Dropzone Commander - Hawkwargames

[Pokpoko]

Prices are comparable to heavy gear

Considering the universal answer to "why aren't you playing HG" threads is "cost!" it's not exactly a good thing.

[AndrewGPaul]

There's not much 10mm sci fi out there to compare it to. DZC is cheaper than Heavy Gear, although the models are perhaps a bit smaller. They're more expensive than Pendraken, but Pendraken's 10mm stuff is horrible. DZC also seems more expensive than Reaper's CAV line, but again, I'm not sure how the models stack up, size-wise.

[Amnar]

Just went through the new rules faq stuff. Looks promising. Bring on the battle reports!

[GomezAddams]

There's not much 10mm sci fi out there to compare it to.

No, but there is stacks of 15mm...

Khurasan for example, charge you around £11 for 27 of there exterminators as opposed to Hawks £12 for 30. ThereCaiman APC comes in at around a tenner - comparable to hawks bears where you get a pair for the same price. The also offer the Hybrid for $12 which is a little cheaper.
Taking at a look at ground zero games, there hardsuit UNSC marines are £3 for 8 figures, meaning you get 32 men for the same cost as your hawk infantry, whilst a comparable vehicle will set you back £7.50 but in this case its a fully metal and slightly blocky affair.
You then also have critical mass games, which has a large human faction. There slightly pricier then Ground Zero, but the bigger sets such as platoons seem to offer things at a comparable price point again.
Moving over to antenocitis workshop, you can grab a Kabardin or scorpion (both lovely tanks) for £6 a time, whilst old crow do a tank at a similar price bracket http://www.oldcrowmodels.co.uk/15clay.htm.

So for a negligible amount more (roughly £1 more on your vehicles), you get 50% more model. This might not seem like a massive difference, however when you think about massed battles games you want something that looks impressive. Grab some 2ps now and lay 8 of them out in front of you - thats roughly the size and flour space equivilant of the tanks from the USM starter. Now imagine that on the 4x4 board and you begin to see the problem. This website shows roughly the size of the Kabardin, the smallest of the vehicles mentioned and the rest are easily bigger (especially the Caiman). You also have a dozen different manufacturers, all with fairly complete ranges in terms of either infantry or tanks (buy you troops from Ground Zero and your tanks from old crow is the cheapest option for people in the UK).

So there you go, there are comparable options, you just have to go a little bigger. The only thing you'd struggle to find is dropships but the 15mm companies will leave that gap unfilled now Hawks out there.

[Amnar]

While I agree there are cheaper options out there, I see it this way:

They're devoting time and resource to creating rules, background, art, support etc. for their game world. That cost need ls to be baked into their product. They'll never be able to compete on just price.

I play tomorrow's war and gruntz, and I use a lot of 15mm manufacturers, mainly khurasan and blue moon. Great minis, pretty cheap, but that's all you get, just minis.

It's similar to FoW vs vanilla 15mm ww2. You pay a premium for the system, support, etc.

[Pokpoko]

You pay a premium for the system

And here I was thinking that's what the rulebook priced 15Ł was for.

[6mmhero]

Wow Pokpoko you seem to have a bit of a bee in your bonnet for Hawk and their prices etc.
Yes the price has put me off for the time being and I am going to wait to watch a game in action (luckily a few friends are getting forces).
£15 isn't that bad for a rule book in my mind and almost all the games I play have rule books you have to purchase to get the most out of them or even play them full stop.

[ogretyrant]

The prices are just fine and 20 quid for a rule book is fine as well, if the prices are to high then there is no need to get into the system. In my opion I have had no intrest in 10-15mm games, then these guys come along an IMO blow the rest of the others out of the water, and if they are creating a universe/fluff etc then all the better!

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

[AndrewGPaul]

Twenty quid is quite a good deal for a rule book . Hawk are charging only fifteen, though.

[Charax]

£5 postage

[Amnar]

Yes, which is dirt cheap for a rule book. Anything GW, tomorrow's war, impetus, fow, whatever clocks in much higher.

Anyways, these minis aren't cheap, but at the end of the day, it depends on what your constraint is. For some it's money, for some it's time (painting!)

Unfortunately as a warmaster fanatic, I know what overpriced is....

[redben]

£5 postage

Only if you buy direct from Hawk.

[Pokpoko]

Pokpoko you seem to have a bit of a bee in your bonnet for Hawk and their prices etc.

What? I guess it's internet, so any even slightly negative opinion is hating, but all I pointed out is that the models are bit pricy for the amount of actual product you get. And that saying "the model prices include the rules and setting development" is all fine and dandy, but why do I have to purchase the book separately if I already paid for it in miniature-prices?

[Kaptajn_Congoboy]

When you compare them to Spartan, they are more expensive, but not excrutiatingly so. The big dropships (ca £19) are larger than Dystopian's large fliers (ca £13) and smaller than Dystopians mobile airfields (ca £20) but looks to be more complex models. The infantry is extremely expensive if compared to some 10mm Napoleonics out there (where you can get 100 figures sans bases for the price of 12-20 of this games with bases).

Rulebooks are (for many systems) in a business sense essentially semi-commercials that encourage you to buy the models. Which is why many companies sell them at a flat profits or even at a loss.

[Don_Silvarro]

Rulebooks are (for many systems) in a business sense essentially semi-commercials that encourage you to buy the models. Which is why many companies sell them at a flat profits or even at a loss.

So wouldn't it make more business sense to offer them as free .pdf or even a cheap paid .pdf?

[Kaptajn_Congoboy]

So wouldn't it make more business sense to offer them as free .pdf or even a cheap paid .pdf?

If you can afford to give them away at a loss, yes. Or you can be sneaky about it like PP was and offer the beta test for free, then charge for the rules (even if they likely have a low profit margin on the Prim(e/al)s).

[Don_Silvarro]

If you can afford to give them away at a loss, yes.

But you said a moment ago that selling printed rulebooks is basically giving them away at a loss or at a negligible profit.

Most of the cost in making a printed rulebook is the actual printing and shipping costs. The rest is actual game design work, and most of the time you have a game ready before you set up a business - that's why you set up a company in the first place. If you are producing miniatures and not publishing a game, the point is moot anyway.

So giving away a .pdf for free basically costs a publisher next to nothing - only the development work on the game itself, which was already done beforehand and/or already paid for, the server to host the file, which was already paid for in order to set up a website, and possibly the cost of one guy formatting and putting the file together. Even if you don't have a web wizard on staff to do that, you can easily find a university student who'll do it for the equivalent of a warm dinner or an excited fan who'll do it for the privelage of seeing the rules earlier than anybody else.

If you really want to profit on your rulebook, considering the above, selling a .pdf rulebook for even 5$ should provide more net profit than selling printed copies ever would. Especially since people are much more likely to drop a fiver than to drop a 20$ just to browse through the game rules, even if they have no intention of ever playing it or buying models for it. I've seen people do that and I've done that myself.

[Kaptajn_Congoboy]

No, I said that some manufacturers choose to sell rulebooks cheap as part of their business strategy.

[6mmhero]

What? I guess it's internet, so any even slightly negative opinion is hating, but all I pointed out is that the models are bit pricy for the amount of actual product you get.

I didn't call you a hater just mentioned that you seem to have a bee in you bonnet as you seem to like pointing out how other games are cheaper or you get more bang for your buck etc over and over.

Yes they are pricey but if you don't want to spend the money then vote with your wallet and don't purchase them.

For me the price is just high enough to force me to wait to see some games in action. I saw the models at Salute and they were great but it is going to be down to the game to convince me.

[Justicar_Freezer]

I'll pick up the rulebook first, but that's not to big of an investment to see rather or not I like the game. I'd probably still buy the hardback rulebook even if there was a free pdf offered because I just like having a hard copy to hand. I'm not a fan of the trend towards ebooks, pdfs and the likes but that's just me. After I read the rules and maybe watch a battle report or 2 on youtube I'll decide rather or not to invest in some of the awesome minis.