Games Workshop has been alerting Trade customers to an upcoming price increase in their miniatures, paints and print products.
From their announcement:
Dear Valued Customers,
There is an old curse you might know: “May you live in interesting times “
I would be very surprised if anyone could look around our tiny world today and not ponder the truism of such a simple remark. There is very little doubt that these current days would certainly qualify as interesting.
Among many other concerns the world has been struggling with the rising cost of energy, transport, and materials. These rising costs have ultimately affected not only the price of gasoline that we put into our tanks, but the price we pay for milk, eggs and cereal. It has also, not surprisingly perhaps, greatly affected the costs for producing miniatures.
Today we are contacting all of our Trade customers globally to announce that due to these rising costs, we too will be raising some of our prices.
We do not do this lightly. We fully understand that the timing of the price rise directly conflicts with our annual July price review and for that we deeply apologize. I hope that you understand that this price rise is not something Games Workshop Global desires to do, it is something we have to do.
That being said, we wish to approach this change with the same dedication to customer service that we do for every endeavor. So for clarity and fairness I offer the following points:
We are contacting our Trade customers this week to prepare them for any questions they may have.
On Monday August 25th a message informing end hobbyists will be placed on all of our websites.
Prices will change September 29th.
A message will appear in our October White Dwarf.
The price increase will affect part of our paint and hobby ranges, as well as a large portion of our metal models and printed materials.
Even with the pressure of rising costs we are adamant that we will not at this time raise prices on any plastic model kits. Providing high quality, great value kits is fundamental to our corporate strategy and will continue to produce and distribute them at the current prices for as long as we are able.
Sincerely,
Games Workshop
Source: http://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/2008/0...ment-26643
Surprise, surprise. 
You must be joking. The paints are already a rip off!! Everything GW makes is now going to be too expensive for any sane gamer. I better buy the few pieces im after before the blisters get put up by another £2. I cant believe they called their products 'Great Value'.
A rumour on the source link is 25% for metal models? But that's hearsay.
At least you get a warning. Some shops do it overnight.
I'm really not surprised, but Paints and printed materials going up??????? seriously its $3 per paint pot, how much higher can it possibly go????? The Armybooks and Codexes are already $22, seriously. I may have to reconsider the hobby until I can start making some real money. I'm happy that plastic isn't going up though, suddenly all-plastic armies seem appealing......
In the uk, last time i checked, paints were £2/$4 and army books were £12/$24. I dont know how much WD is now (havent bought it in ages) so it might still be £4/$8. If that goes up then say goodbye to white dwarf.
I've done the inflation calculation for regular troops, and the models that cost £4 in 1994 should now cost £5.87. They cost £6. Plastics are not comparable since they have a different process and aren't the one-piece low detail things they used to be. Medium monsters that used to be £7 should be £9.93, they are £12. Large monstery things that used to be £15 should cost £21.27. They cost £25-30.
So the smaller things are roughly the same but the larger things have gone up by much more. This may be a fairer way of getting their money back. The older ones were based more on the amount of metal involved, whereas the newer prices probably take into account the effort to develop the model and the facts that it it sells much less well but still takes up the same amount of shelf space. These are rough guesses though based on pretty basic economics..
Doesn't surprise me. I WAS surprised to see the calculation of a mini coming to about the same price (just rounded), but unsurprised to see the rest. Glad to see plastics not ridsing, but this does mean that they aren't suffering from the costs of fuel as much as they say because they make more/as much plastic as the rest put together...
IMO, it's an attempt to get people to panic buy metals etc before the price rise and get a quick sales boost...
As for paints in America being $3? Over here, (UK), they are equivalent to ~$4!
So does this mean that the Rulebooks are going to increase in price as well? I havent even been able to get the newest rulebooks yet because they are way over priced and now they might be going up even more!?!
I would guess they're included. I know how you feel Pyro. I'm saving money for a lot of items. I just gotta buy the 3 or 4 books I want before the price increase as soon as I get my loan...
It will be like any business: they won't drop the price. If people speed buy them, they make some extra profit in the short term, but the higher prices, they hope to gain extra profit from in the long run. Here, I doubt it will work as well as they would like...
Sigh.
Its unsurprising to see GW at it again, but I find it worrying for the long term.
GW products are a 'luxury' item, and to keep putting up prices far beyond what's remotely reasonable will spell the end for them during hard times.
What they really need is a major restructure and price cut across the board. Kill the second hand market by making products affordable in the first place.
Sure material costs have gone up. Tin has gone up a huge amount in the last year (considerably more than 25% I think). GW have to consider the long term effect of their pricing strategy, as an increase across the board is the wrong way to go (and not the only option).
By my calculation plastic regiments have gone up by apprx 4.2% per year, and that's not including the latest price rise of 10 model kits. In the uk the 'official' inflation rate has been close to 2.5% for the last 9 years.
If they were wise they should have invested in low cost production, gained an efficiency edge over their rivals and driven them out of the market through genuine affordable pricing. Also driving down the second hand market.
I agree with everything you just said, GSF.
X-Porter, your first line scared me and then I was a little confused until I saw the sarcasm part. I decided (against the thought of it being sarcastic) it was sincere for some reason, lol.
Sarcasm is really obvious in written text.
I read 3 to mean something different to you. By "price insensitive" I'd translate that to mean that the price of their products doesn't affect the amount that are sold. So they could raise them a lot and still sell loads. of course, GW doesn't want to lose customers so they keep the prices as low as they can while still making a profit (yes, they aren't a charity as people seem to think they should, even if they make all their money from us they don't owe us anything).
Point 1 I think still holds, but the real test is xmas when they make most of the yearly sales.
GW are a business. If they're focussing on younger customers they're doing it because it's what they feel is in the best interests of them and their share holders.
I suspect that with the rising cost of pretty much everything that most veteran gamers will choose to buy food and petrol rather than toy soldiers (not because they want to but because they have to).
However, most parents may be willing to go without something themselves in order to buy toy soldiers for little Timmy (maternal/paternal instincts and all that). I guess that is what GW are betting on.
Perhaps it's just a 40k thing? I actually thought some of the recent Fantasy books were pretty good on fluff content.
these are some of the price rises, there is no 25% raise thats a very bad rumour doing the rounds
Codex/Army books up by £3
That is a 25% increase 
Undeadninjas: that's what a lot of people have being doing here. Although, not necessarily simplistic... (Ishkur is a primary example.)
I'm aware of the rising costs and I'm aware of how luxury and monopolistic businesses work, but it doesn't prevent the fact that I feel the prices are rising more than they should. Admittedly, I shall still buy the odd thing from Games Workshop every once in a while, but it does mean I'm going to buy less and more likely, buy it from other sources. This isn;t me saying "prices are going up, whinge whinge, won't buy anything, I have no love for GW anymore", I'm simply saying I'm disheartened by what they're doing as it makes it difficult for me to play a decent game, which they created. I feel that, although justified, it's a little higher than necessary (as well as too frequent) and is likely to provide problems for them in the longer term...
On the bright side (well, brightish) there may be more stuff for sale on Ebay now.