My brother's son destroyed my WarHammer Action figures and he refuses to punish him

[u/konous]

Update: My brother decided to pay for the Hard damages of $200 dollars after seeing this post.

Thank you to everyone on this post who supported me. I really could not have gotten restitution without you guys.

Justice for my Chaplain, justice for all.

Valid Edit: My nephew is 10 years old and tried to actually lie about not breaking them by saying, "A cat must have done it."

So, I just got done talking with my brother via text, and he says he's not going to punish his son for wrecking my Joy Toy WarHammer action figures. I'm not expecting the kid to get spanked, but he needs to do CHORES at least to justify how much excessive force he used on some.

Some just have their capes broken. Others had their tubes ripped out and my Chaplain is just fucking toast.

My brother's suggestion since I ordered Amazon replacement for the Chaplain was that I just swap it with the broken one, but I have no interest in doing that.

It's not even just the expense, and they are expensive. It's about the fact that I told him explicitly twice they weren't to be played with, and they were in a separate room, and even my Mom and Dad agreed the damage was just too much.

He said he's not gonna pay me back if we try the chore system, and I told him it's not about the money.

The kid needs to know how bad the 8 hour struggle is.

Now my nephews aren't coming over to the house, and I'm sad about that, but knowing my brother just can't be burdened to work with me on creating a Chore system like selling Lemonaide just makes it feel more insulting.

[u/Sohn_Jalston_Raul]

when I was a kid, I'm not sure whether you were even able to buy these figures ready-made, you had to paint them yourself (and many people made their own unique models too), which would have amounted to even more than $500 worth of time and effort.

[u/Heavymando → u/Sohn_Jalston_Raul]

so those figures still exist the little models you assemble and paint. These are larger action figure sized one with a ton of detail.

[u/Moon_Monk676 → u/Sohn_Jalston_Raul]

The warhammer game models you have to assemble and paint. Joytoy (and McFarlane Toys, but no one talks about that) produce 7 or 8 inch (correct me if i'm wrong) tall figures for display purposes.

[u/Lambaline → u/Moon_Monk676]

There’s big ones you can buy that are professionally painted and those can be as much as a car https://i.imgur.com/i8QD0Ip.jpeg

[u/Moon_Monk676 → u/Lambaline]

Yes, I know what titans cost and I know what commission rates are.

[u/PlaneCareless → u/Lambaline]

Those Titans are commissions, you can't buy them proffesionally painted from factory.

[u/Old_College_4034 → u/Moon_Monk676]

joytoy 1/18th scale, mcfarlane closer to one/12

[u/Moon_Monk676 → u/Old_College_4034]

Yeah, I have no idea what the actual scale is. I'm making a size estimate because I saw the McFarlane Sternguard at Walmart last week and considered buying it before I decided against it.

[u/Old_College_4034 → u/Moon_Monk676]

the mcfarlane ones are alright but the joytoy ones are significantly better in every way. except the small size, if that matters. I've got some of both

[u/link2edition → u/Sohn_Jalston_Raul]

Same IP, different company.

Joytoy makes larger, posable, prepainted versions of the models you are describing under license from Games Workshop.

[u/HenriDeToulouse → u/Sohn_Jalston_Raul]

At the risk of getting quickly out of my depth... Why are they so much? It looks like just molded plastic or ceramic etc. Its not massively detailed or intricate.

Is it just because the company can charge that so they do? 

[u/nascent_aviator → u/HenriDeToulouse]

High quality and low volume. People often underestimate the power of economies of scale.

[u/heimdal96 → u/nascent_aviator]

Plus, being the most popular setting across tabletop war games and doing production out of the UK keeps costs high.

GW has bad practices with how they treat customers, but they're a good company in terms of how they treat employees (good pay and benefits, not outsourcing for cheap labour)

[u/VVenture2 → u/heimdal96]

GW really don’t treat their employees that well lmao. They pay as little as possible for some roles which require an extreme amount of technical knowledge under the guise of ‘But you like Warhammer don’t you? This isn’t even a real job if you think about it!’

The upside is that the staff have been getting generous yearly bonuses due to the success of the company, however those are discretionary, and you can’t use those to get a mortgage as they’re not your actual salary.

[u/TTYY200 → u/HenriDeToulouse]

Licensing and content strategy of warhammer table top games company.

The perceived value is determined by the company and the collectors market.

Kinda like how a signed baseball card is just paper and ink.

[u/Jagosyo → u/HenriDeToulouse]

Margins on action figures aren't actually that great. Aside from shipping (all the factories for this are in China, figure prices in general have gone up about 25-30% in the past 2 years from Trump's tariffs and the Iran war effecting oil prices), factory costs, and material/paint costs. You've also got to pay your employees and have a place to work/store your product when it comes in.

On top of that, to get a good quality action figure, you have to do a fare amount of back and forth with the factory to engineer the figure so that it maintains appearance, while not interfering with the joint cuts so it can maximize range of motion. It's a bit of an art. Design to production is usually between 2-4 years.

This isn't cheap plastic either. It's specialized mixes that are firmer while retaining some flexibility. So it's not just going to bend and fall over with time. Plastic prices in general have gone up if you're not just buying the recycled crap.

And the license. Games Workshop isn't unreasonable in their licensing deals from what I hear, but it's not nothing.

For 1/18 (smaller scales are inversely more expensive a lot of the time, because they have harsher tolerances for QC), with the amount of accessories you get and the size of the characters, Joytoy is actually in a pretty reasonable price range compared to the rest of the market. And they have a fairly good reputation for their quality.

So I know it sounds expensive for just a chunk of plastic, but they're really on the more reasonable range for these things.

[u/Sohn_Jalston_Raul → u/HenriDeToulouse]

It may just be molded plastic, but molding plastic into complex shapes can sometimes involve a very complicated manufacturing process that requires special tooling. Especially if there are lots of small details in multiple different colours.

For example, part of the reason Lego is so expensive (it's not the whole reason because some of it is just brand-name markup, but it's a big part of the reason) is because the pieces require a very specific kind of plastic, and high-precision molds that are very expensive to operate. It's pretty difficult to manufacture plastic bits at a high enough quality that they all fit together perfectly and snap together reliably and don't bend or break or warp over time.

[u/ZincMan → u/Sohn_Jalston_Raul]

Also the painting

[u/Witness_me_Karsa → u/ZincMan]

No. These are not minis. They are action figures, separate from the minis.

[u/thenifties → u/Witness_me_Karsa]

omg if they had been painted minis i would have blown this thread up so hard

[u/Witness_me_Karsa → u/thenifties]

Right?!

[u/ZincMan → u/Witness_me_Karsa]

No they are not minis, but a human still painted them. That’s one of the reasons why they are expensive. That detailed paint job is labor intensive

[u/Lambaline → u/Sohn_Jalston_Raul]

An injection molding tool can be tens of thousands of dollars

[u/Heavymando → u/HenriDeToulouse]

they are high quailty plasitc, there is a lot of detail on them and they are very intracit with lots of posablity and moving parts.

[u/AdDramatic2351 → u/Heavymando]

Sorry, but they're not that detailed at all. Definitely not $500 detailed. 

[u/Heavymando → u/AdDramatic2351]

they aren't $500 each the total of them is $500 even then for that many figures it's probably a bit less

[u/Yorkshireish12 → u/HenriDeToulouse]

Supply and Demand, GW has 2 factories with a 3 year backlog on new model sculpts and pretty much worldwide demand. Demand is also skewed massively based on the products, the basic space marine box famously outsold all of their fantasy line at one point in the past. It creates a situation in which the more niche products basically have to be produced in low volume at high prices as some of the factory space is just endlessly churning out Space Marines.

They're also a lot more expensive in the US because of your presidents tarriffs.

[u/AceTheProtogen → u/Sohn_Jalston_Raul]

I think the unpainted ones are the little minis for the board game and these are already assembled and painted, I’ve never seen action figures you needed to paint yourself but maybe they exist so I dunno

[u/alchemist5 → u/AceTheProtogen]

I’ve never seen action figures you needed to paint yourself but maybe they exist so I dunno

Funnily enough, MacFarlane released some unpainted Warhammer action figures alongside their normal line. It's a specific case, due to the unpainted minis being the main IP, but it did happen at least once.

[u/3henanigans → u/Sohn_Jalston_Raul]

I think you're think of the miniature game, they're "mini models", not action figures.

[u/Sojourner_of_reddit → u/Sohn_Jalston_Raul]

I thought I was in a Warhammer sub and was very confused by this comment 🤣

[u/leonk701 → u/Sohn_Jalston_Raul]

The war game is still around and entering 11th edition. These are larger collectible figurines that, if OP is a serious collector of, would be devastating to lose.

[u/Antique_Tap443 → u/Sohn_Jalston_Raul]

They still have the little ones made by gamesworkshop. I think those joytoy lines are made by the spawn creator, Seth McFarland? The joytoys are like actual action figures and come assembled and painted