Guard which have dropped from £25.50 for 10 in 2015 to £23.75 for 10 today; the Khemrian Warsphinx / Necrosphinx has jumped from £32.50 in 2015 to £45 today, which is actually above inflation.
Is Mantic Better Value?
How does this £158.40 figure (for 72 skeletons, 16 light cavalry and 3 chariots – all 1998-2002 models) compare next to buying these models from Mantic Games? In 2022 Mantic Games released their own superb “Empire of Dust” plastic range. If bought in their individual boxes they retail at: £1.25 per plastic Warrior/Archer; £3.50 for per plastic Heavy (Revenant) Cavalry; and £35 for 3 hybrid plastic/resin chariots. When we translate this into the core contents of the GW’s TK launch box we get this:
– 72x Mantic Skeleton Warriors/Archers = £90
– 16x Mantic Skeleton Horsemen = £56
– 3x Mantic Skeleton Chariots = £35
This comes to £181 retail from Mantic. That’s £22.60 more than Games Workshop. They are, however, superior models released 20 years after GW’s offerings. One could, of course, buy 3 boxes of Mantic’s EoD Ambush Starter Sets which grant you 60 Skeleton Warriors and 30 Cavalry models for £105...
We hope this article is useful. Perhaps a follow up with the Bretonnian army set will follow on from this one.