It's not long now anymore until the Brexit takes place, a gamechanger for us mainland wargamers for sure.
Because well, everything is going to get a whole lot more expensive due to import charges...
How expensive depends on your country of course, but for us Belgians it means possibly up to an added tax of 33% and NO free of duties under 22 euro (15 GBP), so even small parcels suddenly jump up a third in cost.
This means that even the regular 20% or the likes of retail stores suddenly become more expensive then it is today, and that with about 15% of current day RRP for example for Games Workshop (that is, if they don't use the Brexit as a price hike excuse). Never the less, this will mean I`ll have to shift focus to european mainland based retailers in France or Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium to get my GW crack in the coming years. And scour second hand facebook groups more often...
Now, this downside on the no excpetion of import duties on low values will also mean that eBay is becoming a misery. Gone are the days for cheap loose figures as I did for my LOTR all the time, as they will rise in costs as well. On the outgoing side, I won`t even be bothering anymore for the paperwork, so if you read this, the last weeks of being able to grab the old Crisis wargame show figures are about.
There are also positive things of course to all of this, as it doesn`t mean now that the hobby is hanging, there is more outside GW and especially for Fantasy there are a lot of great companies in mostly southern europe. So yes, they will instead see an increase of orders coming from me, to fix my DnD addiction, and some other projects I still plan on doing one day, like T9A samurai army and such.
An added benefit is the printer, who will see even more printhours coming it's way, mostly terrain but of course now also the occassional figure for use in dungeons and dragons and the various Frostgrave styled games. I don`t care the quality might not be on par with some resins out there, it's cheap, it's handy and I can do with it what I want, because my game, my rules.
This will also lead to some serious consideration of upscaling MechaTop for when I take it out to the club for example. GunPla are readily available here, and I might go and print a table of 15mm terrain as such in the future, and play it with 1/144th scale Mecha's apart form the 6mm for home games.
So yes, starting the 1st of january my hobby life will be going through some forced changes, but somehow I think that historical gamers and purist GW players are getting the biggest bugger out of this, with the UK now closing out from the mainland. Their venues are mostly based all over there, and we will have to be all very adaptive to the redrawn landscape as a result.
It will just be a matter of getting used to the new now, and fondly remember how it used to be...
The EU is massively overrated. Brexit gives us the chance to trade with the rest of the world without all the rules, regulations and bullying of the unelected EU hegemony. Look to the EU and especially Mr Macron for their stupid negotiating stance. The UK is up to 57 trade deals at the moment with many more on the way. Even if we get an EU deal, another member state will just veto it. Another EU weakness. I feel sorry for people in the EU still, you have nowhere to go and are stuck with your 40 trade deals which are not that great. I know I worked 30 years in international trade.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenYes, i am from Denmark and this is the same. I think a lot small firms in UK are going to get a massive decrease in trades and a enormous buraucracy. It is too bad, but i think retailers in mainland europe will get a high boost. It is the same with books. I buy a lot of english book, but their price is going to be probitively high now.
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