@unixknight

2) GW has been shifting the rules toward "encouraging" players to buy the more exotic, larger models. You see it in both 40K and Fantasy. Flyers, Wraith Knights, Centurions are all clearly designed to be 1+ army choices to be competitive, and Fantasy isn't so different with the large models that have been introduced in every one of the recent army books. This also includes units like the Empire Demigryphs, which are very good on the table but very expensive to buy.

Just to play devil's advocate on this point, it's easy to find plenty of examples where it isn't true, for example, the Imperial Griffon, the Chaos Mutalith, the Ogre Stonehorn etc, the Dark Elf monsters. The issue with fantasy is that monstrous cavalry units have few hard counters in the way that monsters do due to their large wound pool and huge amount of attacks plus a good saving throw and usually only losing one model each time to cannons. The large monsters are still prone to being taken out with one artillery shot and are far more expensive, they aren't auto-picks at all, as opposed to the heavier monstrous cav units in their respective armies like Demigryphs, Skullcrushers etc.

I absolutely love the Empire Griffon, it's a beautiful kit and the heraldic pose is such a good idea for the teutonic beastie, but can't say I've ever seen one in the wild (apart from mine!). All in all, I don't think it's a strategy to make large kits obligatory in fantasy, just game design that didn't take into account the way units interact and counter each other when introducing powerful monstrous cavalry to the game. I'm sure they'd be much happier if the recent, much bigger monster kits that are rarely fielded sold as well as the monstrous cav, as they take up a lot of space on warehouse shelves.