Summary
- Starforged's Warhammer jewelry is pricey but exquisite, invoking a mix of glamour and gaming nostalgia in each piece.
- The quality and design of Starforged's treasures transcend traditional gaming merchandise, offering a luxurious twist on iconic symbols.
- While high-quality merchandise like Starforged's may not be accessible to all, its allure lies in its authenticity to the Warhammer universe.
If you thought 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Warhammer was expensive, wait until you see the eye-watering price tags hanging from the new range of officially licensed jewellery from Starforged. From rings that cost more than most Titans, to pendants that could buy you an entire army, you'd be forgiven for thinking you were browsing Tiffany rather than a Chinese nerd apparel website.
While may not be a brand synonymous with exceptional quality - it's not a brand many of us had even heard of before the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Warhammer partnership was announced - its trove of trinkets looks sublime. I accidentally ended up racking up a basket worth four figures within a few minutes of browsing the site, and if I was the rich son of an oil baron I wouldn't have hesitated in clicking buy.
The illegitimate lovechild of Cartier and Forbidden Planet, Starforged's glistening array of treasures is enough to get me excited about merch. This may not seem like much, but I'm not a merch guy. I don't have statues of gaming characters lining my office, I don't have any steelbooks or logo-emblazoned t-shirts. I'll be honest, I like to dress fashionably and I don't think gaming merch looks good. If it suits your style, great, I'm not trying to look down on anyone for repping their favourite game, but it's not for me.
What I am into, however, is jewellery. Most of mine has immense sentimental value, and I have adapted my own sense of style around these pieces. I wear my granddad's daily and his signet ring whenever I leave the house. My daughter 'bought' me a beautiful gold ring that spells out DAD when she was a couple of months old, and I've got plenty of others that are rotated depending on the occasion or outfit.
As a Ring Guy, my wedding ring is, naturally, a jazzy plaited affair featuring rubies and diamonds. No plain bands here. Sorry, I'm bragging, but I got married last month so I'm still all excited, allow it.
With all that said, Warhammer jewellery could be really tacky, right? The free gifts that Games Workshop produces for special occasions - coins, badges, and the like - are of reasonable quality, but the designs are appalling. It's all IP logos to turn your backpack into a walking billboard, the Warhammer 40K logo slapped on a metal pin badge to announce to the world that you spend too much money on toy soldiers.
Not Starforged. Alongside their replica House Atreides signets ($693 and tempting), there are rings emblazoned with the hoods and wings of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dark Angels iconography ($210), gold symbols of the Cult Mechanicus ($699), and Warpstone pendants that would send a Grey Seer into a frenzy (a very reasonable $33). These aren't pieces of merchandise; they feel ripped from the setting itself. I could see these gilded, gothic gewgaws being sported by the Lion himself, if he were able to afford the exorbitant shipping costs from Asia via the Warp and if they had a size that’d fit over his chunky Primarch gauntlets.
I vastly prefer merchandise that feels as if it's from the universe I love, rather than just representing it. I'm not a cosplayer, but I remember being constantly annoyed by shop-bought Halloween costumes as a child because Harry Potter wouldn't have a Gryffindor tie sewn onto his school shirt and Frodo's feet didn't have an unsightly seam where fluffy Hobbit slipper met child's ankle. Neither would have the logos of their respective franchises emblazoned onto the front pocket, either.
Maybe this was just me being a perfectionist, or having been spoiled by my mum's bottomless creativity with a needle and thread, but I've never been satisfied with 99 percent of merch. I don't want the Pokemon logo slapped on a t-shirt, I want Ash's actual cap made from whatever real caps are made of. But now I understand why so many companies phone it in.
Good merch costs a lot of money. The incredible replica props from Weta Workshop are expensive for a reason. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Games Workshop doesn't produce lore-accurate cosplay gear because the retail price would leave the vast majority of shoppers behind. It's a clever move to partner with a store that creates these unique pieces and rent out its IP for a slice of the profit, but I get why high-quality merchandise isn't high on the agenda for every big game release or every Warhammer faction. Because it's prohibitively expensive, and most people would be happy with a nylon bag with the 40K logo slapped on it.
I hate that Starforged has made such cool Warhammer merchandise. I find it easy to resist collector's editions and t-shirt collaborations, but this is something tailored specifically to my tastes. I don't have the money to buy any of these items, but I'll put them all on my wishlist for when I win the lottery. If I resisted the ZA/UM Atelier Kim Kitsuragi bomber jacket, I can resist the Mechanicus signet ring. For now.
