Hey Fishmoto37,
I tend to agree with you some on the price issue. I did the same thing and got several copies of A&A 1942 just to add extra pieces to my collections. However, one big attraction of the FMG pieces is they are much more detailed than the original A&A pieces. For example, check out the battleships. On the A&A pieces, the main guns look like one block but on the FMG Littorio class battleship, you can actually see all three gun barrels. So it’s basically a quality issue, the FMG pieces are of higher quality so they will cost a bit more.
Also, with the FMG sets, you will be getting more pieces than you did in the 1942 games. Not only will you get more of the pieces that you get in the games, but you will also be getting pieces that aren’t in the 1942 games (trucks, tac bombers, half tracks, transport planes, commanders, etc). We must remember that these pieces are being created for all different WW2 games, not just Axis & Allies so some of the pieces you won’t find in any A&A games, at least at the current time.
With the higher quality and more pieces and a greater variety of pieces, FMG is really not asking too much. They are really not making a lot of profit on these either. The cost of creating the new molds and getting a factory to work with them is enormous.