GW promoting substitute models? Brilliant, incredible video! I don't always agree, but this time you are on point and incredibly entertaining.

"It could be about half the price" - that applies to virtually every GW product.

They do provide tokens though. You just need to go to their website, screenshot the product images, print them out and play. Very nice of them that.

You know what’s truly spooky? The fact Warcry exists. Warcry is excellent. And the entire range is perpetually out of stock so you can’t buy or play it. It’s legit their best game. It’s bonkers.

I get the impression that the plan originally had been a similar process to Blackstone Fortress, release a number of expansions with some miniatures, but with the delays getting the completed card stock, they just released the miniatures (Radukar the Beast came out a couple of months after the initial release of Cursed City), and now they are releasing the expansion all together as just card because otherwise there would have been even more fury if everyone needed to buy a second copy of those character models. Just sucks that only the generic vampire lord is currently in stock anywhere at the moment...

Top Tier content creator

A Halloween horror video about GW business model, there is nothing more sanity shreding. Cheers. Your channel is great. Looking forward to your 2022 list of the worst of GW.

"Presumably they'll include those tokens... I'll look it up later" I now get that you lost that bet, and how, and why. 😂 But seriously, a 40 € box composed of a tile, a few tokens, a bunch of cards and a booklet that requires me to proxy models is just too much. I have better alternatives to choose having to go with proxies.

It would have cost them pennies per box to have included cardboard token stand-ins for the missing minies. Pennies... FFS, GW. They're the Scooby Doo villain who openly admits to being evil at the start of an episode, and then expects everyone to pretend they didn't know when they big reveal is made.

When it was stated that the minis would be separate, I got super excited. Brilliant creators are going to make proxies that are as good, if not better/more interesting than the official ones for the cost of some STLs.

I really want to play Cursed City and a few other of their games, but, and I am just rehashing old talking points, GW priced me out. I could handle being insulted by the store for an army I wanted (Vampire Counts with Slayers), even took a break after the manager went off on the military, like heavy... or off-handed mocking me for being disabled. Yet, somehow I am still hooked on their lore. I mean decades of building it up, and tearing it down, but I still love the old novels.

The weird thing isn't even the lack of miniatures it'd that they also mentioned in passing that the second expansion for cursed city will be it's last one. With night wars already being oop aseell just feels like they brought it back to prove they could before immediately popping it out to pasture.

"... it's not functional! IT'S NOT FUNCTIONAL!!!" 😂😂😂Thanks for another spot-on video. I've seen a GMG video in which Ash was shaking his head over the lack of cardboard counters, too.

With Blackstone Fortress, it wasn't like GW released ALL expansions at once, people could get them when they were ready or until GW ran out. For Cursed City, GW released the 2 and said pick them up whenever you're ready and had already made all those models part of the Death range, so they're probably not going anywhere any time soon. Except maybe for the 2 old models. Maybe. And I kinda ran the numbers and I believe BF +all expansions & models comes out to almost $200ish more than CC + expansions & models. I say "expansions & models" for BF because the Annual and white dwarfs included rules for other minis not in any of the other expansions (Watch Master, Solitaire, Assassin, Flashgit).

Games Workshop has released several games without miniatures, in a very similar fashion -- you're just not going back far enough. Remember Talisman? Both 1st and 2nd edition (and all their expansions) didn't come with miniatures. Several other games from that era did the same thing -- no miniatures in the game but you could buy them separately. They did include standup cardboard "tokens" though (basically what became known as "cardboard heroes" in the RPG industry).

GW making Cursed City as basically a source for 33% of all hero choices for Soulblight Gravelords was the ultimate shit-tier move against players of the faction like myself.

Of course IF they were to forget the tokens (as if) they would certainly ensure that none of the models (not) required were sold out on their websites...

The biggest issue is if you DO want the minis in the set then you’re paying a ton of money…or just 3D printing them like I am.

The minis, as we all know, cost pence to produce. The real cost for GW is in printed and cardboard materials. IF they had released this as an expansion with minis there would have been a cost saving. I reckon the box would have been £75.00 tops. The most galling thing is that this has been done as a total afterthought with minimal print runs (to lower risk)that sold out nearly instantly, therefore attracting scalpers. Had they released a seperate nightwars bundle of miniatures with a saving then that might have mitigated the outcry but the fact is GW just want done with this ASAP and to move on with the next thing. IF i obtain the rules somehow then i can always use my Underworlds Crimson Court to proxy some of the stuff but the fact is that this just all leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Thanks for sharing one of our models and for talking about this topic Discourse! ♥

6:40 - I do have expansions of Space Marine Adventures that were only $25-40. Barnes and Noble exclusives though… so, there’s that.

100% onboard with you here - seeing everybody complain about the lack of models and the cost I just sat thinking "that's not a cursed city problem, that's GW charge you way too fucking much for plastic" - I never thought I'd say "GW priced the expansion fairly"

I can see them releasing preorders for expansions the next two Septembers to cover the Halloween season as a larger cooperate road map.

Descent Second Edition got that model. Even the base game box lacked the miniatures for the character bad guys who were sold separately. But you had miniatures for heroes and monsters. And carboard tokens for the character badguys. And every expensions had some miniatures and some carboard tokens for the minis sold separately. That worked, I got a bunch of descent boxes because they were fonctional as Discourse said. Got zero expansions for Cursed City and the core box is still sealed.

Find pictures of the miniatures and download them. Crop the images and resize them. Print them out on sticker paper and stick them on some other tokens you have and trim to fit.

+50 point to Ravenclaw for referencing Tenchu!

If you want a palate cleanser I commend you to two three letter acronyms that bring grognards out in a sweat (it’s not pretty), MMP, and ASL. ‘Include everything so you can play straight out of the box.’ Perchance there was an element of sarcasm, in that statement but swing through MMP’s website and enlightenment will ensue. P.s. $525.00 on Space marines, as a very good friend says to me frequently; if you defend yourself citing how much the other guy spent, YOU are the other guy.

It's even better, since essentially besides a flimsy little rules pamphlet, the only really meaningful thing in the box is a set of 3 cardboard tiles. I have a color printer at home, and ever since GW has decided to no longer produce Warcry cards and also invalidate all the old cards we bought, I've gotten quite adept at making all kinds of cool cards and other boardgame components on my printer. Combined with some cheap proxy miniatures, this entire expansion should cost me less than 5 freedom bucks. Bravo Games Workshop, I love this new direction!

Every game book from Cursed City has a one-to-one scale, full color image of EVERY character and prop miniature used in that set. I literally think this was Games Workshop's way of giving people tokens...photocopy, paste on board, cut out and stand up. Boom.

Every time Discourse opens The Scary Door into the Twilight Zone, it's a good time!

Honestly I'd rather pay for overpriced models than overpriced cardboard

GW is becoming more and more like a chain pet store - cheap to produce products sold at exorbitant pricepoints to parents and children who just don't know any better. "Models sold separately", what's next? Buy now and receive the products within 180 days? Oh wait, they already did that. Iterative rulesets that cycle out before you get two games in with the newest book or box set, sold separately? Sounds familiar.

12:52 Probably the best scene in any super hero movie, ever.

Terror in the dark was a Advanced heroquest expansion made by GW that had all card and paper and no models.

It's like paying for a dlc advertisement that points you toward purchasing more dlc.

Now... are those, since they are GW made, tournament legal? The return of the cardboard characters. :D

I'm literally towards the end of the video I'm expecting how to turn round and say oh they don't include cardboard cut outs oh my God

Ok, but now I just want to see a movie with an Irish joker.

I can say that my group were very open to just using the warhammer underworlds warband for the 4 new vampires and proxying the Fell Bats. Gotta say though, that beast mode Ratigan is a very cool model. I love me some Great Mouse Detective allusions.

Very informative and entertaining as always! Thank you Discourse.

I have to ask, what happened to Earthwormia? Were they sacrificed to keep the Golden Throne powered?

Do those tokens in the expansions actually substitute for needing miniatures, or are they for another function?

I like how you say "influencers and people" rather than just "influencers" to clarify that influencers aren't people. :)

Man, wasn't expecting a tenchu reference today. I respect it though. Get your money girl.

Thanks for time stamping the video where the ad is so I can skip it. Thumbs up!

I hope that in the not-too-distant future we will find out why Cursed City was handled so badly as honestly, it has been flipping bizarre.

I compare the entire Cursed City drama to Blackstone Fortress hoping that they learn from the past. BSF was great but GW ultimately flubbed the expansions imo. I bought the core box on its first release before it sold out and had been trying to stay in the loop for any other related releases. I did see the Ambull once on a shelf but didn't have money at the time. They had already announced they were reprinting more BSF so I figured it would be around for a while to purchase later. Boy was I wrong. GW then proceeded with 5 more box expansions and several card pack expansions that, for the most part, if you pre-orderd you might have received a copy. Without a pre-order you probably didnt even know there was a new expansion out till after it was already unavailable. GW reprinted a ton of the base game which is STILL available to purchase, but they never reprinted any of the expansions. P.S. most of the models were not available anywhere else outside of the BSF expansions. Now Cursed City came around and they totally bungle up the initial core game release. They finally came through with a reprint but had already angered most of the fan base. The announcements for the expansions came about No-Minis and people lost their minds, but to me I see this as a possible improvement. As long as the expansions remain in print or available everyone who wants in has a greater chance of obtaining these expansions. If you already had a bunch of vampires etc. from AoS you aren't getting duplicates and can use the models you already own. If the models are available to purchase you could buy them and its a really expensive expansion. As discussed you could 3d print or make tokens as a last resort. While it's maybe a bummer to not have any unique models being featured in the CC expansions, I feel this drastically cuts down the number of scalpers who are a large portion of the supply & demand issues that plagued BSF. A set without models could possibly be easier to keep alive as a made-to-order product.

But... there are Vampire tokens in Nightwars expantion

I would have been happier if they had re-released Hero Quest to be honest with you, I had it as a kid, but my being bored by rules destroyed my being able to enjoy it properly.

the 'funny' part, or the sign companies just try to steal our money, is that Fantasy Flight do the exact thing since a looong time. You have big box expansions of previous Descent edition, that don't contain the main villains miniatures so they can sell them separately. Exactly like day one DLC for video game, they cut content. But at least you have card board tokens! I don't have any issues with selling only rules and be able to buy or proxy the miniatures like you want. It's the base of a game like Frostgrave & co. The problem is that GW rules... are bad, sold on over priced rulebooks, and the selling point of GW boardgames... are to get cheap miniatures! When I look at Cursed city, I'm thinking... why not get Warhammer Quest rules or even Mordheim and play with a gamemaster.

I bought the cursed city box for the figurines to play them in my Mordheim games :D

Does anyone know why it was originally pulled? ... IP conflict? Manufacturing problem? Tzeentch shenanigans?

Your the best Discourse! Like Jim Sailor said you are incredibly entertaining. Not to mention well informed about the gaming industry. Keep it going!

omg... when the payoff came at the end i just lmao! 🤣 very nice video! btw what do you think about the lord solar Saber Rider model for the Imperial guard? :D

Good one. I have the original. Supeb miniatures, well worth the price of the box, a bargain. Easy rules that sound great, a fast flowing game amounts to... "vinyl scratch"... a bland experience. The game really needed expansions to fix it. But 40 pounds for a few rules and some cardboard?! I wouldn't mind paying 15 pounds for that, or 50 pounds for the entire miniature set. As it is, GW will get none of my cash. I mean, they still will, because I have some more Sororitas to buy...

Love the sarcasm. Never change. Also, gonna talk about GW dropping the ball again with Sylvaneth's vanguard box? 130 dollars for 10 models? If they had just slapped the Kurnoth Hunters to the previous box it swould have been a little bit better. I could even accept changing the tree lord for the new lady of vines, but this set?

The point that everything always circles back to is that GW needs some serious competition in the mini wargames market so prices get less insane. This idea that mini wargaming has to be this super niche exploited product is just likely an untrue thing with the popularity of D&D and boardgames in general as an example.

People freaking out about cursed city not having tokens🤬 Me a dnd 5e player who only gets the core rule books & DM screen for over a 100cad: wait?! You don't naturally play theater of the mind?

A+ for Tenchu My Money reference. Also, very good points in this one!

GW should absolutely be including 17c worth of plastic models in their 30 pound expansion

I mean, you can just use one of the other minis from the base game as the token. That was my plan anyway. OR, just pop on to anyone of the many many 3D model creators and find a nice proxy. I feel like this is GW’s attempt at an olive branch by giving you the option to use something else or piece the set together from EBay or your LGS.

wow a tenchu reference. Man I loved that game .. Im so old :(

Only problem with the expansions is I've not got them yet

"It just takes one bad (product) day..." *sly wink* Anyway, not a product I care about; currently prowling to buy some more arcane tempest gunmages for my swamp ambush crew instead.

All the new enemies sound pretty proxyable from the CC box, not gonna lie. I agree with the praise for selling the supplement seperate from the models as well, as it benefits everyone. Lower profit margin risk? Check. Better supply for the players? Check. Easy to model by model buy as your party progresses? Check. Freedom to use whatever models I want for the new big bads? Check. It's more of a win for the players and hobbyists than I was expecting to see from GW.

I truly enjoy your content! Thanks for making it!

Shame they sold out immediately and went straight to eBay scalpers and are now over £100. . And no sign of any re-release either.

I'm a hobbyist and I approve this message.

Cursed city : one of the greatst sell succes in GW's history ... 3 made to order campaigns in one year, sold out in few days most of the time etc ... Also cursed city the addon : wtf went wrong ? O.o Is this a bad joke ? Minis ? Where ? Serioulsy, they just shot themselves a bullet in the leg. It's just unbelievable. How to kill a new licence in one try ? If they intended to do so, it's a perfect ! I have never seen that in my life (and i'm old). They just should have made addons with 4 minis max. Few cards, tokens, map etc ...That's what people expected. Not that shit you can get on pdf. Who baught that seriously ? I feel sorry for them. ps : nice haircut btw.

Cardboard tokens cost more to make than plastic miniatures

"Sounds like you chose the wrong party to crash."

Let's talk about Warhammer Quest: Lost Relics-Full game, four miniatures, tokens for opponents for 45€. The only thing missing is a stl proxy collection from a third party ;)

Brilliant as usual.

"Disappeared to Papplewick" - I feel like this is a great boardgame or D&D module title

Shame the expansion is already sold out, never to return.

For their board games I can agree that selling the minis separately would be fine. But for warcry or kill team, I wouldn't buy the next set if it didn't have the minis and the terrain.

Its the fallout of the mess up with the printed cardboard contents in china - i bet these were planned to be released with minis in them ( so no need for tokens) but the printing had trouble, so they released JUST the minis, since they produce them in UK and already had a stockpile of them. Then the printed cardboard came from china, they already payed for it, and there was tons of it so of course they had this genius idea..... thye just sold them without miniatures

GW hasn't included tokens since wfb 3rd ed. Look at the 2nd ed wfb campaign boxes they always came with paper tokens

Additionally if you want to play the game you can buy it not walk into the store/log onto the website and discover its been snapped up by guys who wanted to loot it for cheep minis Plus if you have Cursed City you probably have one or two of the vampires and direwolves as you probably have a Soulblight Vampires army. Having to pay extra for another copy of those minus would just piss you off

Honestly, the board games are the most appropriate place to use proxies. You're not playing tournament level Cursed City. No one is doing that. Who cares if the models you use are 3rd party, or a 2D image of the model printed out and glued to a base? (Of course, once you start questioning the use of Citadel models in a private context, you start asking why it matters if you're using them in a tournament context. The only reason why you would is if the tournament is controlled by Games Workshop, who have the power to mandate it. Anywhere else, the distinction is nonsense.)

This is now one of my favorite Discourse videos. Period.

GW is the monster , and they’ve been it all along ! 😳

Please GW do this for Blackstone fortress any models made for that game will sell well I promise

Yep! You tell them sister

I mean, just use your old warhammer fantasy models. That would actually be pretty neat. I already have skeletons and skaven that don't see any use.

This is not a new idea from workshop in the 90s they did advanced heroquest with expansions one character data sheet and rules also with that inquisitior game it’s a model workshop shoots out at least once a decade

The price of miniatures is why I have never thought about getting into a Game Workshop game.

MASSIVE scam. $263.50 is the total cost after getting the minis individually. And then they just announced the next expansion - like who even had the chance to play the first??? The idea is really just that - tease you and entice you with shiny marketing. It’s good (and respectable, as a marketer myself) - but they’ve gone way past the “greedy” line and are now shooting themselves in the foot with this timing of releases. I might have been suckered into getting the expansions if I had enough time to get the models - but seeing how aggressive they’re pushing this - I’d rather now just wait until eBay is selling these expansions at five bucks a piece - coz that’s how much they’re going to be worth because of GW’s greed.

This reads like someone who signed the Games Workshop NDA, saying what they want, within the parameters of the Games Workshop NDA 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

It is a crap release but a good opportunity to use other models. Keen to see if someone does a 3d print set of proxies.

I agree this was a good move by Games Workshop. In this way, if you as a board gamer do not care that much about exclusivity, you can simply take any 7 miniatures you have or choose even better ones from others distributors. Actually a nice move.

It’s a win for me - pirate the pdf no need for modes

There were a lot of GW games vack in the day that didn't come with miniatures: Warrior Knights, Chainsaw Warrior, Kings n Things, 1st and 2nd edition Talisman (the GREATEST game GW ever produced), 1st edition Blood Bowl, Superpower, all from when they actually made GAMES. (And their greatest miniatures game is STILL Warmaster! Rank n Flank FOREVER!)

The ending tho 🤣

Should of been 50 USD with at least the main boss.

I remember all Cursed City reviews being like "Ok the game is shit but the minis are great". So now they have just rules and no minis and I see a little bit of a problem here.

so essentially "Its great for UK gamers who have regular access to affordable 2nd hand options and plenty of FLGSs with 3rd party models"

so from what I've heard, Nemises requires you to have Nightwars to play it. which is a bit annoying as Nightwars is sold out/out of production and adds another level to how messed up this release is.

Ah sure what would you expect from a company based in a country that "elected" (or is it installed?) an oligarch as PM? Incidentally I just got my first ever 3D printed stuff, cant believe I considered paying €60 (plus shipping) for 6 resin power axes and 2 apothecaries!!!

Lovely!! Absolutly the best vid on youtube.